Yet another solid week of submissions! DESSERT hit double digits in submission making it, at least a few weeks in a row of double digit submissions.

But you didn’t come here to listen to me talk all tommyrot about participation rates. You cam to see the submissions:

Robyn Augustin

Shannon Bardole-Foley

Teresa Kahler

Tamara Peterson

Teresa Kahler

Katelyn & Aubrey Augustin

Kim Barker

Christopher D. Bennett

Logan Kahler

Mike Vest

Micky Augustin

Andy Sharp

But enough dwelling on the past. Time to look to the future. We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future! This week’s theme:

GREEN

GREEN! What a great theme! But what is a GREEN photo? Well, a GREEN photo is any photo that involved the color GREEN. But of course, the word GREEN has more than one meaning.

For example. Here are the 10 most effective ways to reverse climate change in order of their effectiveness. I bet a couple will surprise you:

1. Refrigerant Management (Phase out HFCs)
2. Wind Turbines (Onshore)
3. Reduce food waste
4. Adopt a plant-rich diet
5. Tropical forest restoration
6. Educating girls
7. Family planning
8. Solar farms
9. Silvopasture (combining pastureland with climate-cooling trees)
10. Rooftop solar

Are you wondering about how Educating girls has such a big impact on climate change. Here is a little more information:

The problem: Today, more than 130 million girls are denied the fundamental right to attend school and lay a foundation for their lives. The situation is most dire in secondary classrooms.

Economic barriers include lack of family funds for school fees and uniforms, as well as prioritizing the more immediate benefits of having girls fetch water or firewood, or work a market stall or a plot of land.

Cultural barriers encompass traditional beliefs that girls should tend the home rather than learn to read and write, should be married off at a young age, and, when resources are slim, should be skipped over so boys can be sent to school instead.

Schools that are farther afield put girls at risk of gender-based violence on their way to and from, while other dangers and discomforts are present at school itself. Disability, pregnancy, childbirth, and female genital mutilation also can be obstacles.

The education gap also matters for global warming. According to the Brookings Institution, “The difference between a woman with no years of schooling and with 12 years of schooling is almost four to five children per woman.” Women with more years of education have fewer, healthier children and actively manage their own reproductive health.

In the poorest countries, per capita greenhouse-gas emissions are low. From one-tenth of a ton of carbon dioxide per person in Madagascar to 1.8 tons in India, per-capita emissions in lower-income countries are a fraction of the US rate of 18 tons per person per year. Nevertheless, changes in fertility rates in those countries would have multiple benefits for girls and women, families, communities, and society.

Solution in progress: Nobel laureate and girls’ education activist Malala Yousafzai has famously said, “One child, one teacher, one book, and one pen can change the world.” An enormous body of evidence supports her conviction. For starters, educated girls realize higher wages and greater upward mobility, contributing to economic growth. Their rates of maternal mortality drop, as do mortality rates of their babies. They are less likely to marry as children or against their will. They have lower incidence of HIV/AIDS and malaria. Their agricultural plots are more productive and their families better nourished. They are more empowered at home, at work, and in society.

Education is the most powerful lever available for breaking the cycle of intergenerational poverty, while mitigating emissions by curbing population growth.

Education also shores up resilience to climate change impacts. For example, a 2013 study found that educating girls “is the single most important social and economic factor associated with a reduction in vulnerability to natural disasters.” This decreased vulnerability also extends to their children, families, and the elderly.

[Editor’s note: Increasing women’s involvement in the energy sector also leads to “more effective clean-energy initiatives, greater returns on investment in clean energy, and expanded emissions-reduction opportunities, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.]

Work to be done: In 2011, the journal Science published a demographic analysis of the impact of girls’ education on population growth. It details a “fast track” scenario, based on South Korea’s actual climb from one of the least to one of the most educated countries in the world. If all nations adopted a similar rate and achieved 100 percent enrollment of girls in primary and secondary school by 2050, there would be 843 million fewer people worldwide than if current enrollment rates sustain.

The encyclopedic book What Works in Girls’ Education (Brookings Institution Press, 2015) maps out seven areas of interconnected interventions: 1) Make school affordable. 2) Help girls overcome health barriers. 3) Reduce the time and distance to get to school. 4) Make schools more girl-friendly. For example, offer child-care programs for mothers. 5) Improve school quality.
6) Increase community engagement. 7) Sustain girls’ education during emergencies. For example, establish schools in refugee camps.

SOURCE: https://www.greenamerica.org/climate-change-100-reasons-hope/top-10-solutions-reverse-climate-change

But I digress. I look forward to seeing your GREEN interpretations.

HOUSEKEEPING

A MESSAGE FROM THE PHOTOGRAPHY 139 RULES DIVISION

The picture has to be taken the week of the theme. This isn’t a curate your pictures challenge. This is a get your butt off the couch (my personal experience) and put your camera in your hands challenge. Don’t send me a picture of you next to the Eiffel Tower, when I know you were in Iowa all week. I will point out that I have let that slide some in the past. I will not in the future. Since it is literally about the only rule.

Your submission needs to be emailed to bennett@photography139.com by 11 AM on the Monday of the challenge due date. It should be pointed out that this blog auto-publishes at 12:01 on Mondays. So it wouldn’t hurt to get your picture in earlier.

That is it, them’s the rules.

A MESSAGE FROM THE PHOTOGRAPHY 139 SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION DIVISION

Nobody showed class, taste, and sophistication this week by signing up for a Photography 139 email subscription. I’ll try and do better next week.

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That’s all I got for today, so if the good Lord’s willin’ and the creek don’t rise, we will commune right here again next Monday. Hopefully it will be a very environmentally friendly Monday.