[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5kg1oOq9tY&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.350.org%2Fmission&feature=player_embedded#t=97[/youtube]
Friends of the Earth Middle East (FoEME) is an Israeli, Jordanian, and Palestinian environmental organization that has been doing a lot of good since 1994. The organization focuses on promoting cooperative efforts in order to solve communal environmental problems in the Middle East and improve relations between the people in the region.
Now they are joining forces with 350.org, an international campaign that hopes to inspire the world to create a sense of urgency among world leaders for changing policies that would effect climate change. The campaign is focused on the number 350 – the level of parts per million that scientists have determined to be the safe maximum for CO2 levels in our atmosphere.
The collaboration will lead to FoEME’s organization of a regional protest at the Dead Sea on October 24, 2009 – the day that 350.org has designated as “Day 350”.
According to FoEME, the organization is putting together “a large public/media event to attract the attention of decision makers to the seriousness of the problem. In the Middle East, global warming will cause water shortages, desertification, and loss of agricultural land. We have chosen the Dead Sea, a potential World Heritage Site that is shrinking from lack of incoming water, coupled with other related negative consequences (such as sinkholes). Dead Sea demise reflects unsustainable water consumption in the region which now, due to climate change and even less precipitation, is more unsustainable than ever. It also represents as a warning for what other lakes in semi-arid regions can expect, as a result of climate crisis and unsustainable consumption.”
The event hopes to gather hundreds of environmental activists from towns around the Dead Sea, as well as from other towns in Israel, Jordan, and Palestine. People will then use their bodies to form the number “350”, with aerial photographs documenting the protest.
Learn more about the protest on facebook.
Read more about Friends of the Earth Middle East::
Water Planning, Problems and Propositions for Palestinians
FoEME Helps Israel, Jordan Cut Down Flies
Our Friends from “Friends of the Earth Middle East” Get $750,000 from Skoll for Water Work
FoEME to Hold Conference on Shared Mountain Aquifer
Author: Karen Chernick
Much to the disappointment of her Moroccan grandmother, Karen became a vegetarian at the age of seven because of a heartfelt respect for other forms of life. She also began her journey to understand her surroundings and her impact on the environment. She even starting an elementary school Ecology Club and an environmental newsletter in the 3rd grade. (The proceeds of the newsletter went to non-profit environmental organizations, of course.) She now studies in New York. Karen can be reached at karen (at) greenprophet (dot) com.
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