“Gee aan die biltong boet, ek hou nie van hierdie Lucozade gemors!”
Yes, there are many South Africans all over the globe. Events similar to this take place daily. Most South Africans have settled in places like the UK, the US and Australia, with some even further afield like Dubai, Spain and Canada.
Official figures for South Africans abroad are reaching 1.8m.
In many ways, South Africans are taking over the world. So, what are we doing to save it?
Thankfully, the month of April is host to ‘Earth Day’. Founded by the unfortunately named Gaylord Nelson who worked in the US senate in the 1970s, Earth Day is interestingly recognised as 22 March by the United Nations and 22 April by the world. In 1970 alone the day saw 200 million Americans rallying for a cleaner environment.
Earth Day 2007 reached an incredible 184 countries and nearly a billion people worldwide, thanks to concentrated efforts and the Internet.
It’s for a good cause too: Earth is a pretty amazing place. In 4.5 billion years it’s been host to millions of species, from single-celled bacteria scooting around in pungent, DNA-rich soup to intelligent simians that figured out how to walk on two legs. Earth tends to millions of biospheres, animals and people, each one unique, and reactive, to its immediate environment.
Earth has survived meteor impacts, ice ages, global wars and mass extinctions. But the onslaught of humankind has taken its toll: Earth is slowly starting to choke on carbon, the very same stuff that life is made of.
The effects of the excess carbon are everywhere. Global temperatures have risen by 1.4°F in the last 30 years, and at the current rate, could rise another 10.5°F in the next 100 years. These temperature changes have been most prevalent in our Arctic regions – and there’s just about enough ice there to keep the rum and coke cold at an inter-school rugby match in Bloemfontein. These figures might not seem very significant, but Norway’s Breidalblikkbrea glacier lost an incredible 3.1m in 2006, and island states like the Maldives and the Kiribati have both reported beaches being washed away completely – including two entire islands – due to rising sea levels
Just don’t grab your sunscreen yet: there is much to be done. South Africans everywhere – and the entire world – can do a lot to help slow the effects of global
warming. While most governments are already making a noticeable effort to loosen the grip of pollution on Earth, it’s important to remember that each of us can help too. So we’ve compiled a list of five simple things you can do, relevant especially to South Africans in London.
WARNING: If you want to one day sip warm beer at the Kruger Park beach resort then stop reading!
1. Buy energy saver light bulbs. They only cost around £1 each and last much longer than typical bulbs.
2. It’s easy to recycle in the UK. Give it a try; it comes with a lot of feel-good factor.
3. Plant a tree. Reduce carbon as you make it.
4. Give a visit, sign up and take part.
5. Don’t drink bottled water. Statistics suggest that only 15% of the plastic bottles actually get recycled.
We’re going to start doing our part to help save Earth, will you?