Dear friend,

The fight against climate change is already as hard as it is but it doesn't just mean fighting natural elements. Turns out, it doesn't even mean just fighting big conglomerates, trying to change government policies or trying to convince people that what we're doing to our planet is destroying it. For some people, being a climate activist means putting your own and your loved ones' lives in danger. Latin America is one of the most dangerous places for climate activists, especially women. Read this excellent piece from Open Democracy on the challenges women activists in Latin America face in their fight against climate change.

Berta Cáceres solidarity rally, Honduras 2016. Photo: Flickr/Daniel Cima/CIDH. CC BY 2.0.

If we want to stop humanity from destroying the living planet we need to start thinking beyond the current time and beyond borders. SpaceBuzz is an organisation that is aiming to do both. It's based on the idea of the 'overview effect', something that astronauts who see the earth from outer space experience, that allows them to see it as a "fragile ball of life". SpaceBuzz's mission is to give this experience to as many children so that they will grow up not taking the earth for granted. We talked with Spacebuzz's founder Hidde Hoogcarspel to see where Spacebuzz is headed (other than to infinity and beyond).

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To honour Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s legacy, donate to feminist activism

Solutions
Written by
Deniz Gulsoken

on
23 September 2020

On September 18, 2020, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away after a long battle with cancer. The second woman to serve in the US Supreme Court, Justice Ginsburg spent the majority of her career as an attorney and a justice fighting for equality and women's rights. Her fiery dissent and relentless intellect earned her the nickname The Notorious RBG which she embraced with humour and grace.

Here are a few of the many important accomplishments Justice Ginsburg pioneered for women's rights.

Co-founding the Women's Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)

Inspiring the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and played a great role in the penalisation of pay discrimination based on gender in the US.

Consistently supporting abortion rights

Making sure that state-funded schools in the US cannot refuse to admit students based on gender.JusticeJust

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was an inspiring woman, coming of age in a time when even the idea of a woman in law school was considered ridiculous let alone a fervent law-maker. Millions all around the world are mourning her loss at a time the US and the world desperately need people like Justice Ginsburg who dedicate their life's work into making the world a better place for others.

Justice Ginsburg dedicated her life to equality and women's rights. Her body of work and accomplishments made significant legal advances for women in the US. She might be gone but her legacy remains with us. All around the world people like Justice Ginsburg are still boldly fighting for women's rights and gender equality. A great way to honour the work of Justice Ginsburg and others who are fighting the good fight is to support feminist activism all over the world.

If you want to support organisations that work for women and trans people across the world, you can donate to Mama Cash below. Mama Cash is a fund that supports organisations economically, provides education and creates networks of support. Feminist activism saves lives.

Cover image: Joe Flood(CC BY-SA 2.0)

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If we don’t act soon, our waters are going to become plastic soup

Solutions
Written by
Deniz Gulsoken

on
15 September 2020

There’s a high chance you’ve seen images of turtles being strangled by drink loops, or seahorses impaled by q-tips. It’s likely that these images were accompanied by messages to stop using plastic straws, buy reusable products and pay attention to the plastic waste you’re producing. There are many initiatives that follow along with this message and urge people to take action when it comes to individual plastic consumption. The Zero-waste movement has only grown since one of its followers became viral for her “trash jar” that she keeps 3 years of trash in. Plastic-free July grows each year with more participants.
All of these initiatives are great as a first step to stop plastic waste from taking over the planet and our waters, however, they’re not enough on their own. The plastic problem is getting worse, faster every year.

According to the Plastic Soup Foundation:

There is plastic everywhere, including inland waterways and on land

Agricultural land is heavily contaminated with plastic

There are microplastics in the air we breath

When it comes to solutions, the first things that come to mind are recycling and circular economy. However, recycling plastic is a complicated and expensive process and a lot of plastic ends up in the environment even we put them in the recycling bin. This is not to say we should completely disregard recycling, recycling is one of the solutions to the plastic problem but it’s not the only one.
Plastic Soup Foundation is a non-profit focused on preventing plastic from entering our land, water and our bodies. They offer three solutions to the plastic problem: preventing, cleaning up and processing plastics. The foundation has several programmes providing these three solutions like organising beach and water clean-ups, providing education on the harms of plastic, stimulating research and advocating for change at the legislative level.

If you want to support the Plastic Soup Foundation and be a part of preventing plastics taking over our planet, you can donate to them below.

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Giving people direct cash is an effective way of fighting poverty

Solutions

Written by
Deniz Gulsoken

on
10 September 2020

Poverty is a structural problem. It is a reflection of global society at large and shows the problems in our economic systems. It is a failure of governments and of those with power in taking care of people.

Claiming people who live in poverty are lazy, bad with money, irresponsible etc. is a huge misconception of a complex problem like poverty and it's victim-blaming. Poverty is not an individual phenomenon, it largely depends on historical, geographic and environmental factors. It's also not static, people often move in and out poverty.

Currently, most people in the world live in poverty, on less than 10USD a day. 10 percent of the world's population live in extreme poverty, trying to maintain on less than 1.9USD a day. People who live in poverty often suffer from malnutrition, don't have access to education and healthcare amongst many other human rights violations. These make moving out of poverty even harder, if not impossible.

Global poverty is one of the most urgent problems our society is currently facing as it closely relates to many others. When it comes to solutions there is some good and bad news. According to the World Bank, the global poverty rate has reduced 36 percent from 1990. However, with the COVID-19 crisis experts expect the poverty rates to go up again, the first time in 12 years.

This means we have to act quickly before the problem becomes too large to handle There are many interventions employed organisations that proved effective in tackling poverty. Direct giving, transferring money directly to people who live in poverty, is one of these methods. With direct giving, people can decide what they and their communities need the most in order to survive and turn their survival sustainable. And they do.

100Weeks is a non-profit organisation that sends weekly cash transfers to a group of select women in poverty for a hundred weeks. In addition to weekly cash transfers, women receive lessons on bookkeeping, saving and planning. When you donate to 100Weeks, your donation goes towards helping these women take care of their families and start businesses that will keep them safe in the future when their 100Weeks are over. You can support 100Weeks by donating to them directly below.

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To infinity and beyond

Dear friend,

More Stories

To honour Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s legacy, donate to feminist activism

If we don’t act soon, our waters are going to become plastic soup

Giving people direct cash is an effective way of fighting poverty