Two symbols of this era of open data are President Obama’s Open Governance Initiative, a directive that has led agencies to post their results online and open up data sets, and Ushahidi, a tool for crowdsourcing crisis information. While these tools are bringing openness to governance and crisis response respectively, I believe we have yet to find a good answer to the question: what does open data means for the long-term social and economic development of poor and marginalized communities?

I came to Nairobi on a hunch. The hunch was that a small digital mapping experiment taking place in the Kibera slum would matter deeply, both for Kiberans who want to improve their community, and for practitioners keen to use technology to bring the voiceless into a conversation about how resources are allocated on their behalf.

So far I haven’t been disappointed. Map Kibera, an effort to create the first publicly available map of Kibera, is the brainchild of Mikel Maron, a technologist and Open Street Map founder, and Erica Hagen, a new media and development expert, and is driven by a group of 13 intrepid mappers from the Kibera community. In partnership with SODNET (an incredible local technology for social change group), Phase I was the creation of the initial map layer on Open Street Map (see Mikel’s recent presentation at Where 2.0). Phase II, with the generous support of UNICEF, will focus on making the map useful for even the most marginalized groups, particularly young girls and young women, within the Kibera community.

What we have in mind is quite simple: add massive amounts of data to the map around 3 categories (health services, public safety/vulnerability and informal education) then experiment with ways to increase awareness and the ability to advocate for better service provision. The resulting toolbox, which will involve no tech (drawing on printed maps), and tech (SMS reporting, Ushahidi and new media creation) will help us collectively answer questions about how open data itself, and the narration of such data through citizen media and face-to-face conversations, can help even the most marginalized transform their communities.

We hope the methodology we develop, which will be captured on our wiki, can be incorporated into other communities around Kenya, and to places like Haiti, where it is critical to enable Haitians to own their own vision of a renewed nation.

This blog-post was originally featured at In An African Minute.

”this idea that there should be no religious and no politics in (climates change)is not out of date.this ideas is not to try and convert,but to educate,to promote and understanding to each and everyone, the artist contribution towards climate change.

WATER- A PRECIOUS BUT FINITE RESOURCE

Africa is the second driest continent in the world and Ghana is facing a looming water crisis in the very near future.

To avoid the country from running out of this precious resource in the future. Ghana must take serious measures to conserve water.

THE CURRENT SITUATION IN GHANA

“’Climate change” scientists abroad has predict that the southern part of Africa will become hotter and drier as climate change intensifies. This will result in severe water stress in most of the country.

As an artist, have critical noticed that most of the communities around the coastal areas are experiencing water shortages over the past few years which is caused by the cutting and destroying of the greens may avert this crisis to the coming years.

The government is putting measures in place to manage this crisis, but as business and individuals. Example as an artist, my contribution is by sharing my sculpture pieces as a critic and visual thoughts on the subject matter. We need to urgently participate in the process to conserve water.

For more info: http://www.attukweiart.com/sculptures.html

The serious changes in the global climatic conditions have significant consequences. Though climate change affects everyone, it is particularly devastating to women as it makes their domestic duties even more difficult.

In developing nations, women are responsible for the domestic chores of the home, including cooking, washing, childcare, etc. In order to do so, women use natural resources like water and cooking fuel (wood, kerosene, gas, and animal dung): the very resources that are affected by climatic change. The impact that climate change has had on these resources makes life even more challenging for women.

The impact of drought

In arid regions of the Middle East and northern Africa (Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia) where the amount of rainfall has drastically reduced, using water for consumption and sanitation has increasingly become a serious problem. Conditions are at near drought or, in some cases, full drought conditions. As a result, women often must trek several kilometers in search of water for their families.

Obtaining fuel

In poor nations, wood is the major cooking fuel that women use. Climatic changes in the arid and semi arid regions means that there is less vegetative growth and increased aridity, resulting in less wood available. Rural poor women responsible for feeding their families therefore find it increasingly difficult to obtain cooking fuel.

Flooding

In coastal areas, such as the Philippines and Haiti, increased rainfall due to climatic changes has resulted in flooding. As the home-keeper, the women are most affected when their homes are devastated by flood.

Food security threatened

Excessive rain intensity and shortage in rainfall are both consequences of climate change that adversely affect farming and agriculture. Flooding from excessive rainfall washes away crops, while shortage of rainfall hampers the growth of crops. Both examples threaten the food security of the home and make feeding the family a major concern for women.

Solving the problem

We can all agree that we need to work against climate change. The main problem is how to go about it. Studies show that reducing anthropogenic and industrial activities, which are the major causes of climatic changes, would help prevent the problem. However, this has been difficult to implement by many nations because their economies depend on these activities. But by not addressing climate change, we are placing a serious burden on women.

Let everyone arise and act today against climatic changes and save our women and homes.

It is crucial that women’s voices are included in the dialogue on climate change- in multiple ways.  And it is equally important that women in low-income countries are made part of the global discourse.  When women become aware of the adverse effects of climate change, they will be more willing to make the requisite sacrifices that everyone needs to make in order to save our planet from doom.

Women’s primary role in climate  change is to join others to become good stewards of our environment, natural resources and minimize actions that will lead to the rapid depletion of our planet’s natural resources.

This is a comment to the blog post, “Don’t ignore half of humanity in the climate change debate.”

A local project called Nomad Green has taken up the initiative to teach the use of citizen media tools like blogs, photos, and videos to tell the story of this country and some of its environmental problems. The project started in 2009 as partnership between various organizations and institutions, and to date several workshops have taken place in the capital city of Ulaanbaatar and other communities around Mongolia.

Photo of Nomad Green workshop by Portnoy (Working Man) and used under a Creative Commons license.

The project has already demonstrated positive steps in teaching Mongolians how to use these tools to tell their stories about environmental challenges of their country. Part of this proof is that the two bloggers previously cited in this blog post, Mandah and Ariungerel are a part of the Nomad Green project, which only adds to number of voices concerned about the environmental future of Mongolia.

Photo by Tonio94 and used under a Creative Commons license.

Mongolian nomadic families have historically depended on the vast land for their livelihood. In the past, range land for their grazing animals had been plentiful, and food and water were readily collected from their surroundings. However, all is that is changing, as climate change is having a negative impact on their way of life.

A recent article by Joshua Kucera in Eurasianet highlights some of these changes:

Global warming is having a harsh effect on Mongolia’s nomadic herders, who comprise about 40 percent of the country’s overall 3 million inhabitants. Since 1940, the mean air temperature in the country has increased 1.6 degrees Celsius. Heat waves are longer, and rain patterns have become “quite variable, decreasing at one site and increasing at a site nearby,” according to an assessment by the country’s Ministry of Nature and the Environment. The Gobi Desert, in the south of the country, is creeping northward.

A water crisis

The desertification of the Gobi Desert is reducing available land for their animals to graze, which are important sources of food. This population is also facing a freshwater crisis, as described by blogger Mandah, who writes about the the water issues facing these communities:

Mongolian high mountain peak’s snowcap and glaciers have been melting and thinning because of the Global Warming. The thickness of the snow melting will become 131 centimeters by 2039. According to the scientist, the whole world will start to face fresh water shortage by 2020 and 108 million people actually have to deal with the fresh water shortage by 2025. Since 1996, Mongolian groundwater level has been decreasing constantly. Some of the biggest lakes in Gobi region such as: Taatsiin tsagaan, Adgiin tsagaan, Ulaan, Orog lakes as well as many other rivers dried up.

Water is treasure

Blogger and local botanist Ariungerel adds information about these changes:

Nowadays, the meaning of the phrase “water is treasure” is becoming clearer. Our country is situated far from nearest sea and has less water sources on the ground and underground compared with countries that has enough water sources. Our people range their life in line with water sources, for example: remote area can be utilized only in winter times because running water source is scarce there, only snow is available there. Elders said that they used to use mouthful water to wash their faces and hands, but in the contemporary world, we use many more litters of water for the same reason.

Former vice-president Al Gore won the Oscar for his documentary “An Inconvenient Truth. I was first very happy to see that ecology and more specifically global warming is finally at the center of global concerns, being cheered up by Hollywood.

But at the same time I have this strange feeling that we’re combating the  consequences of our consumption without worrying about the real causes. Another sign of this problem was the announcement that the English billionaire Sir Richard Branson made in 2007,  offering $ 25 million for those who “create a formula” for the elimination of greenhouse gases.

Technology and science will not save us

The great problem of the human being in this globalized and polluted 21st century is to continue believing that technology and science will save us and redeem. Everything we use in our daily lives, from a phone to a simple meal, consumes resources and generates waste. This impact may be more or less harmful to the environment according to the volume of things consumed and the degree of pollution of its by-products.

Population and consumption

The human population has grown over 650% since the beginning of the 19th century, unprecedented in human history. But the most amazing is that the first billion was reached only by 1800. That is, we take around 400,000 years (estimated date for the appearance of Homo Sapiens) to reach a billion people. However, we only took 200 years to six fold this number. It is expected that by the year of 2050 the population will grow 50%, going to 9 billion people.

Sooner or later we will have to make the difficult choice

In this way, the improvement of our standard of living increased absurdly human population, causing pollution and devastation, to the point of putting the Earth in a state of collapse. I do not mean that we should go back to using wagons and lamps. What I say is that you cannot maintain the level of consumption of resources we have today with 6, 7 or 8 billion people. Sooner or later we will have to make the difficult choice between reducing the population or our standard of living, with all that it represents.

This unbridled consumption is not equally distributed among countries. The level and quality of consumption of developed countries are much, much larger than the developing countries.

According to the site www.footprintnetwork.org, which measures the footprint of human consumption (amount of land space and water that humans need to sustain their consumption), we are actually consuming resources 23% faster than the regenerative capacity of nature. This means a global deficit of 0.5 hectare per capita.

But if we analyze this content in developed countries, we see that its deficit is unbelievable 3.1 hectare per capita, compared to a surplus of 0.1 hectare in the rest of the planet. This means that, despite holding a minority of the world, countries with higher development are those that consume more.

Over-consumption will block the access

These facts show us two stories. The first is that an absurd injustice of all time, where a small group of countries is usurping the rights of others to a clean, preserved and unpolluted word. The second is that this over-consumption will block the access of some developing countries to upgrade their economy to the called “first world”. And this is something unique in history.

Regardless of time and place, human societies throughout history have always been guided by the same principles that govern other species: reproduction and competition for resources. In other words: dynamic equilibrium of the population. The big difference of the human beans is that we unbalanced the natural relation of births and deaths mainly due to impressive technological and sanitary development from nineteenth century.

We breed like monkeys

Living with less threat environment exploded the human population raise. We realize that there is currently a major effort to save the man from any physical suffering during his life. However, the same commitment does not exist when it comes to resource consumption and population control. These points remain as free and uncontrolled as the rest of the animal kingdom. In other words, we breed and consume in a similar way to giraffes or monkeys.

To avoid an environmental collapse, not just think only in replacement of energy matrices or magic solutions, such as pumping CO2 into the underground of the earth or carbon neutralization. We have to balance the equilibrium between consumption and population facing the potential environmental stock.

The solution

If there is a solution where I would put my money it would be to reduce resources consumption through birth control. That is, if we can find a way to bring the world’s population and its consumption to the actual availability of resources, we can slow and possibly reverse the actual devastation.

One of the mechanisms by which we can do that will be effecting the control population measured way. That is, reduce the number of people taking into account the degree of actual consumption of that population. For example, if we make a population planning relying on an overall reduction of 10%, we shall consider this percentage so that countries that consume more resources have a proportionately larger population reduction. Thus, countries like the U.S. or China would have to reduce their population more than, say, the Seychelles island.

This solution has several benefits:

• Attack the problem where it originates. We see now how pathetic is to try to completely stop the Amazon devastation as the price of soy is high or when there is a rampant growth in demand for meat in China…
• Inhibits the consumption in developed countries by reducing the birth rate, without the imposition of change the consumption habits of their population.
• Decreases the exploitation of natural resources in developing countries by reducing demand for these inputs by developed countries and by reducing consumption of resources
• The impact on the world economy, although likely, will be much less than would occur if the process of destruction continues unchecked. With this solution, governments, private sector and the general public would have time to fit the new reality.
• In addition, it is an extremely flexible and comprehensive solution. It can be applied both globally, as well as regionally.

Conclusion

Some people warned me about the impossibility of implementing an ambitious plan like this. We see how difficult it is to change concepts and paradigms in firms with few years of existence. In countries, each with their culture, religion and economic expectation the work will certainly be very difficult.

On the other hand, I believe that the current alternatives to the global warming will be more difficult to implement.

The proposed solution can reduce with little effort 50% of the world population in fifty years. It is the reduction of population weighted by birth control in 1% or 67 million people a year. If you think this is hard, consider that every year 30 million people die of hunger around the world …

Or we decide voluntarily to reduce increasingly our consumption behavior as the population increases, or we have to reduce this consumption by reducing population. We must decide what is more important …

A summary of Bangladesh’s situation, a video filmed and posted by CaroOxfam

Sufia holds her child while she brings to memory the most painful day of her life, the day she lost her son. She recalls that her home was being flooded with water and when she turned to nurse her newborn baby, her five-year -old son was carried away by the flood. “I could not find my son, I searched so hard,” says Sufia breaking into tears in the video filmed and posted by Oxfam. Sadly, to lose a loved one to the extreme weather conditions in Bangladesh is not an uncommon situation.

Bangladesh is one of the most affected countries by climate change in the world. Although Bangladesh’s contribution to global greenhouse gas emission is low, floods and natural disasters are becoming more and more frequent. Its vulnerability lies on its geographic location as a coastal country and its high population density.

On the blog The Daily IIJ, Bangladeshi blogger Jahangir Akash highlights the alarming numbers of affected Bangladeshis:

Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh, is the city most threatened in Asia by climate change. If things continue as they are, in the future, the economy will fail and human life itself will be threatened. At present, there are 10.3 million people living in Dhaka. In 2025, the population will have increased to 20.5 million.

A country under water

In her blog Anushay’s point Bangladeshi blogger Anushay Hossain posts about how unsettling it was to grow up in a country that was going under water:

I grew up knowing my country was drowning. My childhood memories are full of flashing images of annual monsoon rains making rivers out of our roads, lakes out of our rice paddy fields, washing away farmers’ harvests, pushing the rural population into our already overpopulated capital city. The rumor in the playground was that in twenty years Bangladesh would be completely underwater. Today that statement is no longer a rumor, but very much a reality.

During natural disasters women are more likely to suffer the consequences than men. Jean D’ Cunha, regional program director of the United Nations Fund for Women based in Thailand said that some women in Bangladesh died during a flood in 2001 because their traditional long dress and burka hindered their movements and prevented them from escaping the rising waters. But despite their disadvantages, Bangladeshi women find ways to adapt to climate change’s impacts.

Blogger Ben Beaumont writes in the Oxfam blog about Hasina, a woman who had to move six times due to floods. Now she is the president of a local women’s group called Shanti Mohila Committee in the Shariatpur district. Each member of the group collaborates a small amount of money to both prepare for the floods and assist women afterwards:

What struck me most was the energy and passion of this group of 20 or so women. (…) women in this community haven’t always been so vocal – in conservative, rural areas like this, women often play very traditional roles, and stay at home with the family. But now, Hasina and her friends are full of confidence – earning and saving money as day labourers, and providing for their families(…)And, as the floods get more unpredictable, it’s the women who are at the centre of their community’s response.

Bangladeshi women’s march

Blogger Jess Mccabe also posts on the blog The F Word about Bangladeshi women coming together as an outstanding example of women taking a stand on climate change’s issues:

Back in November 2008, around 2,000 women took to the streets of Dhaka, in Bangadesh, wearing masks of G8 leaders, to call for action on climate change.

(…)

‘Protect our agriculture, protect our country, protect our lives from the damaging effects of climate change’, they chanted, waving their fists to make their demands.

The words of blogger Anushay reflect the positive steps Bangladeshi women have taken towards adaptation to global warming, but outline the urgent need for women around the world to get involved and take a stronger stand:

Back home in Bangladesh, the list of innovative ideas to combat and more importantly, adapt to climate change is endless. (…) But there has to be more. Women may be in the frontlines of climate change, but they are not only its victims. Their personal and intimate experience of the harsh impacts of climate change means that within them lies very real solutions to combat it. If the voices from the women’s rights movement don’t pick up this issue, loudly, clearly and unanimously, climate change will not only drown out countries, but the agents of change, women, with it. And that is simply not an option.

Like a spider web our lives are all interconnected in a way that we cannot draw direct lines to. What we do here has a link to what happens there. If we fail to see that we inhabit the same earth and hence this link, we fail ourselves and the future.

Be the change you wish to see in the world

Without delving into the complexities of climate change from a scientific perspective, I would like to approach it from the simple perspective of a woman and an aspiring Buddhist.

Generally speaking in Buddhism, if you want to change the world, you have to change yourself first. In other words, be the change you wish to see in the world. I am sure that, similarly, many faiths ask the same. As much as this introspection applies to many things in life, we can try and apply it to such an imminent and daunting challenge as climate change too.  We may yell, shout and write and hold as many conferences as we want about it, but if individual habits don’t change at the same time then, we are all hypocrites.

What can women in the Developed World do to help?

We all know that climate change and global warming impacts people living in poor and developing countries and those living in coastal regions, even more. And in many of these societies women and children are affected most. This is because they are not only subsistence farmers like their husbands, but they are also mothers, caregivers, providers of families and communities and, therefore, their struggle is greater. Climate change can have, and is already having, many drastic impacts on the lives of these women through effects on crop production, food, income, shelter and social welfare.

It is too much to ask third world women to make changes in their lives or lifestyles because they have none. Instead, they face the insurmountable task of trying to pull their families through a day, forget weeks or months.

If anyone can make a difference then it is people, especially educated women, living in developed and advanced countries that can make the individual sacrifices or the changes in lifestyles that can impact fellow women elsewhere.

How can we do this?

In my opinion, this change comes in the form of one word “Minimalism.” As women, even in advanced and developed societies, we still run households and communities, so more often than not, it is our decisions that can make a difference. If we can simplify and minimize our lives through our diets, our shopping habits and lifestyles, we can contribute to a change in the lives of women at the other end of the world, as far-fetched as it may seem. After all there is a link between over consumption (of things we don’t really need) mass produced in factories that contribute considerably to the toxic waste and destruction of our environment, that is in turn, affecting the climate.

1. Eat and buy less meat

Or even better, become vegetarian (even if its once in a while). Reports from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the U.N. and others say that factory farming has made animal agriculture the No. 1 contributor to global warming (it is significantly more destructive than transportation alone), and one of the Top 2 or 3 causes of all of the most serious environmental problems, both global and local: air and water pollution, deforestation, loss of biodiversity. . . .

Eating factory-farmed animals — which is to say virtually every piece of meat sold in supermarkets and prepared in restaurants — is almost certainly the single worst thing that humans do to the environment.” Jonathan Safran Foer for the Food Issue, New York Times.

2. Consume less / shop less

As a woman I am amazed at how much is out there for the consumption of women. It is a huge industry. Lets get real, if women make conscious decisions about why we need to buy, what we need to buy, from whom and from where, there will not be as much junk out there, as there is now. Think twice before you buy. Don’t be a compulsive shopper.

As the holiday seasons approaches, however, it is necessary to buy gifts.  Consider shopping at stores that are conscientious, or who contribute to a cause. Online sites like Global Goods Partners (www.globalgoodspartners.org) sell handicrafts and products made by people (especially women) from underprivileged countries.

Artisans in the developing world are often unable to reach the global marketplace and engage in economic growth. Through our online store we provide direct access to new markets for our community based partners’ handcrafted products, often providing the only means of revenue for artisans and others in their communities.

A few other examples:

• www.greatgreengoods.com/
• www.realgreengoods.com/
• www.abchomeandplanet.org/

3. Recycle

This word has been used and overused and can sound stale, but if you are religious about it, whether at home or office, you will be amazed at how you can reduce your waste considerably. Coming from a Third World Country, I am amazed at how much people buy and discard in first world societies.

• Refuse shopping bags and plastic bags if you don’t need them.
• Recycle gift wrappers, printing paper, and shopping bags. Remember, it’s not about being cheap; it’s about being considerate.
• Rethink what goes into those goody bags. If you know its going to have a short life and wind up in the garbage can, its time to get creative and do something more meaningful.

4. Conserve and don’t waste

• Water
• Energy
• Food

Growing up in the third world, I understand what “shortage” means. At the Convent in boarding school in Darjeeling we rarely had flowing water from the taps. We had one mug of water to wash our face and brush our teeth. We never had showers, only baths. Even though it is a different story here in New York, I cannot shake away the belief that flowing water – whether as a river, stream or tap – is precious. It is the same with food and energy.

As women, these are some things that we can do to make a difference.

Photo by Ayahuasca_Pix and used under a Creative Commons license.

Kichwa women lead the way

It is a popular saying in Latin America that women always get what they want. In Sarayaku, Ecuador, women from the Kichwa tribe proved the saying to be true. When an oil company came onto their forest lands for oil exploration for future drilling, the women decided to stop them with a simple but flawless plan.

Esperanza Martinez says on the blog Ecoportal, that women told their husbands that if they allowed the companies to work in their lands, they would have to find other women …in a different land. The Kichwas organized a united front against the oil company until it finally had to leave. 

This group of Kichwas live in province of Pastaza, on 140 thousand hectares in the Amazon, an area the Ecuadorian Ministry of Mines and Oil identified as Block 23. Several companies attempted to work there throughout the years, but they failed every time due to Kichwa’s opposition to drilling.

Although the decision to resist was made by the entire tribe, women’s participation became a key component. These fearless women will go a long way to preserve the forests and their lands.

Support women

The blog Observatorio Petrolero Sur publishes what Kichwa leader Franklin Toala said about the role of women during this process:

“One of the processes that Sarayacu went through that needs to be emphasized, is the great support women provided. The relationship between women and the communities is much stronger now.”

Ecuadorian newspaper Diario Universal described a chilling scene involving Kichwa women that took place in 2003, when 15 women and children ran for 4 hours through the jungle yelling “anchuri, (get out) anchuri oil companies,” to meet face to face with the oil company’s workers and armed guards. Confrontations took place and eventually the army intervened. But the Kichwas remained on their lands and kept them free of oil drilling.

Petroleum, Climate change, and Indigenous women

In Ecuador, several regions have already suffered the terrible environmental and health consequences of oil drilling. In Pichincha in the province of Sucumbios, oil drilling has been taking place for 20 years, the air is polluted and the water contaminated because of oil spills. The people have suffered the loss of domestic animals because of drinking contaminated water and the loss of crops because the contaminated land becomes infertile. They are also affected by several skin and respiratory diseases, birth defects, and miscarriages.

Women are once again the most vulnerable to these negative impacts. In petroleum areas of Ecuador the incidence of cancer is three times more comparing to the national average, especially affecting women. Women are in constant contact with contaminated water by washing clothes and bathing their children in the river.

It is no wonder Kichwa women reject oil drilling. They know it will transform their lands, their lives, and the environment for ever.

The online community reacts to the Kichwa example

Blogger Efren Calapucha shares his feelins on the Kichwa’s stand on the Blog Redamazon:

“Friends of the Earth! In this place in the Amazon rainforest with significant biodiversity resources, LIFE is threatened to be eliminated but we will NOT ALLOW this terrible event to take place here, which will affect climate change; extinguishing communities, fauna and flora, which have been strengthened and safeguarded to this day.”

The blog Observatorio Petrolero Sur posts about the remarkable determination of the Kichwas despite the circumstances:

“So far, oil exploration has not occurred, but the threat is constant. Many things have happened over the past 20 years, including national and international lawsuits, campaigns, and there was a lot of pressure. The Kichwas suffered all kinds of abuses, persecutions, and even the militarization of Sarayaku, but they kept saying ‘no.’”

The Kichwa community has managed to keep their forests safe so far but the struggle is not over. Of course with Kichwa women among them, they have little to fear.

Watch the video

A Kichwa child stands defiant with the words “I’m a forest protector” painted on his chest. He appears in the video filmed and posted by Oilwatch, which is about the Sarayaku community’s reaction to the attempt of an oil company to carry out oil exploration in their lands. Click here to watch the video in Spanish.

Young people risk becoming passive bystanders of  climate change according to Victor Bernhardtz, co-author of this year’s Youth Supplement to the State of the World Population.

Young people are standing at the frontier of climate change. They see it coming, both in terms of early signs in their own lives of what is to come, and through analysing and drawing conclusions from the facts presented by a concerned community of researchers.

They speak up.  Sadly, the listeners are still too few.

The current climate change debate is focused on the future, on projections, and how we should act if any of the presented projections develop into reality. While these discussions are essential, we should also ask ourselves what needs to happen urgently. At the moment, my impression is that we spend more time discussing the coming population of the world, than discussing how the current population can be involved.

Young people are a good example. Today, the largest generation in history of people aged 10 to 25, some 1.5 billion, live in the world. Many of them live in cities or are moving to cities. Many live in developing countries, and will thus be more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. From this generation, many champions for a more sustainable way of life have already risen, and more will follow.

In paradox, young people’s involvement in efforts to mitigate climate change, and adapting to it’s impact, is not a hot topic. Instead the same chatter about “how young people are the future”, that I learned to despise at age 10, is still occupying a lot of space in the debate.

This year’s Youth Supplement to the State of the World Population is titled At the Frontier and shows examples of how young people are not ildly standing by and waiting for future climate change to happen. They engage, given that waiting is not an option. For several of them, options are few, as events mentioned in climate change projections, such as more severe weather and tougher conditions for farming, are already unfolding, affecting their lives.

Young people’s involvement in meeting the test that climate change puts us to is vital for several reasons:

Firstly, we simply cannot exclude such a large group of people, if we are serious in our ambitions to turn the tide. Not tapping into the resource of young people is foolish. Secondly, young people will always be the best experts on youth. They know better than anyone else how their lives are being affected, and what they need in order to improve their situation. Thirdly, young people must learn how to deal hands-on with mitigation and adaptation as soon as possible. Otherwise, they will not be prepared to handle the climate change impacts that lie in store.

Our responsibility as a global community is to make sure there are options for young people, both regarding sexuality and reproduction, as well as opportunities to take up the call of the young climate change champions. Young people are without a doubt well informed of what must change, what they need is access to the tools required to make that change.