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Quite a large number of civil society organisations and NGOs have no organically-evolved mandate from the citizens,"

Mkaronda said complaints about NGO conduct may sometimes stem from public misunderstanding about the roles of these groups: "For example, the Zimbabwean community in South Africa expects us to mobilise resources to sort out shelter, feeding and legal (immigration) status. Yet our role is to highlight the crisis in Zimbabwe."

believes self-regulation may hold the key to improving matters: "It would be a good idea if NGOs and civil society groups came up with a code of conduct like the one which guides other professionals such as medical doctors and lawyers."

Over the past 150 years, deforestation has contributed an estimated 30 percent of the atmospheric build-up of CO2. It is also a significant driving force behind the loss of genes, species, and critical ecosystem services. However, in the international policy arena, biodiversity loss and climate change have often moved in wholly unconnected domains. — Climate, Biodiversity, and Forests, World Resources Institute, 1998

Carbon Sinks and LandA mechanism suggested for tackling climate change and warming has been the idea of using "Carbon Sinks" to soak up carbon dioxide. To aid in this, reforestation, or planting of new forests, have been suggested. This is a popular strategy for the logging industry and nations with large forests interests, such as Canada, the United States, various Latin American nations, and some Asian countries such as Indonesia.While there may be some potential in this solution, it cannot be effective on its own. This is because it legitimizes continued destruction of old-growth and pristine forests which are rich ecosystem and have an established biodiversity base (albeit shrinking now) that naturally maintain the environment (at no cost!). Creating new forest areas would require the creation of entire ecosystems. It is also criticized for being a quick fix that doesn't tackle the root causes effectively and doesn't lead to, or promote actual emissions reduction.

Environmentalists and others point out that the use of carbon sinks is a big loophole in the Kytoto Protocol; that if carbon sinks can be counted towards emissions reductions credit, then industrialized countries would be able to meet their commitments while reducing emissions by less than would otherwise be required. Because they are carbon sinks, it means that when forests burn or as vegetation naturally dies, they release more carbon too (because it is stored carbon). As the climate changes, it is possible that there may be more forest fires etc, releasing more carbon. (And then these sinks would become sources!)

In 1992, a report was published by the United Nations, which proposes that if CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions continue with present trends (which is the case), the coastal plains of Bangladesh and the Netherlands will flood by the year 2100. Furthermore, the islands of the Maldives would completely disappear.

Wind is safe and 100 percent clean. It’s also a cost-effective, inexhaustible and readily available source of energy.

more than a million babies in the region die each year before they are a month old because of a lack of essential health care.

Malawi, together with Burkina Faso, Eritrea, Madagascar, Tanzania and Uganda, is regarded as having made significant progress in reducing infant deaths over the last 10 years, thanks to increased government spending on basic health care.

Currently infant mortality stands at 94 deaths per 1,000 live births in Malawi. A decade ago, the infant mortality rate was pegged at 146 per 1,000 live births.

If we were to use global dimming pollutants to stave off the effects of global warming, we would still face many problems, such as:Human health problems from the soot/smogEnvironmental problems such as acid rainEcological problems such as changes in rainfall patterns (as the Ethiopian famine example above reminds us) which can kill millions, if not billions.Climatologists are stressing that the roots of both global dimming causing pollutants and global warming causing greenhouse gases have to be dealt with together and soon.

The death toll that global dimming may have already caused is thought to be massive.Climatologists studying this phenomenon believe that the reflection of heat have made waters in the northern hemisphere cooler. As a result, less rain has formed in key areas and crucial rainfall has failed to arrive over the Sahel in Northern Africa.In the 1970s and 1980s, massive famines were caused by failed rains which climatologists had never quite understood why they had failed.The answers that global dimming models seemed to provide, the documentary noted, has led to a chilling conclusion: “what came out of our exhaust pipes and power stations [from Europe and North America] contributed to the deaths of a million people in Africa, and afflicted 50 million more” with hunger and starvation.

Population and Climate ChangeA “Malthusian” theory about the relationship between population growth and the environment suggests that as populations grow, they will strip their resources leading to famine, hunger and environmental degradation.As detailed further in this site’s section on population, that is an oversimplification and has largely shown not to be true. Instead, it has been factors such as politics and economics (i.e. how we use our resources and for what purpose) that has determined environmental degradation or sustainability.For example, the world’s wealthiest 20% (i.e. the rich countries) consume approximately 80% of the world’s resources, while the rest of humanity shares the other 20% of resource consumed, as noted in the consumption section of this web site.In regards to climate change, countries with large populations such as China and India have not been the countries contributing greenhouse gases for the decades that has been required to trigger climate change, as noted further above.While in total amounts their emissions might be high (China is second largest emitter after the United States, for example), per person, their emissions are significantly smaller as noted earlier.

as countries such as China, India and Brazil grow in prosperity, there will be large populations with purchasing power, consuming more goods and services, thus making more demands on the planet.Indeed, many environmentalists have constantly noted that if such countries were to follow the style of development that the rich countries used and emulate them, then our planet may not be able to cope much longer.

researchers have found that depending on what variables you factor in, the planet can support an extremely large population, or an extremely small one. These ranges are ridiculously wide: from 2 billion to 147 billion people! Why such variance? It depends on how efficiently resources are used and for what purpose (i.e. economics).