Global Institute of Environmental Studies

Global Institute of Environmental Studies (GIES)
Is an educative medium open to everybody living on earth. It is completely independent with profession­als offering practical and useful information about forming and using co-operatives to teach sustain-ability and conservation of the earth. It is apolitical and a non-profit corporation; neither is it an environ­mental brokerage.

EDUCATION IS THE KEY TO SUSTAINABILITY
We Strive:

• To provide educational and charitable assistance to the public in Environmental Studies.
• To provide education, social and cultural services to the people of the world.
• To provide guidance and counseling to the needy people in their effort to improve their lives.
• To export free environmental studies curriculum to most parts of the developing world.
• To encourage forming and using cooperatives to promote environmental studies

 

Method of Education
The institute will reach the public through publications: Flyers, Newsletters, Tracts, Forums, Seminars, Conferences, Lectures, Tours, Radio/TV broadcasts, Posters and any other means of informing and educating people.

SOCIAL SERVICES

• Education
• Cooperatives/Farmers’ Groups
• Community Development
• Public Health
• Environmental Studies

The above services are provided in conjunction with other existing community development programs that are geared towards exposing interested people to all opportunities available in the world in order to protect the earth.
CULTURAL SERVICES
We plan and arrange educational tours and excursions to anywhere in the world. We exchange social, cultural, and environmental studies’ materials between different nationalities and promote student and professional exchange programs in environmental studies.
SOURCES OF INCOME
Government grants, Business and Corporation Grants, Trusts and Grants, Individual Donations, and Fundraising.
WHO IS BEHIND (GIES)
Elias Quist founded the Global Institute of Environmental Studies. It is made up of professionals who run the daily activities of the Institute. They report to the Board of Directors, which is comprised of active and outstanding individuals from all over the world. The Directors also account to the local governments of every country where GIES maintains and operates offices: USA, Liberia, Ghana, Togo and Benin. GIES expects to establish additional branches in other places of the world as funds become available.

REASON WHY GIES IS NECESSARY
GIES was created to promote global environmental studies. Let’s face it…the real proof is in the water we drink, the air we breathe, and the land we live on. If we cannot safeguard the envi­ronment for our grandchildren, we cannot call our-selves educated and smart people. Why bother then? When we trade with other nations, it is important that we travel everywhere in the world to teach environmental studies. Powerful, developed industrial or under developed poor nations are not omniscient or omnipotent when it comes to dealing with the planet Earth. For example, the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans connect the whole world and whatever goes wrong in one nation affects the oth­ers. Rich nations need to work with poor countries whether to fight terrorism, prevent Aids or discourage weapons proliferation. The aim of GIES is to promote institutional multi-literalism in finding solutions for the problems of global warming and to curtail further degradation of our planet. The purpose of creating GIES is to unite, persuade and encourage nations to adopt and promote a universal environmental studies curriculum as the world navigates towards globalization.

By accepting a uniform identical curriculum, international institutions will automatically reduce misunderstandings and uncertainty in order to foster or enhance future international co-operation in situations such as that of the Kyoto Protocol and the International Court of Law when some nations arrogantly or naively refused to rectify such treaties. Adopting and teaching the same environmental studies curriculum worldwide will eliminate many borders, explain cultures and follow traditions to form the basis of a friendly global environmental community. Selfishness and illiteracy should no longer be barriers to environmental issues as students’ -global-mobility is becoming expensive and impossible for developing countries. To avoid the above, GIES’ approach to environmental studies must be benevolent and exported to the poor countries in order to attract and encourage the public, students and school authorities to accept a common curriculum to protect the earth throughout the world. Needs are clear and the same everywhere: water, air, food, public health, energy, education, etc.

STATEMENT OF PRINCIPLE
The aim of Global Institute of Environmental Studies is to establish a basic global environmental studies curriculum for schools and the public. It is all about learning and knowing more about how to care for living things, protecting and saving the earth to improve our own lives. We believe that, for each individual, this education will be the means of fighting ignorance. Besides, to the developing countries, it must help save the remaining forests and other vegetations with wildlife. To the industrial nations, this curriculum must help minimize toxic waste and pollution, and also encourage understanding, and promote dialogue, peace and economic freedom to the poor nations. Saving the earth would not be by trading bombs, wars or using force; but rather by strong legislature and regulations. Nevertheless, by an acceptable vigorous global education, supported with good funding, self-consciousness, sacrifice and cooperation, we can protect the earth. The problem of a healthy earth is as important as that of terrorism, poverty, drought, HIV (AIDS), cancer and any other social time bomb. Environmental Studies must be an on-going global educational process.

 

GENERAL THOUGHTS AND OBSERVATION

• GIES believes that a simple global environmental education is needed to meet a compelling demand in developing countries and the world as a whole.
• Clear environmental problems are experienced in ultra-cyclical, global communities in agriculture, mining, weather, food, water, forestry, etc…and are likely to last multiple years concurrently with our behavior.
• Interviews and discussions with numerous industries, communities, government leaders and other data points suggest that overall environmental education remains “strongly” weak and or neglected.
• Environmental Studies teacher shortage still persists, suggesting the demand remains solid in many schools in most countries, especially in the developing countries.
• It appears, developing countries are not being successful due to the increasing costs of education and textbooks; and expect timing issues caused by politics, corruption, inflation, health problems and lack of medicine to continue to be a “drag” on leverage at least until 2020 or as long as our population grows.
• However, the on-going population growth bringing in inflation with energy-intensive demand for communities, markets continue to impose high price on fossil fuel, natural resources, and total environmental degradation is eminent.
• Separately, multiple institutions have gone out of their way recently to cite frustration with implementing globalization, as there is good as well as bad globalization.
• GIES believes strong potential growth trends are likely to come by 2020, we need to look for demonstrated environmental education leverage to meaningfully improve worldwide communities. Poverty with illiteracy, corruption and greed are all enemies of the environment.
• As the population continues to grow, we expect fossil fuel deposits to shrink further as oil-business earnings continue to boom.
• Topics of concern on coverage list have unique catalyst ideas in forming and using co-operatives (students’ and farmers’ groups) as tools for community economic development in the concept of teaching environmental studies.

STRATEGY
Form and use cooperatives as tools to teach environmental studies.
GIES is not a religious institution but a multi-cultural, non-denominational educational organization. We are entirely devoted to the simple study of the environment by working through cooperatives to promote community development, encourage public health and teach environmental studies. It is our hope to offer seminars that discuss our planet “Earth”, the community, economy, politics, and the natural “L.A.W.S.” that govern their development. The seminars may also deal with basic moral issues that traditions address as many cultural group lead­ers have strongly endorsed our teaching. We then apply the knowledge gained to help understand and solve our social and environmental problems. Finally, our members adhere to a number of religions, including none. We are, therefore, for the whole world and everyone is welcome in our seminars. So, it is important to emphasize the global cultural differences and the necessity to find a common ground in teaching environmental studies. It must not be by ideologies but by forming and using simple co-operatives and economic strategies to save the earth for us.
ECONOMIC STRATEGEM
For example: form co-operatives to grow corn and sugar cane for ethanol** and promote poultry farms, pig farms and fisheries to produce food locally to feed the hungry and the poor. Poor nations also do more damage to the environment because they lack technology. Everything they do depends on the environment where they live, be it in the forest or somewhere else. Poor countrymen slash and burn forests or dump raw sewage in the ocean, lake or any running water nearby where they live. Most of these poor people or nations have no money for sufficient oil import, energy security or clean air and water. Fire is often used to clear lands for subsistence farming. In addition, firewood and charcoal are the only means they use for cooking. Poverty is not a crime and poo account for more than 5 percent of fuel consumption in transportation by the end of 2010. Beside ethanol production, farmers of sugar cane, corn, Soya beans and rapeseed will make better use of the waste from crops grown for animal feed and other food products. So, it is believed that growing crops to produce ethanol has the potential to become a viable profitable industry in the developing countries. The Global Institute of Environmental Studies believes that with such co-operatives (sugar cane and corn farms with good funding and new technologies), ethanol will become very competitive with petrol.

Most developing countries are in the tropical climate where there is an abundance of fertile land and water. Location may be the case with Brazil, as this country has become the world’s most competitive producer of ethanol made from locally grown sugar cane. If policies are implemented the right way, investments will not only meet domestic demands but also extend to supply international markets. Countries like Japan and Colombia, with many others, are considering the adoption of new legisla­tions to encourage the usage of ethanol. Not surprisingly, Brazilian investors are making deals abroad to gain access into strategic business ventures.

Ethanol plants in the Caribbean nations are being bought and refurbished with the aim of exporting liquid bio-fuels to the US and other industrial nations. Because of the war in Iraq with other problems in the Middle East and by strong appeal to rich nations that are attracted by low-production costs with much cheap labor, foreign investors are flocking into Brazil for sugar cane and ethanol pro­cessing. Auto manufacturers like Fiat and Volkswagen are also gaining footholds in Brazil where “Ethanol-vehicle” (flex-fuel) technology is sent to trade fairs in China.
The most important environmental lesson from all of the above is that not only the farmers will gain from the sugar cane projected production of ethanol but also every city and village dweller will also breathe cleaner and better air. As a matter of public health or if public transportation were to run on bio-diesel, two-thirds of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide emissions in any large city like Chicago would be eliminated. Also, sulfur, which is one of the most toxic gases, would disappear significantly from the air we breathe.
*Acronym for Land, Air, Water, Sun
** Ethanol, relatively, made from corn or sugar cane is blended with gasoline and used as automobile fuel. Its content of oxygen allows vehicle engines to burn fuel more efficiently, resulting in reduced exhaust-pipe emis­sions.