Syrian Crisis : Charity Navigator: Find out which charities are providing humanitarian aid to the ever-increasing number of Syrians affected by the civil war.
Background
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) reports that with over half the population forced out of their homes, the nearly six-year Syrian conflict is the largest displacement crisis in the world. Currently, there are 13.5 million Syrians requiring humanitarian aid. Of those, 4.9 million are trapped in hard-to-reach areas and more than half of those are children. More specifically, the UNOCHA says that 411,000 children are living in besieged locations without adequate access to food, water, or healthcare.
Current Crisis
In the government’s efforts to retake the city of Aleppo, hundreds of people have been killed and tens of thousands more displaced after bombing has left entire neighborhoods in ruins. But there is some hope as efforts to evacuate civilians finally got underway in mid-December 2016.
How to Help
The Syrians impacted by the ongoing, bloody civil war depend upon humanitarian aid for food, clothing and shelter. The highly-rated charities listed here are providing these services and more (such as medical assistance and schooling for children). Be sure to consider what it is that you want your donation to accomplish and to find a charity offering that specific type of aid. To do that, simply click on the charity’s name and view its rating page (where you can learn about its Financial Health, Accountability & Transparency). Once you are satisfied with its rating, then you can go to the charity’s website (we link to each charity’s site from its ratings page) to learn more specifically about the type of assistance the charity is providing in relation to the Syrian crisis.
Learn about the criteria used to create this featured list of charities.
This list was last updated on 1/5/17.
Saturday 7 January 2017
Monday 2 January 2017
Climate change-Children of the Earth
Help reduce CO2 emissions and fight global warming! Plant trees for free by simply clicking on the link. Reduce carbon emissions and fight global warming. http://ecologyfund.com
/
Plant a tree with a 50 second view of this eco friendly ad. https://youtu.be/
www.bubblytree.com
http://caretoclick.com/?referral_id=4506-ce0b6ca7f4507de855135e7882afc57d
http://therainforestsite.greatergood.com/
http://www.care2.com/click-to-donate/rainforest/
http://www.care2.com/click-to-donate/global-warming/
When You Plant It Forward, You Change Lives.
https://info.ecosia.org/what
http://cannecy.free.fr/iforest/en/
http://www.landcareniagara.com/index.php
http://www.answer4earth.com/index.php
http://www.klimatbalans.se/klicka.html
http://www.diewaldseite.de/
When you choose the activity you want to support and click the "Donate" button, Brother will make a donation of one yen (about one cent USD) per click on your behalf.
http://www.brotherearth.com/en/top.html
https://naturarvet.se/ Click on the icon next to the counter to preserve the forest in Scandanavia
Shop at tentree and like them on social media
https://www.facebook.com/
Like Boxed water on social media and when you post a picture of their water with the hashtag they will plant 2 trees for you.
https://www.facebook.com/
Now available in USA and Canada BetterPlanetPaper, with every purchase or referral of toilet paper or toilet roll they plant a tree! Eco Friendly paper for you!
https://
Get paid to camp!
https://www.facebook.com/
Every hammock purchased plants 2 trees in Africa!!
www.freecharitysupport.blo
https://www.facebook.com/
Modern-Day Plague
Deforestation is clearing Earth's forests on a massive scale, often resulting in damage to the quality of the land. Forests still cover about 30 percent of the world’s land area, but swaths the size of Panama are lost each and every year.
The world’s rain forests could completely vanish in a hundred years at the current rate of deforestation.
Forests are cut down for many reasons, but most of them are related to money or to people’s need to provide for their families.The biggest driver of deforestation is agriculture. Farmers cut forests to provide more room for planting crops or grazing livestock. Often many small farmers will each clear a few acres to feed their families by cutting down trees and burning them in a process known as “slash and burn” agriculture.
Logging operations, which provide the world’s wood and paper products, also cut countless trees each year. Loggers, some of them acting illegally, also build roads to access more and more remote forests—which leads to further deforestation. Forests are also cut as a result of growing urban sprawl.
Not all deforestation is intentional. Some is caused by a combination of human and natural factors like wildfires and subsequent overgrazing, which may prevent the growth of young trees.
Deforestation has many negative effects on the environment. The most dramatic impact is a loss of habitat for millions of species. Seventy percent of Earth’s land animals and plants live in forests, and many cannot survive the deforestation that destroys their homes.
Deforestation also drives climate change. Forest soils are moist, but without protection from sun-blocking tree cover they quickly dry out. Trees also help perpetuate the water cycle by returning water vapor back into the atmosphere. Without trees to fill these roles, many former forest lands can quickly become barren deserts.
Removing trees deprives the forest of portions of its canopy, which blocks the sun’s rays during the day and holds in heat at night. This disruption leads to more extreme temperatures swings that can be harmful to plants and animals.
Trees also play a critical role in absorbing the greenhouse gases that fuel global warming. Fewer forests means larger amounts of greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere—and increased speed and severity of global warming.
The quickest solution to deforestation would be to simply stop cutting down trees. Though deforestation rates have slowed a bit in recent years, financial realities make this unlikely to occur.
A more workable solution is to carefully manage forest resources by eliminating clear-cutting to make sure that forest environments remain intact. The cutting that does occur should be balanced by the planting of enough young trees to replace the older ones felled in any given forest. The number of new tree plantations is growing each year, but their total still equals a tiny fraction of the Earth’s forested land.
#EcoFriendly #GreenLiving #green #grow #growtrees #trees #plant #planttrees #deforestration #forests #ecology #forestration #ClimateChange #botany #environment #EnvironmentalScientist #SaveThePlanet #ReduceCO2 #MakeADifference
#changelives #letsgetplanting #SaveEarth #natureheals #ourplanet #treehuggers #treelovers
About Social Plastic & The Plastic Bank
Everything You Need To Know About Ocean Plastic For #WorldOceansDay
by Sean Macmillan | Jun 8, 2016 | Uncategorized |
Understanding Ocean Plastics Is Key To Keeping Our Oceans Healthy
Ocean plastic is found in nearly every corner of our seas; from the most remote beaches to the arctic ice. An estimated 4.7 to 12.7 million metric tonnes of plastic enter our oceans annually. If we take the mid-point that’s about 17,637,000,000 pounds of plastic every year, or enough to fill 5 grocery bags for every single foot of coastline in the world. If that alone weren’t bad enough, here’s a snapshot of what that means:
- There are an estimated 5.25 TRILLION pieces of plastic in the ocean.
- By 2050 we could have more plastic than fish in our oceans.
- At least 1 million sea birds and 100,000 marine mammals die each year because of plastic pollution.
- Toxic chemicals accumulate in ocean plastic (sometimes concentrating at 1 million times higher than the water around it) and end up in our food chain.
The common understanding is that there are huge ‘garbage islands’ floating in the middle of the ocean – but that’s not quite true. These floating garbage patches aren’t always visible from the air — or even from a passing boat — since most of the plastic is floating just beneath the surface, and most of the pieces are smaller than 1 centimeter in diameter. Over time, the plastic bits get broken down into ever smaller pieces as they get battered by waves and degraded by the sun.
So how does all this plastic find it’s way out to the middle of the ocean? As it turns out, about 80 percent of ocean plastic gets there from the land. Most of our plastic garbage does end up in landfills, where it takes thousands of years to degrade. A small fraction gets recycled – in the United States, the rate is only about 9 percent.
However, many developing countries don’t have the infrastructure to deal with solid waste, so plastic is pushed into the ocean-bound waterways rather than collected to be brought to landfills. Plastic leaks from garbage dumps, gets blown out by the wind, flows down storm drains and is carried out to sea by rivers and waterways.
How do we start finding solutions? As it turns out, plastic is very valuable and there’s a real business solution to the ocean plastic problem. Between $80 and $120 billion dollars is lost to the economy each year when we dispose of plastic packaging.
You can get reveal value in plastic by asking a brand to use Social Plastic® on Twitter or supporting brands who use Social Plastic® – like these high-end sunglasses made from the plastic we collect in Haiti.
Social Plastic® is sold to impact-driven brands to transfer the value of the plastic into the hands of the people who collect it. By making plastic waste a currency, it becomes too valuable to end up in ocean-bound rivers and waterways.
From Plastic into usable fuel
http://themindunleashed.com/2017/01/trash-gold-company-plans-turn-plastic-ocean-trash-usable-fuel.html
http://plasticbank.org/
http://plasticbank.org/
What can we all do to help keep our oceans clean?
- Keep the beaches clean – We know you’re taking your trash home with you; so why not pick up a few pieces while you’re there?
- Reuse and recycle – Try to avoid packaging whenever you can. Carry a reusable water bottle and grocery bag then recycle whatever you can.
- Use your buying power to create change - : One of the most effective ways to prevent plastic waste is making sure your purchasing decisions reduce the amount of new plastic being created.
Recycled plastic prevents the need to manufacture new material, but Social Plastic keeps plastic out of the ocean.
Social Plastic is collected in vulnerable coastal communities throughout the world. It creates income for the people who need it most and they make sure that pollution doesn’t end up in the ocean.
You can GATHER TOGETHER with us by donating to the cause, proving the demand on Facebook, or asking a brand to use Social Plastic® on Twitter.
Ecosia in 2016
I've planted 862 trees just by searching the web with Ecosia. https://info.ecosia.org/?utm_source=stc
Mangrove forests, dancing lessons and rain in the dry season
2016 was an eventful year for various reasons, not all of them pleasant. However, from a tree planting perspective, we had many wonderful stories to share:
We were able to start supporting additional reforestation programs and are now planting trees in Burkina Faso, Madagascar and Peru. We hired Ecosia’s first Tree Planting Officer, who will go to any length to get an expert look at the trees you are helping us plant. We experienced rain in the Sahel desert, were granted the honour to attend a meeting of the local chiefs, watched coffee seedlings be planted by hand in the Amazon rainforest, admired our tree nurseries in Madagascar from a bird’s eye view, took a walk through a Mangrove forest and were taught how to dance properly in Burkina Faso.
If 2016 has helped us understand anything, it is the following: Together, we can make amazing things happen. Thank you for joining us on this journey, dear Ecosians, and have a peaceful 2017.
Thursday 29 December 2016
Care To Click MAKE A DIFFERENCE!
http://caretoclick.com/?referral_id=4506-ce0b6ca7f4507de855135e7882afc57d
Join me on CaretoClick today to help People, Animals and the environment!
Join me on CaretoClick today to help People, Animals and the environment!
Conservation photographer wants his emotional photos to propel you into action
Jasper Doest makes people notice worthy environmental causes.
To Jasper Doest, it doesn't matter if a photo tells a story if it doesn't inspire action. What an audience feels and chooses to do after viewing his work is as important to him as the work itself.
The recipient of many prestigious awards, Doest focus is on tough environmental issues and he has launched a #challengetochange campaign alongside his photography. When you look at his emotional images, which are as much fine art as photojournalism, it's impossible not to ponder how one can help both the species and the planet.
We spoke with Doest about what he seeks out in his subjects, how he combats compassion fatigue and what he hopes to accomplish through his photography.
MNN: How did you get started in photography?
Jasper Doest: When I look back at images of my childhood, photography always seemed to play a role in my life. Firstly, my dad liked to do photography, and by the age of 4 I had my own Kodak Instamatic. However, it wasn't until the age of 20 that I purchased a SLR camera with my first salary, working as a laboratory assistant. I really enjoyed taking photographs, but this first camera soon ended up in the closet. When I decided to continue my studies, I took a job in an electronic warehouse, accidentally ending up in the camera department. I had no knowledge about the cameras whatsoever but decided I needed to acquire some to help people choose the right camera. And from that moment on I was hooked!
My parents raised me with a lot of respect for the natural world. When I started out with my photography I tried many disciplines, but I found the most enjoyment when I was working with the natural world. I therefore decided to take a biology degree to enhance my knowledge about the subjects I was photographing. The study for that degree took me to the Arctic region, where I took an image of two Arctic fox kits that won a major award in the Netherlands.
That's when I decided I had to follow my heart and become a full-time professional, dedicating my time to documenting the utter beauty and fragility of the world that surrounds us. That was more than 10 years ago, and that's what I'm still doing now.
What drew you to conservation as a focus in your work?
When I visited the Arctic for the first time, I was stunned by the vast landscape that had been there as far as humans can remember. Yet when I returned, only a couple of years later, I noticed the significant changes in the landscape and its weather patterns.
I remember I sat down on a rock and stared into the distance in the drizzling rain, and I realized science wasn't for me. It would take me forever to statistically prove something that I could instantly communicate to an audience as a photographer. That's the power of photography. I would even dare to say that without imagery, we wouldn't be able to communicate about some of these issues as they are so complicated that we need visual guidance.
How did you first discover that storks were changing their migratory patterns based on landfills?
I started focusing on the natural history of white storks shortly after I started as a professional photographer. The issues I wanted to tackle in the Arctic felt too big for a new kid on the block like I was. I felt too far away from the fire and realized it would take a lot of investments to produce the image material to really make a difference. In the meantime, I saw some of conservation photography heroes, like Paul Nicklen, doing such an amazing job around the poles so I didn't feel the urge to contribute here. I wanted to work on something that deserved attention closer to home.
I decided to work one season on a bird species that is deeply embedded in many cultures: the white stork. I wasn't aware of any conservation issues, besides the bird being one of the big reintroduction successes of the past century.
During the summer, my wife, Maaike, and I decided to travel to Spain for the holidays, and it was there that I discovered large numbers of white storks above the local landfills. The gate of the landfill was open, and I decided to walk in and ask if I could take some photographs.
What compelled you to tell this particular story through photography?
What I got to see inside that dump goes beyond words. It was something I had to share with the outside world. Photography seemed the only way to do it. Unfortunately, I don't speak Spanish and the people at the dump didn't speak any English which made communication very difficult.
In the end, it turned out I wouldn't get any permission. I cried so hard while driving back to our camping site. It took me two years to get permission, and when I got back to Spain after a 20-hour car drive, waving with a governmental permission, the door remained closed as all landfills are privately owned properties and therefore my governmental permission turned out to be useless. I don't recall ever being so frustrated with my work, with myself, with the world.
But still I felt that it was my obligation to tell the story, which in the end I did with the help of many Spanish and Portuguese friends. We were able to portray the symbol of new life, the white stork, as it is foraging by the thousands on the excretions of our human society.
In the end, the story wasn't really about storks anymore. Through the images I'm holding a mirror to human society by using the white stork as a character.
It's easy for conservationists to experience compassion fatigue. Did you experience it while working on this story? Do you have strategies for staving that off?
I think that if you believe in the necessity of the story being told, there is a way back. But you have to truly believe, and of course you run into all sorts of doubt. But then again, you never doubt the cause, so you keep on doing whatever you can to make it possible. People who give up have stopped believing. And when you lose your faith, holding on is difficult. So before I jump into any multi-year plan, I need to know if I believe in it's cause. If I do, I'm all in and no strategies for staving off compassion fatigue are necessary.
You're a fellow with the International League of Conservation Photographers. How has being part of this organization helped or shaped your environmental work?
I was invited to apply for iLCP back in 2008. However, I didn't feel ready, I was still discovering photography as a communicative tool. Five years later I applied, not knowing how I would be able to contribute to the organization but hoping I could learn how to make an actual difference through my photography.
Soon after being accepted, I flew to Washington for the annual meeting, and I was very pleased to find a passionate group of colleagues who are all on the same mission. Some very interesting discussions have been raised among the fellows, which were very inspiring for me. I think the fellowship has unique qualities to make a difference as a group, and I'm looking forward being part of that movement within the next years.
This award-winning image of a Japanese macaque is one of many unique portraits Doest has taken of these famous monkeys. (Photo: Jasper Doest)
You manage to craft an extraordinary blend of fine art and conservation in your work. What is your thinking process behind creating an image that can capture emotion, art and a story in one frame?
I love the balancing game between fine art and photojournalistic work. Within this modern world, people seem to be getting used to all those hard-hitting images we get to see on a daily basis. They don't work as well anymore as they used to in the past. The most dangerous thing on this planet is when people stop caring. And that is something that is happening more and more — people don't seem to care anymore.
Why's that, you might ask. Well, there are multiple reasons to find. But one is that they are losing hope. They've lost faith in "the system" and as a result only care about themselves as they struggle for survival: their family, their pension, their healthcare. Throw hard-hitting imagery towards an audience that has given up... would that make a difference? I don't think so.
We have to make people care. We need them to fall in love with the subject we want them to care about, and once we're in, there is hope to make them care enough in order to make a difference. And I believe the aesthetic quality helps here. It helps people fall in love, and once you love something, you're willing to fight for it.
So what I do is place myself in a situation that has the conservation content, and I try to search for aesthetic ways to frame my images. I search for things that make my heart beat faster, not only content-wise, but visually. And over the years I find a home in this balancing act.
However, sometimes I fall off and find myself creating visually interesting photographs without any message, or images full of content but not visually pleasing. But that doesn't really matter, because I know that if I try long enough, I'll be back on that slack line again. It's where I feel most comfortable.
Your work photographing Japanese macaques particularly illustrates your ability to capture emotion and art in a storytelling frame — and you made a concerted effort to show them in a way never seen before. What was your approach to photographing these famous monkeys?
That's a question I have gotten many times, and I find it difficult to answer. I think I've just been myself and I've tried to get accepted for who I am. It's the biggest compliment in life when you get accepted [by an animal], and it takes a certain level of behavioral adaptation to make that work.
It means you need to read and understand the social dynamics, which seems to come quite natural to me. As I got to know this group of macaques better, it was easier to understand what I wanted to bring to the surface through my images. It's how I always work.
I'm not a fast photographer. I need time to submerge myself within a system, trying to find out what it is that makes me feel excited. Once I know, I start searching for aesthetic ways to bring these elements together.
Most people who have visited the monkeys have visited them only for a couple of days. That's like meeting somebody for the first time. You might feel a connection, but it's very difficult to bring out these unique distinct qualities that make this individual special.
Therefore you need to spend time, give the individual its personal space to move while you're there. You build a relationship, and once you've gained access, these special images you've been looking for start coming to you.
If you ask me, I didn't do anything special with these monkeys. It didn't feel like it took a lot of effort. These moments came to me, and I was able to anticipate and accept these unique moments while spending time with these individual monkeys.
Do you have other stories currently taking up your interest, or a topic you'd like to start working on?
There are many things that have my interest. In the past I've tried to force myself looking for new subjects. While working with the storks, I was afraid of the black hole that would appear if I would ever finish that story. I spent nights awake thinking about the moment that in the end never occurred. Would I do a story about mute swans? Or perhaps I could work with gelada baboons in Ethiopia. The list was endless.
In the end, an editor reminded me it is not a matter of subject. It could be anything as long as it's a story that you can't stop thinking about.
I couldn't see my next subject as my mind was occupied with the storks, and now that I've finished there are other things that have crossed my path. And as I'm doing my research on the topic, I can't wait to submerge myself again. Effortlessly, because I once again believe in the necessity to tell this story. These things do not come up when sitting behind the desk. It's love. I fall in love with my subjects.
And once you fall in love, there is no way back.
"Snow Monkeys" appears in the October 2016 issue of National Geographic Magazine.
Saturday 24 December 2016
KIND is... Transformation of Hearts
Show you care by joining www.care2.com and help change the world by signing petitions and sharing with others. You earn rewards as you do so and can redeem them to support your favorite charities!
Here is an article from their blog about their favorite resources!
care2blog & news
Some of our favorite resources
It can be difficult to keep a pulse on all the injustices facing people, animals, and the world. Sometimes we don’t hear about a problem until it’s too late to do anything about it. Or, we hear about it only once many people and animals have already suffered. So we put together a list of some of our favorite resources to educate ourselves on important topics of social justice. We hope you’ll use these to find issues to build campaigns around. You can amplify a cause by creating a petition, organizing a rally or putting pressure on decision makers.
Enjoy, and comment with your favorite resources too!
Animal welfare:
Human rights:
- Human Rights Watch
- Al Jazeera
- RT
- The Intercept (human rights/political corruption)
Civil Rights:
Women’s rights:
- Ultraviolet
- Bitch Media
- Feministing
- Bust
- Elizabeth Nolan Brown is Julie’s friend who does excellent work re: sex worker rights, abortion rights, etc
LGBTQ rights:
The Environment:
UK (various):
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