Knock Some Sense Into Them

Part of a broader campaign to give the poorest children a voice at the G-20 summit of world leaders gathering in London on April 2 to discuss a way out of the financial crisis, the film below is a viral that carries a simple message “They’ve helped save the banks and big business. Now it’s time they helped save children’s lives.”

Unlike big business, children don’t have shareholders. Which is probably why they don’t have a voice at the G-20. Yet the world’s poorest children are already suffering the worst effects of the financial crisis. If we don’t act now, up to 2.8 million more children could die by 2015 – many because they just don’t have enough to eat.

While the financial institutions have been bailed out to the tune of $2.5 trillion, saving these children’s lives would take only a tiny fraction of this amount.

The film is backed up with a targeted press and outdoor campaign carrying the same message and the image of a child holding the Chancellor’s budget box while standing on the steps of Downing Street. The headline bluntly emphasizes where the agenda lies in the eyes of the world’s leaders. And it’s not with children.

Life-size cut-outs of this message and the boy holding the budget box will line the route of the ‘Put People First’ march that will precede the G-20 summit on Saturday March 28. Teams of Save the Children support workers will collect names for the petition from the 20,000 protestors expected to turn out.

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 Not all is good news in the solar industry, and researchers are not helping …

Indian solar cell manufacturers were hanging out at the 18th International Photovoltaic Science and Engineering Conference & Exhibition. Yeah, they really do have conventions for this kind of thing. This one took place from Jan 19 to 23, 2009, in Kolkata, India.

India’s solar cell manufacturers all have plans to enhance production capacity, BUT, many of them are postponing their plans because of the ongoing global financial crisis.

Titan Energy Systems Ltd, is based in Hyderabad-based. The company makes solar modules. Plans to increase its annual production capacity from current 100MW to 500MW by the end of 2009 may have to be put on hold for about six months says the company.

Jupiter Solar Power Ltd, is a solar cell manufacturer that was established in 2007. The company originally planned to start manufacturing photovoltaic cells last year in November 2008. That date was postponed until February 2009 because of the financial crisis. Additionally, Jupiter Solar Power is delaying its production increase scheduled for 2010, until 2011.

Business is good for those in the solar industry … not so good for those trying to get in.

According to Yvo De Boer – Head of the UN based Climate Change Secretariat – the global financial crisis is going to speed up the efforts being made by many countries to cut down on global warming, a process that is slowly leading us to destruction.

He elaborated that, instead of side lining the issue of global warming because of the credit crisis, it could be used to create a policy that would attract the private sector to make investments in clean energy projects.

De Boer also emphasized that this was a more feasible decision rather than spending all available funds on trying to rescue the world from the credit crisis. If this were to be done, it would automatically affect the developing countries that were being funded by the rich countries.

As these developing countries play a key role in saving the ecological environment, it would be a drawback to ignore their problems. Without their efforts we cannot manage to save our world, therefore the previous idea is a better plan to tackle the financial crisis.

However De Boer assured that the credit crunch had so far not affected the Kyoto Protocol neither did they foresee any such developments taking place.

Image courtesy of elston