Category Archives: Climate Justice

Aquila Magazine: Ancient Innovation For Modern Problems

Posted on April 17, 2013 | Leave a comment

GS

Here’s a sneak peek of my latest article for Aquila Magazine’s Earth Issue. It’s all about indigenous populations making the most of their ancient traditions to cope with an increasingly unpredictable climate. As well as highlighting the continued importance of ancient water tunnels (called aflaj) in Oman, I spoke to an expert on community adaption in Bangladesh about the floating gardens (called baira) which are providing a lifeline to flooded communities. There’s also a snippet on the amazing work of Hassan Fathy in Egypt…

Aquila Earth Issue

Want to read more? Well all you have to do is download (how eco is that?!) a copy of the latest Aquila Magazine here. It’s only a couple of dollars for a mag jam-packed with goodness. Go on, you know you want to!

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Posted in Architecture, climate change, Climate Justice, Economy, Environment, Ethical, Food, Green, Islam, Middle East, Muslims, Water, Women

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SISTERS – The Green Edition: Faith, Families and Features

Posted on April 1, 2013 | 1 Comment

Screen shot 2013-03-26 at 20.27.29After lots of work and even more enthusiasm (well done Brooke!) the very lovely and very special green issue of SISTERS is out. It’s bursting with green quizzes, features, top tips for your home and also a round up of some great eco-Muslims organisations. I’ve  contributed an article on the issue of population growth and ask the whether large Muslim families are a blessing or a curse. Read on for more and also to download or buy your own copy.

Large Families SISTERS page 1Large families SISTERS page 2

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Posted in Children, climate change, Climate Justice, Economy, Environment, Ethical, Fashion, Food, Green, Hijab, Islam, Mosques, Muslims, Women, Youth

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MCM: Awareness into action? Manchester BME groups talk climate change

Posted on March 22, 2013 | Leave a comment

A group of around 30, pretty diverse, people attended an event today hoping to raise awareness about the impact of climate change on BME communities in Manchester.

The event kicked off with an introduction by the chair of the Manchester BME Network Atiha Chaudry who also gave some of the partners a chance to talk about their Defra-funded research and findings. This included Michelle Ayavoro from Creative Hands and Kate Damiral from NCVO. I sadly missed this but arrived in time to sample some the workshops.

After listening into the ‘understanding the impact of climate change’ presentation I wandered into the community involvement workshop run by Catrina Pickering from Afsl. All attendees were given some handouts about projects in Manchester and were told to discuss them in pairs and share back to the group. I happened to walk in just as the group were enthusing about how great Manchester Climate Monthly was (my work here is done!) so I was pretty impressed. All the attendees got to talk about projects they wanted to share with others and also ask for help. Pretty cool stuff but I’m clearly biased.

Talking to various people during lunchtime, it’s clear that whilst they were happy that the awareness-raising event (funded by Defra as part of the research) was happening, they were wondering ‘what next?’. I sat down with Atiha Chaudry and asked her that very question. Here’s what she said:

The final report with all the findings and also the toolkit will be available next month.

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Posted in climate change, Climate Justice, Environment, Green, Manchester, Women

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DW: Egypt mourns eco-activist Mindy Baha El Din

Posted on March 21, 2013 | Leave a comment
Mindy Baha El Din, in Cairo, Egypt in 2011.

Egypt’s environmental community is in mourning following the sudden death of activist Mindy Baha El Din. Local journalist Arwa Aburawa knew Baha El Din personally and gives her thoughts on the passing of a hero.

I first met Mindy Baha El Din during an interview back in 2011. The first thing that struck me about her was her positive outlook on things. It seemed like, on environmental issues, she was immune to becoming cynical about anything.

Born Mindy Rosenzweig, the Chicago-born American initially came to Egypt in 1988 with a mission to highlight the importance of conservation. In the end, it turned out that it was such a big task that she never left.

Instead, she fell in love with Egypt’s nature, met and married bird expert Sherif Baha El Din and became one of the country’s leading green campaigners. She was also the Secretary of the ‘Nature Conservation Egypt’ organization, which is dedicated to conserving Egypt’s environment.

“Over the years, we have witnessed massive changes and degradation to Egypt’s natural heritage,” she told me back in 2011. “It is shocking how one generation made decisions about natural resource use, affecting present and all future generations of Egyptians.” Continue reading →

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Posted in climate change, Climate Justice, Environment, Green, Women

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MCM: Manchester’s Climate Vulnerable – An Interview with Atiha Chaudry

Posted on February 6, 2013 | Leave a comment

P1000904Whilst it’s easy to think that all those people ‘really vulnerable’ to climate change live in far away places, the truth is they don’t. They live in cities great and small all over the world. And there are some living right here in Manchester. Who are they? Well, there are the marginalised, the socially, economically and politically vulnerable. They are our old, our BME, our asylum seekers and refugees and whilst our climate keeps changing, we ought to figure out a way to protect them.

Last year, the Manchester BME Network got £15,000 from Defra to do exactly that. They were tasked with “mapping the needs of BME, older people and refugee and asylum communities to better understand their needs and concerns about the impact of a changing change.” The project also wanted to find the gaps and consider how these might be addressed. The project is led by Muslim Communities UK (MC-UK) with direct support from Manchester BME Network (MBMEN), Salford Refugee Forum and Creative Hands Foundation. The partners interviewed 100 people and held four focus groups.

Ahead of the final report which will be released next week, MCFly caught up with Atiha Chaudry, from MBMEN, to talk about their findings and what happens next.

Could you tell us a little about the Manchester BME network and the work it does? Continue reading →

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Posted in climate change, Climate Justice, Manchester, Refugees, Women

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SISTERS Magazine: Climate Justice and the Muslim Ummah

Posted on February 4, 2013 | Leave a comment

Click on the images below to read up my latest column for SISTERS magazine on climate justice and why it’s particularly important for Muslims to consider the future.
Green Ummah 1 SISTERS Magazine

Green Ummah 2 SISTERS magazine

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Posted in climate change, Climate Justice, Environment, Human Rights, Muslims, Women

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Spiritual Connection With Nature Is Key – Green Muslim Muaz Nasir

Posted on December 22, 2012 | Leave a comment

“The environment is something everyone should be concerned about as climate change, water scarcity and pollution are issues that do not discriminate based on faith.” That’s Muaz Nasir’s response to what he likes to call constructive criticism that the Muslim Ummah focus its energies on ‘bigger issues’ rather than climate change.

Personally, I can’t imagine a ‘bigger issue’ then the future of our planet but I completely accept that this realisation hasn’t quite reached the wider Muslim community. Ground-breaking policies such as the Muslim Seven Year Action Plan on Climate Change were impressive but as Nasir points out, but they failed to “develop the necessary research or resources that would push the climate agenda into the mainstream Muslim community.”

As such, any progress has been slow and the product of hard working individual campaigners rather than national policies. Read on for more about the Muslim-environmental movement in Canada, Nasir’s green Muslim website Khaleafa.com and how he is getting mosques to ‘Ban the Bottle’ among other green ideas he is working to implement in the Muslim community – ideas which can spread around the world.

Here’s a snippet of the interview – to read the full thing go to GreenProphet.com

What do you think are the barriers holding the Muslim community from fully engaging with the climate change agenda?

I think there is a general lack of awareness of the severity of climate change as well as what actions individuals can do to decrease their carbon footprint. The issue is just not on the radar of many Islamic institutions here in North America as it is in Europe. The Muslim community in Canada is fairly young, so there are understandably competing priorities, such as establishing their families and integrating into the broader society; which often takes precedence over the climate change agenda. This is beginning to change as weather patterns shift and the trends in the climate become more visible.

What have been the responses to Khaleafa.com – have you had to face any negative reactions or had to deal with climate sceptics?

The response has been overwhelmingly positive for the most part. I try to keep my articles as neutral as possible, and encourage contributors to base their arguments on facts and to justify their opinions with reference to the Quran, Hadith and Sunnah…

There has been some negative feedback as well, mainly in the form of constructive criticism but also from individuals who feel that Muslims should be investing their resources to deal with bigger issues facing the Ummah. While I understand the direction they are coming from, my response has been that the environment is something everyone should be concerned about as climate change, water scarcity and pollution are issues that do not discriminate based on faith. We all have a collective obligation to ensure that we leave the planet in better condition for future generations and that we do not waste the resources Allah has blessed upon us.

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  • Green Muslim Blogger Muaz Nasir Says Spiritual Connection With Nature Is Key (INTERVIEW) (greenprophet.com)

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Posted in climate change, Climate Justice, Islam, Mosques, Muslims, Public Sphere, Recycling, Youth

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Mapping Palestine’s Environmental Civil Society – The Good, the Bad and the Uncooperative

Posted on December 20, 2012 | Leave a comment

Palestine

A study mapping the environmental actors in Palestine shows a desperate lack of co-operation between organisations and donors keen to play it safe with ‘practical projects’

The lovely people at Heinrich Böll Stiftung had done something that I have been procrastinating about for almost lifetime (well, not quite a lifetime but a good couple of years at least). They have mapped out the important actors and organisations on the environmental scene in Palestine. Exciting, right!? They have painstakingly gone through all those websites, NGOs and institutes with an environmental focus to bring us a clear image of the state of the environmental movement in Palestine. They found that out of 2,245 NGOs registered in the oPt only 104 were environmentally-focused and of these, just 56 were actually still active. More juicy details after the jump.

The Facts on Green Palestine

- 104 registered environmental civil society organisation in the West Bank and Gaza

- 56 civil society organisations are actually still active

- Over 70% of environmental civil society organisations feel that their relationship with other organisations is competitive rather than co-operative

- Limited funding and efforts to raise their grassroots presence are two main reasons for the competitiveness between organisations

- 8 key organisations in Palestine based on their size, the variety of programmes implemented and geographic range:

Most organisations complained that international donors attempted to remain neutral by focusing in practical action and lacked the political will to enforce real changes by addressing Palestinians’ rights to natural resources. As such many organisations felt their projects were simply ‘coping mechanisms’. Even so, the relationship between NGOs and funders was generally described as co-operative if highly dependent.

: For the full article and to find out the top 9 key green organisations in Palestine go to GreenProphet.com

: Palestine (Photo credit: Squirmelia)

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Posted in Apartheid, climate change, Climate Justice, Development, Economy, Environment, Gaza, Green, History, Israel, Jerusalem, Middle East, Occupation, Palestine, Protest, Public Sphere, Recycling, Refugees, West Bank, Women, Youth

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Interview with Masdar’s Director of Sustainability – Nawal Al-Hosany

Posted on December 18, 2012 | Leave a comment

portrait of UAE national woman

In 2010, after eight days of hiking in freezing temperatures Nawal Al-Hosany reached the Uhuru Peak of Kilimanjaro Mountain. She explains that she underwent the challenging climb to highlight the impact of climate change which is melting the mountain’s snow and to encourage greater action in the Middle East. Al-Hosany who joined Masdar in 2008 as the sustainability associate director is now its director of sustainability. She also director of the influential Zayed Future Energy Prize. I caught up with her to talk about Masdar and how you incentivise renewables in a rich, oil-producing country.

Here’s a snippet of the interview which you can read in full at GreenProphet.com.

GreenProphet: A recent report titled “Prospects for Energy Technology Advancements in the Energy Sector,” written by yourself and IRENA highlights the opportunities available to MENA if they embrace renewables. Why is now such a good time to adopt renewable technologies?

Nawal Al-Hosany: The MENA region, and especially the Gulf States, has an opportunity to leverage its expertise in energy and move into new sectors, including wind and solar power. The future energy mix will include renewables, and we should embrace this transition. In addition, the region also has an abundant solar resource – an energy we should tap into to address energy security and our rising demands. Although the region’s renewable resources have been underexploited, technology advances and increased deployment are now making certain forms of clean energy economically viable across the region.

Who are some of the women working in the environmental sector that inspire you?

The lack of women working in the environmental sector, and the opportunity to do more, is what ultimately inspires and motivates me. We only have a handful of women across the globe that are participating in the discussion on renewable energy, sustainability and addressing climate change. These are global issues that impact us all, irrespective of the roles we play or that have been defined [for us] by society.

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  • Interview with Masdar’s Director of Sustainability – Dr. Nawal Al-Hosany (greenprophet.com)

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Posted in climate change, Climate Justice, Development, Economy, Environment, Green, Green Energy, Middle East, Muslims, Public Sphere, Women

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SISTERS: Muslimahs Dig Into Fresh Food

Posted on December 14, 2012 | Leave a comment

arwa aburawa green muslims sisters muslimah food growing green eco environmental

arwa aburawa green muslims sisters muslimah food growing green eco environmental

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Posted in climate change, Climate Justice, Development, Economy, Environment, Ethical, Islam, Middle East, Water

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