Saturday is International Eradication of Poverty Day. Today is Blog Action Day ’09 Climate Change. Now more than ever climate change, and poverty go hand in hand. It is impossible to address one without considering the other.

It is estimated that 150,000 people die each year as a result of climate change. This grim figure doesn’t even account for the millions of people each year whose livelihoods are impacted by climate change’s effects.

Food and water security are critical to alleviate poverty. But with climate change comes increasingly unpredictable weather like poor rainfall or floods, destroying homes and crops. While climate change affects us all, people living in poverty are hit first–and worst.

And by 2015, it is estimated that 375 million people, most of them in poor countries, will be adversely affected by climate change annually through natural disasters.

While the challenge is huge, the solutions start with small steps. Many of our partners now operate programs and take action that both address poverty and seek to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Here in the US, we too can make changes.

For example, we can conserve water by turning off the tap when we clean our teeth. Bhanwari can conserve water because she was able to install a taanka.

We can shift our buying power to local, organic produce. Lal Maya learned how to grow crops native to her area, crops that are drought tolerant and better able to resist pests.

Here, many of us are learning how to reduce our garbage and compost our food scraps. In Mexico, one community is learning how to grow mushrooms, a quick-growing crop, with discarded corn-cobs which provide a great environment for mushrooms to thrive.

People everywhere are making small changes and adapting. We need the governments of the world to follow our example. It is possible to mobilize and create change. Persistence does pay off and change can happen, as Doña María Juárez testify.

Take a stand, make a change and join with Bhanwari, Lal Maya, and Doña María Juárez and the millions of others who are taking action around the world fighting to end climate change.

Take Action:
Tell the UN what you will miss the most.
Sign the petition for a climate change treaty to be agreed upon in Copenhagen this year.
Participate in the International Day of Climate Change Action on Oct 24

Labels: Blog Action Day. Poverty, Climate Change

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