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Poverty is on the rise. 
More and more people are displaced by climate change and the related drought. 
Photo essay by Daisy Carlson







All children deserve an opportunity to thrive with dignity.  Reducing our emissions here can support  lives around the world. Cherish all our resources, use less and live more. Conserving resources protects the future of all living organisms. Living with dignity ourselves provides dignity for others.

Young man looking for food in the junk and sewage of the Kibera slum. This garbage strewn swamp was once the Nairobi damn, a place where people water skied and fished. Children now wade through the sewage and muck to fight with pigs over scraps behind the overcrowded Kibera slum. Rollling black outs in Nairobi occur because the hydroelectric plant doesn't have enough water to power it.

Coal provides fuel but destroys habitats.  Solar stoves would make a wold of difference. 
 

Keeping girls in schools
Having water wells at schools keeps girls in school and off of dangerous roads.
One minute film about how climate change effects girls like Lilian Pesi



Irbaan Primary School, Maasai Mara, Kenya, opened with three classrooms in November 2007, thanks to the generosity of international donors. The school, serves communities spread out for over the vast grasslands of the Mara region in Kenya. This community still in needs of ongoing support to provide a quality education to the hundreds of children in the area. We put a well outside the school to keep the community together.

This well currently sustains 500 people. This area in the Mara has not seen rain for two years. I was there during that last rain. I remember the panic I felt seeing thousands of dead Wildebeest carcasses float into the water stream of hundreds of villages along the Mara river. Children go to school to get a meal. Usually corn and mush cooked over fires from the 50 lb. burlap WFP sacks.


Food Aid can provide relief but it is not a long term solution for the nutritional needs of children. 

A school well saves and protects lives of students in rural East Africa, but they are few and far between. 
A drought stricken waste land is no place for a child alone. This was lush grassland only a few years ago. 
Food Aid can provide relief but it is not a long term solution for the nutritional needs of children. 
 I go from school to school and find children lining up for a scoop of corn and see the little ones trying to carry some home for their siblings. It makes tears come to my eyes every time I see it. As the cows die from drought and the milk dries up these children will soon be facing the dire consequences of malnutrition that has come about from climate change today. Yes these are the consequences of climate change, our emissions here are killing children there. We are all complicit in this crime against humanity. Clean development mechanisms are an essential part of climate policy. They will provide sustainable development to those most affected by climate change......children like these.
Women walk miles to look for wood and water often on dangerous roads.

Maasai traditionally do not cut living wood but the drought has left them little choice if they are to survive. 
More classrooms are needed to accommodate all the children and school supplies from textbooks to desks are in short supply. Funding for enough teachers that includes salaries and accommodation $300 a month, will help keep classroom sizes of reasonable size. Children, who walk as far as 7 kilometers to school, each way, often on an empty stomach, need a hot lunch to be provided. Provide an individual scholarship, $300 a year, and we will include you on the donors page of the Charming The World, Maasai book. I am astounded at the number of children in this tourist-ed region that still lacked access to basic essentials like fresh water and food. This is an opportunity for the first generation of Maasai girls to go to school, and their first opportunity to experience physical and intellectual autonomy. Their young fathers appreciate what education did for them and want to share this gift with all their children. This generation values education and can transform the brutality of poverty into potential.














The children of East Africa are shouldering the burden of drought and climate change. 
Images from Drought coverage 2009 by Daisy Carlson.

The only water to be found are tears.

After driving an hour in this dry lake the only water I found were tears. Lake in Amboseli, Kenya

Dust Devils picking up the smell of death across the Amboseli plain. Mount Kilamanjaro has lost most of its permanent snow pack and this is not the abundant Safari land we once knew.

Who is fueling climate change.
Drought has claimed the lives of more than just cattle in the Maasai regions of Kenya.
Maasai children want to talk to you about the effects of climate change on their lives and yours.





 The Kibera slum is home to thousands who flea the barren landscape to look for work.

One of the many dry river beds of Kenya., the great Mara River.
Lakes and rivers fed by Mt Kilimanjaro's snow cover and micro-climates have all dried up. The Maasai have no place left to walk to find water. Children are thirsty, hungry and being abandoned across the country.
 
Without water and cattle their culture is under serious threat.

A Girl With 37 Parts Too Many

Lilian Pesi and her friends need our help.This PSA was shot in Kenya during the recent drought
We have the technology now we need the will. 
The Maasai Climate Action was challenging as on the day of the shoot elephants blocked the children's passage through the dry river so we didn't have a total of 350 kids at any one time. I would say, having seen the devastation of drought, East Africa shows Climate in Action. They endure unthinkable suffering from lack of water. That alone sends a clear message to the world. We need reality based climate policy TODAY. Each of us should make a personal sustainability goal to help reduce our emissions everyday. It matters to children all over the world today and tomorrow.
Together we can build a sustainable future for girls like Lilian Pesi. Clean stove projects at schools and orphanages are a good start. They can be funded with carbon offsets. Once installed they have positive effects throughout the whole system. Clean stove projects keep girls in school rather than out on dangerous roads looking for wood and water. Clean stoves also reduce carbon emissions by 70% because they do not cut and burn wood fuel. Not cutting trees preserves habitat that continues to store carbon. Not burning wood reduces the amount of smoky air, the cause of serious health risks to children's developing lungs.  This integrated approach can provide targeted development that improves the entire system and provides solutions that are wide spread and long term. At the Irbaan school for example, we have installed a well so girls are not taken from school to look for water and it has also kept 500 people alive during Kenya's deep drought. Additionally they do not have to sterilize the water over wood fires so the trees are left standing.

Coal contributes to Kenya's deforestation 

The externalities of the fossil fuel business, like the US coal industry, include drought due to climate change. Here in Kenya, as crop yields are diminished due to lack of water, impoverished populations cut even more equatorial forests to increase crop lands. As water becomes dirtier more wood is turned into charcoal and burned to purify it. Fresh food is extremely limited resulting in longer cooking time for hard soaked corn and dried porridge. 

 Trying to meet their most basic needs a virtually carbon neutral population is rapidly become more carbon intensive in an attempt to stay alive. As the world turns its back, Kilimanjaro is loosing both snow and tree cover. Kenya is loosing species diversity at an alarming rate. Lakes and rivers fed by Mt Kilimanjaro's snow cover and micro-climates have all dried up. The Maasai have no place left to walk to find water. Children are thirsty, hungry and being abandoned across the country. A clean energy economy can end hunger in our lifetime and restore habitats that have been marginalized by climate change and our fossil fuel dependence. With just 387 parts per million carbon equivalent in the atmosphere we can see the devastating effects climate change is already having. Are we really willing to continue with our focus on a mono-crop of money while all other valuable assets diminish. We are borrowing heavily not only from our children's future but on our own. Stop climate change NOW, Use Less live MORE.

Solar Stoves Buy One Give One

Reduce CO2 emissions at home and while camping $25




The externalities of the fossil fuel business, like the US coal industry, include drought due to climate change. Here in Kenya, as crop yields are diminished due to lack of water, impoverished populations cut even more equatorial forests to increase crop lands. As water becomes dirtier more wood is turned into charcoal and burned to purify it. Fresh food is extremely limited resulting in longer cooking time for hard soaked corn and dried porridge. Trying to meet their most basic needs a virtually carbon neutral population is rapidly become more carbon intensive in an attempt to stay alive. As the world turns its back, Kilimanjaro is loosing both snow and tree cover. Kenya is loosing species diversity at an alarming rate. Lakes and rivers fed by Mt Kilimanjaro's snow cover and micro-climates have all dried up. The Maasai have no place left to walk to find water. Children are thirsty, hungry and being abandoned across the country. A clean energy economy can end hunger in our lifetime and restore habitats that have been marginalized by climate change and our fossil fuel dependence. With just 387 parts per million carbon equivalent in the atmosphere we can see the devastating effects climate change is already having. Are we really willing to continue with our focus on a mono-crop of money while all other valuable assets diminish. We are borrowing heavily not only from our children's future but on our own. Stop climate change NOW, Use Less live MORE.



This was the little piece on CNN and in Times Square on Climate Action day Oct. 24, 
hosted by Bill McKibben and 350.


As a designer of legacy products that have been providing sustainable cradle to cradle solutions since 1991 I've learned that problems ask for solutions, solutions often provide new business for local economies. Working together and taking the design challenge to end hunger in our lifetime while reducing emissions by 80% seems as much an opportunity as a problem. The  environmental movement is about MORE not less. 80% of a products footprint is established at the point of design. We not only need to design sustainable products we need to design sustainable systems that provide positive effects throughout the web of life. 
According to Carlson, "We are entering into a Restorative Economy, a re-design that will provide the lions share of future profits to those who find systemic solutions to the worlds environmental issues.  Products and profits will come from systemic solutions that redirect existing capital to clean energy solutions for a doubling population and eliminate deep poverty. We are creating a movement where we can all be part of the solution through transparent, seamless redirection of existing capital. Natures systems are abundant, productive and adaptive and so is our community. We can come together and redesign a system that works for everyone. A restorative economy builds wealth and environmental stability with a bio-diverse bottom line that includes MORE (Money, Organisms, Resources, and Ecology ) in every decision.  As you consider design and solutions  ask yourself what footprint you are leave. What seed are you planting.  Include MORE in your design and the system will improve overall and set a precedent for what is expected of designers. It has to improve the system not rob the system and have a holistic approach. This often increases product longevity. What does accounting for MORE mean? MORE puts Money, Organisms, Resources, and Ecology on the "bio-diverse "bottom line and provides MORE value throughout the system that includes solutions for those in need.




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