By Kimberly Absher, guest youth blogger, www.howmany.org. This April 22nd marks the 45th anniversary of Earth Day. With a rich history beginning in 1970, when 20 million Americans took to the streets, their actions led to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of critical laws to protect our air, water, and endangered
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By Suzanne York. “In fact, person for person, reducing birth rates in industrialized nations has a bigger impact on greenhouse gas emissions because affluent people use more of the Earth’s resources and depend more heavily on fossil fuels.” Thus wrote the editorial board of the Los Angeles Timesover the weekend. Word is getting out that
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By Suzanne York, www.howmany.org Perhaps it’s telling that the UN climate meeting (officially known as COP 20) is being held in Lima, Peru.  It is an arid city of more than 8 million people and growing that receives less than an inch of rain annually.  With droughts increasing here and in many cities and regions
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By Suzanne York, www.howmany.org Hopefully you’ve heard about this weekend’s People’s Climate March in New York City.  It is being billed as the biggest climate rally in the U.S., taking place before UN Secretary Ban Ki-moon’s climate summit. While there will be many organizations and diverse views being touted during the march, there is one
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By Suzanne York. Changing the way we live, to better our lives or the environment, is not always an easy thing to do.  Yet often times simple changes can amount to big differences. Take eating less meat, for example.  Eating less meat probably has a greater impact than changing to energy-saving light bulbs. You don’t
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By Suzanne York, www.howmany.org All one really needs to take away from the 800-page National Climate Assessment (NCA), mandated every four years by the U.S. Congress, is this: Human-induced climate change is projected to continue, and it will accelerate significantly if emissions of heat-trapping gases continue to increase. As published in the NCA, “The magnitude of climate
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By Suzanne York, www.howmany.org In yet another dire warning, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), comprising hundreds of scientists and government representatives from across the globe, released its long-awaited report on the impacts of climate change.     The IPCC report states that climate change has already “caused impacts on natural and
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By Suzanne York, www.howmany.org This Valentine’s Day goes beyond love, with a global call to action to bring attention to violence against women, and justice for women, who have endured horrific pain due to gender. One Billion Rising, for the second year in a row, has galvanized people around the world to raise awareness by
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By Suzanne York, www.howmany.org The third annual International Conference on Family Planning ended in mid-November with a focus on successful initiatives and with momentum to enact voluntary family planning services and education for people around the world. The breadth and depth of work undertaken by professionals and activists is exciting.   From addressing maternal mortality to
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By Suzanne York, www.howmany.org “We are going to create something that will explode beautifully into the world,” stated Osprey Orielle Lake, organizer of the first International Women’s Earth and Climate Initiative Summit.  She echoed the heartfelt sentiments of 100 women environmental leaders who gathered for the conference in late September and came from more than
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