The Care Collective was formed in London in 2017. In 2020 the group published The Care Manifesto. The authors and members of the group are: Lynne Segal, Anniversary Professor at Birkbeck, University of London; Catherine Rottenberg, Associate Professor of American and Canadian Studies at the University of Nottingham; Andreas Chatzidakis, Professor in the School of Business and Management, Royal Holloway; Jo Littler, Professor in the Department of Sociology and Director of the Gender and Sexualities Research Centre at City, and Jamie Hakim, Lecturer Media Studies in the School of Art, Media, and American Studies, University of East Anglia.
AWorld is an APP that supports the United Nations 'Act Now' movement. Check the APP and the movement to get inspired.
Other Voices for Climate Care are the following >> Greta Thunberg speech to World Economic Forum, Davos January 2019 "Our House is on Fire" Sir David Attenborough "Climate Change: the facts",
Joing the iNaturalist community!
Read the special report on Global Warming by IPCC The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Regional Activity Centre for Sustainable Consumption and Production of the United Nations. Check the Report on Education for Sustainable Consumption.
An interesting read is Amitav Ghosh, "The Great Derangement. Climate Change and the Unthinkable". Ghosh describes how writers and artists are trying to engage in civial activitism in the struggle to make politicians care about climate change. He also highlights the role of colonialism in the climate crisis.
User Testing: Una Europa Micro-credential in Sustainability. Apply here.
Carbon footprint is defined as the amount of greenhouse gases expressed in CO2 equivalent, emitted to the atmosphere by individuals or organizations. It serves to calculate emissions generated by actions and it is expressed in CO2 (carbon dioxide) because this is the most abundant gas. It is also very resistant and stable. Once it reaches the atmosphere, it cannot be destroyed. On average, each molecule survives between 300 and 1000 years before disappearing (for more information read this 2019 report from NASA). However, there are other gases (like methane) with a much higher heating potential. A ton of methane would be equivalent to aprox. 25 tons of CO2 eq. The reponsibility for climate change is attributed to countries depending on their emissions and the strategies of mitigation that they establish to reduce carbon footprint. While European economies generate around 5 tons CO2 eq. in the USA it is 15 tons and in Africa below 0,5, according to the data of the World Bank (see also Our World Data) The calculation of CO2 eq. is standarized according to the following norms: Greenhouse gasesSpecification with guidance at the organization level for quantification and reporting of greenhouse gas emissions and removals ISO 14064-1:2018 and ISO 14067:2018
You can start by taking this questionnaire from the United Nations Carbon Offset Platform to calculate your carbon footprint. Another resource is available from the Nature Conservancy. The World Wide Fund for Nature also has a questionnaire to calculate your carbon footprint. The United States Environmental Protection Agency EPA has yet another calculator. Check out these resources so that we can discuss in class which one you found more useful and why.
If you want to know more about carbon footprint, read various articles in Science Direct. You can also watch this video on William T. Vollmann and his book Carbon Ideologies Vols I and II.
Read this article from "The Conversation" (Sept2021) on how to reduce your carbon imprint. And to be up to date, check the Climate Action Tracker.
Check out activities by C40 Cities network. For instance, this report by Garcetti, E. (2015). 10 Defining Moments in C40 History.
This initiative by the Japanese Ministry of the Environment (2019): City-to-City Collaboration for Low-Carbon Society has been very important.
Let's bring the issue closer to you with an example. You have just served yourself a cup of coffee. It has been grown in Colombia or Brazil, in large intensive plantations. Or maybe it was grown in Costa Rica in a more sustainable way; manufactured, roasted and ground at origin. You have made your coffee in a traditional pot on a gas stove, or you have just a machine with a plastic capsule. Each of these steps is different and involves different environmental impacts and more or less greenhouse gas emissions. The impact of a cup of black coffee does not exceed 20 grams CO2 equivalent. If we have a cappuccino with cow's milk, however, emissions are multiplied by 40. The same version made with soybean milk decreases your carbon footprint by seven. The International Coffee Organization ICO provides statistics of how much coffee is being produced. The inscrease in coffee demand is multiplying production and having an effect on deforestation, a Jan.2021 report from University College London has shown.
There are more complex tools for companies to measure their greenhouse emissions. For example, those offered by the Greenhouse Gas Protocol
Take the United Nations Sustainability Literacy Test
Read more about the Mitigation of Climate Change from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change IPCC most recent 6th 2021 Report which has issued a code red that there is more than a 50% chance that we will reach 1.5°C warming within the next two decades if emissions continue at their current rates. See also Net Zero Economy Index by PwC.
Read also the 2020 report about how the UN commitment to finance Climate Change strategies has failed. Learn about the new MIT alliance for Climate Change
For additional insights, you can explore Clive Hamilton's Requiem for a Species: Why We Resist the Truth about Climate Changeor his most recent 2017 Defiant Earth: The Fate of Humans in the Anthropoce,
Urgent action required: the Planetary Boundaries model, developed by the Stockholm Resilience Center in 2009 presents a set of nine planetary boundaries within which humanity can continue to thrive. Outside these limits, earth would be at risk. See the charts attached here.
HowGood is the world's largest database on food products sustainability. It provides a sustainability score for food products using industry-specific indicators, which identify foods that meet the highest environmental standards. It indicates ingredient origin, food processing, and producers' social and ecological impact. Check out the free HowGood APP at GooglePlay!!
Ready to fight food waste? Explore the Food Waste Knowledge Hub and the "To Good to Go" movement".
Take a look at the latest report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization
For fresh ideas, you can also take a look at the Food Design project.
Reflect on the following extract from Clean Meat: How Growing Meat Without Animals Will Revolutionize Dinner and the World by Paul Shapiro. Open in a new window to read.
For additional info on the topic, you can read "The In Vitro Meat Cookbook" 
Don't forget to check out Maddicts,an illustrated dark comic satire on eating animals.
You can also be inspired by Margaret Atwood's MaddAddam Trilogy.
In Shatoshi Itoh’s manga Harmony a near Utopia is reached with recourse to medical nanotechnology and personalized diets, resulting in the eradication of diseases. This perfect world isn't that perfect though, and three young girls stand up to totalitarian kindness and super-medicine. Watch the trailer here.
In most countries, 25% of greenhouse gas emissions have their origin in the energy sector (read this report from European Academies Science Advisory Council EASAC). Around 64% of emissions come from fuels used for heating (see Eurostat statistics June 2021; see also report on Emissions by sector by Oxford University)
According to a Jan.2021 report on the academic journal Nature, COVID curbed carbon emissions in 2020 — but not by much.
Watch this video on Energy Island: How One Community Harnessed the Wind and Changed Their World . The story is about Samsø, an island in Denmark that uses sustainable energy sources. There is also graphic story by Allan Drummond. Francis Foster Books 2011. Find out more about this real story to discuss in class.
The Tap APP helps you fight against plastic pollution by refilling a reusable water bottle. It uses a network of refill stations consisting of local restaurants and coffee shops, and partly public access water points such as drinking fountains. It indicates the nearest water refill stations giving walking directions, and details about the water at the location. More information on this EU project here.
A similar initiative is Refill by the UK NGO City to the Sea.
To help scientist in testing water resources, you can feed your information on the APP Eye-on-water
Dealing with water and land SDG14 and SDG15, explore Paying the Land, the graphic novel by Maltese-American cartoonist Joe Sacco, renowned for his long-form graphic journalism and field work in conflict zones and places where people are facing displacement and dispossession. Interviewed in this video by Am Johal.
Explore Leise Hook's piece of Electronic Literature, "The Vine and the Fish" and discuss your findings with classmates.
Take a walk on Ecopoetics. Read Gary Snyder's short poem "A Walk" and the extract from Routledge volume "Walking-Lab. Walking Methologies Ina More Than Human World". Whatever you encounter in your walk might also inspire you for Activity 10.
Explore GreenappsWeb for many many tips.
Another interesting free APP for urban farming is iHuerting. It helps you build an urban garden, eminds you when to water, fertilize, and take care of your plants in your terrace, patio, and other small pieces of land.
Gardens are spaces of dialogue between society and nature. The Nomad Garden project helps rethink these alliances by involving citizens in mapping plant specimens (including images, information, sounds in a synesthetic experience) to complete an atlas that explores the city as a garden of co-existence.
Microvideos are available at UN SDG-Learn
For inspiration, check out the SDG Action Awards
Watch this video about the CleanClothes initiative.
Think Dirty is an APP (available from GooglePlay) that teaches about potentially toxic ingredients in personal care products, including skincare, makeup, haircare, etc.
JouleBug is a free sustainability APP (available at GooglePlay) that offers you tips to make your everyday habits more sustainable. The application also connects you with your social networks and local communities for fitness, nutrition, eco, and volunteering actions.
Check out other APPs on Sustainability and share with classmates those that you find most interesting. Later on, together with the group, create an infographic with the most useful APPs.
Take a look a projects that encourage circular economy for the plastic and paper packaging sectors by providing insights in the design process >> Circ-Pack: From Waste to Resource
Also revise information at Confederation of European Renewable Recycled Responsible European Paper CEPI.
Read the technical more about the Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change IPCC and in particular the Chapter 4: Sea Level Rise and Implications for Low-Lying Islands, Coasts and Communities and the Chapter 5: Changing Ocean, Marine Ecosystems, and Dependent Communities
After that, you need more optimism so you can follow the Twitter account (#OceanOptimism) and learn more about more about Ocean optimist a Twitter initiative launched in June 2014, spread widely as a flag for stories reporting progress in solving marine conservation challenges. In this regard, you can read this paper lead by Prof. Nancy Knowlton of the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington. She stresses the need to share stories of success in marine conservation to avoid numbing feelings of hopelessness and to increase the knowledge of approaches that work. See for example the paper published in Nature in 2020 by Prof. Duarte of the Red Sea Research Center (RSRC), King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Thuwal, Saudi Arabia and colleagues. They stated that is not too late to rescue global marine life and that it can recover from damage by 2050 if we try harder to address the causes of its decline.
Since in 2021 Dr. Seuss' The Lorax has celebrated its 50th anniversary you can read it again or see the movie. Seuss was a precursor of the importance of protect the nature from human related activities as stated clearly by the Six Assessment Report of IPCC on Agoust 2021 (https://www.npr.org/2021/08/12/1026385429/the-lorax-dr-seuss). Dr. Seuss also wrote some books on marine life such as McElligot's Pool in 1947 and One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish in 1960.
Finally, for marine conservation lovers and Jacques-Yves Cousteau life addicted who dedicated his life to ocean exploration, watch The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, a 2004 American comedy-drama movie written by Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbac with an incredible Bill Murray as Steve Zissou, an eccentric oceanographer.
"The sea, the great unifier, is man's only hope. Now, as never before, the old phrase has a literal meaning: we are all in the same boat.” (J-Y Cousteau).
More than 90% of SDGs are somehow linked to human rights. The Danish Institute for Human Rights has developed a tool "The Human Rights Data Explorer" that provides a human rights road map for SDG strategies. Using the tool you can select a country, select a SDG target, click search and you will see the relevant Human Rights provisions in that country. You can then see how this can be relevant to your work or interests. There are more than 150.000 recommendations in the tool and it identifies priority issues, the identification of vulnerable groups, the identification of concrete measures for achieving a specific target.
Additionally, you can read (online) some inspirational stories in graphic novel format:
The story of a family's daring escape and migration after the fall of South Vietnam in the 1970s. By Thi Bui.
A Graphic Novel about the medical profession. Script by Aude Mermilliod and Martin Winckler - Art by Aude Mermilliod
Martin LutherKing & the Montgomery Story. By Benton Resnick
An account of the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott, in which Rosa Parks, Dr. King, and others used nonviolence to battle segregation on city buses.
Choose some readings (from the below) for class discussion.
1. Learn more about current projects on different SDGs.
UpLink is a crowdfunding open digital platform for mass participation to accelerate progress on the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It enables the next generation of mission-driven entrepreneurs and young innovators to join forces with leading organisations, experts, investors and changemakers. It helps promote different projects, such as the Blue Carbon Challenge.
The Early Warning System exchanges information, advice, tools and resources with communities and the local organizations supporting them to inform their campaings related to development plans and financing of sustainable projects. You can explore some of these projects here.
Several reforestation programs in Africa are using mangrove plantations. They help reduce greenhouse emisions, as it has been proven in various countries like Senegal. See EcoAfrica for other initiatives.
Play Against All Odds. Overcoming poverty in Canada. This organization seeks equity and public justice through a number of activities.
EU project Echoes. Silenced narratives of a postcolonial past.
2. Learn about projects on Sustainable Cities
Be informed by reading the EU report Reclaiming city streets for people. Chaos or quality of life?
La #VilleDuQuartDHeure, c’est quoi ? C’est la ville des proximités où l’on trouve tout ce dont on a besoin à moins de 15 minutes de chez soi. C’est la condition de la transformation écologique de la ville, tout en améliorant la vie quotidienne des Parisiens. #Hidalgo2020 See more about this concept in Wikipedia
LEA project. Autonomous Farming in the City. EU Bauhaus prize 2021
EU project. Heritage for people. How Europe's World Heritage Cities are tackling common challenges Also on Heritage, take a look at Storytelling & Fundraising for Cultural Heritage professionals The EU project “Radical Rituals” is a investigates built environment through research, design and artistic experimentation.
3. Learn more about COP26 and the Exponential Roadmap Initiative
4. Explore how the Covid 19 pandemic has had devastating effects on Human Rights. Learn more about it from the Danish Institute for Human Rights. The UN Human Rights Council recognises Human Right to a healthy environment.
4. Short reads ONLINE in comic format
COVID Chronicles 2020. Ten personal accounts of life and death from the frontlines of COVID-19. By Ethan Sacks
About this marine biologist and the birth of the ecological movement. By Birdie Willis, Rii Abrego & Kieran Quigley.
Perhaps also read her 1962 1book Silent Spring (50th anniversary edition), the book that launch the environmental movement.
And for those interested in Ecocriticism, visit Ecozona and ISLE
"Once upon a pic" competition (best stories receive cash prizes)
A selection of microstories will be published in the Journal of Artistic Creation and Literary Research
Write a short micro-narrative/poem/reflexion that connects some of the images below to specific SDGs (images hold CC licenses). Try to think of ideas for actions that can solve some aspect of the SDGs or raise awareness.
Send your stories and activities (in one doc) to Prof. López-Varela
This activity was inspired by the project "Significant Objects"
The best we could do.
