Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Our Earth is in Trouble













The picture with snow was taken outside of the Faculty of Education last year. The picture without the snow was taken at about the same time this year. Climate change is starting to really scare me, and I hope that we will be able to make the changes necessary in our daily lives to avert a humanitarian catastrophe.
This January, I went to Bangkok, Thailand to see how schools and universities are practicing Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). You might not know this, but we are currently in the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD)which was declared by the United Nations. The objective of the DESD "is to integrate the principles, values, and practices of sustainable development into all aspects of education and learning." (I will blog about this later). For those of you unfamiliar with the term sustainable development, I would define it as national development that does not overuse natural resources or do irreparable damage to the earth.
In my university, I teach a class of 40 engineering and agricultural students. Maybe many of these students will be pioneers in creating new sustainable technologies in their fields! Since these students might be called upon to help solve some of the world's problems, I decided that we should learn what some of the world's problems are. I have asked students to go to the United Nations Human Development Report home page, find a world development statistic they find most startling, and report it as a comment to this post.
I have written the first comment to serve as an example.

38 comments:

Anonymous said...

Answer: I was startled that 72% of the population of Mali lives on 1$ a day. I do not think that you need money to be happy, but 28% of people in Mali are undernourished. This means that too many people cannot afford to eat.

Anonymous said...

I am engineering student.Global warming is a serious problem.In the future, I want to engage in this problem and solve it.

Anonymous said...

I was surprised to the thing that the risk of early death by 23% in Uganda and 30% in Cameroonclean
can be reduced by clean water,and
the risk of early death by 57% in
Egypt and 59% in Peru can be reduced by a flash toilet.
Therefor,I think that I shold do
fund-raising more and more.

Anonymous said...

I was startled that the life expectancy at birth of Swaziland is 31.3 years old. This shows that most of people in the country is dead before 30 years old because of hungry or disease.

Anonymous said...

I was startled Edcation index. The best rate is 0.99 of Norway and the worst rate is 0.23 of Burkina Faso. Japan is 0.94. I was shocked a great difference between the two.

Anonymous said...

I was startled Edcation index. The best rate is 0.99 of Norway and the worst rate is 0.23 of Burkina Faso. Japan is 0.94. I was shocked a great difference between the two.

Anonymous said...

I was startled that there are many children that birthweight is less than 2,500 grams.Children that less than 2,500 grams is born more than 20% of all children in a country,at more than 15 countries.I did not know this.I worry about that children can live and grow up.

Anonymous said...

I was startled that population ages 65 and older(% of total).In 2004,Japan was 19,2%.This was second of all.But Japan is
expected that Japan will be 26% in 2015.This is first of all.More and more I think Japan become aging society.

Anonymous said...

I was startled by the fact that Under-five mortality rate(per 1,000 live births).
In 1970, Japan is 21.After 34 years,it is 4.This problem was reformed.
But in some countries,this problem was not much reformed.For example,Angola is 300 in 1970.After 34 years,it is 260.
I think,worst problem is that there are some countries can't advance in medicine.

Anonymous said...

I was startlited that pooulation of dominica. In this country, population is only 0.1 million. But population of japan is 128 million. I think that dominican is hard on their life.

Anonymous said...

I surprise that Japan is the longest the average life expectancyb in the world.
Also Japan is higher than oter country. By contraries Afrika is very low. Therefore we must reduce that the difference between Japan and Afrika!

Anonymous said...

I was startled that only 21% children in Niger can receive basic education.
I think the world has been unfair socially and we have to know various problems in the world and think about it.

Anonymous said...

I am interested in Total population. Japan`s population is expected that it will increase 0.1 millions from 2004 to 2015. This statistics gave big shock to me.I think ,this figure is very short. Why rich country`s population such Japan don`t increase?
We have good food,good environment,good facility・・・
I don`t know ・・・

Anonymous said...

I was startled that the rate of population living below 2$ a day.
Surprisingly,94.1% of the population of Zambia lives on 2$ a day.
I always spend 5$ a day. I think abstain spending money.

Anonymous said...

I was startling that probability of not surviving past age 40 is 74.3% in Swaziland.
We think it easy that we see our 40th birthday come round in japan.
But people in Swaziland think it very hard.
This fact is caused by they don't have sufficient knowledge about HIV and food.

Anonymous said...

I was startled that some data show important things.For example,Male employment in agriculture of Japan shows 5%,Haiti shows 63% and Argentina shows 1%.And Female employment in services of Japan shows 73% ,Surinam shows 97% and Yemen shows 9%.
After seeing these date,I think we should know information in the world.

Anonymous said...

I was surprised to the ,1.2billion people without access to safe water.1.2billion people is 10% of aii of the world population!!Anbelievable!!

Anonymous said...

Sorry,I found my mistake.Following writing is right.

I was startled that some data show important things.For example,Male employment in agriculture of Japan shows 5%,Haiti shows 63% and Argentina shows 1%.And Female employment in services of Japan shows 73% ,Surinam shows 97% and Yemen shows 9%.
After seeing these data,I think we should know information in the world.

Anonymous said...

I was startled that HDI of africa is 47 percent.
But HDI of Japan is higher than africa.
I think Japan must cooperate with them for world peace.
We should help another development countries from all sides.

Anonymous said...

I was startled the life expectancy at birth.The rate of Japan is 82.1years old.But ,the rate of Swaziland is 31.1years old.Difference between the rate of Japan and Swaziland is about 50years.I was very shocked with this result.

Anonymous said...

I was startled that the life expectancy index of low human developing country is very low.
In addition, the life expectancy index of Swaziland is lawer by nine times than Norway! 

Anonymous said...

I was suprised to see UNHDR homepage.Only43.4years old a Japanese"Life expectancy at birth"have in Nigeria whereas Japan is 82.2 years old.

"People without access to an improved water"52%
"Children underweight for age"29%

I think that the above is connected with Life being short.In particular,it is hard to realize it in rich Japan of water,but will not a problem of water be important.

I found that there was a remark of "We cannot really say we are succeeding our fight against poverty until we can get wholesome drinking water to everyone wherever they live in Nigeria."byPresident Olusegan Obasanjo

Importance of water is indicated from this.I realized how we were endoued.

Anonymous said...

I was startled that data of the life expectancy at birth. Life expectancy of developed countries is about 80 years old, but life expectancy of developing countries like countries of africa is half of developed countries!
I think this problem must solve as quickly as possible.

Anonymous said...

I am interested in Carbon dioxide emissions index.United States is about 5times as many the emissions as japan.
We must prevent Global warming.We must cooprate with world people.

Anonymous said...

I was startled that HDI of Sub Saharan Africa is 47 percent.But HDI of Japan is 94 percent.I think the world has many difficult problems.We must think it.

Anonymous said...

I was startled that Life expectancy at birth HDI lank lower and lower, Life expectancy at birth is down. Ecspecially, Swaziland is 31.3 very startled.

Anonymous said...

Sorry.I found my mistake.

I was startled that HDI of Sub Saharan Africa is 47 percent.But HDI of Japan is 94 percent.I think the world has many difficult problems.We must think it.

Anonymous said...

I understood that annual population rate is high in countries where HDI Rank is low and in warmer countries.
I knew that annual population rate has dicreased in most countries every year and I was sad.

Anonymous said...

I was startled that in the Global Projection of Subjective Well-being japan lanked 90

Anonymous said...

I am engineering student.I think that global problem is serious problem.Global warm is advancing everyday.we must control it for the future.

Anonymous said...

I was sartled that Carbon dioxide emissions of America. America represents more than tirty percent of world total.
I think that the amount of Carbon dioxide emissions cut can not realize without help of America.

Anonymous said...

Natural destruction becomes a very big problem todoy.This leads to gloval warming and it is not the problem that you may leave.

Anonymous said...

I was startled that the most electricity consumption country in 2003 is Iceland.This country used 3.5 times japan.

Anonymous said...

I was startled that japan is seventh at Long-term unemployment (as % of labour force) in HDI rank. Untill now, I thought our place of japan in the world is better than this fact.

Anonymous said...

UNHDER made In the world ever map of happyness.
In this map,Denmark is world's happiest country.japan ranked 90.
Japan is richest country.But it does not mean that Japanese is happy.

Anonymous said...

I was startled that Population ages 65 and older(% of total).In this,Japan is higer % than athers country.I worry about the future in japan.

Samuel Goh Kim Eng said...

Please feel free to visit (& share)
my blog

http://MotivationInMotion.blogspot.com

for original daily motivational poems which may be helpful in learning the English language.

Best Wishes!

Samuel Goh Thur. 13th Sept. 2007

Miss Bangkok Hotels said...

Thank you so much for sharing your story. It's very informative. I love to read it and do hope to read your next story.