Cuba: lessons in sustainable development

From: Morning Star

IT IS well understood that the rich nations of the global North bear responsibility for runaway greenhouse gas emissions and the desecration of the natural world, while the poorer countries in the global South are suffering the consequences here and now.

Small island developing states are particularly vulnerable to the impact of climate change which causes more severe weather events such as hurricanes, floods, high temperatures and drought, and, due to historical barriers to development and the legacy of colonial exploitation, they rely on imports of food, fuel, commodities, and manufactured goods.

Cuba is one such island experiencing the impact of climate change despite only being responsible for 0.08 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Cuba under immediate threat from climate change

From: Morning Star

IT WAS in 1992, at the Rio Earth Summit, that Fidel Castro said: “Humankind is at risk of disappearing due to the rapid and progressive elimination of its natural habitat.

“We are becoming aware of this problem when it is almost too late to prevent it.”

In March 1995, the first Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (Cop1) met, yet it was not until Cop21, held in Paris in December 2015, that a legally binding agreement was secured to keep global warming no higher than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

Combaten incendio de grandes magnitudes en Parque Nacional Alejandro de Humboldt.

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Desde hace algunos días, fuerzas del Cuerpo de Guardabosques y autoridades ambientales de Holguín y Guantánamo, combaten un incendio de grandes magnitudes en zonas del Parque Nacional Alejandro de Humboldt, una de las áreas protegidas más importantes de Cuba en cuanto a biodiversidad, riqueza de especies y endemismo de su biota.

Actualmente es el más grande remanente de los ecosistemas montañosos conservados de Cuba. Por esas características, en 2001 la Unesco le otorgó la categoría de Sitio Patrimonio Natural Mundial de la Humanidad.

Cuba among the countries most affected by climate change in Latin America and the Caribbean.

 

 

 

 

 

From: Radio Havana Cuba.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) recently issued a report which states that Cuba is among the Latin America and Caribbean nations most affected by extreme weather events caused by climate change.

With Cuba, Mexico and Haiti made the top three most affected countries, experiencing some 110 storms, 5 thousand people killed, 29 million people affected, and over 39 billion in economic losses, the UN Agency stated.

Michelle Obama´s message to Greta Thunberg after the mock by Donald Trump.

 

 

 

 

Michelle Obama has sent a public message of support to the 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg after the teenager was mocked by Donald Trump.

“So ridiculous,” the president wrote. “Greta must work on her Anger Management problem, then go to a good old fashioned movie with a friend! Chill Greta, Chill!”

“@GretaThunberg, Don’t let anyone dim your light,” Michelle Obama wrote following a visit to Vietnam. “Like the girls I’ve met in Vietnam and all over the world, you have so much to offer us all. Ignore the doubters and know that millions of people are cheering you on.”

Cuba found to be the most sustainably developed country in the world, new research finds.

 

 

 

 

From: Morning Star.

Cuba is the most sustainably developed country in the world, according to a new report launched today.

The socialist island outperforms advanced capitalist countries including Britain and the United States, which has subjected Cuba to a punitive six-decades-long economic blockade.

Cuba embarks on a 100-year plan to protect itself from climate change

Yamil Lage/AFP/GETTY

By Richard Stone Jan. 10, 2018 (Science)

On its deadly run through the Caribbean last September, Hurricane Irma lashed northern Cuba, inundating coastal settlements and scouring away vegetation. The powerful storm dealt Havana only a glancing blow; even so, 10-meter waves pummeled El Malecón, the city’s seaside promenade, and ravaged stately but decrepit buildings in the capital’s historic district. “There was great destruction,” says Dalia Salabarría Fernández, a marine biologist here at the National Center for Protected Areas (CNAP).

Sorprende invasión de cangrejos de colores.

REUTERS/Alexandre Meneghini

Cada año después de las primeras lluvias de primavera, millones de cangrejos de color rojos, negros y amarillos invaden la zona de la Península de Zapata y Playa Larga en el extremo sur de la Provincia de Matanzas.

Papá, ha muerto el “Dictador” Fidel…

Papá, al despertar escuché en una radio española que la noche del 25 de noviembre, en hora cubana, “ha fallecido en su cama el Dictador Fidel Castro a los 90 años”. Un dictador del que hemos oído hablar mucho durante años y por simple inquietud del momento me he puesto a investigar qué cosas malas hizo al pueblo de Cuba.

We must fight now !!!

Stephen W. Hawking, físico y astrofísico británico, quien fuera hasta el 2009 titular de la Lucasian Chair of Mathematics, The University of Cambridge y conocido por su predicción teórica sobre los «agujeros negros» o Radiación de Hawking, se refirió en meses atrás al Capitalismo y la avaricia humana como los causantes de un Apocalipsis.

Este destacado científico conforma el grupo de los 375 que firmaron una carta abierta, difundida en Internet, para protestar contra la postura del candidato republicano a la Presidencia de Estados Unidos, Donald Trump, acerca del cambio climático.

Hawking wrote: