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Clean Development

The Millenium Development Goals, agreed to by every member country of the United Nations in 2000, call for the worldwide eradication of poverty and hunger, universal education, gender equality and huge improvements in health by 2015: two years ago!!

Can we do this without making the planet warmer?

Let's think big and imagine how we can confront the climate crisis in a way that is realistic about the other major problems that we face as a planet and as a species on it.




Clean Development >

Can We Eradicate Hunger and Poverty Without Making the Planet Warmer?

thusseini

I don't think it is possible to attempt to eradicate hunger without having an effect on the climate. One way or another, everything that uses technology these days adds to making the climate warmer. In order to eradicate hunger and poverty, certain donations will have to be made and of course, these donations aren't going magically appear in front of the people who suffer from poverty and hunger. We need to transport the goods, and with that we need the use of technology such as planes, cars boats etc. On that note, we can confirm in order to help the society from hunger and poverty, there is a fair share of technology being used which would add to the increase of the climate hence answering the question "Can we do this without making the plant warmer?"

hodin

what about promoting local agriculture instead of shipping food?  yes, every activity uses some carbon, but the key, I think, is to consider the carbon impact as an integral part of the planning.

chass2

You are somewhat correct in the basis that you state "everything that uses technology these days adds to making the climate warmer." However, there are new ways of creating and using technology that don't have a negative effect on the environment, like wind-powered machines and solar panels. Solar panels increase the financial efficiency of where they are used, and return the money you invest in them. They also cause little to no pollution, so people who use them for their companies or homes do not have to be as pessimistic as others who's places do not contain such panels.

Furthermore, wind-powered machines have been overlooked for generations, and are actually quite a useful energy source. Wind can be used to propel watercraft, and create energy by windmills. Wind-powered machinery has had a huge impact on our growing society since the early times. So, in a sense, wind-powered machines are not necessarily new, but they have been used less and less as time passes by, and overlooked as useless with the inventions of fossil fuel and electric machines. As someone else in  a different discussion has stated, most electric cars can cause more pollution than other cars in their entire lifespan. However, what if these electric cars were being powered by electricity generated by wind-powered machinery? Then the cars would cause little or no pollution, and transportation without corruption would no longer be a problem.

These two methods of creating energy would allow many people to rise in their average economic income per year, which would be able to further eliminate poverty, allowing more and more people to buy or trade for food, also erasing common hunger.

stonehi

i partially afree with you taha. i agree with you because yes we would have to fly food over to places who need food. and we would need to use machines to harvest the food. this would add lots of warmth to our enviroment because we would be using lots of machinery to get it over there.
      the reason i dont agree with you is that we could use a little bit of energy by getting seeds and plants to those places. once this stuff is at those places then thay can start planting by hand. they could even use some tools they make themselves. doing this technique would only use a little bit of energy at the very beginning but it would be so little for how long these crops could last .

epetersen

@Jason: Promoting agriculture could potentially lead to a decrease in carbon emissions, but agriculture can also have negative effects on biodiversity. Should we disregard the effects of agriculture on biodiversity in an attempt to reduce carbon emissions?

hodin

when I talk about promoting local agriculture, it is small scale local production I am referencing as opposed to giant farms making massive surplus and then shipping it overseas. So when there is a famine situation, there is no local supply to deal with that. Most of US food aid is in the form of paying US farmers to grow extra, but it is more efficient to promote sustainable agriculture practice abroad. I would guess that the large farms are having a greater impact on biodiversity than the small local ones, but I don't have a link/reference for that to show.

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