Blog Action Day is an annual event that unites the world’s bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day on their own blogs with the aim of sparking discussion around an issue of global importance. One day. One issue. Thousands of voices. The global issue for 2009 is climate change. Rather than trying to recite Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth, I decided to address the issue Joobili-style by calling attention to a great event bringing together great music for an even greater cause.
The Bristol Oxjam Music Festival is the local edition of the month long Oxjam Music Festival taking place across the UK. Bristol is using its green credentials to highlight the relationship between climate change and poverty:
- 100 million people will be affected by climate change by the end of the century.
- Rising sea levels will increase the risk of death and injury by drowning. Up to 20 per cent of the world’s population lives in river basins that are likely to be affected by increased flood hazard by the 2080s.
- Heat waves are likely to increase deaths among elderly or chronically sick people, young children, and the socially isolated. Europe’s 2003 heat wave – induced by climate change – resulted in 27,000 extra deaths.
- Future climate change is expected to put close to 50 million more people at risk of hunger by 2020, and an additional 132 million people by 2050.
- By 2020, between 75 and 250 million of people are predicted to be exposed to increased water shortage due to climate change
- In Africa, shrinking arable land, shorter growing seasons, and lower crop yields will exacerbate malnutrition. In some countries, yields from rain-fed agriculture could fall by 50 per cent as soon as 2020.
- By 2020, between 75 million and 250 million people in Africa are likely to face greater water stress due to climate change.
Smaller music events will take place throughout October in Bristol, all leading up to the culminating concert on Oct. 25. If you are anywhere near Bristol it’s worth checking out the music and voicing your concern over the effects of climate change on world poverty.
