28/11/2009

Ice Care 2, the start ...

On the 7th Dec. starts the Copenhagen Summit and the Ice Care team will be on its way to the Mount Kilimanjaro. On the 11th Dec. the International Mountain Day will be highlighted (www.fao.org/mnts/intl_mountain_day_en.asp) and, with some luck, precisely on that day we will reach the top of Africa (5.896m) and its glaciers, adding even more symbolism to the second Ice Care expedition.
The departure of the team takes place on the 4th of Dec. We will be 7 members, including the anthropologist Joana RP, who will guide us through the visit to the Maasai people to understand their problems resulting from the climate changes, the HPP Health doctor Cristina Pereira, and 3 participants on our ‘social program’, that will help us to register the receding of the Kili glaciers.
Meanwhile, China was promising to lead the reduction on the greenhouse gases effects through the next decade. India wanted to play game, and the USA could not stay behind …
After the impact of the movie presented by Al Gore, now was the time for the photographer James Balog, whose video (19 min.) is worthwhile to watch. Balog shares new image sequences from the Extreme Ice Survey, a network of time-lapse cameras recording glaciers receding at an alarming rate, some of the most vivid evidence yet of climate change: http://www.ted.com/talks/james_balog_time_lapse_proof_of_extreme_ice_loss.html

04/11/2009

human consequences of climate change

At a recent conference, someone asked me about the goals of our work. ‘If we stop our disruptive behavior right now, could we still save the Kilimanjaro glaciers?’
I believe what we’ll do with the Maasai community goes beyond that kind of controversy now…regardless of who’s to blame, there is certainly lots of help we provide to the people suffering the consequences of climate change…
That’s what we aim to do with the Maasai, starting in December the 4th