CLIMATE CHANGE ON THE WINGS OF A BUTTERFLY
Deep in the mountains of Michoacán, Mexico a butterfly’s wings cease to flap. Biting cold penetrating the damaged ancient forest has stopped a butterfly’s tiny breeze.
Somewhere in the artic, a polar bear searches for the ice it once called home. In California, a water shortage threatens one of the world’s most powerful economies. A tiny village in Madagascar is lost to floods in a terrible storm. Around the World we fear the sun for the cancers it may cause.
These events all have one critical environmental problem in common--- the transfer of carbon from trees to the atmosphere. Trees that are supposed to absorb carbon and release oxygen are instead doing the opposite as they are cut down and burned.
Few people are aware that one of the most significant contributions to climate change and its associated problems is the burning of trees for fuel. Fuel to cook in millions of small villages worldwide and stay warm on a winter night. Many people are not aware that wood used for fuel destroys arctic ice sheets, home to the spectacular polar bear. It cuts down forests that house the magnificent eagle. It also destroys human lives. We must slow the loss of these important forests.
Women and children exposed to the smoke of open fires that burn firewood while they cook are inhaling the equivalent of five packages of cigarettes per day. We can reduce the deaths and illnesses associated with burning forests for fuel.
EJIDO COMMUNITY PROGRAM IN MEXICO
A change is going to come . . . Sam Cooke
Change is slow. For billions of people cooking over open fires, suffering burns and breathing smoke is a way of life. Change will be slow. The Patsari stove is a step. Using nearly 70% less wood fuel the Patsari stove helps to protect the forest. A simple chimney vents smoke out of the Ejido community homes, greatly reducing the incidence of respiratory disease. An enclosed firebox prevents fire burns to children.
With this simple step, people are healthier, the forest more complete. Millions upon millions of monarch butterflies are protected. With the beating of their butterfly wings health will also return to the arctic. Rains will stabilize in California and the storms subside and the melting of ice caps will slow down. All with a simple stove, the beat of monarch butterflies’ wings in Mexican forests will live on and create the winds of change needed to alter climate change.
Visit Disney’s Friends for Change at Disney.com/projectgreen and learn how your vote for ECOLIFE’s project can help us build more Patsari stoves that in turn will help save carbon-reducing forests and save the lives of monarch butterflies and Ejido families of Mexico!
Learn how our stove program is cutting carbon plus improving the cultural, political and ecological landscape just south of our border in Central Mexico.
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