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This is the Global Voices entry.

Over the next couple of months Global Voices is going to be following environmental and climate change issues extra closely. We're hoping to amplify unheard voices in the debate around the United Nations meetings in Copenhagen in December (COP15).

In November, on Conversations for a Better World, a blog sponsored by the UNFPA, two of our authors, Eduardo and Belen, are going to be cross-posting stories about population dynamics and climate change. I know they'll be looking towards Latin America.

Throughout October, Global Voices bloggers have been mentoring 31 young men and women from Africa and Denmark who are organizing an online campaign under the auspices of MS ActionAid in Copenhagen, Denmark. They've asked us to relay stories about ‘what developing countries need to help correct damage from climate change'. So we'll try to do that too.

Some mentor entries

For Blog Action Day, Jillian encouraged her readers to visit the blog of her mentee Edith, while Ali says his mentee Peter turned the tables on him and inspired him to write a post on climate change.

Another mentor, Gayle, has written a longer post highlighting the situations of farmers in Ghana, Australia (her own countries) and Zimbabwe (her mentee John's country).

Gayle used Twitter to put the call out for farmers in Australia. To her surprise, she was re-tweeted by ABC Radio in Australia, and came directly in touch with several farmers by email. She read interviews with Ghanaian farmers online, and even spoke to one directly.

And among dozens of links and interesting sources, Gayle found information on how local communities use traditional knowledge in rural Ghana to cope with climate change.

Gayle did something that bloggers on Global Voices do all the time. She went looking for voices you rarely hear speaking for themselves in international mainstream media.

In the past week on Global Voices

Bhumika Ghimire wrote a post today about the future of bio-gas in Nepal, including a video by a Japanese university research team that shows how bio-gas is used in rural Nepal.

A landslide caused by Typhoon Ketsana in a village in Pampanga province. Photo by Flickr user susancorpuz90

Earlier this week, Mong Palatino wrote about how Filipino bloggers are drawing connections between climate change and the devastating floods in Manila that killed more than 500 people.

Saffah Farooq wrote about how citizens of the low-lying Indian Ocean island state of the Maldives, feel their fate may be decided by the success of treaties like the Kyoto Protocol.

Wildlife blogger Samuel Maina in Kenya, wrote about how Kenyans are so desperate for rain they are awaiting El Niño rains that may displace thousands with mixed feelings.

There is a constant flow of stories on Global Voices' environment topic feed by bloggers all around the world.

Looking ahead

On this Blog Action Day, where we celebrate the collective power of bloggers to push for change, we'd like to encourage everyone not only to write about climate change but also to read what other people are saying.

Over the next many weeks, we're going to be overwhelmed by news stories by journalists quoting politicians, activists, and many others - but when the UN meetings are over and the cameras are off, the people who face the consequences of climate change immediately, will still be telling their stories on the internet in hopes of reaching people who care.

As we say at Global Voices, ‘The world is talking. Are you listening?'

For those far removed from the front lines of climate change, listening and linking is one the few ways we can succeed to make the problem feel real and in need of solutions today.

Related posts

• Blog Action Day 2009: Rising Voices Projects Discuss Climate Change
• Posts in Portuguese on Blog Action Day ‘09
• Greek Posts on Blog Action Day ‘09
• Africa discusses climate change
• Caribbean: Blogging About Climate Change
• Israel: Blog Action Day for the Environment
• Morocco: Blogoma participates in Blog Action Day
• Ghana: Blog Action Day ‘09
• Global Health: Can Condoms Combat Climate Change?

A series of events and activities are being organized in the Maldives to bring the attention of the world to the plight of Maldives, with the hope that a fair deal will be made at the COP15 conference.

A youth group organised the local event for The Global Climate Wake-Up Call initiated by Avaaz.org. Children and adults joined the event held at Artificial Beach of Male', the capital of the Maldives.

The Global Climate Wake-Call event held in Maldives on September 21, 2009. Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nios/3941514989/ Used under a creative commons license

Some of the activities fall on October 24, the International Day of Climate Action spearheaded by the organization 350.org. Vroomfondel discusses some of the activities planned for the day:

On 24th October 2009 350.org is coordinating an International Day of Climate Action in order to unite the public, media and political leaders behind the 350 goal. By having actions all around the world that day, 350.org plans to send a clear message to the world leaders (who will be meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark this December to craft a new global treaty on cutting emissions) that ‘the solutions to climate change must be equitable, they must be grounded in science, and they must meet the scale of the crisis.'

Bill McKibben's talk, hosted by the Maldives Science Society, has inspired different individuals and groups in the Maldives to join the 350 campaign and is currently organising different actions for the International Day of Climate Action. So far, four different actions have been registered at 350.org from the Maldives.

One of the activities planned for October 24 is the Postcards from the Frontline, which will make 350 postcards from photos submitted by Maldivians, and send to world leaders, as Vroomfondel explains:

We request ALL MALDIVIANS, young and old, to submit photos for the cause. Entries do not need to fit into a conventional photographic category. It can be absolutely anything that reflects what the Maldives is to you.

350 photos you send will be then made into postcards, and sent to 350 world leaders with a very special appeal. These world leaders will decide the fate of Maldives, and the world, at the crucial UN Climate Change Conference Copenhagen 2009 (COP15) this December.

Your photo can save our home. And you needn’t even be a professional photographer. Being Maldivian is all that you need to be.

By the time the deadline for photo submissions closed on October 4, more than 6,000 entries were submitted, and this video distributed through Facebook contributed to the promotion of the activity.

Another activity that is being planned for October 24 is a 24-hour dive. Zim, a blogger and young diving instructor involved in organising this exciting event, writes:

In Maldives several activities are going to take place. And one of the key events on the international day of action is the 24 hour Underwater Rally organized by the Divers Association of Maldives (DAM). 350 divers, diving in teams are going to spend 24 hours underwater. The message DAM is giving is that Maldives is sinking and it’s more than just a country being lost to the sea. A unique heritage is gone. An irreplaceable ecosystem is being destroyed. The rally would be one of a kind.

Divers Association of Maldives is also organizing the first underwater cabinet meeting in the Maldives, scheduled for October 17. Zim discusses the significance of this event and the 24-hour underwater rally:

The President of Maldives along with all the cabinet ministers are going to meet underwater while using scuba. Using hand signals and slates they are going to endorse and sign a message from the people of Maldives to the world leaders meeting at Copenhagen this December for the Conference of Parties (COP 15).

[..] We are on the edge. With just a couple of steps forward Maldives along with a number of other vulnerable countries will be lost beneath the waves. We ask everybody not to sign our suicide pact.

On September 26, the local NGO Strength of Society (S.O.S.) hosted a workshop World Wide Views on Global Warming, which was part of an international event, to find out the opinion of ordinary citizens on climate change and to pass the views to policymakers. S.O.S. blog gives details of this unique event:

The purpose of World Wide Views is to pass on the opinions of ordinary citizens to political decision-makers. Results from World Wide Views will therefore be delivered directly to Connie Hedegaard, host of the UN Climate Conference (COP15), who this December together with political leaders from all over the world will be making decisions with far-reaching consequences for the future of the planet.

During this day citizens will be introduced to the same information material in all 38 countries, which presents them with different dilemmas in the climate debate. On the basis of this material and their own experience, citizens will answer the same questions, composed by The Danish Board of Technology. Results from all countries will currently be uploaded on www.wwviews.org. During this 24 hours online event, three international expert panels will comment results as they come in and make live videoconferences, which will be visible to everyone with access to the Internet.

Fenfulhangi blogs about the outcome of the workshop held in the Maldives:

This meeting brought together a group of citizens to and helped find their views on Climate Change and the Global policies regarding it. This was the first of its kind…maybe this is what the government should also be doing. More democratic values are realized through these kinds of public participation activities. Check out the results compared to other countries. IT is quite interesting. it seems we are not as concerned as other citizens of the world on the Climate Change issue. Strange ain't it.

Bluepeace, the first environmental organization formed in the Maldives, is organizing a photo exhibition named ‘Vulnerable’, to document the vulnerability of Maldives to climate change. The exhibition will be hosted in Copenhagen in December by Klimaforum09, an alternate climate summit with participants from civil society organizations and international environmental movements. The blog of Bluepeace explains the importance of this exhibition:

As one of the lowest-lying countries in the world, Maldives is particularly vulnerable to climate change. The proliferation of images in today’s internet age is such that Maldives is known the world over as a stunning holiday destination. While Maldives has been the subject of many documentaries and news articles regarding climate change, to date no documentary has been produced by Maldivians for an international audience. This is a chance for Maldives to show vulnerability to the world as seen through our eyes.

As Maldives gears up to Copenhagen with attention-grabbing events, Fenfulhangi asks some critical questions:

1-Will the new President Mohammed Nasheed attend the summit with the talks of lack of funding in the government budget?
2-As one of the major contributors to Climate Change and its adverse effects; Will the USA sign onto the new document that will succeed the Kyoto Protocol that USA previously refused to sign onto?
3-Will there be same or harsher penalties for developing countries that emit large amounts of CO2 or will it be the richer countries who pay?

Bluepeace, which will represent the Maldives in a number of civil society forums in Copenhagen in December, sums up the issues that small island states and vulnerable countries face and stresses the urgent need of working together to find a solution for Planet Earth:

The issues of migration and adaptation, the scenario of becoming sea level refugees one day, and joining forces with the most vulnerable countries to combat climate change will be some of the issues that Bluepeace hopes to debate and discuss in Copenhagen.

In November 1989, less than three months after Bluepeace was formed, the first small states conference on sea level rise was held in the Maldives. As a dramatic conclusion to the conference, a demonstration was held in Male’, in which students and the general public spoke on the imminent dangers of living in a low-lying country. A large billboard placed by Bluepeace asked the question “Do you know we are just four feet above sea level?” Twenty years later we need not ask the same question, as the world is well-aware of the dangers Maldives faces. However, we face the urgent need to talk and work with the rest of the world to find solutions.

Pakistan:

Momina at Chowrangi explains different aspects of the Eid celebrations:

Eid is derived from the root word of `Aada meaning returned. We all know that we return to Eid periodically. It is also said to have been derived from ‘Aadah meaning a custom or a practice. The reason is that people customarily celebrate it.

Kalsoom at CHUP! Changing Up Pakistan remembers what Eid meant for her and her family while growing up.

Growing up, my favorite part of Ramadan and Eid ul-Fitr always centered around two things – my family and food. On Chand Raat, the night before Eid, I loved going to the market to buy bangles or get henna painted on my hands. My memories of Eid as a child were flooded with color, bright new clothes, laughter, and the taste of sivaiyyan [vermicelli noodles in sweetened milk] first thing in the morning.

As an adult, Ramadan has become increasingly a time to think about others around me, particularly the poor. Working in the development realm has helped put such issues into further context.

A boy looks behind while others are doing rituals at the end of Ramadan month, on Eid Namaaz (prayers) at Bangalore, India. Image by Sandip Devnath

India:

Sudhir Kekre remembers the Eid food delicacies:

When I moved to Hyderabad, Ramzan and Eid became a big part of our social calendar. A new world of mouth watering delicacies were introduced. Haleem and nihari along with the biryanis and mirchi bhajjis became synonymous with Hyderabad.

The blogger also comments on the relationship between Hindu & Muslims:

Perhaps festivals could be a good way of reducing the animosity between two communities.

The Sacromento Bee blog posts pictures of Eid celebrations across India.

Bangladesh:

“Eid is supposed to be a special day. But today was strange,” writes ulysses at Back To Bangladesh. The blogger goes on to describe the experience of surviving an earthquake in Dhaka on the Eid day. However there is a more worrying threat than earthquake for the Bangladeshis:

There are scary statistics about how many people would die from a severe earthquake in Dhaka. But, truth be told, I worry more about adulterated food than any other issue facing Bd.

Maldives:

Kaidha tells poetically how the Eid festivities have reduced to a holiday with no significance:

I remember a time when i was a kid, we would look forward to eid as being more than holiday
It's the day a big feast would be cooked and be visited by relatives
It's the day we would wear our new dresses and go to watch the marches
It's the day we would watch the fireworks of every colour blind the night sky
However with time, Eid has become just another day we could just laze around at home and watch tv or facebook all day

Eid Mubarak to all our readers.