EarthAction

Pay-as-you-go Business Innovation Makes Renewable Energy Accessible

Written and Researched by EarthAction Intern Larry O'Connor

The Economist magazine recently published an article about a company that has developed an interesting way to profit from providing electricity to poor, sunny regions around the world. The company is based out of London and called Eight19, which refers how long it takes sunlight to reach the earth - 8 minutes and 19 seconds.

The Economist article focuses on Eight19’s “Pay as you go” solar program, where a family will be able to pay an upfront deposit of $10 US to purchase a solar cell and battery that have the ability to light two small rooms for 7 hours per day while charging one cell phone. The users then must purchase "scratch cards" using their cell phones to receive a reference number that will activate the devices. The "scratch cards" and reference numbers are sent via text message. Users can purchase any amount that they can pay for: a day, a week, or a month. These small purchases work toward paying off the cost of the device. After purchasing approximately eighty dollars’ worth of scratch cards, the customer will have paid off the entire cost of the battery and will have complete ownership of the unit.

Customers can then use their $80 US investment on a down payment to move up the "Indigo Energy Escalator" to obtain a larger solar battery unit, or they can just keep their solar unit and not spend any money on electricity. This energy escalator has four different levels, ranging from 3 to 80 watt capacity. The 80 watt solar cell generates light for a phone, four rooms, a radio, a TV, and a sewing machine.

 

This process was recently tested on a few hundred Kenyan families. Over the next two months Eight19 plans to release 4,000 solar kits in Kenya, Malawi, and Zambia. Many people in this region already have light and some electricity fueled by paraffin - a harmful waxy substance that comes from hydrocarbons used for lighting candles (pictured aboved). The most important aspect in this process is that these incremental payments are similar to what potential customers currently pay for paraffin to light lamps and the cost of charging a cell phone at a store.

Potential Implications of “Pay as you go solar”

UPDATE: Cultural Survival/Global Response Selects the Prey Lang Issue for its Next Campaign

In August, EarthAction brought global attention to the Prey Lang forest issue in Cambodia. The Cambodian government is allowing companies, the military, and illegal groups to make a profit by destroying the ancient Prey Lang forest. Indigenous Kuy communities, who live in or around Prey Lang, have been fighting to protect the forest, the source of their livelihoods and culture.

We are very pleased that the Prey Lang issue has been selected as the next Cultural Survival/Global Response campaign. Cultural Survival, an organization with a consultative status with the United Nations, has partnered with indigenous communities around the world to help them defend their cultures, lands, and languages for nearly 40 years. Just like EarthAction, Global Response was launched at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Cultural Survival's Global Response Program will develop a campaign that will include action alerts, maps, photos, and additional articles and links to other websites and resources for the campaign. The action alerts will also be published in the winter issue of the Cultural Survival Quarterly magazine, which will be released in mid-December.

For more information about Cultural Survival's Global Response Program activities, please visit www.cs.org

Avatar Activists Photograph by: AFP, Tang Chhin Sothy

Sponsorship for Journalists to Attend the UNCCD COP 10, Changwon, Republic of Korea

Media Alert: Sponsorship for Journalists to Attend the UNCCD COP 10, Changwon, Republic of Korea

The UNCCD secretariat will sponsor the participation of a total of four developing country journalists, drawn from the Africa, Asia & the Pacific and the Latin America & the Caribbean regions, to the tenth session of the Conference of the Parties that will take place in Changwon, Republic of Korea, from 10-21October 2011. The secretariat will cover the travel and accommodation costs for the duration of the conference.

Journalists wishing to be considered for such sponsorship should submit the following:
a) An article with their byline on one of the issues covered by the Convention, specifically, combatting desertification and land degradation and mitigating the effects of drought
b) an article with their byline that has been published in a reputable media outlet; a global media outlet is a distinct advantage
c) a letter of support from the journalist’s bureau chief or primary media for which they are reporting

Applications received by midnight, Friday, 30 September 2011, will be considered. The candidates selected will be informed by Monday, 3 October 2011. As indicated in the registration document, applicants should be able to travel so as to arrive in Changwon by 9 October 2011.

The candidates selected will participate in a half-day media briefing on the COP10 session, which will take place from 8:30am-12:45pm on Monday, 10 October. Independence of the media is guaranteed in the coverage of the COP10 session, but journalists are expected to dedicate their time to the coverage the event.

Requests for sponsorship should be emailed to: press@unccd.int, with the following subject line: Application for Sponsorship to UNCCD COP10.

Featured Issue: Human Trafficking

“A 15-year-old Vietnamese boy found during a police raid on a house in Doncaster [United Kingdom], along with £85,000-worth of cannabis, had been working since he was 12, trafficked via France with the promise of a factory job. Having been beaten, he was too scared to leave.”

(Emily Dugan, “Think slavery is a thing of the past? Think again,” The Independent UK 17 October 2010).

This is just one of the millions of stories about human trafficking victims. Despite international attention and awareness to the problem of human trafficking over the last decade, this modern day slave trade has grown to be the second largest criminal industry in the world (after the drug trade). The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime estimates conservatively that approximately 2.5 million people are victims of trafficking at any given time.

Human trafficking is the illegal trade of persons through force, fraud, coercion, or violence for purposes of sexual exploitation, forced labor, and other slavery-like practices. Most victims are women and children that are kidnapped or seduced through fraud to seek financial opportunities outside of their hometowns or countries; however, any person of any age and gender can be a victim. Upon arrival at their destination, they are forced into labor and/or prostitution. “Bonded labor” or “debt bondage”, when a worker is exploited to pay off a debt, like their travel costs, is one prevalent type of slavery into which people are trafficked. The trafficking and enslavement of children is often linked to war where children are used as combatants, porters, cooks, guards, servants, messengers or spies. In these situations, boys and girls are also forced to marry or have sex with male combatants. Children are subjected to prostitution in the global commercial trade although it is prohibited by legislation in countries around the world. 

Continue Reading Here...

Nuclear Weapon States to meet June 29-30. Time to end the threat from nuclear weapons!

The foreign ministers of the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France and China (the P5 Permanent members of the UN Security Council) are scheduled to meet in Paris from 29 to 30 June 2011 to discuss nuclear security. Together they possess more than 20,000 nuclear weapons, capable of destroying all life on Earth many times over.
 
In May last year at a meeting of the States Parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, they agreed that stopping the proliferation of nuclear weapons to additional countries would be impossible if they continued to hold onto nuclear weapons themselves forever. They thus committed to a number of initial steps to reduce their nuclear stockpiles, lower the role of nuclear weapons in their security doctrines and to work with non-nuclear weapon States to build the framework for a nuclear-weapons-free world.
 
This will be their first meeting to start implementing these commitments. However, like smokers addicted to cigarettes, they will not give up their nuclear weapons easily. We must be assertive in helping them stick to their commitments.  
 
Join us in sending a loud and clear message to them—It’s time to stop threatening the world with these weapons of terror, and start negotiating a treaty to outlaw and eliminate all nuclear weapons globally.

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Take Action

Send an email to the leaders of the P5 countries:

• President Barack Obama (United States)
• President Dmitry Medvedev (Russia)
• Prime Minister David Cameron (United Kingdom)
• President Nicolas Sarkozy (France)
• President Hu Jintao (China)

Join an action on Nuclear Abolition Day – June 25

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Sample letter—Please change this letter a bit so that all the letters they receive don’t look exactly alike. Personal letters have more influence. Add why you think it is important to abolish nuclear weapons.
 

Dear President/Prime Minister,
 
I welcome the fact that for the first time ever the five Nuclear Weapons States parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) are meeting at ministerial level to discuss nuclear disarmament - and in particular to fulfill the promise made at the 2010 NPT Review Conference “to achieve the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.”
 
I encourage you to use this opportunity to commit to further reductions in numbers of nuclear weapons in your stockpiles, reinforce the practice and norm against any use of nuclear weapons, and announce a start to multilateral negotiations on a global treaty banning nuclear weapons worldwide under international verification and control.
 
The abolition of nuclear weapons will provide security for your nation and for all nations. It is a duty you owe to present generations, and to future generations. It is a step that will enhance peace, cooperation, stability and prosperity. I urge you to do everything in your power to take this fundamental step to protect our nations, our environment and our future.
 
Yours sincerely,
[Your first & last name, and at least your country]

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For more information see:
Abolition 2000 Global Network for the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons www.abolition2000.org
Parliamentarians for Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament www.pnnd.org
Nuclear Abolition Day www.nuclearabolition.org

 

Fight for Public Media!

As many of you may know, here in the United States legislation was recently introduced to the Senate to cut all federal funding for public media such as NPR and PBS, media sources that the American public turns to and trusts.  A poll last week shows that 69% of Americans oppose cutting funding.  We need to make sure our voices are heard!  Get involved by signing the petition and reposting to facebook or twitter.  Let your congress members know the importance of public media to you by calling and e-mailing.  Together we can make sure these news sources continue to exist!

How do you connect to public media?  Do you listen to NPR on the way to work, did you grow up with PBS?  Leave your connections in the comments!

(Photo by Todd Huffman shared under a creative comons license)

2010 Campaign Report

This report summarizes the campaigns and projects that EarthAction supported and carried out in 2010. Read about our work to protect a forest in Moscow, indigenous peoples' rights in Colombia, elephants in Africa, endangered languages in Siberia, and much, much, more. It's all part of our goal to create a more just, peaceful and sustainable world.

Valentine to the King of Norway: Stop Farm Fishing in BC!

Our friends at salmonaresacred.org have just released a valentine that you can download and send to the King of Norway pressuring him to stop farm fishing in British Columbia.  From their site:

"You can help take a stand against the biological and social threat and commerce of industrial marine net-cage feedlots using our global oceans. The science is clear: these operations risk wild salmon populations by intensifying disease and deplete world fishery resources to make the feed. They privatize ocean spaces and threaten sovereign rights to food security."  

You can send this valentine to your friends and family to raise awareness, post it to your blog, and mail or e-mail the King of Norway directly.  Letters may begin, "Your Majesty, King Harald of Norway, For the Love of Wild Salmon please instruct your fish farmers to get out of the coastal waters of British Columbia and all the world's oceans.”  For more letter ideas click here.

The King's address:

email address:(post@slottet.no)
Mailing address:

His Majesty
King of Norway
Royal Palace
Henrik Ibsens Gate 1
0010 Oslo
Norway

For more information, see salmonaresacred.org or alexandramorton.ca.  We can help create a more just and food secure future for us all.

 

Guatemala Communities Hit Hard by Tropical Storm Agatha

From Cultural Survival:

Cultural Survival's Community Radio Project director Mark Camp reports from Guatemala that Tropical Storm Agatha  devastated many of the communities that we are working with there. After more than three feet of rain fell, mudslides and flooding now have killed 123 people, and the death toll is expected to rise. Community radio stations did what they always do, worked to serve the community by  putting out calls for blankets, plastic sheeting, drinking water, clothing and food to distribute to makeshift shelters. Read more.   

A Step Forward on Cluster Bombs

    Last month, 111 countries convened in Dublin, Ireland to endorse the Cluster Munitions Convention, a treaty to ban the use of cluster bombs. Cluster bombs are munitions used in combat which eject smaller "bomblets" when they are set off. Many are dropped or launched but do not explode until years later, harming or killing civilians who unintentionally come in contact with them.

This treaty includes provisions barring the production, stockpiling, and transfer of cluster bombs. Nations, organizations, and victims of cluster bombs around the world have worked for many years to bring about this agreement. It will not only eradicate cluster bombs, but actively support the victims of cluster explosions.

The treaty will be formally signed in December of 2008 by the 111 original countries, and any other countries that have since endorsed it. After countries sign the treaty, each of their governments must ratify it. Once 30 countries ratify the treaty it becomes international law. Once the treaty becomes law, it will be an important tool to end the use of these indiscriminate weapons.

The Cluster Munitions Coalition, which has been a major leader in the campaign to end cluster bombs, has a petition called the People's Treaty which was re-launched when the treaty was endorsed in Dublin. The Petition calls on governments who have already signed the treaty to carry it through to law. It also calls on countries who have not yet signed (like the United States) to sign on in December.Add your name  to this important petition by clicking on the link above!

(Photo courtesy of Flickr user Leesan under the Creative Commons License )