Tag: Wcydo

Introduction

Posted on by Mother Earth

Mother Earth/ Gaia ‘s Blog
Earth year 4,492,056,017

Mankind, My children!

Please listen to my story. I was born 4.5 billion years ago and for most of my life I was a lonely, barren and uninhabited rock floating through space. Then a miracle happened and to my great joy, I gradually changed into a planet with my land, oceans and air teaming with life and vegetation and all living eco systems in harmonious balance. I was delighted and proud to be a mother to such profusion of life and to become known throughout the Universe as the “blue” planet.

Mankind taking over the world

Photo: Courtesy of WWF

If the whole of my history to date was shown as 1 single hour, then in just the last few seconds of that hour, you, Mankind, were born and because of your energy and intelligence you became my favourites. I let you dominate, bully and exploit my other children, did not discipline you enough when you were young, did not teach you right from wrong and continually made excuses for your bad behaviour and kept forgiving you. As a result, I now see that I spoiled you. You came to think that the whole of Earth and its resources were yours for the taking and that no one else mattered. In your greed and uncaring way, you took whatever you wanted without ever asking for my permission or thinking about the consequences of your actions on other species sharing the planet and even on yourselves. That is why I am now writing to you as individuals directly to try to explain the problem more clearly and to show you what needs to be done to nurse me and your species back to health.

Did you know that

  • About 66 million primary school children attend classes hungry and 795 million people around the world are undernourished while 1.3 billion tonnes of food ends of rotting in bins or spoiling worldwide?
  • More than 1 billion people do not have access to fresh water and at least 1.8 billion people have to use drinking water that is polluted with human toilet waste?
  • One in 10 persons lives on less than $1.90 per day and 736 million people still live in extreme poverty?
  • Each day 1000 children die due to preventable water and sanitation related diarrhea diseases ?

What can YOU do?

Each week, for the next few weeks, I will give you some basic facts and information about one of the major problems facing both of us and which will influence our survival. In particular, I will challenge you each day and ask What can you do? (get used to this expression and challenge. This will be abbreviated to and pronounced as WCYDo (wich – ee – do) and I will be using this a lot in coming blogs!). After giving you some facts, I will suggest a number of simple actions that you, your family and friends can do to contribute to a solution. Please encourage others to befriend me and read my blogs and pass on the facts and proposed actions to all your family, friends and acquaintances. Ask them to then pass these on to their friends and acquaintances with the same instructions so that we can multiply the efforts to maximise our impact and to build a movement to take effective action to save us both.

Our work will start next week and tell others to join us to view these blog posts and to visit us on Facebook and Twitter to sign up for our newsletter and follow us. Get ready!

10. Reduced Inequalities

10. Reduced Inequalities

Posted on by Mother Earth

SDG 10 – Reduced Inequalities

Earth year 4,492,056,017
Mother Earth / Gaia‘s Blog

Mankind, My children

In my first blog post I asked that you commit to following my blog for the next few weeks to give me a chance to explain the most important issues affecting our joint survival. Subsequent Blogs have started to give you some facts about the biggest and most important Global issues that need to be addressed. In today’s Blog post I want to talk about the need to Reduce Inequalities. 

The Problem

Photo Courtesy: Expresso.pt

Income inequality has increased in recent decades. More than 75% of population now lives in societies where income distribution is now more unequal than it was 29 years ago in 1990. The richest 1%now own 45% of the world’s wealth and the rich continue to get richer while the poor get poorer. Inequality harms growth, poverty reduction and relations between persons and is a threat to long term social and economic development. Children in the poorest 20% of populations are 3 times more likely to die before their 5th birthday than the children of richest 20%. Persons with disabilities are up to 5 times more likely than the average person to incur catastrophic health costs. Income inequality can only be tackled if inequality of opportunity is addressed.

Do you feel guilty about the struggles of the poor in developing countries trying to feed their families and the inequality and unfairness that denies opportunities to hundreds of millions in much of the world? Are you frustrated at the lack of progress in helping the poor? Now is your chance to do something to change the world!

The facts

  1. 75% of persons now live in societies where income distribution is more unequal
  2. 736 million live in extreme poverty and live on less than US$ 1.90 per day
  3. Children of the poorest 20% are 3 times more likely to die before age of 5 than those of richest
  4. Disabled persons are 5 times more likely to incur catastrophic health costs

WCYDo (wich-ee-do – What Can You Do?)

 Buy fair trade fruit and products to help poor suppliers achieve more income

  1. Support use of official aid to promote fairness and equality in developing world
  2. Support charities such as www.epi.org
  3. Write to your politicians to increase aid and trade with developing world
  4. Share the facts about inequalities with family and friends.

Encourage others to join us and to visit our Facebook Page to sign up for our newsletter and information about our proposed WCYDo APP.  See you next week on a new blog post!