I appreciate the sentiment, but enough of the awkward looking black child. This was sent to me by Peter Singer as part of his new e mail update feature for The Life You Can Save campaign.
So how about this tantrum Mother Nature is throwing…
It’s been one hell of a month for major weather events this January, and we’re not done yet:
- There were Floods in Queensland with 75% of the state affected
- Floods in Sri Lanka with a third of the staple rice crop in danger
- Landslides in Brazil killing over 350 people
- Floods in South Africa and Mozambique with seven out of nine districts in South Africa declared disaster zones
- Monsoonal rainfalls causing landslides in the Philippines affecting 1.5 million people
- But over in usually rainy Bangladesh, farmers are struggling with drought
Meanwhile we’re still recovering from the disastrous Pakistan floods, which affected over 13 million people
And Haiti is still rebuilding after the devastating earthquake of 12 months ago that claimed 200,000 lives and has brought cholera to challenge the recovery.
Mother Nature and Climate Change not really your thing? How about man made crises like:
- The violent rioting and instability with the overthrowing of a long-term dictator in Tunisia?
- Or the political crisis in the Ivory Coast and the consequential influx of refugees into Liberia?
- And the world watches the tense situation following the elections in Sudan.
It’s not all bad news, UNICEF thinks a HIV-Free generation is possible, for example, and there is talk of Africa becoming food self-sufficient, but it is easy to feel overwhelmed.
Which is why I’m choosing to remember the call from Peter Singer that you can save a life. But it all starts with your willingness to engage.
Whatever your cause, I hope you are finding your way to contribute to solutions. Me? I’m digging deep for Sri Lanka and the Ivory Coast this month and am donating 5% of my income. Can you?
"Because it hasn’t been tried, no one really knows whether poverty on a global scale can be overcome by a truly substantial amount of aid provided without political interferences."
— Peter Singer, The life you can save, p.119
Do you know what it takes to save a life? - Oxfam post
My latest blog post for Oxfam’s A Climate for Change
Here’s the thing - I’m a sucker for a good election, a bit of political swashbuckling, a dance with democracy. I love casting my vote, that feeling of walking out of the polling booth, smiling broadly at the world and the kids selling cup cakes invariably coloured red, blue or green.
So it is with great dismay I admit my disappointment in the lack of policy substance this election campaign (let alone the gob-smackingly inadequate climate change policies) and did the next best thing I know to debating the nuts and bolts of politics - I bought a book.
Reader, let me introduce you to the Life You Can Save this election campaign.
It sounds a bit like dippy-hippy shite, I know. Of course I know, I’ve been known to exhibit the odd tell-tale signs of hippy-dippy shite behaviour myself (including wishing I had been among the mud-covered crowds at Woodstock, oh yeah…) But I really think I know that it is well within my means to save a life, thanks to Peter Singer’s book The Life You Can Save.
The brilliance of Peter Singer is his rational arguments which make you forget all the hippy-dippy shite associated with saving lives and poverty and aid and climate change, and pulls off the almost inconceivable - making you understand that it really is possible for you, let me repeat that for the chatterboxes up in the back corner - you, personally - to save a life.
It almost sounds too good to be true. Almost. But within the first couple of pages, Singer provides a few clues as to where he’s going to take you, and it starts to make sense (unlike anything our politicians are coming up with lately).
See that coffee? That week-saving glass of amber ale on a Friday night? The three concerts lined up over the next month? Therein lies the clue. No, it’s not rocket science. Chances are if you’re reading this, you are already aware of the imbalance of the world, the billion plus people who live in extreme poverty, and care about what can be done to redress this great imbalance of the world.
It’s one thing to know this, to agree with Peter Singer when he says:
“The evidence is overwhelming that the greenhouse gas emissions of the industrialised nations have harmed, and are continuing to harm, many of the world’s poorest people…If we accept that those who harm others must compensate them, we cannot deny that the industrialised nations owe compensation to many of the world’s poorest people. Giving them adequate aid to mitigate the consequences of climate change would be one way of paying that compensation.”
But it’s quite another to actually know what to do. Here’s the thing with Pete, he makes it really easy. There’s no “Great Big New Tax,” and no “moving forward”, in fact, there’s no cheap slogans at all.
It all comes down to five percent. A tiny 5% is all it takes.
Just by giving away 5% of your income per year - you can save a life.
So don’t let the inaction of the major parties let you down. When it comes to making a difference, the power really is in our hands*.
Lyrian
*I did warn you I was going to get all hippy-dippy shite on you…
Image from my personal photos: Children playing in Noakhali, Bangladesh, an area susceptible to floods and drought
“If abboitoirs had glass walls…
we’d all be vegetarian” said Paul McCartney.
But he was wrong. In many (most, even) parts of the world, people do live side by side with the slaughter of animals. I’ve shopped in Russian markets past little skinned rabbits with their paws still on, stepped over rivers of blood running down the gutter from the goat seller’s stall in Egypt, and scraped chiken guts off my shoes in Bangladesh - and vegetarians are few and far between in these countries.
To say that if we all saw the suffering of animals when they die is enough to turn us off our carnivorous ways ignores the fact that this is the way we’ve been doing it forever.
So why should you consider switching the T-Bone for the Tofu?
- Because it’s good for the planet - says Graham Hill in his TED presentation on why he’s a weekday vegetarian; and
- Because it’s a good moral decision - says Jeff McMahan in this Philosophy Bites podcast.
At least they’re my two reasons. What are yours?
(Honourable mention goes out to Peter Singer, The Ethics of What We Eat for being the book that first changed my mind)
