Making Mountains Metaphors

Kai at the summit of Mt Kenya

I am constantly amazed at the calibre of youth the new South Africa is producing - environmentally aware, socially responsible and enthusiastic and motivated. Like our young friend, Kai Fitchen who at just 18 years of age has recently returned from a five-month trip from Cape Town to Kenya, ending with the summit of Mount Kenya.

Kai in conversation with local kids

The aims of the trip were to travel sustainably, raise awareness of environmental issues among school children, and to climb Mt Kenya, the second highest peak in Africa. 

Sustainable travel involved using public transport as far as possible - buses, taxis, trains and at times bicycles. Although he had some hair-raising experiences (drunk bus drivers, fights breaking out on trains) he found the public transport at least 90% reliable and was able to get there and back in one piece. 

washing hands - water sanitation program
in Malawi

In the various villages where he stopped he visited schools, engaging with children creatively, spending time outdoors and discussing the way environmental issues were personally affecting their lives. Living in a town like Livingstone with Victoria Falls as a background makes it easy to engage with nature. Deforestation is a very real problem for them and Kai had Greenpop (a social enterprise involved in urban greening and reforestation) as a support.  In Malawi, sanitation was the burning issue.

Mt Kenya, although not quite as high as the very popular Kilimanjaro, is technically a much more difficult climb. Added to that was the sleet, rock falls and cold winds to contend with while living on a diet of peanuts and bananas. But Kai describes the experience as "humbling, the best experience I have ever had...to see the potential in Southern Africa...". He is already talking about the next trip...what an inspiration!

For more about his trip, visit:

 KAPE 2 KENYA 2012

http://www.kape2kenya.com

http://greensparks-kai.blogspot.com/

Pictures are courtesy of Kai Fitchen

"How on earth can we live together - How can we agree to agree?"

My family has previously attended this amazing forum which occurs annually in Sweden. Sigtuna is the oldest city in Sweden, dating back to  980. The Tallberg Forum brings together about 500 leaders from around the world, from business, government and civil society. The aim is to hold "conversations" to try to find answers to the problems that beset our world. Many sessions are open to the public and take place around tables in a big tent. Typically, the setting is one of natural beauty with music, poetry and culture interwoven. Check out the link below and take part in the conversation.

"How on earth can we live together - How can we agree to agree?"

The Tällberg Forum 2011, 30 June to 3 July, starts in the realization that todays established business models and governance frameworks are struggling to release the structural change that financial/ budgetary, social and environmental pressures are likely to require. Out of this analysis, comes the imperative for new coalitions of actors to step forward and drive new initiatives towards more radical change. This is true for business, civil society and politics.

The question for this year's forum therefore becomes: "How on earth can we agree to agree?" Because without a common understanding of the need to move collectively into a new paradigm, established interest resisting change will prove too powerful to overcome. Unfortunately, too much of the debate today is still stuck in the logic and thought models of the past.

Join the live streamed or OnDemand sessions to take part in these important conversations of our time.

Saving the World

Every now and then I worry that it is so easy to live in a bit of a bubble.  I go about my daily grind and think that I am doing my bit to live responsibly and then I get a wake-up call that maybe the bubble is a little too small and not enough is being done.

I recycle plastic, glass and paper and take it to the Oasis Work centre for disabled adults down the road – I pat myself on the back every week because not only am I caring for the environment, I am also supporting the disabled. Every week we get an organic vegetable box from a township project – Harvest of Hope. So, again two birds with one stone – supporting the community project and going green. My kids have been collecting newspaper to take to school recycling projects since they first started school. So I have this illusion that the country is going greener.

This morning I was waiting in the car for my daughter (as moms do) when the dustbin collection was being done. One guy dropped a black bag and out tumbled cereal boxes, bottles and paper. Further down the road the local bergie was retrieving cans from a bin. I wondered if these people had not heard about recycling. This is a middle-class neighbourhood, with kids at schools in the area who are probably also promoting recycling.

I think we way underestimate the effects of global warming. We live as if there is no tomorrow. We have become a wasteful society, throwing away half of what we buy – either in terms of the packaging or going by sell-by dates and pitching into the bin reliant on computer dates rather than what should be our experience of the look and taste of food. Even the organic produce at the supermarket comes in plastic and Styrofoam which cannot be recycled.

When we were in Greenland a while ago, we experienced firsthand the effects of global warming on the glacier and saw how it affected the lives of the local people - changing their hunting, living and eating patterns. The irony is that the Inuit people live very close to nature, taking only what they need from the land or sea. Now life as they knew it no longer exists. While we are talking about climate change and global warming around the dinner table, it is actually happening in Greenland – they are the first to be feeling the effects and already having to adapt their lifestyles which is something we are all going to have to do.

The Illulisat glacier - a churning mass of icebergs.

Our young guide pointed out to us how the knowledge of the ancestors has become less valuable because of the change in climate patterns. The river that was once there is now dry, the glacier that covered the hills has disappeared, the reindeer that were always there when hunting season opened, no longer show up. Before it never rained in December and January, now it does.

While the world is being wracked by extreme weather – droughts and floods – it washes over us from the television screens in our living rooms and we once again think that “it can’t happen to us”. But it is happening to us now. And we can make a difference. Our children and future generations bear the greatest burden of the effects of climate change. We owe it to the children to leave behind an earth worth living on. 

World image courtesy of Google Maps