#un environment

TED-Ed has partnered with the United Nations to make a 30 day challenge to teach you everything you need to know about the climate, the environment and much more (this comes in handy in debates, talks with people that aren't aware of why we should protect the Earth, in knowing what to ask the governments when protesting and many more situations). Knowledge is power and power is what we need if we want to achieve our goals.

They already got to day 13 but the videos are short so you can catch up by watching a few a day. Enjoy!

United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP or UN Environment) is responsible for coordinating the UN's environmental activities and assisting developing countries in implementing environmentally sound policies and practices.

You have surely heard about window AC, split AC, Ceiling AC, Car ACs. but not about “Mitti ke AC”.

Everyone is now talking about sustainability, but very few are working on it. Monish Siripurapa is one of the innovators who innovated the idea of soil AC by using traditional Indian techniques. He is Architect by profession and also the founder of ‘ANT STUDIO’ his architecture firm.

Design of ‘Mitti ke AC’ is inspired by Beehive. The main purpose of these ACs is to minimise the temperature by 9-10 degrees Celcius. In most of the cities in India, the average temperature reaches up to 40 degrees Celcius. And this makes people difficult to survive in such a sun burning atmosphere.

Soil ACs are mostly used by the factory owners in big factories, where the temperature is pretty much higher than outside because of high power machinery installed there.ACs are placed outside the main gate of the factory, which is one of the driveways of entering the heat waves inside the factories.  

The structure is made of a cone shape cylindrical tube as you can see above in the picture. Hot air flows from one side to the other side. Recycled water of room temperature then allowed to run on the surface of cylinders. This process cools the hot air passing through the cylinders by 7-9 degrees.

ACs are now the major consumer of electricity, and it consumes up to 30% of India's electricity, this will be a great solution in this power-saving concept as it consumes electricity for running water only and on the same time, it uses recycled water. Monish got a winning tag of the Asia Pacific Low Carbon Lifestyles Challenge in the Energy category for his innovative creation.

We all know this innovation can’t change the whole system of cooling, but innovation like this proves that India is moving toward sustainability at a very higher pace.

Hey some positive (but not so much) art about the environment and climate crisis !

A quick video (one minute) with a bunch of catch-you words, upbeat music in the background, video grabs of environmental climate and environmental issues, but sort worth a one minute look. If you’re interested in the UN report, or bits of it, here’s the link to the UN Environment web page for the report.

Excerpt from this AP story:

Earth is sick with multiple and worsening environmental ills killing millions of people yearly, a new U.N. report says.

Climate change, a global major extinction of animals and plants, a human population soaring toward 10 billion, degraded land, polluted air, and plastics, pesticides and hormone-changing chemicals in the water are making the planet an increasing unhealthy place for people, says the scientific report issued once every few years.

But it may not be too late.

“There is every reason to be hopeful,” report co-editors Joyeeta Gupta and Paul Ekins told The Associated Press in an email. “There is still time but the window is closing fast.”

The sixth Global Environment Outlook, released Wednesday at a U.N. conference in Nairobi, Kenya, painted a dire picture of a planet where environmental problems interact with each other to make things even more dangerous for people. It uses the word “risk” 561 times in a 740-page report.

The report concludes “unsustainable human activities globally have degraded the Earth’s ecosystems, endangering the ecological foundations of society.”

But the same document says changes in the way the world eats, buys things, gets its energy and handles its waste could help fix the problems.

Coming to an agreement on how to tackle environmental concerns is difficult, especially when these issues transcend borders. There have been many attempts on both a regional and global level to form treaties that address these issues.

These treaties have had varying levels of success. So what make a successful environmental agreement, and how can we design these to be more effective in the future?

Gael García Bernal joins UN Environment’s Wild for Life campaign as the jaguar