“The current response to our climate crisis in nothing but incremental tinkering. Rearranging the deckchairs. Those in power are doing system maintenance and re-arranging instead of redesigning them. Our current system is fundamentally broken, but our leaders are suffering from what’s called ‘cognitive dissonance’ – all the facts are there, but those in power block them out.”

I have never been keen on beauty pageants. When I found out about the Miss Earth competition I was concerned that they were focusing on outer beauty instead of environmental passion and action. But I was wrong.

The first group of students who were enrolled in the Whisper Boat Building Academy (WBBA), the Cape Town Boatbuilding and Technology Initiative (CTBI) and Plastics|SA pilot project to equip deaf students with the skills to work with composites and the art of boat building, received their certificates of competence in lamination at a graduation ceremony held in their honour last week.

The President of the Republic of South Africa, Jacob Zuma has officially opened the much anticipated COP 17/CMP7 conference held at the Albert Luthuli International Convention Centre. In his speech, he stresses the need for all involved parties to strive to find a solution, here in Durban.

As the UN’s climate change conference begins in Durban, Survival calls for the ecological knowledge and insights of tribal peoples to be heeded in global decisions concerning climate change.

The COP17 Climate Train was today welcomed in Durban with a fanfare and a range of dignitaries Including National Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) executive secretary Christiana Figueres and chief of the COP17 negotiations and EThekwini Speaker Rogie Naidoo.

African women and children constitute the majority of the continent’s poor and play a vital role in food production in Africa. Therefore they will be the hardest hit by famine due to climate change, if they are not effectively prepared and food security issues are notaddressed properly. The continent will suffer as a result.

South Africa's proposed carbon tax is set to act as just another tax on South Africans while inadequately addressing issues of climate change - the very problem it was designed to address. This is because the revenue generated will not be earmarked to tackle issues of climate change, rather it will simply flow into government coffers.

Drought, lack of funds and land ownership problems. This is but a few of the challengers the Blood River shack dweller community’s youth are facing.