Children

Today April 22, 2008 is Earth Day and it’s not only a day to remember to recycle and take a day off from the car, but a day to teach children about protecting their future…a day to learn how to safeguard their future.

This year children across the United States had a chance to share their views on the Environment and how they thing we are doing. For almost a year students have been sharing their views on some of the biggest environmental issues facing our world. The results have been published by Scholastic in the Kids’ Environmental Report Card, the survey is the first to ever be conducted to obtain on children’s views on the environment. More than 17,000 children, who ranged in school age from K-12th grade. When polled on the question: “How would you rate the response to the environmental challenge posed by global climate change?” 39% of them voted “F: Awful! Much more needs to be done”.

Other results include: 54% of kids said that “global climate change” is the most important environmental issue facing the world today, 77% of kids think we should “figure out new ways to recycle old stuff” as a way to deal with our trash. 56% think that only sometimes grown-ups are doing a good job to help the environment, while 20% said “Grown-ups are messing up the planet!”. 85% of kids say that responsibility for the environment belongs to everyone.

From the mouth of babes, we’re failing our children and the protection of their future. However it appears that the future generation may be more in touch with the environment than the last. Most children today appear to be more in tuned with environmental issues than we think, and it is up to us to instill more in them and lead by example. Therefore I hope you will find some of the links below useful. Happy Earth Day!

Earth Day Links and Resources for Children:
Earth Day 2008 Events World Wide
Earth Day Teachers Guide
Earth Day Lesson Plan for 2nd and 3rd graders
Kaboose - History, crafts, recipes and much more.
Earth Day.gov for Kids - Games and Learning activities.
Kids in Action: Earth Day Every Day
Children’s Crafts for Earth Day
Amazing Mom’s Earth Day Ideas for Kids and Classrooms
Earth Day for Earth’s Children: Three Books for Earth Day, 2008
Children’s books honor Earth Day

Shortage of electricity plagues many countries, especially in the developing world. However the efforts being made to electrify the continent of Africa fall considerably short of the need. Most would stand in awe at this immense task and wait in anticipation for something to be done. However that was not what one young man in Malawi decided to do, taking action into his own hands, William Kamkwamba, now 20 was only 14 when he began his quest to bring power to his village, after finding a photograph of a windmill. William then set about the task of trying to build one for his own family.

“At first, we were laughing at him,” says Agnes Kamkwamba, his mother. “We thought he was doing something useless.”

William has also built a windmill for the local primary school, and then used it as a learning example to teach an informal windmill-building course. A Young Tinkerer Builds a Windmill, Electrifying a Nation; While the creation of a few windmills has surely changed William and his families lives, it is only a small step in electrifying a nation. William is now working to further his education, and plans to continue building his windmills. William is an inspiration to his village, to his family and to all the young people across the globe that dream of a better future.

Learn More About William and his Windmill:
William Kamkwamba’s Malawi Windmill Blog
TED Speakers- William Kamkwamba
My Hero Community Hero: William Kmakwmba
Malawi Youth Builds Windmill to Power Village
Homemade Windmill in Malawi

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said he would discuss how to balance climate change and food security in the development of biofuels when he visits Brazil next week. Speaking before leaving on a trip that takes him first to Argentina, Antarctica and Punto Arenas in Chile, Ban said he wanted to see for himself the impact of global warming.

UNCTAD said its “Developing Countries in International Trade 2007 - Trade and Development Index (TDI)” showed that seven emerging nations - Brazil, China, India, Mexico, Russia, South Africa and South Korea - were snapping on the heels of the EU’s new member states. It said the performance of the seven and several other developing economies in recent years were “remarkable.” Among the other major developing nations, South Korea was 21st, Chile was 37th and South Africa and Mexico were jointly in 47th place, while Brazil leapfrogged six places to 54th. India was up two places in 86th.

Emissions from ocean-going ships are responsible for about 60,000 deaths a year from heart and lung-related cancers, according to research published on Nov. 7 that calls for tougher fuel standards. Shanghai, Singapore and Hong Kong, three of the world’s five busiest ports, were likely to suffer disproportionate impacts from ship-related emissions, said the study, published in Environmental Science and Technology, a journal of the American Chemical Society.

(Reuters)