My Bigfoot Carbon Footprint

US President Barack Obama yesterday boosted hopes of a global climate deal in Copenhagen next month saying the world had moved closer to a “strong operational agreement” on climate change. Closer to home, our own Prime Minister Raila Odinga has said Kenya would work to restore tree cover and explore renewable energy options as its contribution to combating climate change ahead of next month's climate summit in Copenhagen.


With all the current buzz about climate change in the lead-up to the Copenhagen summit, I decided to calculate my own 'carbon footprint'. Your carbon footprint is the sum of all emissions of CO2 (carbon dioxide), which were induced by your activities in a given time frame. Usually a carbon footprint is calculated for the time period of a year.

Many carbon footprint calculators are available on the web, but not all of them are relevant to the Kenyan situation. Your carbon footprint is partly determined by the country in which you live. The reason is there are different standards depending on your country of residence and different units of measurement. And different countries have varying carbon footprints for electricity generation.

I used this carbon footprint calculator powered by Carbon Footprint. The results are shocking!

• My footprint is 11.80 tonnes per year
• The average footprint for people in Kenya is 0.31 tonnes
• The average for the industrial nations is about 11 tonnes
• The average worldwide carbon footprint is about 4 tonnes
• The worldwide target to combat climate change is 2 tonnes



When I looked at my carbon footprint graphic, it reminded me of the legendary but boring Bigfoot movies like Harry and the Hendersons. Yes, my carbon footprint is bigger than the average footprint for people in Kenya, bigger than the average worldwide carbon footprint, and even bigger than the average for the industrial nations. Since we are not talking about the size of my manhood here - which wouldn't be a cause for alarm - but about the size of my carbon footprint, something needs to be done about it here and now.

So now I will have to start reducing my contribution to the carbon emissions that are destroying our earth. Apart from reducing my carbon footprint, I should also offset my carbon emissions. In Kenya, this is now fucking easy, since you can just Swear For A Tree, thanks to @Kahenya and @afromusing. So go and calculate your carbon footprint now, try to reduce it, then swear away, and tell me what the hell you think about this great tree planting initiative.

Oh, and if you're bored, you can always watch a Bigfoot movie or read a Bigfoot story to your kids:

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Fresh, local and... organic!

And here we go again with another green post - this time about an interesting event taking place every month in Nairobi: the Organic Farmers Market at the River Garden Centre (off Limuru Rd, 500 m past Village Market on your way to Runda). This market provides consumers an opportunity to purchase and get more information regarding organic foods.

Organic agriculture is a production system that sustains the health of soils, ecosystems and yourself.

The organic sector in Kenya is still relatively small but growing fast. Small-scale organic agricultural activities in Kenya are represented by the Kenya Organic Agriculture Network (KOAN). The network aims at developing and promoting local and export markets, supporting development of affordable local certification capacity and creating awareness of market opportunities in the organic sector. You can get some relatively interesting things from their website, including a document on how to assure organic quality standards are met.

The next Organic Farmers Market is taking place this Saturday (May 30th, 2009). So please grab this opportunity to become a healthier human being, respectful of your immediate surroundings and global environment. And there's life jazz too! So you can count me in!Source URL: https://pussyhotnaked.blogspot.com/search/label/environment
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Eco Cabs: driving green in style, first ever in Kenya!

Another green post. As I was preparing my recent article on enjoying our "Green City in the Sun", I saw this very nice green animal:




I had never seen such a strange animal before. Apparently, it is one of the new Toyota Prius Eco Cabs. Eco Cabs is a new fleet of hybrid taxis in Nairobi that provide customers with high standard services and the option of driving green in style. Eco Cabs has been launched to showcase the concept of green transport and to inspire other businesses to make a meaningful transformation towards greener processes. Eco Cabs produce over 60% less emissions compared with other vehicles with the same engine size when driving within the city. The cabs are designed to symbolize the green concept: they are all painted green with a green leaf signifying how green the cabs are.

Ironically, the Eco-cab was parked at one of the petrol stations in Nairobi... what a nice contrast!

I think we should all promote such green businesses. Next time I need a taxi, I already know where to go. And you? What are you doing to combat climate change?Source URL: https://pussyhotnaked.blogspot.com/search/label/environment
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New Kenyan atlas a waste of resources?

The new 168-page "Kenya: Atlas of Our Changing Environment" - produced by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) - was launched earlier this week in Nairobi. "Kenya’s chances of realizing its 2030 vision will depend increasingly on the way the country manages its natural or nature-based assets," the press release reads. Of course, I hear you say.


Let me start by admitting that the report really looks nice and professionally done in terms of lay-out, has easy-to-read graphs and tables and many images and is quite informative. Let me give you just one example which you may find interesting:
The land available per person in Kenya has dropped from 7.2 hectares per person in 1960 to just 1.7 ha per person in 2005 due to the rapid population growth of the last few decades. There are now 38 million inhabitants in Kenya, up from just eight million in 1960. The population is expected to keep rising, and land available per person is projected to drop to 0.3 ha per person by 2050.
But... if you dig into the atlas a bit deeper, there is really nothing new in there. Nothing we didn't know already, I would say. Even the video that comes with it is a bit disappointing: mostly things you can also see through Google Earth. And the film has a non-Kenyan voice-over. We do have some good Kenyan voices as well, don't we?



Was the production of this atlas by UNEP really necessary? Does it make sense to do more tests on a sick patient when you already know which disease s/he is suffering from? Instead of spending more money on doing more medical tests and producing additional reports, you would start treating the patient, right? And I think that is exactly what UNEP should have done right now instead of producing yet another report: start treating the sick patient. Start treating our threatened environment by promoting and facilitating practical interventions for example. Kenyans were not really waiting for yet another nice report to gather dust on the shelves...


Also, the report is not very accessible to the average Kenyan. OK, you can download and/or buy the report here. But which Kenyan is really able to download a file of 63 MB? Or which Kenyan can afford US$80 for the hardcopy? And this is without shipping charges from the UK by the way. Yes, shipping from the UK. Why a report which is about Kenya and which has been produced by an organization (UNEP) based in Kenya needs to shipped from the UK is still a mystery to me. Is this another case of hypocrisy at UNEP? The use of SUVs by UN staff in Nairobi has been rankling some bloggers for some time now.
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