LankaLife

Unsafe Water for 400 Million Children

On World Water Day, read about the impact of unsafe water through the eyes of children in developing countries.

Six Dead Following Flooding

This morning, it was still raining. But the rain is much more than an inconvenience. The flooding it caused has been linked to at least six deaths, including three in Colombo, and displacement of tsunami survivors who were flooded out of their temporary homes. Read more on Reuters.

Wringing Out in Colombo

There’s a river flowing by my house and it wasn’t there yesterday.

The rain here in Colombo hasn’t stopped in about 24 hours. It’s an unrelenting, driving rain that soaks you despite the umbrella you carry over your head and stalls the already-dense traffic. I can’t recall ever seeing rain like this. I've been told many times that the monsoon season should be over by now, but we're still soggy. Some people here believe that the changing seasons are part of global-warming, factored in with other natural disasters worldwide.

This morning, we woke to find half of our bedroom floor covered in water, a result of the aging windows and the non-existent capping over top of them. The rain flows down the bedroom window like a slow-moving fountain.

It took me an hour to get to work today, a trip that usually takes 15 minutes. And I wasn’t the last one to arrive…three colleagues arrived after me, also having waded to the bus stand. Now, they’ve all left, going back to one of their homes to move furniture out of the way of rising waters. Flooding is apparently occurring in many places. Perhaps I’ll arrive home to see my bed floating.

Eco-Hero Dies

The Greenpeace to Amchitka: An Environmental Odyssey has been lying beside my bedside table for months now, waiting to be read. Other books and work seemed to take priority.

The author, Robert (Bob) Hunter died Monday after a long battle with prostate cancer. Broadcaster (even if you don't know his name, most people know the guy in the robe on CityTV), journalist and speaker, Bob was also the co-founder of Greenpeace. Time Magazine declared him one of 10 eco-heroes of the 20th century. He brought public attention to whaling and seal hunting and campaigned worldwide against nuclear testing and toxic waste dumping. He was passionate about his environmental work before, during and after Greenpeace, and always told it like it was.

I hope to start reading the nightstand book soon - Bob Hunter's last one in which he tells the story of how the organization came to be, based on his 30-year-old memoirs. Quill and Quire called it a "...riff on a 60's road trip..." Yeah, sounds like a good time to finally pick up the book.

Remembering Ken Saro-Wiwa

Journalist and activist, Ken Wiwa, was recently in Kitchener to talk about his book, In the Shadow of a Saint, and his father, Ken Saro-Wiwa ,as we near the 10th anniversary of his father's execution in Nigeria. His father, also a journalist, environmentalist and activist, was imprisoned in 1994 for alleged murder. After a mock trial, he and eight others (the Ogoni 9) were hanged on November 10, 1995. John Major called it "judicial murder."

Wiwa has said that he didn't expect to walk the trail his father blazed. But that's just what has happened. Not only is Wiwa keeping his father's spirit alive - as are others all over the world - but he is fighting for many of the same rights his father did: environmental rights, human rights, the rights of the Ogoni people in the Niger Delta.

Wiwa showed the Kitchener crowd the pictures he's shot during recent trips to Nigeria. Images of environmental degredation. Twenty-four flaring. Oil slicks on once-plentiful fish ponds that were the livelihood of a local man. Wiwa says the land where he grew up was once called the "breadbasket" of the region. Now, it's wasting away under oil slicks that coat the land where children play and people live.

Wiwa is strong in his belief that "corporations are able to trample over local cultures," and dictate public policy. He sees it first hand, and he wanted his audience to see it. But he also reminds people that his father was a businessman and that it's not business that's bad, it's corporations without accountablity. In fact, Wiwa acknowledges that business can be a "tranformative agent in society."

Wiwa returns to Nigeria several times a year and is pushing for non-violent change. On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of his father's execution, he is establishing the Ken Saro-Wiwa Foundation that will, among other things, set up a secondary school for the Ogoni people. This March, he also launched the Remember Saro-Wiwa project to commemorate his father and the eight others that were executed 10 years ago.

Kyoto Day

The Kyoto Protocol becomes legal today, with 141 countries working to reduce global warming. The United States won't be one of them though. George Bush has said Kyoto is fatally flawed, in many ways unrealistic and based on incomplete scientific knowledge.

One group, the Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC), takes issue with the claim of incomplete scientific knowledge, and it's taking the U.S. to court to prove it. The group, which represents more than 150,000 people in the Arctic areas of Canada, Russia, Greenland, and the United States, will soon petition the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) to rule against the U.S. for being the leading cause of global warming and a threat to Inuit survival. (Its contribution to worldwide greenhouse gases ranges from 20-25% to as high as 29%).

The ICC says villages are facing relocation, buildings are caving in and the Inuit way of life is being threatened as water levels rise and the North's permafrost melts. Scientists and governments believe - and have believed for some time - that climate change is impacting the Arctic, causing events described by the ICC as well as threatening polar bears, walrus and seals species which the Inuit depend on for survival.

The Inuit support Kyoto and its effort to reduce global warming, though they realize that Kyoto is not a magic pill. They say that the U.S. has a responsibility to act now and protect the rights of people around the world.

The IACHR can issue a recommendation, but cannot enforce it. A decision could take several years.

All From a Junket on the River

Last summer, the brains behind the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society's Boreal Forest Program invited a group of distinguished Canadians to paddle the country's boreal forest rivers: a junket of sorts, without the hard news. The idea was to raise awareness of the need to protect the boreal forest, capture media attention, inspire the group, and in turn, inspire others. People like comedian Cathy Jones, musician Sarah Harmer, David Suzuki, novelist John Ralston Saul, sports personality turned politician, Ken Dryden, and Justin Trudeau joined many others for fun, enlightening, and sometimes challenging trips.

Great idea. Though most people haven't heard of the initiative, let alone the Bor-e-a-what? Forest (remember, think way back to your school days). But the group produced a gorgeous book, Rendezvous with the Wild: The Boreal Forest, to carry the original idea for the trips forward. They launched it last night at a fundraiser at the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts. Originally, the idea was to ask a few trip participants to contribute to a book of essays. Thankfully they chose to go in another direction. Instead, the book is a rich collection of photography, writings, sketches, journal entries, and poems from over 50 contributors.

Little Canuck Journal Draws Big Attention

Top-notch bimonthly environmental magazine, the Alternatives Journal, has captured the attention of Utne's 2004 Independent Press Awards for best environmental coverage. Utne scours the pages of the best alternative press in the world, so journal staff should feel pretty pleased "just to be nominated." But a win would be nice for the gang at Alternatives (published by the University of Waterloo's Faculty of Environmental Studies).

Other nominees in the category are Audubon; E: The Environmental Magazine; EarthFirst!; Earth Island Journal; The Ecologist; OnEarth; and Orion. Winners will be announced in the January/February issue of Utne.