PLANTING TREES AND MANAGING SOILS TO SEQUESTER CARBON
Earthpolicy.org
Lester R. Brown
As of 2007, the shrinking forests in the tropical regions were releasing 2.2 billion tons of carbon per year. Meanwhile, expanding forests in the temperate regions were absorbing 0.7 billion tons of carbon annually. On balance, a net of some 1.5 billion tons of carbon were being released into the atmosphere each year, contributing to global warming.
The tropical deforestation in Asia is driven primarily by the fast-growing demand for timber. In Latin America, by contrast, it is the growing demand for soybeans and beef that is deforesting the Amazon. In Africa, it is mostly the gathering of fuelwood and the clearing of new land for agriculture as existing cropland is degraded and abandoned. Two countries, Indonesia and Brazil, account for more than half of all deforestation. The Democratic Republic of the Congo, also high on the list, is a failing state, making forest management difficult.
Included in the Plan B blueprint to stabilize climate are plans to end net deforestation worldwide and to sequester carbon through a variety of tree planting initiatives and the adoption of improved agricultural land management practices. Today, because the earth’s forests are shrinking, they are a major source of CO2. The goal is to expand the earth’s tree cover, growing more trees to soak up CO2.
Although banning deforestation may seem farfetched, environmental reasons have pushed three countries--Thailand, the Philippines, and China--to implement complete or partial bans on logging. All three bans were imposed following devastating floods and mudslides resulting from the loss of forest cover. After suffering record losses from several weeks of nonstop flooding in the Yangtze River basin, Beijing noted that when forest policy was viewed not through the eyes of the individual logger but through those of society as a whole, it simply did not make economic sense to continue deforesting. The flood control service of trees standing, they said, was three times as valuable as the timber from trees cut. With this in mind, Beijing then took the unusual step of paying the loggers to become tree planters--to reforest instead of deforest.
Other countries cutting down large areas of trees will also face the environmental effects of deforestation, including flooding. If Brazil’s Amazon rainforest continues to shrink, it may also continue to dry out, becoming vulnerable to fire. If the Amazon rainforest disappears, it would be replaced largely by desert and scrub forestland. The capacity of the rainforest to cycle water to the interior, including to the agricultural areas to the south, would be lost. At this point, a fast-unfolding local environmental calamity would become an economic disaster, and because the burning Amazon would release billions of tons of carbon into the atmosphere, it would accelerate global warming.
Just as national concerns about the effects of continuing deforestation eventually eclipsed local interests, now global interests are beginning to eclipse national ones as deforestation has become a major driver of global warming. Deforestation is no longer just a matter of local flooding, but also rising seas worldwide and the many other effects of climate change. Nature has just raised the ante on protecting forests.
Reaching a goal of zero net deforestation will require reducing the pressures to deforest that come from population growth, rising affluence, the construction of ethanol distilleries and biodiesel refineries, and the fast-growing use of paper. Protecting the earth’s forests means halting population growth as soon as possible, and, for the earth’s affluent residents who are responsible for the growing demand for beef and soybeans that is deforesting the Amazon basin, it means moving down the food chain. A successful deforestation ban may require a ban on the construction of additional biodiesel refineries and ethanol distilleries.
Against this backdrop of growing concern about the forest-climate relationship, a leading Swedish energy firm, Vattenfall, has examined the large-scale potential for foresting wasteland to sequester carbon dioxide. They begin by noting that there are 1.86 billion hectares of degraded land in the world--land that was once forestland, cropland, or grassland--and that half of this, or 930 million hectares, has a decent chance of being profitably reclaimed. Some 840 million hectares of this total are in the tropical regions, where reclamation would mean much higher rates of carbon sequestration.
Vattenfall estimates that the maximum technical potential of these 930 million hectares is to absorb roughly 21.6 billion tons of CO2 per year. If, as part of a global climate stabilization strategy, carbon sequestration were valued at $210 per ton of carbon, the company believes that 18 percent of this technical potential could be realized. If so, this would mean planting 171 million hectares of land to trees. This area--larger than that planted to grain in India--would sequester 3.5 billion tons of CO2 per year, or over 950 million tons of carbon. The total cost of sequestering carbon at $210 per ton would be $200 billion. Spread over a decade, this would mean investing $20 billion a year to give climate stabilization a large and potentially decisive boost. This global forestation plan to remove atmospheric CO2, most of it put there by industrial countries, would be funded by them. An independent body would be set up to administer, fund, and monitor the vast tree planting initiative.
Aside from the Vattenfall forestation idea, there are already many tree planting initiatives under way that are driven by a range of concerns, from climate change to desert expansion, to soil conservation, to making cities more habitable. In late 2006, the U.N. Environment Programme, inspired by Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai, announced plans for a worldwide effort to plant 1 billion trees in one year to fight climate change. This initial target was easily exceeded and by mid-2008, more than 2 billion trees had been planted in more than 150 countries. The new goal is to have 7 billion trees planted by the end of 2009--just over one tree for every person on the planet.
A number of agricultural practices can also increase the carbon stored as organic matter in soils. Farming practices that reduce soil erosion and raise cropland productivity usually also lead to higher carbon content in the soil. Among these are shifting from conventional tillage to minimum-till and no-till, the more extensive use of cover crops, the return of all livestock and poultry manure to the land, expansion of irrigated area, a return to more mixed crop-livestock farming, and the forestation of marginal farmlands.
Rattan Lal, a Senior Agronomist with the Carbon Management and Sequestration Center at Ohio State University, has calculated the range of potential carbon sequestration for each of many practices, such as those just cited. For example, expanding the use of cover crops to protect soil during the off-season can store from 68 million to 338 million tons of carbon worldwide each year. Calculating the total carbon sequestration for the practices he cites shows a potential for sequestering 400 million tons of carbon each year at the low end, and 1.2 billion tons of carbon per year at the more optimistic high end. For our carbon budget we are assuming, perhaps conservatively, that 600 million tons of carbon can be sequestered as a result of adopting these carbon-sensitive farming and land management practices.
Ending net deforestation and sequestering carbon as described above will put us on the path to the Plan B climate stabilization goal of cutting net carbon emissions 80 percent by 2020. To see how raising energy efficiency and harnessing renewable sources of energy complete the picture, see Earth Policy Institute’s carbon cutting blueprint at www.earthpolicy.org/Books/PB3/80by2020.htm.
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Adapted from Chapter 8, “Restoring the Earth ,” in Lester R. Brown, Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2008), available for free downloading and purchase at www.earthpolicy.org/Books/PB3/index.htm.
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Posted by Admin on Tuesday 30 December 2008 - 23:38:10 |
Save the Orangutans -STOP BIODIESEL
Orangutans vs. CO2 Offsets
The Orangutans of Borneo: Stop the biodiesel subsidies, stop the slaughter.
Stop the biodiesel subsidies, stop the slaughterIt’s appalling that the European environmentalists allowed biodiesel subsidies. The idea we can burn our biosphere in the tanks of our cars, and that this is somehow better than using petroleum, is the death knell to tropical forests. In turn this is the cause of droughts due to loss of transpiration, extreme weather because tropical deforestation undermines the monsoon circulation, and even global warming both due to the thermal impact of hotter open land vs. cooler reflective cloud cover that forms over tropical forests, and the CO2 impact of removing perennial uptake as well as the massive one-time release of CO2 when the forest is removed. Tropical deforestation has more to do with climate change than burning petroleum.
Despite this strong likelyhood, if not fact, Europeans have patted themselves on the back for their biofuel subsidies, and created a world market for biodiesel that had scarcely existed. And now the genie is out of the bottle, and the last forests are burning away.
To fix the problem at this point, Europeans will have to impose punative import tarifs on any and all biodiesel, and redirect the full force of funds that had been subsidizing biodiesel, using them instead to purchase, protect and reestablish tropical rainforests. Five million square miles of tropical rainforest have been lost, and less than three million remain. Millions of square miles of rainforest must be restored, in order to avert anthropogenically induced disruptive climate change.
Orangutans are the latest victims of rainforest destruction for biofuel. Nobody should be surprised that as politically correct biofuel is subsidized, not only tropical deforestation occurs (causing climate change), but consequences also include massive destruction of biodiversity and prolific specicide. As reported on MSNBC’s report “Orangutans Squeezed by Biofuel Boom,” tropical deforestation is rampaging faster than ever. According to the report: “Encouraged by government tax breaks, many of Indonesia’s largest conglomerates as well as foreign companies are investing millions in expanding plantations and refining facilities on Borneo, which has one of the richest ecosystems in the world and is one of the only remaining homes of the orangutans.”
As we’ve repeatedly warned, biofuel is not sustainable. A human being, running on calories (products of sun, water and plants), only consumes caloric energy at a rate of about 100 watts. Our cars require on average about 25 kilowatts to operate. That is to say, meeting the nutritional requirements of billions of people literally require 250 times less farmland than meeting the fuel requirements of billions of cars and industrial machinery. That is the energy reality, and small wonder rainforests are toast. Read “Reforesting vs. Biofuel.”
Our love for wildlife and wilderness is undiminished by our contention that over-emphasis on endangered species is strangling the economic growth of American cities. If it isn’t enough that biofueled tropical deforestation is the real cause of catastrophic climate change, then perhaps the impending doom of the Orangutans and other species and ecosystems might move environmentalists at last. Stop the subsidies, stop the slaughter.
Source: http://www.ecoworld.com/blog/2007/10/27/orangutans-vs-co2-offsets/
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Posted by Admin on Monday 21 July 2008 - 02:37:02 |
Release of "Time for Plan B: Cutting Carbon Emissions 80 Percent by 2020"
SOURCE : EARTH POLICY INSTITUTE
TELECONFERENCE: Thursday, June 26th, 11:00 AM EST
CUTTING CO2 EMISSIONS 80% BY 2020 TO AVOID DANGEROUS CLIMATE CHANGE
WASHINGTON, DC -- With Washington grasping at short-sighted and dirty energy policies such as domestic offshore drilling, environmental analyst and author Lester Brown will hold a telephone briefing on Thursday, June 26th to present an alternative blueprint to cut carbon emissions enough to avoid the most dangerous effects of climate change -- 80 percent by 2020.
Brown, a MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship recipient, says we do not need to go beyond ice melting to see that civilization is in trouble. While political leaders who recognize the need to cut carbon emissions to address global warming ask what is politically feasible, the Earth Policy Institute asks what is necessary. How much and how fast do we have to cut carbon emissions to save the Greenland ice sheet or the glaciers in the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau, whose ice melt irrigates the wheat and rice fields of China and India during the dry season?
By systematically raising energy efficiency throughout the world economy, by largely replacing fossil fuels with wind, solar, and geothermal energy for electricity and heating, by restructuring transport systems, and by planting billions of trees, we can stabilize climate. This alternative to business as usual, aka "Plan B," also frees us from dependence on imported oil.
"We need to mobilize at wartime speed," said Brown. "Cutting carbon emissions 80 percent by 2020 will not be easy, but it may be the key to saving civilization."
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Posted by Admin on Tuesday 24 June 2008 - 13:12:08 |
In the wheel of time
In the wheel of time by Paulo Coehlo I had proposed to publish here, once a year, texts by Carlos Castañeda, an anthropologist who influenced my generation with his tales of meetings with Mexican sorcerers. For lack of space, I have not done so since 2004. Today I woke up thinking: Castañeda, despite all his critics and all his work that later on seemed so disorderly to me, should not be forgotten. So here we present some of his reflections.
Intention is the important thing: for the old sorcerers of Mexico, intention (intento) is a force that intervenes in all aspects of time and space. To be able to use and manipulate this force calls for impeccable behavior. A warrior’s final goal is to be able to lift his head above the rut where he is confined, look around him, and change what he wants. To do so he needs to have discipline and pay attention all the time.
Nothing is easy: nothing in this world is given as a present: everything has to be learned with a great deal of effort. A man who seeks knowledge must have the same behavior as a soldier going to war: absolutely attentive, afraid, respectful and utterly confident. If he follows these recommendations, he may lose the odd battle but he will never cry over his fate.
Fear is natural: fear of the freedom that knowledge brings us is absolutely natural; however, no matter how terrible the apprenticeship may be, it is worse to live without wisdom.
Irritation is unnecessary: becoming irritated with others means giving them the power to interfere in our lives. It is imperative to overcome this feeling. By no means should the acts of others distract us from our only alternative in life: coming in touch with the infinite.
The end is an ally: when things begin to get confused, a warrior thinks about his death and immediately his spirit returns to him. Death is everywhere. Think of the headlights of a car following us along a winding road; sometimes we lose sight of it, sometimes it appears to be too close, sometimes the headlights go out. But this imaginary car never stops (and one day catches up with us). The very idea of death gives men the necessary detachment to go ahead despite all their tribulations. A man who knows that death is approaching every day tries everything, but without feeling anxiety.
The present is unique: a warrior knows how to wait, because he knows what he is waiting for. And while he waits, he wants nothing, and in this way anything he receives – however small – is a blessing. The common man worries too much about loving others, or being loved by them. A warrior knows what he wants - that is all in his life and that is where he concentrates all his energy. The common man spends the present acting as winner or loser, and depending on the results he becomes persecutor or victim. The warrior, on the other hand, worries only about his acts, which will lead him to the objective he has traced for himself.
Intention is transparent: intention (intento) is not a thought, nor an object, nor a desire. It is what makes a man triumph in his objectives and lifts him up from the ground even when he has delivered himself up to defeat. Intention is stronger than man.
It is always the last battle: the warrior’s spirit does not complain about anything, because he was not born to win or lose. He was born to fight, and each battle is the last that he is waging on the face of the Earth. That is why the warrior always leaves his spirit free, and when he gives himself to combat, knowing that his intention is transparent, he laughs and enjoys himself.
http://paulocoelhoblog.com/warrioroflight/28.05.2008/issue-n%C2%B0173-in-the-wheel-of-time/
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Posted by Admin on Wednesday 04 June 2008 - 22:37:53 |
IGNORANCE
There Is No Energy Crisis, There is a Crisis of Ignorance
Visit http://www.geni.org for more information. A sustainable global energy strategy, first proposed by Buckminster Fuller in 1969, to interconnect the abundant renewable energy resources between nations around the world. Benefits include: reducing pollution and climate change, reducing poverty and hunger, and increasing trade, cooperation and peace.
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Posted by Admin on Saturday 17 May 2008 - 02:32:05 |
SOLAR TOWER
SOLAR TOWER
SolarMission Technologies (www.solarmissiontechnologies.com) and its Australian subsidiary, EnviroMission Limited (www.enviromission.com.au) produced this 5 minute video on the pilot plant in Spain. It is an older video (2000) but gives a decent understanding of the solar tower concept.
EnviroMission, Ltd. (US Market: EVOMY, Australian Exchange: EVM) is a renewable energy developer of sustainable "green" energy solutions for the energy market. EnviroMission aims to be one of Australia's leading producers of clean renewable energy. EnviroMission holds the proprietary rights to Solar Tower technology, a large-scale renewable energy technology based on simple fundamentals of physics -- hot air rises. Solar Tower technology has the potential to offer competitive renewable energy with equal reliability to fossil fuel generators.
A single 200MW Solar Tower power station will provide enough electricity to power around 400,000 households. The energy output will represent an annual saving of more than 1,960,000 tonnes of greenhouse CO2 gases from entering the environment when compared to brown coal emissions in Victoria. The greenhouse savings equate to the removal of approximately 500,000 cars from the road. The Australian Solar Tower project consists of six distinct phases, the first two of which (project optimization and pre-feasibility commercialization) have already been completed. The third phase (final feasibility), paving the way for the implementation of the next three phases (final design, construction, and commercial operation).
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Posted by Admin on Saturday 17 May 2008 - 02:31:15 |
electric cars and Solar Economy
Juice
- The sooner cities provide juice points, the sooner people will switch to electric cars. This plan sounds great. - Editor
Juice Points- U.K. recharging for electric car owners
Westminster City Council has rolled out the largest on-street electric car recharging service in the UK. The authority has installed 12 "juice points" outside homes, offices and prime locations in addition to the 48 points in 12 of the council's car parking lots. Users will pay an annual £75 fee to cover administration costs to register and use the on-street recharging posts. They will then receive a high quality recharging cable and personalised key, which will trigger a welcome message and start charging. Councilor Alan Bradley, said: "We hope, by offering more recharging points than any other area of the UK, that we can get more people to switch to electric-powered cars, saving both money and the environment." This scheme represents an important step in the development of environmentally-friendly travel, and we hope other councils will follow our lead, not just in London but across the country, so we can have a truly comprehensive system of recharging points across the UK."
http://www.worthingherald.co.uk/latest-london-news/Recharging-boost-for-electric-car.4063132.jp
- While we need to seriously reduce the energy consumed in buildings, we also need to increase electricity for electric cars. If the electricity is from renewables, fine! When we consider space requirements to place solar and wind, we need to fully recognize how much of our land is disrupted- and even totally destroyed- by our current fossil fuel industries, from oil refineries ruining our coasts and our air, to mountain-top removal obliterating ancient forests to glean coal. - Editor
Large-Scale Solar Power Plants Could Power Nation
California could generate as much as 877,200 megawatts (MW) of power from solar power plants; according to a report released today, "On the Rise: Solar Thermal Power and the Fight Against Global Warming" by Environment California. The report also finds that America has the potential to meet all of its current electricity needs with large central concentrating solar power plants. These solar thermal power plants covering a 100 x 100-mile area in the Southwest, slightly more than what's already been excavated for strip mining for coal across the country, could power the entire nation; while slashing global warming emissions.
http://www.environmentcalifornia.org/newsroom/energy/energy-program-news/large-scale-solar-power-plants-could-power-nation-combat-global-warming-and-create-thousands-of-jobs-over-4000-megawatts-of-solar-power-under-development-threatened-by-lapsing-federal-tax-incentives
- Big claims here, but it is possible- likely- that a real breakthrough will appear somewhere. - Editor
Xtreme Concentrated Photovoltaics
A new patents pending solar energy system will soon make it possible to produce electricity at a wholesale cost of 5 cents per kWh (kilowatt hour). This price is competitive with the wholesale cost of producing electricity using fossil fuels and a fraction of the current cost of solar energy. XCPV (Xtreme Concentrated Photovoltaics), a system that concentrates the equivalent of more than 1,600 times the sun's energy onto the world's most efficient solar cells, was announced today by SUNRGI, a solar energy system designer and developer, at the 11th Annual Global Energy Forum in Washington, DC. The technology will enable power companies, businesses, and residents to produce electricity from solar energy at a lower cost than ever before. "Solar Power at 5 cents per kWh would be a world-changing breakthrough," said Craig Goodman, president, National Energy Marketers Association. "It would make solar generation of electricity as affordable as generation from coal, natural gas or other non-renewable sources, without requiring a subsidy." We expect the SUNRGI system to become available for both on- and off-grid power applications, worldwide, in twelve to fifteen months."
http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20080429005132&newsLang=e
- The goal of the new city of Masdar to use 100% renewable energy (plus local food, buildings planned for walking, etc.) should be every city's goal. - Editor
Renewable Energy University Offers Full Scholarship to First 100 Students
The world's first graduate university focused on renewable energy has started accepting applicants for its scholarship and first class that will start in September 2009. Officials of the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology (MIST) made the invitation to students from Boston-area colleges and universities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). MIT and Masdar, a planned city in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, established the institute in December 2006 as part of an initiative to develop and commercialize innovative technologies and designs in renewable, alternative, and sustainable energies. Applications for MIST can be made at www.masdar.ac.ae.
http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7010870406
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Posted by Admin on Tuesday 13 May 2008 - 22:15:01 |
Who is smarter ??? i a ia
Donkeys replace waste trucks in green Sicily town
Reuters
CASTELBUONO, Sicily (Reuters Life!) - The rattle of refuse trucks can no longer be heard over the cobbled streets of Castelbuono. The Sicilian town has swapped them for green alternatives: donkeys collect the trash.
Once a sign of poverty in southern Italy, the humble working donkey has now become a vision of things to come, according to Mayor Mario Cicero, who says the animals are cheaper and emit less greenhouse gas than trucks.
"We had this idea to continue along our virtuous path, looking at new initiatives -- even if this one is natural and practical -- in order to come up with something to improve our environment," said Cicero.
But while donkeys like Theresa look picturesque to visitors as they plod through town with large boxes on their backs collecting recyclables and regular waste, the locals are less impressed, seeing the animals as reminders of past hardships.
"I don't agree with the donkeys," said Caterina Salemi, voicing an opinion shared by many of the locals. "We need to move forward not backward, it's like going backwards 40 years".
CLIMATE TODAY NEWS
When Peak Oil Arrives, At Least We’ll Still Have Donkeys
Filed under: Uncategorized, Transportation, Solutions, Lifestyle/ Simplicity — webmaster at 11:43 am on Wednesday, March 19, 2008
With rising gas prices all the rage, every aspect of society faces a pinch of some kind to cover costs. For one town in Sicily, however, costs associated with fuel and garbage pickup are not a problem. Since 1996, Castelbuono has banned diesel-spewing trucks in favor of daily donkey trash pickup. Not only has the transition improved the air quality, noise, and traffic of the town, but residents also separate their garbage for recycling more frequently. “We are saving money,” Mario Cicero, the mayor, proudly told ABC News. “The service is just as efficient, and the children love them!” The idea of using the donkeys came to Cicero, 45, late last year. “Yes, the idea was mine. It’s patented!” he laughed. Always seeking new ways to be more ecological and beautify his town, Castelbuono’s environmentally conscious mayor has been at work for 10 years to make this town of 10,000 residents a model of environmental respect. The town is listed among the top 11 in Italy for environmental quality by the Lega Ambiente, or Environmental League. Each day is a different pickup in terms of waste — so compost might be on Tuesdays, while plastic bottles or paper products might be Wednesday. While this might be a bit cumbersome for those of us used to only thinking about putting out the trash once a week, residents in Castelbuono don’t seem to mind. Plus the costs are right — $1,600 for a donkey vs $40,000 for a garbage truck. What do you think? Too traditional or a good use of resources?
groovygreen
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Posted by Admin on Wednesday 07 May 2008 - 14:43:21 |
Massive Antarctic ice sheet collapses with global warming
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Posted by Admin on Sunday 04 May 2008 - 13:19:59 |
Solar energy & employment +Munich, June 12-14/2008
Munich, June 12-14/2008
Intersolar is the largest solar technology trade fair in Europe and the annual meeting place for everyone the European and greater worldwide solar Industry. Intersolar focuses on the Photovoltaic, Solar Thermal and Solar Architecture branches. More than 850 exhibitors will be presenting their products and services across 76,000 m² of exhibitor floor space – an increase of more than 120% from 2007. This year, Intersolar expects more than 40,000 visitors.
The renewable energies industry has become the new driving force behind employment in Germany. Solar technology has played a considerable part in this development, and will continue to grow in the next few years. Some of the prominent firms in the industry are planning to take on several hundred more employees before the end of 2007. Smaller businesses too are looking for highly qualified staff to carry them forward in this promising industry.
The Intersolar 2008 job exchange offers exhibitors and interested visitors a professional link between job seekers and businesses: from now on, and during the trade fair, all registered jobs will be displayed in the main foyer – situated between halls 3 and 4 – and there will also be print-outs available for potential applicants to take away. The online service will regularly be updated with new job offers from businesses, until the opening of Intersolar.
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Posted by Admin on Thursday 01 May 2008 - 14:42:58 |
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