For centuries, many peoples around the world have had to gather bundles of firewood for cooking ... a process that not only produces carbon emissions but has a significant effect on health.
Smoke and fumes cause respiratory diseases killing an estimated 1.6 million people a year worldwide.
But as the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference approaches, one Norwegian inventor believes he has refined a simple technology that could have a major impact for ordinary people, their environment and the world. It's called the Kyoto Box.
Al Jazeera's Andrew Simmons reports.
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I think that deforestation has a lot to do with droughts, it certainly results in desertification in many parts of the world.
What I like about these solar cookers, apart from the fact that they spare trees, do not emit carbon nor produce smoke and fumes that are bad for the health, they also liberate the women from the strenuous job of finding and gathering firewood, having to go further and further afar to do so, thus taking up a great deal of the women's time and energy.
Solar cookers plus simple solar stills in the Rift Valley of Kenya (where ground water is usually brackish) would solve a great deal of problems for the people living there.For centuries, many peoples around the world have had to gather bundles of firewood... more
So what the Amazon claims it made up (which is still not enough considering how high deforestation there has been) in decreasing deforestation which is more than likely a play on words tied to some carbon scheme, we will see countered in Indonesia. We need to see a decrease in deforestation worldwide to adequately address the effects of CO2 emissions. And it cannot be tied to a scheme that then allows polluters to continue spewing GHGs out of their smoke stacks while claiming immunity to responsibility simply for planting trees in the forest that will also effect the livelihoods of indigenous peoples in these areas.So what the Amazon claims it made up (which is still not enough considering how high... more
"The rate of deforestation in the Amazon has dropped by 45% and is the lowest on record since monitoring began 21 years ago, Brazil's government says.
According to the latest annual figures, just over 7,000 sq km was destroyed between July 2008 and August 2009.
The drop is welcome news for the government in advance of the Copenhagen summit on climate change.
But Greenpeace says there is still too much deforestation and the government's targets are not ambitious enough." http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8358094.stm
Is this just pulling the wool over our eyes?"The rate of deforestation in the Amazon has dropped by 45% and is the lowest on... more
Multi award winning. Her name is GREEN, she is alone in a world that doesn’t belong to her. She is a female orangutan, victim of deforestation and resource exploitation. This film is an emotional journey with GREEN’s final days. With no narration, it is a visual ride presenting the devastating impacts of logging and land clearing for palm oil plantations, the choking haze created by rainforest fires and the tragic end of rainforest biodiversity. We watch the effects of consumerism and are faced with our personal accountability in the loss of the world’s rainforest treasures.Multi award winning. Her name is GREEN, she is alone in a world that doesn’t belong... more
Excerpt:
"By using a tissue box made from 100% recycled paper and the graphic of a tree, Koh is making an effort to help people understand the serious link between trees and the tissue use that comes from them. In other words, it shows people the ratio between how many tissues people use to how many trees are cut down in order to supply the tissues in the first place."
One more:
"Here are some statistics that will give a clearer understanding of the tree-to-paper ratio:
1 ton of uncoated virgin (non-recycled) printing and office paper = 24 trees
1 ton of 100% virgin (non-recycled) newsprint = 12 trees
1 carton (10 reams) of 100% virgin copier paper uses = .6 trees (or 60% of 1 tree)
1 ream (500 sheets) = 6% of a tree
1 ton of paper used for magazines = 15.36 trees
1 ton of paper used for newsmagazines and most catalogs = 7.68 trees
If you’re wondering about usage per country, well, that may take a while to explain, but here is some basic information on that:
The average U.S. citizen uses more than 300 kilograms of paper annually, and the average Japanese uses 250 kilograms. People in developing countries, in contrast, use only 18 kilograms of paper a year on average—in India, the figure is 4 kilos, while in 20 countries in Africa, it’s less than 1 kilo. (The United Nations estimates that 30-40 kilos is the minimum needed to meet basic literacy and communication needs.)" http://www.greenfudge.org/2009/11/08/from-trees-to-t-issues-raising-awareness-on-our-beloved-trees/
We used to hear so much about the destruction of the Amazon rainforest, but lately not a word. So what happened—did we save it or not?
We didn't save it, but we haven't stopped trying. Environmentalists fret over the fate of the Amazon for good reason: It contains more than half of the planet's remaining tropical rainforest, one-fifth of our global freshwater, and as much as one-third of the world's biodiversity. Saving all this was once a rallying cry for green activists, and a few early triumphs made that goal seem likely. But attention soon shifted away from the rainforest to issues like climate change and organic agriculture, and now the Amazon is disappearing at about the same rate it was in the 1980s.
The good news is that interest in the Amazon has begun to take off again in recent years. That's mainly because of the role that forests play in staving off climate change: Scientists estimate that the Amazon itself has between 85 billion and 100 billion tons of CO2 stored in its trees and shrubs, or about 11 years' worth of U.S. carbon emissions. The dangers aren't limited to Brazil, of course—deforestation rates in Asia and parts of Africa now rival those seen the Americas. In 2009, the Guinness World Records named Indonesia as the country with the most rapidly disappearing forests—it's losing about 2 percent per year—although Brazil remains the leader in absolute terms.
A rare Panamanian tree frog, a rodent from Madagascar and two lizards found only in the Philippines are among over 17,000 species threatened with extinction, a leading environmental group said Tuesday.
The Rabb's fringe-limbed tree frog, only discovered four years ago, is one of 1,895 amphibian species that could soon disappear from the wild because of deforestation and infection, the International Union for Conservation of Nature said.
The Switzerland-based group surveyed 47,677 animals and plants for this year's "Red List" of endangered species, determining that 17,291 of them are at risk of extinction.
More than one in five of all known mammals, over a quarter of reptiles and 70 percent of plants are under threat, according to the survey, which featured over 2,800 new species compared with 2008.
"These results are just the tip of the iceberg," said Craig Hilton-Taylor, who manages the list. He said many more species that have yet to be assessed could also be under serious threat.
Many of us feel as though being here we cannot make a marked difference elsewhere in the world to help mitigate deforestation and climate change. Tree Nation gives us a chance to use the Internet for truly positive change. It is a site devoted to more that just talk. You get action and results that will be felt for a lifetime in mitigating poverty, deforestation, and giving clean water to those who need it most. I highly recommend this site if you want to make a real difference in the world.Many of us feel as though being here we cannot make a marked difference elsewhere in... more
I've been following Glenn Beck's exploits for a while now, from his take down of Van Jones to his paranoid tirades against AmeriCorp. But Beck hit a new all time high for spewing paranoid nonsense after he went off on comments made by the UK climate chief who said that not eating meat was better for the planet.
What's Beck's beef? As he's wont to do, he uses Lord Stern of Brentford's words as an excuse to push his "they're out to get us and take away our last freedoms" agenda. Bentford recently said that, "Meat is a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases. It puts enormous pressure on the world's resources. A vegetarian diet is better." Stern puts meat production at about 18 percent of global carbon emissions.
Blasphemy, in the world of Beck. The truth is that climate change is already taking away the freedoms of millions who are fleeing stronger storms, longer droughts, and food shortages. If Beck could see past his own prerogative, he'd see that the world is changing around us and we all must pitch in to make a difference. It's not an attack on personal freedoms, it's a dose of reality.
Beck goes on to weirdly praise PETA for its stance on climate change policy and attacks Al Gore, demanding that he put down his cheeseburgers. On Friday, Beck promises that he'll "profile" how the Copenhagen climate talks threaten our national sovereignty. Tune in. Everyone loves a circus.
This is just plain crazy.
How can they let this happen?
Excerpt:
"Under proposals due to be ratified at the summit, countries which cut down rainforests and convert them to plantations of trees such as oil palms would still be able to classify the result as forest and could receive millions of dollars meant for preserving them. An earlier version of the text ruled out such a conversion but has been deleted, and the EU delegation – headed by Britain – has blocked its reinsertion.
Environmentalists say plantations are in no way a substitute for the lost natural forest in terms of wildlife, water production or, crucially, as a store of the carbon dioxide which is emitted into the atmosphere when forests are destroyed and intensifies climate change."
Watch videos. (sensitive material)
I say boycott palm oil products and take action.
Here one excerpt from the article:
"Cinta, a baby orangutan found lost and alone in a vast Borneo palm oil plantation, now clings to a tree at a sanctuary for the great apes, staring intently at dozens of tourists.
She is one of the casualties of the boom in palm oil -- used extensively for biofuel and processed food like margarine -- which has seen swathes of jungle felled in Borneo, an island split between Malaysia and Indonesia."
One more excerpt:
"As well as destroying their jungle habitat, the expansion of palm oil, which now covers nearly one fifth of Sabah alone, poses other risks to the endangered species.
Orangutans that damage the palm oil fruits can be hunted down and killed, and it is quite common for young apes to be captured and kept as pets by villagers living alongside the plantations.
'They either go into the oil palm, and start eating the oil palm fruits, or get pushed into a smaller and smaller area,' said Eric Meijaard from the Indonesia-based People and Nature Consulting International.
'What quite often happens is that the oil palm concession basically will ask for these orangutans to be shot so they get rid of the problem.' "
How can we solve this?
The article does not suggest solutions, I do.
Many products carry palm oil as an ingredient, all we need to do is boycott these.
Palm oil causes deforestation and wildlife suffering and extinction.
Stop the illegal trade.
The continued degradation of the Mau complex - Kenya's largest water catchment area - threatening everything from the spectacular annual migration of the wildebeest to pastoralism, agriculture and hydro-power generation, has dominated public debate for the better part of 2009. The government's plan to evict the illegal settlers has added to the controversy.
The threat posed by the continued depletion of the Mau complex ties in with the increasing concerns, on a global level, over loss of bio-diversity, increased carbon dioxide emissions as a result of forest cover loss, and poor soil and water resources.
However, while climate change could be a major contributor to the current crisis in the Mau complex, the destruction of the forests has reduced the ability of the Mau eco-system to absorb or reduce the impact of climate change, increasing the vulnerability of the people to changing weather patterns.
We look at some of the issues surrounding the country's largest closed-canopy forest eco-system:
Where is the Mau Complex?
Mainly in the Rift Valley Province, the Mau is one of the country's five major water towers; it forms the upper catchment of the main rivers west of the province. The rivers are: Njoro and Makalia (these drain into Lake Nakuru), Sondu, Yala, Nzoia and Nyando (draining into Lake Victoria) and the Ewaso Nyiro, Kerio and Mara rivers.
The complex supplies water to many lakes in the Rift Valley, from Lake Turkana in the northwest to Lake Natron in neighbouring Tanzania - the only regular breeding site for millions of flamingos.
Historically, it is home to a minority group of indigenous forest dwellers, the Ogiek.
What is the size of the Mau complex?
It covers at least 400,000ha - as large as the forests of the Aberdares and Mt Kenya combined.
Over the past two decades, the complex has lost at least 107,000ha of forest cover due to irregular and unplanned settlements, logging and charcoal burning, as well as increased agriculture.
What is at stake if degradation of the complex continues?
The importance of the complex lies in the eco-system service it provides to the country and East Africa as a whole, including river flow regulation, flood mitigation, water storage, reduced soil erosion, bio-diversity, carbon sequestration, carbon reservoir and micro-climate regulation.
The area contributes to the water supply to urban areas and supports the livelihood of millions of people in rural areas but the widespread irregular and poorly planned settlement and illegal forest resource extraction have affected the ecosystem, from water supply for commercial and domestic use to hydro-electric power generation, tourism and agriculture.
Moreover, experts have warned that continued destruction of the complex will lead to a water crisis that could extend beyond the country's borders.
According to a September 2009 report by the government's Interim Coordinating Secretariat for the Mau Forest Complex on the rehabilitation of the Mau Forest Ecosystem, if encroachment and unsustainable exploitation of the eco-system continue, damage could be irreversible, with serious ecological consequences and ramifications for internal security.
When did degradation of the complex begin?
Originally divided into 22 blocks, the real devastation of the complex began in 1997 when the government allocated large plots of land to individuals in what was seen as a political bid to win votes during the general elections that year. The present government has said all land allocations in the late 1990s are illegal and wants to evict the occupants.
What is controversial about the Mau?
The government and conservationists agree that quick action needs to be taken to stop the continued destruction of the complex but Rift Valley politicians are divided over the eviction of those deemed to be illegally settled in the complex.The continued degradation of the Mau complex - Kenya's largest water catchment area -... more
People have become significant earth movers, outpacing all sources of natural erosion. More and more of our footprint can be seen from space in many forms, including cities, reservoirs, agriculture and deforestation. Among the most impressive human scars on the planet are open-pit mines.People have become significant earth movers, outpacing all sources of natural erosion.... more
I’ve said before that climate change is not just an environmental issue, but it turns out that a famous tree hugger cause has a big role in global warming. Deforestation is responsible for about 20 percent of global GHG pollution — more than all the world’s cars, trucks, planes, and ships combined.
There is some good news on this front, though.Blog Action Day post from Through a Green Lens:
I’ve said before that climate... more
As the UN Climate Change Conference 2009 (COP15) gets closer, a new agreement has to be signed for the period after 2012. It is becoming clear how agribusiness attempts to gain profits from the massive carbon credits market. Under the term "Conservation Agriculture", Monsanto and other biotech allies have penetrated the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) aiming to get carbon credits for agribusiness. A voluntary 'responsible' label for Roundup Ready soy sponsored by World Wild Life Fund (WWF), and a newly approved Clean Development Mechanisms (CDM) methodology are important steps for Agribusiness to get access to this three billion dollar business.
Proposals to include agriculture in carbon offsetting focus on changes in tillage practices and reductions in methane and nitrous oxide emissions. All these practices are included in the concept of "Conservation Agriculture", which is based on three principles: minimal soil disturbance, permanent soil cover and crop rotations . However, in the name of Conservation Agriculture and with the explicit consent of FAO and UNFCCC, very different agricultural methods are included. Under this label a range of systems from biological agriculture to No-till GM industrial agriculture can be labelled as sustainable and so receive carbon credits.
No-till is an agricultural technique that requires no ploughing or digging of the soil. When sowing, seeds are drilled into the soil. In general, No-till is considered a conservation practice that increases levels of soil organic matter and reduces soil erosion, but in RR soy industrial monocultures it part of this technique is used in conjunction with very harmful environmental practices.
In practice, Carbon credits for No-till could mean a massive economic support for Genetically Modified (GM) soy monocultures in South and North America and a promotion of this agribusiness model in other Southern Hemisphere regions.
GM soy monocultures are a production model which is not sustainable in any way. In South America, soy production of this kind is one of the main drivers of deforestation, land use change, biodiversity destruction and human rights violations . Moreover, these monocultures sustain the industrial feed industry which is a main cause of climate change as well. To label these agricultural production models as “sustainable” only because they involve less ploughing (no tillage or No-till) means falling into a trap of absurdly reductionism and blindness.
The report "Agriculture and Climate Change: Real Problems, False Solutions" presented in June 2009 reveals the main agriculture-related proposals in the negotiations for a post -2012 climate agreement. It provides an informative panorama on how current and proposed agricultural practices for the post Kyoto agreements really impact on climate change. However, in this article we will focus specifically on some cases related to soy monocultures.
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And the current climate bill in Congress aids their scheme which discredits it right from the start.As the UN Climate Change Conference 2009 (COP15) gets closer, a new agreement has to... more
Beautiful, great victory!
Thank you for stopping the killing of our Earth.
My congratulations to Greenpeace.
"Another good news update in the battle against deforestation in the Amazon: Greenpeace is hailing the announcement by four of the world's largest players in the cattle industry that they have committed to ban purchases of beef produced in newly deforested areas:
At an event in Sao Paolo, organized by Greenpeace -- which really started putting pressure on the Brazil meat and leather industry with its Slaughtering the Amazon report back in June -- Marfrig, Bertin, JBS-Friboi and Minerva all committed to steps to ensure that the meat that the sell does not contributed to further deforestation.
In order to ensure compliance with these standards, the companies will establish monitoring of their entire supply chains, as well as register farms that both directly and indirectly supply cattle. Additionally, cattle will no longer be purchase from indigenous and protected areas, as well as from operations using slave labor. (Yes, slave labor...)"
More at the link.Beautiful, great victory!
Thank you for stopping the killing of our Earth.
My... more
It’s taken a long time, but the issue of global climate change is finally getting the attention it deserves. While enormous technical, policy, and economic issues remain to be solved, there is now widespread acceptance of the need to confront the twin challenges of energy security and climate change. Collectively, we are beginning to acknowledge that our long addiction to fossil fuels — which has been harming our national security, our economy and our environment for decades — must end. The question today is no longer why, but how. The die is cast, and our relationship to energy will never be the same.
Unfortunately, this positive shift in the national zeitgeist has had an unintended downside. In the rush to portray the perils of climate change, many other serious issues have been largely ignored. Climate change has become the poster child of environmental crises, complete with its own celebrities and campaigners. But is it so serious that we can afford to overlook the rise of infectious disease, the collapse of fisheries, the ongoing loss of forests and biodiversity, and the depletion of global water supplies?
Although I’m a climate scientist by training, I worry about this collective fixation on global warming as the mother of all environmental problems. Learning from the research my colleagues and I have done over the past decade, I fear we are neglecting another, equally inconvenient truth: that we now face a global crisis in land use and agriculture that could undermine the health, security, and sustainability of our civilization.
Our use of land, particularly for agriculture, is absolutely essential to the success of the human race. We depend on agriculture to supply us with food, feed, fiber, and, increasingly, biofuels. Without a highly efficient, productive, and resilient agricultural system, our society would collapse almost overnight.
But we are demanding more and more from our global agricultural systems, pushing them to their very limits.
Continued population growth.The massive environmental impacts of our agricultural practices rival the impacts of climate change.(adding more than 70 million people to the world every year), changing dietary preferences (including more meat and dairy consumption), rising energy prices, and increasing needs for bioenergy sources are putting tremendous pressure on the world’s resources. And, if we want any hope of keeping up with these demands, we’ll need to double, perhaps triple, the agricultural production of the planet in the next 30 to 40 years.
Meeting these huge new agricultural demands will be one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century. At present, it is completely unclear how (and if) we can do it.
If this wasn’t enough, we must also address the massive environmental impacts of our current agricultural practices, which new evidence indicates rival the impacts of climate change. Consider the following:
Ecosystem degradation. Already, we have cleared or converted more than 35 percent of the earth’s ice-free land surface for agriculture, whether for croplands, pastures or rangelands. In fact, the area used for agriculture is nearly 60 times larger than the area of all of the world’s cities and suburbs. Since the last ice age, nothing has been more disruptive to the planet’s ecosystems than agriculture. What will happen to our remaining ecosystems, including tropical rainforests, if we need to double or triple world agricultural production, while simultaneously coping with climate change?
end of excerptIt’s taken a long time, but the issue of global climate change is finally getting... more
I AM IN DISBELIEF THAT A COMPANY that is supposed to be based on healthy, CRUELTY-FREE and ECO-FRIENDLY principles would even associate with RSPO!
Sustainable palm that is “certified” by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil…
The RSPO ‘organization’ is a corporate GREENWASHING SCAM!
The people who are the RSPO are precisely the PEOPLE WHO HAVE PERSONAL INTERESTS in making PROFIT off of DIRTY PALM!
This is like letting the FOOD corporations determine FOOD SAFETY regulations (WAIT! THEY ARE TRYING TO DO THAT! For more info on this, go to: foodandwaterwatch.org & TAKE ACTION!)
Seventh Generation... HOW COULD YOU?
In the 'comments' section (of linked page) I posted detailed information about SUSTAINABLE PALM CERTIFICATION.I AM IN DISBELIEF THAT A COMPANY that is supposed to be based on healthy, CRUELTY-FREE... more
