Climate Neutrality

Copied from the UN publication "Kick the Habit".. Spread awareness!

Carbon-neutral, yes – that sounds familiar. But climate? The answer is simple: it is not just carbon dioxide, CO2, that is driving climate change, even if it makes up almost 80 per cent of the climate gases (including contributions from changes in land use) emitted by human activities. Carbon dioxide is the most abundant greenhouse gas we are adding to the atmosphere, but it is not the only one. The international climate change treaty, the Kyoto Protocol, limits the emissions of six main GHGs produced by human activities (see table). The gases are carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFC), perfluorocarbons (PFC), and sulphur hexafluoride (SF6).

The term climate neutrality is used in this book to mean living in a way which produces no net greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This should be achieved by reducing your own GHG emissions as much as possible, and using carbon offsets to neutralize the remaining emissions.

Sûk-en-Nahassīn

Recently, I have been travelling through time with a "book-friend" called Peeps at Many Lands: Egypt by R. Talbot Kelly.

The author showed a great deal of astonishment, which made me a very happy reader. With his words, I drew a beautiful picture of a city that I am familiar with (i.e. Cairo) but Oh my foes and Oh my friends, how different the Cairo I know is from the one he is describing!

"And now I must tell you something about the bazaars, which, after the mosques, are the most interesting relics in Cairo, and in many cases quite as old. First, I may say that the word "bazaar" means "bargain," and as in the East a fixed price is unusual, and anything is worth just what can be got for it, making a purchase is generally a matter of patience, and one may often spend days in acquiring some simple article of no particular value. An exception is the trade in copper ware, which is sold by weight, and it is a common practice among the poorer classes to invest their small savings in copper vessels of which they have the benefit, and which can readily be sold again should money be wanted. This trade is carried on in a very picturesque street, called the "Sûk-en-Nahassīn," or street of the coppersmiths, where in tiny little shops 4 or 5 feet square, most of the copper and brass industry of Cairo is carried on. Opening out of this street are other bazaars, many very ancient, and each built for some special trade. So we have the shoemaker's bazaar, the oil, spice, Persian and goldsmith's bazaars, and many others, each different in character, and generally interesting as architecture. The Persian bazaar is now nearly demolished, and the "Khan Khalili," once the centre of the carpet trade, and the most beautiful of all, is now split up into a number of small curio shops, for the people are becoming Europeanized, and the Government, alas! appear to have no interest in the preservation of buildings of great historic interest and beauty."

This is a paragraph in the book, one that disturbed me a lot actually. Look at the underlined phrase. Now I ask: did we ever have a government that knew what it was doing? Did we ever have a government that appreciated this country's treasures? This book was written in the early 20th century and I cannot imagine that the curse of clumsy authorities date back to then. Of course, in the recent times, describing our governments as "clumsy" would be the understatement of the century. You must add corrupt, dictatorial and ignorant... at least!

Will this ever change?

The Hospital Dump

Originally written on October 8th...



I've been a med-student for 2 weeks now. I've enjoyed most of it. However my least favourite part of the day –everyday- was passing from one building to another, because I had to pass by the hospital.

I was surprised to find a huge garbage dump a few metres from the hospital. Why was I surprised? Name a public hospital in Egypt that does not have a dump in front of its doors!

I tried to stay pos

itive!

So this morning, I had this little exam to sit for, and at times like these, my mind traps each and every negative thought found around me and entertains them until they become big bulky mountains of pure misery. But there was a BIG positive thought in front of my eyes. They were removing the dump! Yaaaaay!

I rushed to the examination hall completely sure that by the time I finish the exam, that dump would be history.
Well, I was wrong.
They did remove a lot of the garbage but there was still a lot. It was still smelly and surrounded by a halo of flying insects.. and other things that we can’t see.

Stop and stare!
You’ll find a bunch of cats looking for food in that dump and when they’re full they’ll seek shelter from the burning sun.. right there.. by those patients there.. sitting on the pavement!

And then a taxi drives by.. and honks the horn repeatedly.. then shouts like a wild gorilla.. at a nurse.. who in return shouted back very loudly. The nurse was pushing a wheelchair.. with a person laying with his head dangling back. I think he was unconscious. But that’s ok. I’m pretty sure he can wait in the sun until the taxi driver and the nurse decide to wise up.

These scenes leave me depressed and emotionally exhausted. And perhaps that is why I tried not to give them much thought so that I would enjoy the thrill of the first week in college. But when I visited my preparatory school and spilled everything out between the hands of my favourite teacher and one of the most inspirational people I’ve seen, she guided me to the fact that these scenes might actually make me put the patients into consideration when I’m planning for my future. It won’t be only about how many degrees I get. It would be how much care I give!

I hope that my sensitivity to suffering wouldn't grow so that I would be a failure, nor would it disappear so that I would be cold.