Climate Change- What can we do?

Next sunday we will meet again for our collective journeys through the web. We will discuss the different possibiblities and risks for us. For the frequent visitors of my online events it will string all the subtopics together. We traveled from the sinking islands to the north pole and talked about migration, desasters and effects us and our hole eco system. It will be an exciting discussion for everybody, when we meet again on: http://unsleepingworld.wordpress.com

So, I am looking forward to seeing you again next Sunday, 11 am MEZ.

If you are unsecure about your time zone and the starting time just have a look here at the official events announcement and the time calculator:

http://mag.weblin.com/de/events.html

If you have to download an avatar just click here:

www.weblin.com

Report: Climate Change Migration

Firstly, thanks for the interesting discussions during our international weblin event. Weblins from Australia, Indonesia, India, Serbia and lots of other countries discussed yesterday migration and climate change and met on my blog as the usual starting point.

We started by reporting about our own observations on climate change in our countries like floods, dried rivers or storms. Most of us were luckily not so effected that it would force us to leave our countries, but we lerned on the tour through the web that there are already the first climate change refugees.

Our discussion is actually due to this fact also recently discussed at the united nations as there are claims for accepting the effects of climate change as a reason to have the right to seek asylum. So, our first stop lead us to an article of the rector of the United Nations University in Bonn and Head of the Environmental Migration Section of the United Nations:

http://www.nature.com/climate/2009/0901/full/climate.2008.138.html

An interesting article, but we had more a look at the map included in the article, which you can enlarge by scrolling down and clicking on the link.

The map showed us th main hotspot, where people will be probably forced to leave their country due to rising sea levels, droughts, floods, enlarging deserts and other desasters. A we saw on the map that lots of the effected areas are anyway already poor countries, which hits the population even harder with less ability to recover from desasters or to invest in technologies to buffer the effects like dams or irrigation programms. The map shows also that these refugees will aim towards the EU and US as areas with less effects and more capability to deal with them. One discussed point towards this was that this would be only fair enough as these are also the countries producing most of the carbon emissions, but that it will be a huge problem in the future as we are talking about huge increasing numbers.

We traveled then to the first climate refugees, which are fighting currently for an official refugee status. Little islands are the first ones, which are not only suffering from desasters- their islands are sinking into the ocean.

The Australian Public roadcasting Station (PBS) made on that topic just recently a very interesting documentation, which I can recommend to watch completely as we could only watch the first 10 minutes on our tour.

Follow the link and then click: Lost Paradise

http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/449/index.html

After this beautiful but shocking report we visited the European webpage of young jounalist, where I found some exerpts of a recently published foto book on climate change and migration.

http://www.cafebabel.com/eng/article/26974/argos-collective-climate-refugees-photos-worldwide.html

Beautiful pictures showing inuits losing their land, increasing deserts andsinking islands in northern Germany.

Afterwards we watched this time a very short documentary on the drying yellow river with impressive pictures of the landscape produced by greenpeace.

http://www.green.tv/yellow_river_at_risk

After we saw lots of areas in our world facing now, soon or later severe problems due to climate cahnge we discovered in a more interactive way how it feels to be a refugee. Lots of countries effected by climate change are on top of it in a political difficult situation especially for their residents.

So we played the game: against the odds, produced by the United Nations, which gives you a better as you are in that game the refugee. Furthermore it has lots of informations, is fun to play and a very nice design. You can also choose from several languages at the bottom of the start page.

http://www.lastexitflucht.org/againstallodds

Have fun by trying out the game and see you on the next tour.

Best wishes,

Unlseeping

Happy New Year with a new Weblin Event

I wish everybody a happy new year. There were probably rumours that we will have the next climate change tour quiete soon. And yes it is true, we will start as usual at 1pm European time on Sunday the 11th of January 2009. Have a look at the www.weblin.com event section and you will see, which local time will be your starting time. 

Our topic for that sunday will be climate change and refugees. The numbers of refugees will increase as an direct effect of climate change due to rising sea levels effecting islands (Tokeleau) or coastlines (Bangladesh, Netherlands) . However the indirect effects will be maybe even more severe.  Desasters like floods, storms and deseases will accure more  and more. Problems getting worse, when governments can not handle the situation, which can be a reason to be forced to leave the country by itself.

We will discuss for two hours our future gloabal migration and situation of refugees on Sunday the 11th of January 2009. Meeting point: http://unsleepingworld.wordpress.com

Come with your weblin avatar (download: www.weblin.com)

Event Report: Climate Change and Human Health

This time we went on a journey through the web with a very international group of weblins. With some back and forth translations and we had several interesting discussions on the topic Human Health and learnt a lot from each other. Especially, interesting was fro me the point that we could ask each participant how effected the weblins home country already is.

As the World Health Organisation announced in 2008 also the Climate Change and Human health day we visited their very informative webpage.

We had especially a look at the 10 facts on climate change and health of this United Nations organisation.

Just follow this link:

http://www.who.int/features/factfiles/climate_change/en/index.html

and then click on: Read more about climate change and health

Here you can see us on this page:

Health risk are coming from climate change and of course directly from pollution and carbon emmision, which cause climate change. So people are wearing constantly face masks in areas of asia due to air pollution. Dierect health risk are caused from natural desasters like Hurricanes and Floods causing losses not only in developing countries like Kathrina in the US or Floods in Europe. Another direct cause is the temperature increase effecting especially the elderlies, which have problems to adapt suddenly to hotter summers. More severe and less directly is the connection of major desease connected the changes in climate zones. The main point is that the change in climate provides living conditions for insects carrying diseases in new areas like the malaria “mozzies”.

Especially, the connection of spreading diseases even like pestilencia is the topic of the slide show in a german journal. Follow this link to have a look at some impressive or even sad photographies:

http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/mensch/0,1518,582878,00.html

Or like in this picture the spread of Tuberculosis.

Afterwards we came back to the World Health Organisation to have a look at the current spread of several diseases:

http://www.who.int/ith/maps/en/

Thanks to all the participants on that tour and the very interesting discussions. Also thanks to our photographer with the weblin name: Tobbelmobbel, who also had the initial idea for this not so well known topic.

Next Weblin Climate Change Event: Human Health

Next Sunday, 30th of November, we gather again to explore the impact of climate change on our human health.

The Climate in changing around the globe and affects flora and fauna including us. And we do not only get due to the ozon hole a sunburn in Australia or a heat shock in Germany. Lots of deseases like specially hot weather and they will probably have soon more possibilities to spread and feel cosy.

We will discuss and explore this topic next sunday by gathering as weblin avatars here on this page.

1pm Middle European Winter Time. So download your Avatar at www.weblin.com and join us in our journey through the net exploring the risks of climate change towards human beings.

Weblin Diskussion-Was gehen uns die US Wahlen an?

Das krisengeschüttelte Amerika wählt und was haben wir damit zu tun?

Natürlich hat es schon mal einen Unterhaltungswert an sich mit verbalen Gladiatorenkämpfen in der Medienarena, die durch ihre Schlammschlachtkomponente immer wieder faszinieren. Aber was habe ich damit zu tun?

Ja, der Rest der Welt, musste gerade erst erleben, dass eine laxe Kreditvergabepolitik in den USA auch die „sicheren“ Banken in Deutschland und der Schweiz ins taumeln bringen konnte und das Beben ehemals reiche Länder wie Island einfach mal umschmiss…

In der nächsten Weblin Diskussionstour werden wir uns mal anschauen in welch anderen Punkten es uns direkt betrifft wer dort das Sagen hat? Und wo außerhalb der USA hätte der Präsident viel Einfluss der auch alle anderen betrifft? Ja was waren denn noch mal unsere wichtigsten Internationalen Institutionen deren Reformierung gerade Frau Merkel fordert?

Wir werden uns das zumindest mal genauer anschauen, so dass das Bangen um die Wahlen später umso spannender wird.

Also ob Mc Cain mit Sarah Palin als Vize oder Obama mit Joe Biden gewählt werden.

Und warum kann es sehr wahrscheinlich sein, dass ein Vizekandidat Präsident wird? Fragen die wir auch in dieser Tour klären werden, denn diese stellt man sich doch manchmal mit Verwunderung….

Die Tour werden wir inmitten der Wahlen stattfinden lassen und zwar am Wahltag der US Bürger am Dienstag den 4ten November um 22 Uhr bei Mitteleuropäischer Winterzeitzone . Und wie gehabt für 2 Stunden.

Startpunkt hier auf meinem Blog.

Weblins exploring Antarctica

This time we gathered in the Antarctica room on www.weblin.com to start our exploration of the south pole region. The continent lots of people forget, when get asked which are the continents of our earth.

And by far not the smallest. We learned this on the interactive page:

http://www.discoveringantarctica.org.uk/multimedia/flash/2_sizingup.html

Yes, bigger then Australia and also bigger then Europe. This even in summer and only the land mass. In winter Antarctica grows 100%, covering its coasts with connected ice shells.

We also discovered the question: What time is it on Antarcitca?

Afterwards we tested our knowledge of Antarctica, the biggest existing wilderness:

For example how much water of our planet does the Antarctica contain?

http://www.discoveringantarctica.org.uk/multimedia/flash/1_wilderness.html

Lots of answers for these questions got more severly answered, when we visited the national geographic interactive map:

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/antarctica

There we discovered penguins flying under water, the first explorers and hot spots of the melting ice suveys.

Especially, since sattelite circle in our orbit the effects of climate change can be observed very well. So we visited then the nasa to get more informations about the melting ice of Antarcitca.

At first we had a look at the hotspots of melting ice obeserved by them.

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/arctic-20070515.html

You can find under the earth section also the new nasa movie about their research results concerning the melting poles.

The last stop brought us to a pricture report concerning the beauty of Antarcica by concerning also the dangers for the last big wilderness facing climate change.

http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/fotostrecke-29636-8.html#backToArticle=539372

Antarctica is melting

Some informations already in the cotext of our next avatar tour on sunday:
This sattelite picture, published in a German magazine, shows that the Antarctica is melting. Since measureing the ice there was one month ago one of the lowest ice coverages at our south pole. This was accompanied by growing algae populations. And thanks to my tour photographer, who found this interesting german article, which can be found when you click on the picture.

Antarctica – Exploring the 7th Continent

The next Weblin Live Ride will be an exploration of the Antarctica. The south pole a continent hidden under ice, which is mainly visited by scientists and some adventurers. We will follow their footsteps and have a look how climate change effects this continent and explore the history of this rough, but important, piece of land.

We will start our journey this time in the Antarcitica room on www.weblin.de or click on:

http://www.weblin.com/home.php?room=en8

On the 26th of October at 1 pm Middle European Time Zone:

and check out your time zone that you do not miss the start:

Middle European Time Zone (eg.Hamburg): 1 pm is also -
Capetown: 1 pm
London: 12 h
New York: 8 am
Seattle: 5 am
Rio De Janeiro: 9 am
India: 4:30 pm
Hong Kong: 7 pm
Tokyo: 8 pm
Australia (Melbourne): 10 pm

or convert your time that you do not miss our start off: http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html

Tourreport: Finanzkrise

Gestern sammelten wir uns um uns etwas im Finanzdschungel umzusehen, der gerade bebt und schon die ersten Riesen zu Fall brachte.

Unser Auftakt war die Tagesschau: Angela Merkel fordert ein sicheres Finanzsystem, zeigt mit dem Finger auf die USA, und es gab einen überblick über den Vorgänge bevor die Krise so richtig in Deutschland angekommen war.

http://www.tagesschau.de/multimedia/video/video380772_bcId-_ply-internal_res-flash128_vChoice-video380772.html

Nun ist die Krise ja auch in Deutschland und auch hier wurde ein gigantischer Rettungsplan verabschiedet, aber wie kam es denn eigentlich dazu?

Dazu sind wir zur Spiegel Finazkrisen Fotostrecke gegangen um uns das mal genauer anzusehen:

http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/0,1518,583769,00.html

Die Fotostrecker erklärt nun, dass die Krise nun nicht gerade erst in den letzten Wochen aus heiterem Himmel kam, sondern sich schon 1999 in den USA aufbaute. Die Zinsen und kontrollen für Kreditvergaben wurden dort gesenkt und nun konnten auch die ärmsten sich verschulden. Dieses Kartenhaus viel dann zusammen als in den USA die Zinsen für diese Kredite hochgesetzt wurden und nicht mal mehr die Zinsen der Kredite zurückbezahlt werden konnten. Also wurden all die kleinen Hauschen nun Zwangsversteigert, die sich aber auch wiederum niemand leisten konnte zu kaufen. Dies brachte dann die ganzen Institute ins wanken die vorher mit hohem Risiko und hohen Gewinnen ihr Geld verliehen hatten. Das Risiko traf ein, die Banken fielen und haben nun einen Dominoeffekt ausgelöst.

Diese Effekte weltschauten wir uns dann bei der BBC an. Die Weltkarte zeigt, dass die Krise sich schnell verbreitete und ermöglicht die jeweiligen Reaktionen der Staaten zu vergleichen. Die einen verstaatlichten, die anderen strickten Rettungspakete.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7654647.stm

Danach ging es zur Financial Times, die manche Weblins zum ersten Mal auf dieser Tour betraten. Die detuschsprachige Financial Times hat dort einen Krisenticker, der einen mit den neuesten Krisenergebnissen auf dem laufenden hält. Wir schauten uns den Ereignisreichen 17ten Oktober an und diskutierten die Managergehälter sowie den totalen Zusammenbruch Islands.

http://www.ftd.de/boersen_maerkte/aktien/marktberichte/:Die-Ereignisse-vom-17-Oktober-Merkel-will-neue-Weltfinanzordnung/427311.html

Island war dann auch unsere nächste Station und wir verschafften uns erst einmal einen Überblick mit der Tagesschauzusammenfassung der Situation.

http://www.tagesschau.de/multimedia/video/video390438.html

Island hat nun gerade ersthafte Probleme nach dem Zusammenbruch ihrer Banken mit einer Verschuldung die 12 mal höher als das gesammte Bruttosozialprodukt beträgt. Wie wir in dem Bericht schon sahen kann die Bevölkerung nun nur noch bis zu einer bestimmten Summe ihr Geld von der Bank abheben.

Die persönlichen Erfahrungen mit der Krise weltweit schauten wir uns bei unserer nächsten Station an:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/talking_point/7644574.stm

Auf dieser interaktiven Weltkarte durchstöberten wir die verschiedenen erfahrungsberichte und klickten natnürlich sofort auf Island. Dort herrschte schon Krisennotstand und es wurden Hamsterkäufe getätigt aus Angst, dass die Supermärkte bald keine Waren mehr führen würden.

Insgesamt bringt die Karte auch einen kleinen Eindruck wo und wie die Krise bereits in der Bevölkerung ihre ersten Auswirkungen zeigt. Die farbigen Fähnchen zeigen auch die Art der Auswirkungen an, wie zum Beispiel Jobverlust oder wenn jemand seinen Hausabzahlungen nicht mehr nachkommen konnte.

Als letzte Station schauten wir uns noch einmal um wer denn die Profiteure der Krise sind und blätterten durch die sehr informative Fotostrecke der Financial Times Deutschland:

http://www.ftd.de/boersen_maerkte/aktien/marktberichte/422373.html?bid=426252&p=1&cp=1

Ich freue mich auch schon auf unsere nächste Tour die uns nächsten Sonntag an die Antarktis führt und wir wieder heisse Diskussionen über schmelzendes Eis und den kältesten Kontinent führen können.