Green Maps for a More Sustainable Future - Essay Example

 Green Maps for a More Sustainable Future Overview Globalgiving is a charitable virtual organization that embraces corporate social responsibility and addresses some aspects of sustainable development.Though its headquarters is located in the US the institution operates in various counties such as Canada, African countries Brazil et cetera. It is basically operated through a website with the sole aim of uplifting the lives of world citizens. This is achieved through fundraisers that are aimed at carrying out projects in different countries. They encourage innovative ways of providing solutions to global issues or problems. More tasks carried out by the organization are through partnering with other institution in carrying out projects such as educating the society, feeding the hungry, providing men and women with skills that are aimed at elevating their living status among others. All the projects carried out are geared towards adhering to the mission and vision of the organization. The mission of the organization is geared towards setting people loose with the aim of impacting positive change while its vision is to catalyze a global market for information, ideas and money that democratizes philanthropy (Globalgiving, 2015). The funding of this organization is through donors and well-wishers. Some of the organizations that the institution has partnered with are Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, Omidyar Network, USAID (Global Development Alliance), and The Rockefeller Foundation among others (Globalgiving, 2015). It is approximated that since 2002 the number of donors are roughly 421,651 and have carried out approximately 11,669 projects. The projects vary from country to country or region to region depending on situations and needs.Moreover, the projects are of different topics such as finance, education, climate change among other numerous topics ((Globalgiving, 2015). Current Development Plan Project This paper seeks to address a development project being carried out by Globalgiving on climate change Canada that is currently ongoing. Climate change is one of the major challenging issues in the society today. People have tried modifying the daily weather either by increasing or decreasing heat or temperature of the surrounding. These increase and decrease over a long period of time contribute to climate change. The threat posed by climate change has awakened international community and various governments to start setting up mitigation measures.However, in North America, response to climate change has met several challenges. These challenges are that the public have a conviction and belief that scientists do not have a consensus on how human being contributes to climate change; government body language towards policies regarding climate change has left more questions and answers; and doubts have been cast especially by the politicians about climate change hence washing down efforts by other groups on the issue. Moreover, the media coverage on environmental issues has not been adequately compressive enough to convince the public on the repercussions accrued to implications of climate change (Mento & Doughman, 2007). The causes of climate change are vast. Most of the causes are human induced. These human activities interfere with the chemical balancing of the earth’s atmosphere. The activities have led to the emission of greenhouse gases. Moreover, gases are let out into the atmosphere in various ways such as burning of fossils –petroleum and coal and deforestation as well. Examples of green gases are carbon IV oxide, water vapour, sulphur IV oxide, methane, halocarbons, and ozone among other gases. These gases have the potential of destroying the ozone layer that protects human lives from solar x-rays. In addition, the gases have a property of absorb temperatures and retaining the temperatures. As the emissions of these gases continue so do the increase in temperatures resulting into a condition called global warming. Global warming consequently leads to climate change (Downie, Brash & Vaughan, 2009). The effects of climate change are beginning to manifest its glaring ugly face of late. The global temperatures have significantly increased and the seasons are somehow changing or shifting. At particular time of the year, regions that experienced precipitation of late are experiencing dry condition while those that were experiencing dry conditions are experiencing wet conditions. The waters at the sea level have been significantly rising. Despite the implications of the climate change, the earth must still supply living organisms inclusive of human being with water, shelter, andair. Thus, organizations like Globalgiving among others are coming up with projects with the aim of mitigating these conditions before elastic irreversible limits (Barnett & Campbell, 2010). Project Description Green Map is a project that has been initiated by the Globalgiving through funding from donors with the aim of elevating communities to live healthily and in a more sustainable place by providing conscious awareness to the decline in ecological, environmental and complexities related to climate change. Through this project in around sixty five countries across the world, Green Map engages people belonging to all age groups on by conveying information on farmers market, community gardening, solar sites and green job training centers.The use of mapping technology is highly embraced on this particular project (Globalgiving, 2015). Expected Results and Analysis The Green Map projects in all countries and their cities are led by officials from the cities. The leaders provide a platform for capacity building, and skills that enable the society to live healthily, democratically and also be empowered economically. Capacity building in this context refers to developing existing avenues to mitigation of climate change, encouraging innovative ideas on tackling the issue at hand and also providing in-depth information on the effects of the menace under investigation. As this is going on, the respective members are economically empowered since they are given jobs and during job training, the knowledge of green sustainable economic ways of livesis instilled in them. For this reason, it helps in improving the society’s conscious on the need to protect our environment (Doyle, 2011). The use of the maps is expected to help in the reduction of the emission of greenhouse gases in daily activities. This is done by highlighting to the public that the small percentage of the emitted greenhouse gases can be minimized by recycling and using appropriate ways of waste reduction mechanisms.In addition to the above vindications, in this project, energy and climate change in green mapping have been synchronized with the intention of discouraging the use of energy sources that affect sustainability of our resources. Several forums have been used to promote the use of solar powered energy sources. Solar energy is a free source of energy that is cost effective and also environmentally friendly. Moreover, those engaged in these projects have developed technological tool that use solar energy. This tools are distributed to the communities hence it is expected that these activity will contribute towards combating the climate change (Black, 2013). On the long term Green Map teams will be expected to take part in numerous community building and sustainability initiatives. This will be by combining effort with other programs and media to enable them reach and get new print as well as interactive green maps thus impacting millions of lives all over the world (Globalgiving, 2015). Summary Climate change has become an issue in our contemporary society today. It has elicited a lot of debate. Various strategies have been brought forward but many countries have not diverted some of their energy to adequately and effectively tackle the issue. However, GlobalGiving through the ideals of its foundation that were aimed at promoting social corporate responsibility and sustainability has initiated several projects that are beneficial to the communities and also geared towards tackling the menace. One of those projects is the Green Mapping as discussed in this particular research paper (Werther& Chandler, 2011). References Barnett, J., & Campbell, J. (2010).Climate Change and Small Island States: Power, Knowledge and the South Pacific. London: Earthscan. Downie, D. L., Brash, K., & Vaughan, C. (2009). Climate change: A reference handbook. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO.Print Doyle, J. (2011). Mediating climate change.Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate. Globalgiving (2015).Retreaved on 07 Feb 2015:http://www.globalgiving.org/ In Black, B. (2013).Climate change: An encyclopedia of science and history. Mento, J. F., &Doughman, P. (2007).Climate change: What it means for us, our children, and our grandchildren. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press. Werther, W. B., & Chandler, D. (2011).Strategic corporate social responsibility: Stakeholders in a global environment. Los Angeles: SAGE. Read More