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Take a look at some of these "glocal" issues. Complete the following tasks and take notes for yourself. These will help you in your next Team Exchange meeting.

1. Choose one or two problems that you are interested in. Explain why. Alternatively, you can also add a different problem that you would like to highlight. In this case, try to provide a short description and a link or two for further information.

2. Analyze how your chosen problem is relevant for you personally and/or in your local context (e.g., does it clash with your values? Does it lead to environmental issues in your area? Do you use/buy any of the products that are connected to these issues (e.g., clothing, food, technology)?

Optional Task:
You can add comments to provide additional information (including links) as well as your opinion to existing posts.

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Violence
According to Jacquin (2020), violence is an act of physical force that causes or is intended to cause harm. The damage inflicted by violence may be physical, psychological, or both. Violence may be distinguished from aggression, a more general type of hostile behavior that may be physical, verbal, or passive in nature.
These days are horrible in Israel, There is a big conflict between Jews and Arabs, chaos and violence everywhere. The reason behind it refers to the fact that Jews kicked Palestinians out of their homes in Sheikh Al-Jarrah street in Jerusalem and they were forced to leave and find another place to live in. This made all the Palestinians get angry and fight for their rights to take back what was taken from them. Now, Israel is full of protests, acts of sabotage, people killing each other with knifes, rocks, bombs. Since I live here in Israel, it is very heart breaking to see innocent people are killed for nothing, seeing children watch their parents ache and die in front of them makes our body shiver from fear, especially when we saw hundred of rockets heading to Gaza and Tel-Aviv, we felt that we are in a war.

Sustainable Development Goal: I would choose no. 16 which talks about "Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions" promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels.

- This is have to end, everyone should live in peace, in their homes and have human rights. This is never about religion, it is about humanity. Stop violence.

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Lithium-ion batteries are used in mobile devices including smartphones, laptops, and tablets

global demand is rapidly increasing

however, most of the world's lithium is located in Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile

lithium extraction in the Atacama Desert causes the ground water levels to sink

Water shortages are an existential threat to the local indigenous population - the Atacameños

Further Information:

Lithiumabbau in Chile - Fluch oder Segen? (in German - Deutsche Welle)

The Ravages of Lithium Extraction in Chile (in English - countercurrents.org)

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Freedom of the press in Germany rated as only 'satisfactory'

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Freedom of the press in Germany rated as only 'satisfactory'

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Freedom of the press is fundamental in a democracy

Increasing violence towards journalists in Germany (through Corona protesters)

About a 100 journalists in China are imprisoned for their news coverage

(Misused in order to spread false information)?

Half of the world's population has no free access to freely-reported news and information

Further Information:

https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/rog-pressefreiheit-deutschland-corona-101.html (in German - Tagesschau)

https://rsf.org/en/presentation (in English - RSF reporters without borders)

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Plastic is a constituent of almost every product in our daily life

The amount of plastic waste is so huge that it gets exported to other countries, for instance Indonesia

Indonesia was used as a dumping ground for plastic waste from Australia, Europe and North America

Plastic waste in the ocean can get to almost any place on earth through ocean currents

The consequences through plastic pollution range from contaminating the maritime flora and fauna, polluting the environment on land, to exposing people to toxins

Further Information:

https://www.dw.com/de/indonesien-maniok-statt-plastikberge/a-46127743 (in German - Deutsche Welle)

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/12/plastic-waste-indonesia-pollution-health (in English - World Economic Forum)

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deforestation in the Amazon is largely driven by forest being converted into pasture for cattle or into cropland for growing soybeans

the Brazilian Amazon released more CO2 than it absorbed over the past 10 years

deforestation is often linked to forest fires that are frequently set intentionally to clear land for agricultural development

Brazil exported around 1.64 million tons of beef to its top markets China, Egypt and the EU in 2018

Further Information:

Amazon soya and beef exports 'linked to deforestation' (in English - BBC News)

First study of all Amazon greenhouse gases suggests the damaged forest is now worsening climate change (in English - National Geographic)

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Turkey's withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention 

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Turkey's withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention 

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the Istanbul Convention is formally known as the ‘Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence’

Turkey withdrew from the convention on March 19, arguing that the pact conflicted with local traditions and that Turkish laws provide ample protection to women

six other member states of the EU did not ratify the Istanbul Convention

according to an EU survey, around 55 % of the women in the EU have experienced sexual harrassment

Further information:

Istanbul Convention: How a European treaty against women's violence became politicized (German news in English - Deutsche Welle)

How the Istanbul Convention became a symbol of Europe’s cultural wars (in English - Politico.eu)

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a Belgian farmer makes Belgium bigger and France smaller

farmer could face criminal charges

agriculture was a major cause for this invasion

Further information

Farmer moves border stone and makes Belgium bigger (in English - BBC News)

Disclaimer: You shouldn't take this one too seriously ;) But you might want to reflect on what "borders" mean to you personally and how they are defined by society ....

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Plastic pollution and deforestation problem draw my attention because I have been observing similar challenges in my country as well. These kinds of problems have to do with our close future, and they are threatening.

Plastic pollution negatively affects both people and other living creatures. People do not care about collecting and sorting  plastic waste. It is easy to throw the waste away, which also creates eyesore in the streets. Moreover, When plastic waste is mixed with water, it becomes more harmful to people's health, marine life and the ecosystem.

When it comes to deforestation problem, it become another threatening issue for human beings and the ecosystem. Forests are the lungs of the earth and the main source of our breathing. We should protect the forest in order that we can have better world for us and other creatures. We are not unique owner of this world; thus, people are more responsible.

New and useful studies should be done on the protection of forests and plastic waste awareness, people should have more information on these issues. Various governments should be pioneer to carry out promising projects to protect our ecosystem.

Click on the titles below to watch the videos:
Plastic pollution

Deforestation

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Habitat Destruction

Habitat loss is primarily human-caused. Clearing land for farming, mining, and urbanization impacts the species who call the forest home.

The situation is as worse as in waterways and the ocean. Pollution impacts the health of fish, birds, and marine plants.

Forest destruction is a major threat to the survival of animals. In Turkey, forest lands have been destructed for the sake of profit. Setting fires is the most common way to clear the forests.

The Blacksea region of Turkey contains dense growths of both deciduous and evergreen trees. Nowadays, a construction firm insists on building a stone quarry regardless of the arguments that this construction will destroy the habitat in that region.

Moreover, there is another project that will destroy marine life, which is Canal Istanbul. This project aims to build a canal through Bosphouros to increase shipping capacity, but as a consequence, it will destroy the marine ecosystem and bypass 65 percent of Istanbul's water.

Unfortunately, this is a problem that arises across the world. Humankind destroys the habitat for economic growth. The most foremost example is Amazon Rainforests, which habitats %50 of the species living on earth. Between %15 and %17 percent of the Amazon rainforest have been destroyed to make space for farmlands. This issue overlaps with the 14th and 15th Sustainable Development Goals.
The loss of habitat has far-reaching consequences on the planet's ability to support life, but there is still hope.Studies reveal that by protecting %50 of the land and the ocean around the world, planet and animal species could thrive.

Here are the pictures of the Blacksea and Bosphorus.

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Freedom: “Freedom” means many things to many people. Freedom can mean having the opportunity to vote for particular ideas or for people who best represent our views. Freedom can refer to the concept of freedom of speech: the ability to freely voice personal opinions or perspectives. Others may understand freedom in a financial context, where people seek to free themselves of financial debt, outstanding credit and burdensome loans.
Equality: Equality is about ensuring that every individual has an equal opportunity to make the most of their lives and talents.

It is also the belief that no one should have poorer life chances because of the way they were born, where they come from, what they believe, or whether they have a disability.

Equality recognises that historically certain groups of people with protected characteristics such as race, disability, sex and sexual orientation have experienced discrimination.

Israel these days is not too good. Ad we all know, Israel and Palastine are not in good terms, especially these days. Isareli people are trying to get the Palastinias out of these houses. One of reasons for that is because the Palastenian people live there from along time ago, but the houses that they live in are not legally written in there names.
So these Palastenian people do not have human right in Israel, and the way I see it, Israeli people as well, because we as Israeli people and ARABS do not want for the Palastanian people to go. They should stay at their home.
Everyone should have the right to dafend themselves and what they believe in.

Sustainable Development Goal: I would choose no. 16 whhich talks about "Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions" promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels.

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Humans are not vegetarians by nature, however in the developed world we have adjusted to a high meat consumption that is causing a variety of bad impacts on the climate.

It causes deforestation and leads to forest fires
many farmers set fires to increase their ranches. However, forest fires and deforestation is a story on its own.
"When forests are destroyed to produce industrial meat, billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide are released into the atmosphere, accelerating global warming. The fallen trees are often left to rot on the forest floor or are burned, creating further emissions" (Greenpeace)

Eating meat is inefficient
Farmland takes up roughly 75% of farmland, therefore a lot of farmland would become available or restored to forests, if everyone ate a plant-based diet. A reduction could therefore already have a great impact on that land that could be used rather as carbon storage.

See also
https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/news/why-meat-is-bad-for-the-environment/

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02409-7

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The world's biggest and the most vital problem is water shortage, for sure. In SDG, 6th goal, clean water and sanitation deals with this problem.

With the increasing world population, extreme weather conditions because of global warming, and also excessive and unconscious usage of freshwater, our resources are running out.

Unfortunately, fresh water can not be recycled and we have less than %1 percent of fresh water on the earth. The number of countries facing drought is increasing every day and if we don't stop now, we will not have a chance to regret it and do something later. It will be too late for humanity. I believe that humans can handle any problem but I don't believe that even the most developed countries can do anything without water, our most basic need.

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I chose lack of quality education because in Turkey, lack of quality education is one of the widely encountered problems.

Being both student and a pre-service teacher I have seen the two sides of this problem. For teachers, not a lot of resources are avaliable and they are not provided with the freedom as they are expected to follow the curriculum. This creates and expectation that the aim of school is considered as a "test preparation center".

In the learner's perspective the lack of resources if felt deeply as well. Especially in ELT area learner's have to buy expensive materials so that they can receive a better training.

This problem is can be addressed via the 5th Sustainable Development Goal of UN which is Quality Education. It aims to provide quality education accessible to everybody.