tagged w/ Industrial Revolution
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Hans Herren, Ph.D. is an internationally recognized scientist specializing in sustainable agriculture. He is president of the Millennium Institute, a non-profit development research and service organization dedicated to sustainable development. Dr. Herren co-chaired the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science & Technology (IAASTD), an initiative sponsored by the World Bank and United Nations in partnership with the World Health Organization that assessed global agriculture and recommended agroecological solutions to world hunger.
Dr. Herren has earned numerous awards that recognize his research achievements. These include the 2002 Brandenberger Preis for improving the living standards of Africa's rural population, the 2003 Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, and the 1995 World Food Prize for his work developing a successful biological control program that saved the African cassava crop, and averted Africa’s worst-ever food crisis.
Dr. Herren’s work in agroecology in Africa has been credited with saving millions of lives by enabling African people to produce the food they need. He developed the “push-pull” system that uses simple but powerful bio-control strategies to effectively manage corn pests, resulting in large increases in yields.
There is much discussion today about the need to “feed the world” because of the growing global population. What do you think needs to be done in order to ensure there is adequate food for everyone in the world?
HH: The issue is less on how to feed the world than how to nourish the poor and hungry. Today we produce 4600 calories per person per day, so there is enough food to feed twice the present population. The problem is that we produce mostly cheap commodities rather than quality food. These cheap products, in addition to being of low nutritional value, are based on a few crops that carry a large ecological, social, and economic footprint. What is needed is to support farmers in developing countries to grow their own healthy food by providing information, know-how, financial support for inputs, and support for them to access markets, among others.
Food security is achieved when availability, access, stability, and utilization are assured equally for all. There is also a need for new and participatory research into sustainable agricultural practices, based on the principles of agroecology and organic farming, which would free farmers from dependence on external inputs such as chemical pesticides and fertilizers.
Some agricultural “experts” are calling for another Green Revolution. What are your thoughts on this?
HH: What we need least is another Green Revolution. What is needed now is to move forward with the lessons learned from the Green Revolution, taking forward what has worked and leave behind most of it, since the Green Revolution has left agriculture dependent on external inputs that are non-sustainable and becoming more and more expensive since they are based on oil, a finite resource, and also synthetic fertilizers, also based on finite natural resources.
The way forward is to understand and work with the system in a holistic and integrated manner. Silver bullets, reductionism as often promoted by the agri-chemical industry are not solutions.
More at the linkHans Herren, Ph.D. is an internationally recognized scientist specializing in... more
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If McKinsey‘s believe in it, then even if you are unsure, you’d better get the best briefing you can: these videos may raise just as many questions as answers, but they’re a good starting pointIf McKinsey‘s believe in it, then even if you are unsure, you’d better get... more
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Leading this refreshing on the sofa discussion Daniel Ben Ami author of ‘Ferraris for All’, explains ‘growth scepticism’. Young volunteers grappling with growth raise a wide range of questions from consuming less in the West to bankers, child labour, corruption and war. Daniel is clear: our having less will not make the poor rich; child labour is product of poverty not prosperity; corruption does not cause poverty it’s a symptom of it; bombing a country is unlikely to increase its prospects and political autonomy is key. A positive approach to economic growth he argues, not holding back and accepting ‘limits’ is key to increasing abundance for all globally.Leading this refreshing on the sofa discussion Daniel Ben Ami author of... more
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This story and graphic shows it's all up for world's temperature - despite 2008 being cooler compared to the last few years. Good links and more in this story on James Hansen who twenty years ago warned Congress of this looming global problem.
From '2008: only the 7th warmest year on record!' at:
http://theenvironmentshow.com/2008/12/2008-the-7th-warmest-yearThis story and graphic shows it's all up for world's temperature - despite... more
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The Difference Engine explores a world in which Charles Babbage built a practical mechanical computer in the mid-19th century. Britain is going through both the Industrial and Information Revolutions simultaneously. The book combines Sterling's wildman inventiveness with Gibson's brooding, streetwise characters, both shoved back one and a half centuries into an obsessively-detailed and weirdly-transmogrified London of 1855.The Difference Engine explores a world in which Charles Babbage built a practical... more
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This is an inspirational look at our future.
“Cradle to Cradle” philosophy, architect William McDonough wants to usher in a new Industrial Revolution. No sacrifices necessary, just smart design.This is an inspirational look at our future.
“Cradle to Cradle”... more
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twodee
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added this
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4 years ago
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Before humans began burning fossil fuels, there was an eons-long balance between carbon dioxide emissions and Earth's ability to absorb them, but now the planet can't keep up, scientists said on Sunday.
The finding, reported in the journal Nature Geoscience, relies on ancient Antarctic ice bubbles that contain air samples going back 610,000 years.
Climate scientists for the last 25 years or so have suggested that some kind of natural mechanism regulates our planet's temperature and the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Those sceptical about human influence on global warming point to this as the cause for recent climate change.
This research is likely the first observable evidence for this natural mechanism.
This mechanism, known as "feedback," has been thrown out of whack by a steep rise in carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of coal and petroleum for the last 200 years or so, said Richard Zeebe, a co-author of the report.
"These feedbacks operate so slowly that they will not help us in terms of climate change ... that we're going to see in the next several hundred years," Zeebe said by telephone from the University of Hawaii. "Right now we have put the system entirely out of equilibrium."
In the ancient past, excess carbon dioxide came mostly from volcanoes, which spewed very little of the chemical compared to what humans activities do now, but it still had to be addressed.
This antique excess carbon dioxide -- a powerful greenhouse gas -- was removed from the atmosphere through the weathering of mountains, which take in the chemical. In the end, it was washed downhill into oceans and buried in deep sea sediments, Zeebe said.
14,000 TIMES FASTER THAN NATURE
Zeebe analysed carbon dioxide that had been captured in Antarctic ice, and by figuring out how much carbon dioxide was in the atmosphere at various points in time, he and his co-author determined that it waxed and waned along with the world's temperature.
"When the carbon dioxide was low, the temperature was low, and we had an ice age," he said. And while Earth's temperature fell during ice ages and rose during so-called interglacial periods between them, the planet's mean temperature has been going slowly down for about 600,000 years.
The average change in the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide over the last 600,000 years has been just 22 parts per million by volume, Zeebe said, which means that 22 molecules of carbon dioxide were added to, or removed from, every million molecules of air.
Since the Industrial Revolution began in the 18th century, ushering in the widespread human use of fossil fuels, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen by 100 parts per million.
That means human activities are putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere about 14,000 times as fast as natural processes do, Zeebe said.
And it appears to be speeding up: the US government reported last week that in 2007 alone, atmospheric carbon dioxide increased by 2.4 parts per million.
The natural mechanism will eventually absorb the excess carbon dioxide, Zeebe said, but not for hundreds of thousands of years.
"This is a time period that we can hardly imagine," he said. "They are way too slow to help us to restore the balance that we have now basically distorted in a very short period of time."
Before humans began burning fossil fuels, there was an eons-long balance between... more
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