CLIMATE CHANGE AND FOOD SECURITY

Photo by Vo Thuy Tien from Pexels Climate change and food security? Well it's no news that the climate is changing. Climate change is not a new thing. It's already happening and has affected us on so many levels. With all the increasing temperature, change in rainfall patterns, increasing carbon dioxide concentration and many more, there's bound to be a change in our food system, access to food and food quality.Let's look at it on different fronts. Plants/food crops: - Just like you and I, plants can only tolerate heat to a certain level. With warming, there's more heat. This heat drives ozone production which impairs plant growth and damage leaves.- The warm temperatures also prolongs the season which pests are active and enables their spread to higher elevations. With this happening, our food crops don't stand a chance. Photo by Egor Kamelev from Pexels - Weeds aren't left out either. The increasing temperature also favours their growth and distribution and new species are rising.- On another side, there's flooding and drought happening and our food crops don't stand a chance either way. With drought there's no water to grow crops and with flooding the water is in excess- In areas experiencing drought, the soil becomes more dry making it difficult to till and grow crops. Less water is available for irrigation.- With more carbon dioxide being pumped into the atmosphere, research has shown that exposure to increasing levels of carbon dioxide can decrease the nutrient content of staple crops. More people will be faced with zinc and protein deficiency. CLIMATE CHANGE – definition and causes EFFECTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON THE ENVIRONMENT EFFECTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON HUMAN Animals/livestock: - Animals are faced with severe heatwaves. This has caused heat stress which reduces their overall productivity.- With drought, there's shortage of food for livestock and there's no water to grow grains and forage crops.- Increasing temperatures also favours growth and spread of animal pest and diseases. THE ENVIRONMENT AND YOU: WHY YOU SHOULD CARE CARBON OFFSETTING 27 TIPS ON HOW TO REDUCE YOUR CARBON FOOTPRINT DO ZERO-WASTE LIKE A PRO, EVEN AS A BEGINNER Join 1000+ subscribers to receive FREE cool zero-waste hacks and tips for your zero-waste journey every week. CLICK HERE to sign up now for free while it still lasts! Fishery: - The ocean is acidifying due to absorption of carbon dioxide in large concentrations. With this, the water becomes un-livable for fishes and other sea creatures. Some migrate, some die off. This leads to reduction in population.Now have it at the back of your mind that the fish population is already declining due to overfishing and death from oil spills and toxic chemicals. Climate change is now added to the list.- The acidity has also led to the…

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ECO-FRIENDLY NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION

Eco-friendly New Year's ResolutionPhoto by Anna Tarazevich from Pexels Well well well, look how far we’ve come. We’re just days away from the New Year! The year may have been good for some of us and tough for others but at last, here we are. So, congratulations everyone!!! Some of us will be saying “out with the old, in with the new,” trying to kick off some habits that aren’t eco-friendly. If you're one of those saying this, I’ll be giving you 10 eco-friendly New Year’s resolution for the New Year. Buying Less This has to be the first on my list because we literally can’t do without buying. Whether we need it or not, all we do is buy. We’re all guilty of this. So here’s what we’re going to do in the New Year. We’re playing pretend. That's right. When you see a thing that screams “buy me,” you’re going to pretend you didn’t hear or see it. That’s it. Photo by Kaboompics .com from Pexels Before you buy anything ask yourself if you really need it, if you can improvise or substitute for a version you already have. Buying less will not only help the environment but save you money. So let’s save money and the environment this New Year. Less Plastic, More Reusable You should already know by now that plastic is causing serious damage to the environment. If you don’t already know, well now you know. There’s a really loud call to beat plastic pollution and you can answer that call this New Year as part of your eco-friendly New Year’s resolution. Photo by alleksana from Pexels How can you use less plastic? For a start, there are lots of reusables out there from cutlery to straw to bags. Get yourself one. When going shopping, bring your own bag. Go with your own alternatives to plastic. Reducing Your Carbon Footprint We’re at that stage of Climate Emergency so reducing your carbon footprint is another great eco-friendly New Year’s resolution. Carbon footprint is the amount of greenhouse gases you emit for every activity. You can start by shopping locally, less transportation, reducing your food waste, and even the basic thing like turning off your light when you're not using it. 27 TIPS ON HOW TO REDUCE YOUR CARBON FOOTPRINT Sustainable Fashion From carbon dioxide emission to generation of waste, fast fashion is literally killing the planet. Saying no to fast fashion can also be one of your eco-friendly New Year’s resolution. Re-think what you wear, thrift more, buy from eco-friendly and sustainable brands, even the smallest thing as repeating your clothes to avoid buying new ones will go a long way. Photo by Kai Pilger from Pexels DIY I love me some DIYs! You know some of the things you buy, you can make them…

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ECO-FRIENDLY WRAPPER: WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

Photo by Suzy Hazelwood from Pexels Eco-friendly wrapper. What happens next? We’re few days away from Christmas. Best believe we’ve all got our gifts wrapped up the eco-friendly way since it’s a Green Christmas. With all that eco-friendly packaging used to wrap our gifts, the question now is what happens to these wrapping paper alternatives we’ve used? When you open up your gifts, what do you do with them? In our quest to reduce our waste and achieve zero-waste, we’ve switched from our unsustainable habits to a more sustainable one, we’ve adopted more eco-friendly practices. We shouldn’t let all that work and effort be in vain. What do I mean? For Christmas, we’ve used all sorts of things – calendars, newspapers, old fabrics, cartons, bags, books and many more to wrap our gifts, all to avoid buying new wrapping papers to reduce waste. These wrappers were automatically destined to get to the bin because the regular thing is “open gift, put wrapper in the bin.” It’s what we’ve normalized. But since we’re doing zero-waste, we hopped on the eco-friendly wrapping trend. Photo by Alizee Marchand from Pexels Lots of us will receive gifts wrapped up the eco-friendly way. So, when you open up your gifts, don’t go the default “open gift, put wrapper in the bin.” We’re unnormalizing that. We’re saying bye to the bin. What we’re doing now is keeping the wrapper. Whatever thing was used to wrap your gifts, when you open them up, keep that wrapper. Don’t go to the bin. But why should I keep them? You see the main reason for hopping on the eco-friendly wrapping trend is to reduce waste. So when you open your gift which was initially wrapped the eco-friendly way and you throw out that eco-friendly wrapper, then the whole eco-friendly wrapping thing was a waste of time. We played ourselves. The waste isn’t reduced, instead more waste is generated and we all know where they’re going to. Landfills! Photo by Lucie Liz from Pexels By keeping these wrappers, you’re doing the initial plan which is to reduce waste. When you keep these things, you reuse them. Reusing stuff is really important when it comes to zero-waste. You can use them to wrap up stuff in the future. Let’s not play ourselves. So, here’s what we’re going to do. - When you open your gifts, open them carefully so you don’t go ripping or tearing the eco-friendly alternative wrapper because when you do, it’ll no longer be useful which means it’ll go to the bin and then mission failed. DO ZERO-WASTE LIKE A PRO, EVEN AS A BEGINNER Join 1000+ subscribers to receive FREE cool zero-waste hacks and tips for your zero-waste journey every week. CLICK HERE to sign up now for free. - When you’ve successfully…

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ECO-FRIENDLY GIFT PACKAGING IDEAS

Photo by Lucie Liz from Pexels When it comes to eco-friendly packaging, it's mainly just you reusing and recycling the things around you rather than getting a new one. As a follow-up from the previous post Eco-friendly Gift Wrapping Ideas, I'll be giving you 9 eco-friendly gift packaging ideas that you can use this season. They're mostly things around you. What are these things? OLD BOOKS Books are really common stuff and we all have lots of them lying here and there, some of which we don't have need for. The not having need for is the major point here. Instead of them lying around taking up space let's turn them to something cool. Wrapping paper! With your old books, you could take out a sheet or two to make wrapping papers out of them. Use them to wrap your gifts. By doing this, you're reusing, creating a new thing out of it. In this case, a wrapping paper. Photo by Ian Panelo from Pexels What happens if I don't have old books? Well if you don't have old books, you can ask around. Think the bookstore near you, your friends, neighbors...they may have a book or two they planned on throwing away. By doing this, it doesn't end up being waste. SHEET MUSIC Are you a music person? Do you have a family member or friend that is into music? Well, how about sheet music for packaging? Photo by Ylanite Koppens from Pexels Old sheet music can also be an eco-friendly packaging. If you have one around you, it'll be a great choice to use them. If you don't use them now, they might end up as trash and there goes your wrapper. You wouldn't want that happening. All you need to do is wrap it around your gift and secure with a tape, rope or ribbon. CEREAL BOX Your cereal box is passing as one of the eco-friendly gift packaging ideas. You see cereal, I see eco-friendly wrapper. I mean, if they package your cereals then why can't they package your gifts? Think eco! Photo by C Technical from Pexels Convert your cereal boxes to gift wrappers. Take out the cereal, put your gift in and seal up. You can also open the box up completely and wrap inside out. If you happen to receive a gift wrapped in a cereal box, no it isn't embarrassing. It's simply reusing and recycling to reduce waste which is good for the environment. You should try it sometime! GLASS JARS Glass jars make good alternatives to plastic for storing stuff and can also pass as an eco-friendly packaging. If your gifts are glass jar worthy or can fit into them, then take out your jars and package away. Photo by Brett Sayles from Pexels MAPS If you happen to have old maps in…

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ECO-FRIENDLY GIFT WRAPPING IDEAS

Photo by freestocks.org from Pexels Gifting is a common thing for Christmas so how about some eco-friendly gift wrapping ideas? Let’s not have that regular “open gift, put wrapper in the trash” scene on Christmas morning this year. Let’s do green wrapping. For your green wrapping this green Christmas, I'll be giving you 6 eco-friendly gift wrapping ideas you could use as alternatives to your regular gift wrapper. Shall we? NEWSPAPER: If you're one of those people that happen to store newspapers, well now is a great time to bring them out. Wrapping your Christmas gifts in old newspapers are great eco-friendly moves this season. Instead of using your regular store-bought wrapper, dig out these old newspapers from their hiding and re-use them. Photo by Digital Buggu from Pexels BOXES: You know those cardboard boxes that your products or other stuff come in? You can use them too. If your gift is one that needs a box, take out these boxes and re-use them. Re-using these boxes instead of getting new ones will prevent them from being thrown out as trash, where they'll end up in landfills. Photo by cottonbro from Pexels If you don't have these boxes, you could get them from your local stores or friends who may want to throw them out. By doing this, you save the boxes, the planet and yourself some cash. BAGS: Those bags from your shopping can also serve as a good eco-friendly wrapping idea. It may be the brown ones or the coloured ones. If you have them, all you need to do is take out the handles and open up the bottom and there you have yourself a good wrapper. With your new found wrapper, put your gift in and secure with a tape. Photo by freestocks.org from Pexels OLD CLOTHES/FABRICS: Instead of throwing out your old clothes and fabrics, you can do amazing things with them like turning them to wrappers for Christmas. If you have one or two old clothes and fabrics, put them to use this season. Wrap your gifts the Furoshiki way! OLD WRAPPER: If you have old wrappers from last year's gifts or maybe you got a wrapped gift sometime this year and you've been keeping the wrapper for one reason or another, you can re-use them to wrap your gifts this season. Photo from Pexels DO ZERO-WASTE LIKE A PRO, EVEN AS A BEGINNER Join 1000+ subscribers to receive FREE cool zero-waste hacks and tips for your zero-waste journey every week. CLICK HERE to sign up now for free! OLD CALENDARS: Every year, we get new calendars to replace that of the old year. If you happen to have old calendars lying around in your home from previous years, they can be great eco-friendly wrapping alternatives this season. All you need to do is take…

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8 ECO-FRIENDLY TIPS FOR CHRISTMAS

Photo by Karolina Grabowska from Pexels It’s December which means we’re officially counting down to Christmas Day!!! Preparations are being made and there’s lot of planning to be done. For this season, I’ll be giving you some eco-friendly tips for Christmas…a green Christmas as I love to call it. Tip 1: Decoration For your decorations, go all eco-friendly. If you have old ones from last year why not re-use them? Re-using your old Christmas decorations is one way to go about it instead of buying new ones. You could use more natural stuff like leaves and plants to decorate your home. Avoid plastics in your decorations because they’ll contribute to the current plastic pollution problem. Some of your decorations can be DIY. You can check out some eco-friendly DIY tutorials on YouTube for your decoration. Photo by cottonbro from Pexels Tip 2: Buy less, buy smart, think green When shopping this time of the year, there’s always this urge to buy more stuff. It’s like they keep calling your name or there’s some kinda magnet on them. Well if you’re planning an eco-friendly Christmas, you need to reject that call. Straight up voicemail! Photo by Sam Lion from Pexels Buying less is one important eco-friendly Christmas tip. Before you put anything in your bag (reusable bag of course), ask yourself if you really need it, if you can do without it and if you can improvise or substitute for another eco-friendly form. Buy smart and think "green". If you have an old version at home, use it rather than buying a new one. Perks of this is that you not only get to protect the planet, but save money. Tip 3: Make a list Well yes of course you need a list. There’s a lot of stuff to do so you need to put them down. Making a list is one of the eco-friendly tips for Christmas. Shopping list, grocery list, gifting list, whatever it is just make a list! When you make a list, you’ll have everything you need at a glance and when shopping, you’ll only have to make a one-time trip to the store, reducing your carbon footprint in the process. Reducing your carbon footprint is really important because…CLIMATE CHANGE. Tip 4: Bring your own bag Your eco-friendly Christmas shopping isn’t complete without your reusable bag. Go to the store with your own bag so you won’t have to use a plastic bag. Using a reusable bag is a great way to avoid plastic and reduce plastic pollution. A reusable bagPhoto by Polina Tankilevitch from Pexels Tip 5: Re-think your gifts Lots of gift will be given out this season so you really need to rethink your gift. Make them eco-friendly. When buying gifts for your loved ones, buy gifts that are eco-friendly, sustainable and will…

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ECO-FRIENDLY TIPS FOR THANKSGIVING

Photo by August de Richelieu from Pexels If you’re looking for how you can celebrate Thanksgiving and still save the environment, here's a few eco-friendly tips for thanksgiving. Thanksgiving isn’t a new thing. It’s a celebration we partake in every year (at least in some part of the world). I mean, there’s a lot to be thankful for. Although this year’s Thanksgiving is going to have a big twist due to the current COVID-19 pandemic and with just a few days away, there’s a whole lot of last minute planning to be done. Tip 1: Planning Planning is the first step and the most important tip of all the eco-friendly tips for Thanksgiving. In anything you want to do, you need to plan. When you plan, you’ll have an idea of what you should do and how you’ll go about doing it. You need to plan your meals to know what you should cook. When planning, try to plan your meals around in-season foods. Tip 2: Make a list Now you know what you should cook, making a list is an important step. Write down what you need and the quantity so you don’t go buying a whole lot of random stuff, only to realize you don’t need half of them. This will not only help you cut down waste, but also save you time and cash. Image by Tumisu from Pixabay When making your Thanksgiving shopping list, try to arrange them based on their importance. Put the ones you really need on the top of the list and the less important ones at the bottom. When you do this, you’d find out you may not need the less important ones. Tip 3: Shop locally, buy organic When shopping, shop locally and buy organic stuff. Buying from your local store or farm will help reduce your carbon footprint and cut down emissions since you won't have to travel a long way. Buying organic foodstuff is also important since they're grown naturally without the use of pesticides and fertilizers, and more sustainable farming practices are carried out. Photo by John Lambeth from Pexels Tip 4: More plant, less meat Animal production is contributing a lot to climate change so why not switch things up a bit? Reduce the meat and add more plant-based stuff to your meals. There are a lot of plant-based alternatives and recipes out there. Go for them. You can also swap your ingredients for more plant-based stuff. Tip 5: No plastic Plastic pollution is a global problem and there’s now more need than ever to drop the plastic. From your food packaging to your decorations, make them plastic free. You can make your decorations using plants, flowers, leaves, and other eco-friendly materials. Bring your own bag for shopping. Use reusable…

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TIPS ON HOW TO REDUCE YOUR FOOD WASTE

Image Credit: FAO The first observance of the International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste (IDAFLW) was celebrated on 29 September 2020, to serve as a global wakeup call especially during this time of COVID-19 pandemic to rethink the way we produce, handle and waste our food. In line with this, here are 11 tips on how to reduce your food waste. Tip 1: Meal plans Setup a meal plan. It could be for a week or two or even a month. Your meals too need planning not just your day. A great tip here is that your meals should follow each other. Cook meals with similar ingredients. Photo by Vegan Liftz from Pexels Tip 2: Make a list: You shouldn't only make a list for Santa, you should make one for your food. Make a grocery list before heading to the store and make sure you stick to it. This will stop you from picking random irrelevant stuff and help you buy just what you need. You'll not just reduce your food waste but save money. Image Credit: Bildgebende_Momente/Pixabay Tip 3: Cook little Don't cook for 10 when you have just 3 people at home. Cook little. Cook what you and your household can consume. Don't waste. If it happens that you still have food left from the little you cooked, store them properly. Tip 4: Leftovers Creativity isn't just in art. You can bring in some of that in your food. Be creative with your leftovers. Make new stuff with them rather than throwing them away. Overripe fruits? Turn them to smoothies. Juice them! Photo by Ella Olsson from Pexels Here's a quick extra leftover tip - if you have any leftovers, start with them rather than making a whole new meal. If you need to make a new one, make sure it's what you can make from the leftovers. Tip 5: Storage Storing is really important especially when you're bulk buying. You store to keep your food fresh. It's one thing to store and it's another thing to store the right way. Don't put stuff you're meant to store in the refrigerator in your cupboard. Store in airtight containers when you're meant to. Foodstuff stored in airtight containersPhoto by cottonbro from Pexels DO ZERO-WASTE LIKE A PRO, EVEN AS A BEGINNER Join 1000+ subscribers to receive FREE zero-waste hacks and tips for your zero-waste journey every week. CLICK HERE to sign up now for free. Tip 6: Organizing your refrigerator and pantry Keeping your fridge and pantry clean and organized will help you reduce your food waste. If your food is thrown around the fridge and pantry, you won't be able to see what food is about to get spoilt and consume quickly. Organizing will help you see clearly. Sorta like…

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MAJOR ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS IN NIGERIA

Image source: Nigerian Finder Let's bring it home for a second. Let's talk about major environmental problems in Nigeria. Even though Nigeria is party and signatory to lots of international agreements, treaties and conventions like the Paris Agreement, Montreal Protocol, and also has lots of environmental organizations and bodies like NESREA, the environment is one part that has been neglected.The whole "environment thing" isn't in us. By "us" I mean Nigerians. We don't know what the environment is and how important it is to take care of the environment. We don't understand that we are the environment and whatever we do to the environment we do to ourselves. We don't see the need to care at all. THE ENVIRONMENT AND YOU - WHY YOU SHOULD CARE Because of this, we do things without having the environment in our minds and this has led to a lot of environmental problems, some of which we don't even know we're facing. Let's go through 7 major environmental problems in Nigeria. CLIMATE CHANGE: Climate change is on every country's list. The thing with climate change in Nigeria is that we don't even know we're facing it. There're lots of climate change deniers here. We've seen the changes in our weather patterns overtime and we don't even know it's our climate that is changing. We see it as it's just some random stuff. Image source: Sun News Online I mean, there's flooding here and there from heavy rainfall. Sea levels are rising. We experience some really serious heat and drought during the dry season. Wake up people! The climate crisis is already happening everywhere and there's more coming our way if we don't act NOW! CLIMATE CHANGE - DEFINITION AND CAUSESEFFECTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON THE ENVIRONMENTEFFECTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON HUMAN WASTE MANAGEMENT: Waste management is one of the major environmental problems in Nigeria. We have made it a point of duty to dump whatever waste or trash we have into anything that isn't a bin or trash can. We have turned the ground and gutters to our bin. We throw things around here and there.People be throwing their coke bottles, biscuit and sweet wraps or whatever trash they have from their car windows unprovoked. O wrong nau! O wrong!You may say "but it's just one small sweet wrap." No dear, it isn't small. If 2,000 people are saying this, multiply "one small sweet wrap" by 2,000 people that's 2,000 sweet wraps. 2,000 sweet wraps aren't in the bin! They're on the streets and in gutters. You see where I'm going with this? Image source: Public Health Nigeria Sometimes these waste end up blocking our gutters. When there's rain the whole place is a mess and we go around looking for…

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27 TIPS ON HOW TO REDUCE YOUR CARBON FOOTPRINT

How to reduce your carbon footprintImage by Merio from Pixabay Carbon FOOTPRINT? Yuppp footprint. Like the actual footprint footprint. Just like how you go to the beach and leave footprints in the sand, but this time it's not your feet. It's carbon. Your carbon footprint.Carbon footprint is simply the amount of greenhouse gases you emit for every activity. Everything for whatever thing you do is calculated.But what's really the point of calculating?Does climate change ring a bell??? You should know by now that greenhouse gases are contributing to climate change.We're directing and indirectly pumping more of these gases into the atmosphere from our activities and in order to tackle the current climate crisis, we need to reduce our emissions.Knowing your individual carbon footprint is one way to go about it. Knowing this will serve as a guide for you and will help you in reducing.How do I calculate?Calculating individual footprint manually really takes a lot. So many things need to be considered which makes the calculation part seem difficult in some cases. You don't need to go through all that stress when you can simply calculate online.How?Thanks to organizations like WWF, the UN, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, you can calculate your carbon footprint online. All you need to do is provide the required information like how often you drive or fly, how many miles you travel, or your usual diet and calculate away.Now, the result from this calculation may not be correct. This is because a standard value is used in calculating but in the real sense, the emission varies based on the different sources like the type of car, different grocery stores you go to and so on. With this, the calculation maybe slightly higher or lower.But then, what other option do we have?The calculator may not give 100%, but at least we have something to work with. It gives us an idea of how much carbon we emit daily. The 99.9% is still a pass.How can I lower my carbon footprint?So, now you know how to calculate your carbon footprint, let's get to the reducing part. The 27 tips on how to reduce your carbon footprint are grouped into 7 sections. Transportation: Transportation contributes a lot. This sector is a major climate change driver as it releases lots of greenhouse gases due to combustion of fossil fuels. Here are some useful tips.- Going out? Drop the car. Drive less. Carpool. Use public transport. Walk if you can.- Reduce your travel rate and drop the private jet.- You can use one ride to kill two or more tasks to reduce your emission, rather than going twice or thrice. Food: Agriculture is another major climate change driver. Greenhouse gases from methane to carbon dioxide are released in…

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