Environmental Committee - PC Azerbaijan: 2009

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Balagusar Village and Gusar Environmental Projects

Environmental Projects

Balagusar Village, Gusar

Kelly Vosilus, AZ5 YD PCV

Trash Cleanup

RPCV Rustin Johnson, Xacmaz, and his host organization Umid, also assisted by Kelly Vosilus, Balagusar Village, Gusar, led an environmental project in Balagusar and Hasangala Villages in the Gusar Region. Youth members in both villages were accompanied by students from The International School of Azerbaijan (TISA), Baku, as they worked to collect trash. Informal discussions were created about the environment and ways to help protect our natural resources were also talked about. Following the trash cleanup activities, there was a celebratory soccer game between the three youth groups. This was a very successful event and the youth were all happy to be a part of it.

Earth Day Activity

Informational fliers were created by youth in two villages, Balagusar and Hasangala Villages, about Earth Day and ways we can help the environment overall. After the fliers were created and reproduced, we walked around both villages posting these fliers on telephone poles and explaining Earth Day to local villagers. These fliers and our project activity created a discussion in both villages about the environment and methods of preserving our land, air and waters.

Environmental Committee Participation

Youth members from two villages, Balagusar and Hasangala, participated in the Environmental Committees activities including lesson plans focused on general environmental issues as well as Earth Day and several youth members participated in the Environmental Committee’s Art Contest. The youth members and their local PCV greatly enjoyed the activities produced and planned by the Environmental Committee.

Saturday, July 11, 2009

New Environmental Materials

A few Weeks back a review of the Barda Earthday Extravaganza was posted here on the blog. We have now posted all of the materials from that project on our sister google group, http://groups.google.com/group/ENVCOMM?hl=en. It is a step by step set of material you would need to complete a similar project. Its supper easy and fun so check it out!

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Ganja Riverbed Clean Up

Ganja Riverbed Clean Up
By: Bonnie

A group of Ganja youth came together to cleanup the Ganja Riverbed on a rainy day in early April 2009. The student group included university students from the economics faculty of the Azerbaijan State Agricultural University and students from the Ganja Vocational Training Center. Peace Corps Environmental Committee supplied a small incentive grant for this activity and the University provided much of the equipment and supplies. Approximately 50 students (boys and girls) participated in the all day event that collected nearly 2 city dump trucks of trash from the river near one of the main bridges. The day finished with a party celebration at the Economics building of the University. Bonnie Campbell PCV AZ6 met the 2 leaders of the group at her organization - the Ganja VTC when they attended her English Enrichment and Conversation Clubs. Three other Ganja PCV's were on hand to participate in the cleanup. Thanks to Tor, Linda and Margaret for their help with this project.

The SIFE committee from the University has taken this project to Baku for a presentation and will be going to Berlin in the fall of 2009 to present what they have done for the environment in Ganja.

Pictures attached show the mess before and the cleaned up area afterwards. Asgar and Eldar are the 2 students that planned this project and I am proud to know these two young leaders from Ganja.

Barda Earth Day Extravaganza

Barda Earth Day Extravaganza
By: Meredith Ebenhack

For Earth Day in Barda Bill, Lexi, Jeremy and I, along with our Azeri counterpart, Famila, hosted an environmental educational day. We picked three important topics to focus on, water conservation, energy conservation and trash disposal. We then created a 30 minute educational session on each topic focusing on the facts and practical steps they could take in their lives to help address the problem. In addition, we created skit for each topic, with a focus on making them not only educational but also interactive and funny. We picked three of our local schools to participate, and asked each school to pick 10 6th form students to attend the educational day. Each school was given one of the plays for the 10 students to practice and learn individually and then perform on the day of the training. The plan was to have each school start at a station and then rotate every 30 minutes until they had covered all the stations. They would then be given a short break to have a snack and prepare for their skit to be preformed right after the break. It would all last from 10am until 12 or 1pm, and include 30 or so students, 3 translators, one for each section, and an assisting teacher from each school to help maintain order. In order to make sure everything ran smoothly we spoke with the director of the sports and youth ministry and invited someone to attend. One of our participating schools allowed us to use their school to host our day and we received 20manat from the environmental committees in order to pay for material and snacks for the kids.
On the Big day, with the exception of a few minor hitches, everything went as planned. And as a whole it was a great success! We got som much appreciated extra help from Ryan and Johanna. The students really enjoyed themselves and amazingly stayed focused and interested through every session, with some attention span to spare, and the plays got lots of laughs. They had a great time and learned a little while they were at it. As a closing we presented each school with a certificate for participating and took loads of pictures. It was such a success that we hope for this to become an annual and growing tradition, with more schools and more hands on participation from our Azeri counter parts each year. Though there will be some tweaks here and there for next year, if anyone is interesting in doing a similar project in their community look for a detailed outline of the project and sessions at the environmental committee’s Google group in the near future.

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Small Project Grants

Attention Azerbaijan Peace Corps Volunteers!!! Are you working on an environmental project? Do you need a little bit of cash for your project? If so, the environmental committee is currently offering small amounts of money (20M or less)in order to help you out. If you are interested in being considered for this please email one off the environmental committee members with a description of you project and what you need the money for. We hope to hear from lots of you!

sincerely, the EC

Saturday, February 7, 2009

It’s for the Community and Me! Joel Robbins, Sheki

Last year a college student and I created a poster that said: “Keep Sheki Beautiful. You wouldn’t throw paper and trash on your floors at home, so please don’t throw candy wrappers, garbage and cigarette papers onto the streets or into the rivers of Sheki, which is the home of all of us.” It had a couple of photos, a local mosque and a sculpture.

One day I was walking down my cobblestone street and decided to pick up some of the trash along the way. My host brother was walking the other way and saw me. He kept saying, “Yox, yox.” I kept picking things up. Later I showed my family the poster. The said they liked it, but I noticed my brother taking the trash to the river a few weeks later. The odd thing is that there is a trash pickup point down our street the opposite direction from the river. Old habits die hard.

The central library let me post the anti-litter art in its window, I gave some to my college students, and I put a version in the college’s monthly newsletter. I also taped some on the stonework of bridges where people throw their trash into the rivers, but I noticed someone quickly torn them loose and discarded them.

One Sunday I went to the park between my house and the college and spent and hour picking up paper trash and burning it. That mystified some of the locals walking through the park. One child came and helped me a little while, and the female gatekeeper at the college happened to walk by and said in English, “Thank you.” I’m sure the word got around that the crazy American teacher was picking up trash instead of tossing it onto the ground.

A couple of months later, two teachers took their students into the park with weed broom/rakes and cleaned up and burned leaves and paper. I took pictures and a student wrote a caption to congratulate the teachers and students. We published that in the next issue of our college paper.

I know that’s not much, but you have to start somewhere. When I was a boy, we drove to a marshy area near a river to throw away cans and bottles, anything we couldn’t feed to the chickens or burn in our trash barrel at home, into the water. Everyone in my community used to do that before we had trash pickup and landfills. It will take AZ another decade to get to that point. We have a few trash pickup points in Sheki, but only about 1/5 of what is needed.

Saturday, January 24, 2009

What do you know about global warming?

GLOBAL WARMING

What is global warming?

Global warming is the sustained increase in the mean average temperature of the earth's atmosphere due the trapping of heat in the lower atmosphere by greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and CFCs. In recent years, the rate of global warming has dramatically increased.

What or Who is responsible for Global Warming?

Certain amount of global warming and cooling is a natural. The Earth has cycled through many phases of warming and cooling over the billions of years due to the greenhouse effect. There are many natural factors that contribute to the greenhouse effect but most of these occur very slowly over many millennia (thousands of years!!!!!!). In recent history, temperatures have been increasing faster than ever on a global scale that cannot be explained by these natural processes. It is now largely agreed upon in the scientific community that sense the industrial revolution global warming has dramatically increased due to human activity. Humans are releasing an exponentially larger amount of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than the environment could ever do on its own. Every time you ride on a plane, drive a car, use electricity that is created threw fossil fuels, buy a product hat was created using fossil fuels, eat meat, rice or many other foods that are produced in non environmentally safe methods, you are contributing to global warming.

HUMANS Are Causing the Present Rapid global warming.

Individuals, Governments, Businesses all contribute to the Problem!

What are the causes of (rapid) global warming?

Causes of Global Warming

Carbon Dioxide from:

Fossil Fuel (cars, air plains, coal plants, any electricity you use that is generated from a source that is bases off fossil fuels)

Deforestation

Plants store carbon! When forests and other natural lands are destroyed they are no longer there to absorb and store carbon AND even more carbon is released back into the atmosphere when those plants die and decay.

Failing Sinks (sinks – nature systems that sore large amount of carbon over thousands of years)

Peat bogs, artic tundra, oceans are all sinks.

Positive feedback loop amplify the changes in the climate. For example, as the earth warms destabilizes natural sinks causing them to release their carbon. This huge release of carbon will then have nothing to soak it up so it will just be in the atmosphere causing a greater amount of global warming to take place.

Oceans hold 50 times as much carbon as all terrestrial plants on Earth. Increased thermal stratification of the oceans has caused substantial reductions in levels of phytoplankton, which store CO2. Increased atmospheric carbon is also causing an acidification of the ocean, since carbon dioxide forms carbonic acid when it reacts with water. The overall effect is the ocean being less able to store the ever increasing amounts of carbon being released.

Methane from- created when bacteria breaks down organic material in an oxygen starved environment. It is 100 times as powerful as carbon dioxide!

Cattle, goats and sheep (as food is broken down in their stomachs), Rice Paddies (organic material is trapped under water), Landfills, leakage from natural gas fields (because Methane is a component of natural gas) are all sources of Methane.

The world is eating more meat than ever, rice is a staple food in many parts of the world and the more we consume the more garbage there is for landfills.

the Artic Tundra
Clathrates – They are huge chunks of ice at the bottom of the ocean. If temperatures rise, warming the ocean, they will melt releasing huge amounts of Methane.

Nitrogen Oxides – It is a main component of fertilizer. Nitrogen oxides have 300 times more heat-trapping capacity per unit of volume than does carbon dioxide, and we release them every time we apply fertilizer to soil.

Other Gases - CFCs and HCFCs (chlorofluorocarbons and hydrochlorofluorocarbons) used in refrigeration are also powerful greenhouse gases.

What are some of the consequences of global warming?

Melting of glaciers and polar caps

First, it will raise sea levels. There are 5,773,000 cubic miles of water in ice caps, glaciers, and permanent snow. According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, if all glaciers melted today the seas would rise about 230 feet. Luckily, that’s not going to happen all in one go! But sea levels will rise.

Second, melting ice caps will throw the global ecosystem out of balance. The ice caps are fresh water, and when they melt they will desalinate the ocean. The desalinization of the ocean will throw off regular oceanic currents, which help regulate temperatures.

Third, temperature rises and changing landscapes in the artic circle will endanger several species of animals. Only the most adaptable will survive.

Fourth, global warming could snowball with the ice caps gone. Ice caps are white, and reflect sunlight, much of which is reflected back into space, further cooling Earth. If the ice caps melt, the only major reflector left is the ocean. Darker colors absorb sunlight, further warming the Earth

Increased rain and snow fall

Increase in Hurricanes and other extreme weather. Strong hurricanes, droughts, Floods, heat waves, wildfires, and other natural disasters may become commonplace in many parts of the world. This will be Partially dues to warmer ocean waters

Water shortages

When the ice caps are gone a major source of water for many people will be gone. And greater droughts and desertification will cause water shortages

Increase in spread of disease

Warmer weather = more disease carrying insects

Ocean acidification

Economic consequences

The eradication of some specials of plants and animals.

More than a million species face extinction from disappearing habitat, changing ecosystems, and acidifying oceans.

Food shortages

At some point in the future, warming could become uncontrollable due to the positive feedback effect. Rising temperatures could release additional greenhouse gases by unlocking methane in permafrost and undersea deposits, freeing carbon trapped in sea ice, and causing increased evaporation of water.

Whose responsibility is it to try and stop global warning and repair damage already done?

EVERYONES has a responsibility!

Individuals, Governments and Business are all responsible, as they all contribute to the problem. But remember, governments and businesses are made up of INDIVIDUALS!

How can YOU help to solve global warming?

Here is a list of simple steps that you can take to help control global warming and reduce your impact on the environment.

Get educated – The better you understand the issue the more able you will be to combat it.

Vote – push your government to care about the environment too!

Reduce – take a true look at the amount of resources you use everyday, and how much trash do you create in a day, and then reduce it!

Reuse – before you throw something away take a close look at it – can you sue it for another purpose? For example, reuse plastic shopping bag instead of getting new ones each time you go to the market, or carry your own cloth bag and do not use plastic bags. Save jars to store things in or to use as cups.

Recycle – If you have recycling facilities anywhere near you use them.

Place a liter soda bottle full of water into your toilet tank. This will cause it to fill faster and use less water each time you flush.
Donate your unwanted clothes. In the bazaar now there is a used cloths section. Baku even has thrift stores!

Turn off the faucet when you are brushing your teeth.

Turn garden hose when you are not watering anything in particular

Turn off electrical devices (lights, fans, tv, computers, etc.) when they are not in use. And be sure to

eliminate phantom loads. A phantom load is caused when electrical appliances draws electricity when it isn't in use but is plugged in. about 11% of residential electricity consumption is used by "phantom loads." Use electrical surge protectors. Then, with one flick of the switch, you can make sure that the appliances plugged into your surge protectors are drawing no electricity at all.

· Use “Energy Efficient” appliances, and replace old appliances with new one. You WILL save money. They will save you about a third on their energy bill with similar savings of greenhouse gas emissions, without sacrificing features, style or comfort

replace traditional light bulbs with energy savers such as LCD’s - compact fluorescent bulbs

Check for leaks (toilets, faucets, pipes, irrigation systems, etc.)

Walk, ride a bike or use public transportation whenever possible.

Have showers instead of baths.

Plant native and/or drought-tolerant plants. Some grasses, ground covers, shrubs and trees do not need to be watered as frequently.

Buy recycles paper products or those produced form ecologically managed forests. It help save trees, conserve water, reduce trash

use less paper and use paper fully

Insulate and ventilate your home!!!!! Make sure doors and windows are sealed tightly. If you are running an air conditioner or heater, keep all doors and windows CLOSED! Also, instead of an air conditioner in the summer try using fans and good ventilation.

Use hot water instead of cold water to wash dishes

Compost biodegradable waste in your home

Eat locally produced foods

The less food has to travel the less fuel burned. Local, but suitable to your climate. If it is pineapple from Main it is probably less energy consuming to just have it shipped across country.

· Paint your home a light color if you live in a warmer climate and a dark color if you live in a cooler climate. This can contribute saving up to 5000 pounds of carbon dioxide per year.

· Turn Down Your Water Heater. Just a 10° F reduction on your water heater thermostat can reduce 3% to 5% of your total energy consumption. 110-120°F is optimal

· Turn down your air or heat 2-3 degrees! Change Your Thermostat by this small amount can decrease Your Carbon Footprint 2,000 lbs and save you $98! During the hot months turn the thermostat up two degrees and in the cold months turn it down two degrees.

· Use your buying power!!! Buy from companies that use recycled materials and that use minimal packaging and environmentally sound practice.

Eat less meat - Livestock are responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than transportation is. This is due to the large amounts of petroleum used in creating ammonium nitrate fertilizer (for the corn they are fed) plus the cost of shipping that corn to the cattle and then shipping the cattle to slaughter and grocery. If one eats meat it should always be from a local source. Choosing vegetarian foods also drastically reduces agricultural water consumption and land use, and favorably impacts biodiversity.

· BE AN EXAMPLE - Your Change Teaches Others

Changing yourself is easy, you may say, but you're only one person-- how can you increase your ability to stop global warming?

You can become a beacon for change. It is difficult to do this alone, but the more people that see the path you choose and examples you provide of what they themselves can do, the easier it will be for them to join you. In fact, the more you act publicly to prevent global warming, the more viable this alternate path becomes. As you act in your daily life in ways that help prevent global warming, you gain the visibility necessary to influence behaviors and change minds in other places, increasing your positive impact.