American University’s “Seeing Climate Change” Symposium, Meet Climate Champ–Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, ClimateCardinals.Org, and Julie’s Bicycle 

WHAT HAS JULIE’S BICYCLE GOT TO DO WITH FIGHTING CLIMATE CHANGE?

Julie’s Bicycle is an organization that provides guidance and expertise to tackle the climate crisis with an international program of events, tools and resources, consultancy, leadership training and advocacy. For them, it’s all about Creative. Climate. Action. It was founded in 2007 by not Julie, but Alison Tickell. In fact there’s not a Julie in the bunch!

Some of their work includes The Creative Industry Green Tools. It’s a set of free online carbon calculators developed by Julies Bicycle which are currently used by more than 3,200 arts and cultural organizations worldwide from over 50 countries. The Tools allow organizations to calculate and understand the impacts of their venue, office, tour, production, event or a festival’s environment impacts. 

Since 2012 use of the Tools by the arts industry has produced the following impacts.

• 21% decrease in energy use emissions since 2012/13

• 5% annual average reduction in energy use emissions since 2012/13

• If this rate continues the sector will have decreased emissions by 85% in 2029/30

• 22% decrease in energy use since 2012/13

• 5% annual average reduction in energy use since 2012/13

• 19% of organizations have switched to clean energy providers or green tariffs

• Onsite generation has tripled between 2015/16 and 2016/17

So it’s not just about artistic motivation to act on climate change Julie’s Bicycle inspires. It’s about the industry’s infrastructure taking a measured, scientifically-backed approach to arts sustainability in the era of climate change.

DEEPER DIVE: Julie’s Bicycle, Vimeo

CLIMATE COMMUNITY CHAMPION, CLIMATECARDINALS.ORG

Did you know 90% of all climate change data is written only in English, while only 13% of the world speaks English, either as a first or second language? So how you gonna communicate/disseminate climate change intel with that raging disparity?!

Climate Cardinals to the rescue! It was first envisioned by Sophia Kianni, who realized the need for climate translation while on a trip to Iran in middle school. Sophia was shocked when she saw that the pollution in Iran was so bad she couldn’t see the stars at night. Sophia brought up these concerns to her relatives but was shocked when they informed her that they knew almost nothing about climate change. 

Her inspiration came from years spent translating English-language articles on global warming into Farsi for her Iranian relatives. Almost no media outlets in Iran write about the issue, Kianni said, so her family was skeptical. Eventually, her efforts paid off, she added. Her grandmother, aunts and uncles cut their electricity usage, began using cars less often and even agreed to reduce their meat intake. “That,” Kianni said, “was a really big deal for them.”

And so Climate Cardinals was born. She hopes the site can help replicate her success for families worldwide

Its mission, as an international youth-led non-profit works to make the climate movement more accessible to those who don’t speak English. Its aim is to educate and empower a diverse coalition of people to tackle the climate crisis. Climate Cardinals has over 6,000 volunteers who are translating and sourcing climate information into over 100 languages. To date, this international movement spans 41 countries and has reached over 500,000 people with over 500, 000 words of climate information translated. 

Kianni called it “Climate Cardinals,” named for the state bird of Virginia, because she hopes its information will migrate across the globe….

DEEPER DIVE: ClimateCardinals

AMERICAN UNIVERSITY’S, “SEEING CLIMATE CHANGE” VIRTUAL SYMPOSIUM  

Just want to hip you to a climate change virtual symposium sponsored by American University in Washington, DC. It’s the first annual “Seeing Climate Change” symposium. “Seeing Climate Change” will bring together leading figures from the arts, sciences, and policy worlds to examine how best to understand and respond to human-induced global heating.

The virtual event will take place on Saturday, November 6 and will be broken out into three sessions along with a keynote speech from Dr. Mustafa Santiago Ali over “lunch.”

·  Session I: Who Sets the Climate Agenda, 9:00-10:15 a.m.

·  Session II: Making Change—Voices in Climate Action, 10:45-12:00 p.m.

·  Lunchtime Keynote Speaker: Dr. Mustafa Santiago Ali, 12:30-1:45 p.m.

·  Session III: Making Climate Change Visible, 2:00-3:15 p.m.

·  Closing Keynote Speaker: Devi Lockwood 3:30-4:45 p.m.

Jeffrey will be moderating the Session II panel discussion, Voices in Climate Action from 1045-noon.

Panelists Include:

• William Snape, Assistant Dean, American University College of Law

• Kahlil Kettering, Bezos Earth Fund Project Director at The Nature Conservancy

• Suzanne Hunt, Sustainable agriculture, climate, and energy investment and policy advisor

We do hope you’ll register for the event and join the lively discussion!!  To register, click on the link in the Deeper Dive section of this story at theclimate.org/episodes. 

DEEPER DIVE: Seeing Climate Change

CLIMATE CHAMPION HINDOU OUMAROU IBRAHIM 

Meet Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim (HINDU OOHMARU IBRAHIM).  In 2019, Time magazine named her one of 15 women championing action on climate change. Ibrahim has racked up several accolades in the past few years, including National Geographic Emerging Explorer (2017) and Pritzker Emerging Environmental Genius Award winner (2019).

Now, Rolex is saluting her for using indigenous people’s knowledge to map resources and prevent conflict around climate in Chad, a landlocked country in central Africa. The focal point of her work is Lake Chad, which provides water for over 30 million people living not just in Chad but also in the surrounding countries of Cameroon, Niger and Nigeria.

Climate change, Ibrahim said in an interview, has caused the lake to shrink rapidly, “from about 10,000km to about 1,200km now”. This has led to other problems including shorter rainy seasons that result in droughts or heavy rains which cause flooding. This impacts not just the environment, but also the lives of indigenous peoples, most of whom are dependent on agriculture.

This, in turn, causes social problems and leads to conflicts, like those between the Mbororo pastoralist people — of whom Ibrahim is a member — and settled farmers. To manage the tensions, she brings different communities together to map and create 2D or 3D landscape models marking natural resources such as springs, rivers, fruit trees as well as sacred places.

The idea is not just to conserve but also share resources, including corridors for animals and access to fresh water. In so doing, the communities are also developing new methods of resilient agriculture and water conservation. Her efforts have caught the attention of local governments who use her data to formulate policy.

For more than four decades, through the Rolex Awards for Enterprise, Rolex has supported exceptional individuals who have the courage and conviction to take on major challenges; men and women who have a spirit of enterprise, initiating extraordinary projects that make the world a better place.

DEEPER DIVE: Harper’s, Augustman, Rolex Awards,