Category: Links

To enhance the dynamic interactions of “sustain-earth” with relevant websites with necessary information and knowledge on important issues a database of important links will be created. This is to help the readers and visitors to seek information and knowledge on their particular needs.

Clean and Crime Free Environment – How, Where and When?

Clean and crime free environment to all living creatures on our earth is a mission humanity. This mission is not only limited to science and politics. Active contributions of all of us, our awareness of existing realities and our continuous support for scientific and political efforts are IMPERATIVE for achieving sustainable socio-economic developments worldwide. We are sharing one planet for living and our lives are dependent on sharing clean air, water and food. To have clean and crime free environment, not only for us but also for the future generations, we need to have all the necessary instruments, actions and efforts for conservation and protection of our common natural resources on earth.

http://missioncleanenvironment.com.au

EdX – Free Interactive Online Classes and MOOCs from the world’s best universities

MIT “Massachusetts Institute of Technology” and Harvard University along with other world’s best universities offer FREE online classes and MOOCs. EdX initiative, which was launched May 2012, is offering highest quality courses, created by schools and partners who share joint commitment to excellence in teaching and learning, both online and in the classroom. Currently, there are 300+ courses in many areas of study, including biology, business, chemistry, computer science, economics, finance, electronics, engineering, food and nutrition, history, humanities, law, literature, math, medicine, music, philosophy, physics, science, statistics and more. These courses and MOOCs are available in English, Chinese, Mandarin, French, Hindi, Spanish, (Latin America). So far, x-Consortium involves 400+ faculty and staff teaching courses and discussing topics online where 100,000+ certificates were earned by edX students from around the world. As of 22 October 2014, more than three million users  joined over 300 courses online. EdX is a massive open online course (MOOC) provider and an online learning platform and differers from other MOOC platforms, such as Coursera and Udacity, in that it is nonprofit and runs on an open-source software platform.

Charter Members of Edx colleges and universities drive the edX vision and mission, including the founding members MIT and Harvard, along with the other leading global institutions of the x-Consortium. Member institutions are a carefully selected group of universities, NGOs, businesses and other high-profile quality course builders.

Check the web-site of Edx to find our the participating universities and institutes, available cources and classes and how to register and join On-line e-learning.

https://www.edx.org/schools-partners

Technology and Innovation for Rural Sustainability

Appropriate and sustainable rural technologies are very rare as most of the global attention, driven by economical interests, is focused on urbanization. Such technologies are very poorly needed because of several reasons. They are, also, imperative for promoting successful long-term and large-scale sustainable urbanization. This is, even, essential in agricultural regions where rural communities are major parts of the national socio-economic structure, which is the case in many developing countries in particular Africa. This is at least necessary in the transition periods prior to large-scale and long-term transformation to urbanized societies where gradual, appropriate and sustainable integration of rural regions is necessary.

Urbanization has caused an accelerating drain of un-favored groups to mega and large cities (http://www.academia.edu/847075/Mexico_City._The_marginal_communities_social_and_ethnic_segregation_of_the_native_population). The random and rapid expansion of urbanized regions has promoted an ever accelerating pile-up of slum-communities in many regions around the world (http://www.schooljotter.com/showpage.php?id=158173) which indeed is not sustainable both from the economic and environmental perspective.

Some parts of the problem are associated with the negative impacts from global education, research and technology driven-policies around the world by being supported by national and international institutes and organizations including the United Nations and World Bank. Management of research, education and development programs fails to involve people from the developing countries to contribute in solving problems and difficulties in their native countries or at least to find partners from the developed countries willing to participate in solving the enormous problems and difficulties in this respect.

Fortunately, the global community started to recognize such problems and to take steps and  efforts, though limited in extent, for achieving successful socio-economic development that is very much related to reducing poverty and the associated impacts of environment and climatic threats. An innovative example “Ecological System Designs for the Indigenous Community of Maruata, Michoacan, Mexico” is given here where researchers from the developing countries are demonstrating how to bring about successful ecological designs for living better, cheaper and ecologically sustainable.

file:///Users/farid/Desktop/Indigenous%20Community%20of%20Maruata,%20Mexico%20(Design%20Example).webarchive

World Largest Power Station – How Huge is Huge in River’s Technology?

The Three Gorges Dam represents the accumulated knowledge and know-how from all previous worldwide advances in dam technology including finding solutions for a wide-range of side effects apart from the main goal of generating power. It is the world’s largest power station in terms of installed capacity (22,500 MW), a hydroelectric dam that spans the Yangtze River by the town of Sandouping, located in Yiling District, Yichang, Hubei province, China. It has several innovations and integrated solutions. Except for a ship lift, the dam project was completed and fully functional as of July 4, 2012, when the last of the main turbines in the underground plant began production. The dam has 32 main turbines, each with a capacity of 700 MW,  and two other smaller generators (50 MW each), with total electric generating capacity of the dam is 22,500 MW. The dam is intended, also, to increase the Yangtze River’s shipping capacity and reduce the potential for floods downstream by providing flood storage space. A partial solution for problems associated with the transport of nutrients because of silting behind the dam is, also, taken in consideration. Chinese government regards the project as a historic engineering, social and economic success, with the design of state-of-the-art large turbines, and a move toward limiting greenhouse gas emissions.

 

For comparison with the largest twenty dams in the world a global and historical survey is summarized  in this document: http://largest-dams.blogspot.se

Published on 31 May 2013
Largest Dams in The World

 

Urbanization and Future Impacts of Water Treatment on Natural Waters

Without proper water treatment healthy life in out cities wouldn’t be possible. To further couple the importance of water treatment to other sectors in the society we need some background information. This is described at http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_treatment

Also, how drinking water is made and how water treatment plants function is explained in:

With this background information and with the expected prognoses that 70% of world population will be gradually moving to cities during the twenty first century it is not clear how water treatment plant would cope with the increasing waste that is generated from human consumption, i.e. household, agriculture and industry. Unlike solid waste, which is subject to sorting in some parts of the world, wasted water from urbanized areas carry an increasing number and amounts of pollutants in their end products, i.e. effluents and sludge. Though water treatment plants may be effective to provide good quality of water, wastewater treatment plants however are not as effective in removing whatever exist in wastewater. This means that the net effect of urbanization is an increasing production and injection of waste and pollution that is delivered to natural aquatic water systems. This would, of course, provide large-scale and long-term threats on ecological water, and life quality, and will have negative feedback effects on “raw” water that will be later used in water treatment plants.

In summary we have an accelerating internal urbanization of water that generates waste and pollution as end products to be injected and delivered to the main natural global water cycle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Role of Human-Computer Interaction – From Awareness and Education to Sustainability

WWW (World Wide Web) is a system of interlinked hypertext documents, intended to provide global and effective communication systems through the Internet. Webpages can be viewed for their content of text, videos, and other multimedia where hyperlinks allow the navigation between different contents. The inventor of WWW, Tim Berners-Lee, realized in 1989 that his proposal for a more effective CERN communication system could be implemented throughout the world through hypertext “to link and access information of various kinds as a web of nodes in which the user can browse at will”. This was jointly done in 1990 with Robert Cailliau.

Douglas Engelbart already in 1968 demonstrated the invention of “human-computer interaction” where “The Mother of All Demos” retrospectively illustrated the complete computer hardware and software system of all known fundamental elements of modern personal computing. It was the first to publicly demonstrate all features, elements and capabilities of modern computers as communication and information-retrieval machines where the previous idea of Vannevar Bush for a Memex was turned into reality. Memex was visioned by Vannevar Bush, in 1945, that it could implement what is known today by hypertext with the aim to help humanity to have a collective memory and to avoid the use of scientific discoveries for destruction and war, probably an early starting point for sustainability.

Hypertext, including tables, images and other presentational content forms, is displayed on a computer display and other smart devices (mobiles, tablets, …..) with interaction to other text which the reader can immediately, or progressively at multiple levels, access via hyperlinks. An innovation of extreme importance for effectively and globally promoting communication, with high speed never known anywhere expect the speed of light, in all sectors and on all levels with tectonic changes and shifts within and between know and unknown boarders. Apart from economic, scientific and technical importance; populations around the world can easily access and afford sharing information, also for professional to produce and market products and services. Human-computer interactions are now advancing with unprecedented importance for public awareness and education on all levels especially for empowering individuals, groups and association in a wide spectra of new activities for engagement and shaping socio-economic sustainability on micro-levels, at any time and in regions and remote places that were never reached before. What we though was virtual yesterday is in fact very real today.

Since the birth of WWW an accelerating interest in human-computer interactions in all sectors of modern societies has emerged with tectonic changes in the flora of social media, public awareness and educational tools such as blogs and MOOCs “Massive Open Online Courses” focusing on Sustainability on different levels, specialities and content. Blogs and MOOCs are internet based and generally free of charge a matter of increasing importance for achieving socio-economic sustainability. They don’t have any entry requirements and are open to anyone anywhere in the world with an internet connection. MOOCs are linked to universities, may lead to certificates/diplomas and some universities give packages of MOOCs leading to degrees but this may be subject to fees.

https://www.mooc-list.com/tags/sustainability; is a general link with MOOC-list on sustainability issues with technical information, short specifications and descriptions of the courses. Some examples are given below:

https://www.coursera.org/course/susdev provides an introduction to the interdisciplinary field of sustainable development. It describes the complex interactions between the world economy and the Earth’s physical environment. Ecological processes and constraints significantly shape the patterns of economic development, demography, and wealth and poverty. At the same time, human activities change the physical environments, increasingly in dangerous ways.

http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20140511172841978 is a free MOOC course on “The age of sustainable development” that gives students an understanding of the key challenges and pathways to sustainable development – that is, economic development that is also socially inclusive and environmentally sustainable.

https://open.sap.com/course/sbi1; Conducting business in more sustainable ways is becoming increasingly relevant today and a “must-have” in the future. The sustainability megatrend is driven by a growing population, accelerating urbanization, resource intensity, government regulation, climate change, and – most importantly – by the fact that consumers are increasingly demanding healthy, affordable, as well as socially and environmentally responsible products.

https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/sustainability-society-and-you; it provides the knowledge and skills to do this by investigating sustainability from multiple angles and exploring what small steps you can take to have a real impact upon all our future. It gives an introduction to the values and principles associated with sustainability and some of the knowledge and understanding required to make sustainable decisions in personal and professional life.

http://50plus20.org/archives/2952; is a Collaborative MOOC on Responsibility, Sustainability and Ethics for Business and Leadership. The emerging model of offering Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) could pose a major threat to traditional model of management education with some estimating that up to 60% of traditional teaching could be disrupted or in part replace by MOOC offerings. Early adopters of online learning platforms will however find a limited choice of material and courses focused on the broad topic of “Sustainability, Ethics and Responsibility in Business and Leadership”.

Http://sustain-earth.com will continue reporting on sustainability and emerging global trends.

 

 

 

 

Artificial Recharge of Groundwater – Increasing Security, Availability and Quality of Water Resources

Water harvesting is among important water management instruments and can take different forms. Artificial recharge of groundwater, as explained in “sembraragua.blogspot” by Professor em Rafael Fernández Rubio, plays a very important role for the availability of water resources for meeting the increasing demands on water resources especially in arid and semi-arid regions. It allows storage of excess surface water, mitigates evaporation losses and enhances the performance and functionality of aquifers in a number of ways, e.g. capacity, availability, security and quality of water resources. It can, also, add other environmental and water conservation benefits, through creation of pressure barriers.

Professor em Rafael Fernández Rubio, gives an interesting and full introduction the subject of Artificial Recharge including: Definitions and Objectives; Conditioning factors (characteristics of recharge water, characteristics of the receiving aquifer, hydro-climatological features, environmental characteristics of the environment, alternatives recharge facilities); Resetting Devices (surface devices, deep devices); Water Treatment by Recharge; Clogging System. Professor em Rafael Fernández Rubio ends by Bibliography of Interest for further reading. An additional feature of “sembraragua.blogspot” is that it provides supplementary translation from Spanish to other languages with varying qualities for languages other than European ones.

http://sembraragua.blogspot.com.es/2011/06/introduccion-la-recarga-artificial-de.html

Sustain-Earth.Com – Connecting People For Healthy and Wealthy Future

Professionals in all sectors and on all levels around the world are corner stones in shaping the future on our planet; they are, also, leaders that can direct its path. However, for our fellow citizens to be safe, secure and share their responsibility the conservation and sustainable management of our collective natural resources on the earth requires innovation, engagement, transparency and full participation in “serve and get served”. With these objectives we can turn past difficulties, existing obstacles and future threats to solutions, admittance and prosperity.

http://sustain-earth.com/about/

Seeking the reality – Parts of the Truth is not the Whole Truth

An Event is part of a series of event representing a reality that might be complex. In research we seek knowledge that allow understanding all sides of the complex reality. Education helps to prepare you for research and development which are essential components for achieving sustainable socio-economic developments. Follow, share and contribute in http://sustain-earth.com

CHANGE INDIA~ I WILL MAKE THE DIFFERENCE

CHANGE INDIA ~ I WILL MAKE A DIFFERENCE

To a certain extent, all of us are influenced by our religious texts, customs, traditions, etc. Most of us visit places of worship at regular intervals and are very punctual. IF we really ARE so particular about religion, why don’t we practice what our religious texts preach? As far as I know, the common belief is that, in a place where women are respected, God resides there. When we are aware of this, then why do we exploit women?

Exploitation of women is definitely a crime, but a secondary crime. The most primary crime is to overlook our religious texts and claim ourselves to be religious and spiritual in nature. Be true to others. But first, be true to yourself.

Now, I am going to talk about exploitation of women as a crime. Why do we even have such crimes prevailing in our country? Let us accept it, it is all because of our mindset, that women are weak. But, I repeat, that it is a MINDSET and not reality. This thinking pattern of ours eventually takes the form of actions. What is the point of complaining about the exploitation of women when we ourselves are the cause, when we ourselves are the reason? As Mahatma Gandhi very rightly said, ‘Be the change that you want to see in the world’.

My Civics Textbook of 8th grade says, ‘ Women and other weaker sections of society’. When you are being educated that women are weak, then how do you expect a sudden change to take place, which would improve the status of women in our society? We exploit women because we disrespect them and consider them weak. This is our biggest undoing.

Just think about this, why are Women Empowerment, Feminist Approach, etc. such major concerns in India and not in countries abroad? Why aren’t women molested, burnt on account of their incapacity to pay dowry and why isn’t the Sati practice prevalent in countries abroad?

STOP telling women to not get out of her house after 10 and always to wear full-sleeved clothes. Change how YOU perceive her to be. If our Indian constitution preaches ideals of Liberty, Equality, etc. regardless of gender, then let us learn to conform to them.

https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140622163340-257012117-change-india-i-will-make-a-difference-by-asavari-saxena

Author name: ASAVARI SAXENA
Speciality and expertise: ASAVAREE BRAND NAME
Sector/Affiliation: POLITICS & INFRASTRUCTURE
Adress: Bangalore , INDIA
E-mail: saxenaasavari@gmail.com

Invitation – A NEW Logo For Sustain-Earth.

http://sustain-earth.com is a platform and a BLOG for integrating and marketing sustainability in education and research, and popularization of sustainability in science and technology. It supports “Open Access”. It has built-in functions and instruments for coupling education, research and technology with society, market and population needs on national and international levels. It, also, acts for promoting “Business-to-Business” and creating “Career-Development-Plans” for professionals and graduates in the emerging applications of sustainability and socio-economic developments. http://sustain-earth.com is an instruments and vehicle for developing and implementing applied sustainability in all sectors and on all levels.

LOGO of "sustain-earth.com" has three colours. Main colour of "earth" is green a product of  "blue" for  clean water and "yellow" for clean energy.

LOGO of “sustain-earth.com” has three colors. Main color of “earth” is a dynamic green-product of “blue” for clean water and “yellow” for clean energy. A green main arrow representing the functioning and metabolism of “sustain-earth” through fueling life by constant clean water “blue” supported by clean energy “yellow”.

To learn more and get introduction on “http://sustain-earth.com” please visit “ABOUT”. We welcome any questions and inquiries through “CONTACT”. You are, also, most welcome with innovative posts at “CONTRIBUTE”.

China-European Innovative Cooperation For Cleaner Cities

Chinese and European experts are cooperating, through meetings, conferences, roundtables and workshops, to gain valuable insights into clean energy. Government and business stakeholders highlighted their willingness to strengthen EU-China cooperation on energy security. Sustainability concepts to do more with less harm are developed in Europe for successful applications of the “reduce, reuse, recycle” hierarchy in industry. Based on this, it is possible to re-design products that, after their useful life, they can be much environment-friendly than what is possible today.

The China-Europe cooperation involves a “Demo Zone Initiative” that supports the city of Urumqi in technological innovation, low-carbon urban planning and circular economy by introducing successful EU experiences and technologies. Urumqi is one of the most pol- luted cities in China and the world because of heavy air pollution from industrial sulfur dioxide emissions. The dominant industries are petrochemical, metallurgical and textiles. The goal of the “Demo Zone Initiative” is to establish a win-win method to be replicated in other Chinese cities using a toolkit for urban action and district energy planning with local project financing and public-private partnerships (PPP).

The Chinese-European cooperation, by being inter-sectorial and inter-disciplinary, has synergistic effects that bring added value to education, public awareness, construction, industry, transport, environment, decision-making, capacity building, education, research and development.

Click to access EC2_CleanEnergyPerspectives_Issue6.pdf

Renewables Changed Bitter AC-DC Rivals to Successful Marriage

Thomas Edison and his Direct Current “DC” technology lost the historical so-called “War of the Currents” to Alternating Current “AC” in the 1890s that was championed by the Edison rivals Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse. The argument was AC was far more efficient at transmitting electricity over long distances.

Edison, inventor of light bulb and the world’s first DC power distribution system in 1882 was not totally wrong to insist on the needs for DC distribution grid. The technological advantages of AC over DC at that time dedicated the success and expansion of AC power distribution grids initially developed in 1886 by Westinghouse and Stanley with major inputs from Nikola Tesla. An AC power system allowed voltages to be “stepped up” by a transformer for distribution, thus reducing power losses, and then “stepped down” by a transformer for consumer use. The AC technology became gradually mature for large-scale grid up-scaling. However, the advances of DC power distribution for long-distance power transmission took a revival in 1954 when the Swedish company ASEA, predecessor of ABB, the Swiss maker of power and automation equipment, linked the island of Gotland to mainland Sweden with high-voltage DC lines.

However, by late 19th century science and technology was too blind to recognize the problems associated with the use of fossil fuel, e.g. coal, oil and gas, for production and distribution of electric power. During the 20th century it has been an accelerating pile-up of threats not only from fossil fuel consumption what regards the green-house impacts on climate, but also the associated impacts on water resources from fossil fuel production in form of enormous and irreversible environmental pollution and degradation of ecological and water qualities.  With birth of renewables, e.g. solar, wind, geothermal, hydropower and wave power, and the continuous advances in associated DC and smart technologies the advantages of DC distribution grids became once more apparent. They are economic for high-voltage and high-capacity runs over very long distances, they are better suited to handle the electricity produced by solar and wind farms, which starts out as direct current.

Follow the emerging needs for transformation to renewables and the implementation of more sustainable management policies.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/18/business/energy-environment/direct-current-technology-gets-another-look.html?_r=1&

Middle East – Railways for 250 Billion US Dollars

Follow the mega constructions in the Middle East region for the transformation to more a sustainable future where railways provide the most environment friendly and sustainable large-scale and long-term transportation system. Mr. Loay Ghazaleh, Advisor at the Undersecretary Offices, The Ministry of Works, Bahrain, describes in a comprehensive, pedagogic and innovative slideshow the ME “Middle East” Railway Development and PPP “Public Private Partnership” Financing Framework over the next ten years. A major shift in the transport sector of the Middle East with enormous investments that can bring about huge feedback advantages regarding mobility of goods and citizens.  

ABSTRACT. The Middle East has allocated nearly $250bn to various railway projects over the next 10 years with ambitious plan to build around 67,000km of railway tracks throughout the region. The region has the opportunity to build the world’s most advanced passenger and freight transport systems. The presentation touches on all aspects of railway development and strategies in the region including different Public private Partnership (PPP) models and financing / funding advice to better develop rail projects as a sustainable means of transport.

http://www.slideshare.net/mobile/loayghz/me-railway-development-ppp-financing-framework

Historical Development of Stand for Vulnerable Organization on Child Development Services

The Stand for Vulnerable Organization (SVO) was founded by Misganaw Eticha Dubie and his wife Tadelu Debissa Eticha with other three co-founders: Berhanu Kenea Yifru, Fayera Abdissa Kitla and Daniel Fantaye Bekana.

Misganaw Eticha Dubie (the founder) was a second year university student in 1992. On April 3, 1992, he went outside of the university campus to look for a shoeshine after he had his lunch. While a Shoe shiner was polishing his shoes, the founder looked at the nearby mother who was sitting on the roadside with her three children, two daughters and a son. Her tears were flowing down while the son was eating bread but the two daughters were crying for. The founder asked the mother “why are you weeping and your children are crying?” The mother immediately responded, “They are hungry”. He was stricken by her words of hunger and gave her the bread that he took for a Shoe Shiner from his lunch plate. This bread was to be given to the Shoe Shiner instead of the payment of some coins. Because of the sensitivity of the founder towards the incident, humanitarian service concept conceived on that day in his mind. He recalled the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew 25: 35-45, which directs His disciples to reach for the poor and geared his mind to start thinking on how to give birth of the conception. His heart never got a rest from that day onwards to seek ways and strategies of realizing desired wholistic development for children and empowering their guardians particularly their mothers who mostly suffer with their children.

The founder understood that children and mothers are the most affected vulnerable sections of a society from external shocks. The situation has persuaded him to concentrate on prioritizing children and their mothers/ women’s’ involvement in any process of development undertakings. He started reading and learning operational experiences of other previously established humanitarian organizations on their organizational administration, effectiveness, efficiency, partnership, leadership and other related issues to have an organization with a strong ground in bringing the desired goal in Ethiopia. This enabled him to learn the strengths and weaknesses of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and started to design how to share his vision and recruit people who shared the vision and willing to shoulder the burden and serve their communities with a genuine good will. The dream to have strong kind of NGO in Ethiopia challenged the founder and pushed him to take time to work on effective founding strategies of the Stand for Vulnerable Organization (SVO).

During his efforts to share his vision, he faced many challenges from different people. Many people and organizations were suspicious about a motive of NGO establishment since they see some NGOs misuse organizational resources. This has made the beginning difficult to convince and get committed collaborators to found the SVO. Since it was difficult to believe the idea that was not concrete and on the ground, people were with full of questions and reluctant to work with the founder except a few people. However, the pain of Ethiopian people never gave him rest to evacuate from the vision but continued his way with perseverance, which finally brought forth the birth of the Stand for Vulnerable Organization (SVO) after 12 years of its conception.

Finally, by organizing five co-founders including his wife, who was committed for the founding of the organization at all required costs and shared his burden, he led the meeting on the birth of SVO on October 15, 2005. The intention is to have a strong organization that was not simply adding the number of NGOs but to bring an NGO that is able to influence the development of the country in a meaningful way. With this notion and experience of its first conception of incidence in mind, SVO set priority to address the needs of children and their guardians, particularly women, in its development works to revenge poverty that has been the enemy of generations. It is all about empowering the Ethiopian communities so that they are able to fight poverty particularly the state of being devoid of basic needs.

Fulfilling all the legal requirements, SVO was officially registered on July 26, 2006 at the national level by its previous name, the Stand for the Vulnerables Association (SVA). Under the new Proclamation of 621/2001, the Stand for Vulnerable Organization was re-registered on October 16, 2009 by Charities and Societies Agency with a slight change to its name as the Stand for Vulnerable Organization (SVO).

After its legal registration, the first General Assembly Meeting was held on August 26, 2006 at the Marxist (Dibab Square) in front of Addis Ababa University (Main Campus) and its first official executive board members and executive director were appointed by the General Assembly. The meeting was held at the Square because of the organization was a new beginner without office. The rain that was falling on the attendants of the meeting was unforgettable in the history of SVO since it indicates the level of commitment of the General Assembly members who were recruited and committed to contribute to the development of our country.

The Stand for Vulnerable Organization (SVO) then after was shifted from the vision of single person to the vision of many people who were organized into legal body of General Assembly members to aggressively fight the poverty in the country. The General Assembly members of SVO consists of trained development experts with rich experiences in child and women development, natural resource management, livelihood improvement, health development, consultancy work, education, leadership and management working with different non-governmental and government organizations. It is with this strong background that the General Assembly members were well equipped with expertise and experience of project planning, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation. Above all, they are people with deep love for their country and committed heart to serve their people at any cost. This commitment of the founders and General Assembly members helped SVO to move forward to the position of bringing inexorable impact in the development direction of our country.

Misganaw Eticha
Executive Director
Stand for Vulnerable Organization ( SVO)

· © 2014 Stand for Vulnerable Organization (SVO) (http://www.sva.org.et/about-us/historical-background/)

Author name: Misganaw Eticha
Speciality and expertise: Sociology (BA); Development Studies
Sector/Affiliation: Child and Youth Development
Adress: Addis Ababa – Ethiopia
E-mail: misganaweticha.svo@gmail.com
Mobile: +251911516426
Type of contribution: Child Development

Transformation to Clean Energy – The Canadian Challenges

The world is currently facing growing pressures for transformation to clean energy in order to mitigate the environmental and climatic impacts of traditional energy sources. For Canada transformation to clean energy is still a big challenge, however it represents a unique opportunity for traditional energy producers and clean energy producers to team-up. These players have to come-up with a coherent task with the government to assure further development of traditional sources of energy in environmentally responsible manner while at the same time start grow more quickly to clean electricity sector. Resolving these issues will make it possible to meet the challenges for the transition to clean energy.

Similar challenges for countries with high carbon dioxide emission per capita, also, exist around the world but not all the countries have the same possibilities and resources for full and quick transformation to clean energy because of necessary huge capital investments, access to the required high-tech infra-structure/expertise and above all the political will. However, countries with low carbon dioxide emissions per capita, e.g. in Africa and South America, have to implement policies and encourage promotion of clean energy production while building up their technology, industry and production sectors.

http://www.pembina.org/pub/2406

Lessons to be learned – The Sustainability Program of North Ireland

While there are no “standard maps” for achieving successful sustainable socio-economic developments everywhere in the world, yet we can learn from exiting strategies and solutions. Naturally, nations around the world have own conditions, structures, needs and may exist in different stages of development with complex internal and external political, economical and trade relations. Assessing the existing models and strategies helps formulating short and long-term roadmaps that are appropriate and suitable to the socio-economic needs and conditions. Successful socio-economic developments can’t be based on random actions and have to follow robust strategies emanating from effective, collective and coherent interactions between all sectors and on all levels. In this context, cloudy and conflicting interesting “within and between” nations can be major obstacles for achieving sustainable socio-economic developments.

An example on how to build national roadmaps for bring about successful socio-economic developments even under economic constrains is given here.

http://www.sustainableni.org/index.php

“Sustain-earth” at Ångström’s Laboratory, Uppsala University

The news letter “Det händer på Ångström” at Ångström’s Laboratory, Uppsala University, has announced an open-call for contributions to “sustain-earth”. Translation from Swedish to English is given below.

Farid El-Daoushy, professor em vid fysik och astronomi, Ångströmlaboratoriet, hälsar alla välkomna att besöka, dela och bidra i “sustain-earth”, en blogg för marknadsföring av utbildning och forskning, popularisering av vetenskap och teknik, stödjande av ”Open Access” med fokus på hållbar utveckling.

Inbyggda funktioner finns för koppling av utbildning och forskning till samhället och marknaden på nationell och internationell nivå samt skapande av karriärutvecklingsplaner. http://sustain-earth.com verkar för ökad hållbarhet inom alla sektorer och på olika nivåer där Sverige är ledande.

In English.

Farid El-Daoushy, professor em at the Department of Physics and Astronomy, Ångström’s Laboratory (Uppsala University) welcomes all to visit, share and contribute in “sustain-earth”, a bolg for marketing education and research, popularization of knowledge and technology, and for supporting “Open Access” with focus on sustainable development.

Embedded functions are available for coupling education and research to the society and the market on national and international levels as well as for creation of Career-Development-Plans. http://sustain-earth.com strives towards enhanced sustainability in all sectors and on all levels where Sweden is a leading nation.

Det händer på Ångström, April 2014

GREEN POLITICS ANSWER TO GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL CHALLENGES

The green ideology is a philosophy practiced and advocated for by a coalition of political leaders and activists, whose goal is to advocate for peace, security, unity, preservation of the environment and ecosystem for socio-economic development, all over the world. These political leaders and activists are called “The Greens”. The Green ideology rests on solidarity that can be expressed in three parts: Solidarity with all the people of the world; Solidarity with animals, nature and the ecological system; Solidarity with future generations. For more information on this Political Platform, please, visit: 

http://www.robinahknanyunja.com/robk/?page_id=16.

The fact that the green ideology puts environmental responsibility at the same level like other development sectors, means that it provides the necessary political will to curb environmental degradation, which is more often lacking with conventional governments.  

ABOUT the author: ROBINAH K. NANYUNJA, is the President General, Ecological Party of Uganda, which is Uganda’s Green Party. She is a Green MP Candidate for Kawempe North Constituency 2016 in Kampala Uganda. Full BIO: http://www.robinahknanyunja.com/robk/?page_id=38