Today marks the opening of the Cancun talks on Climate Change. They are a follow-up to last year’s Copenhagen discussion which, as everyone knows, did not yield the expected global agreement to effectively reduce greenhouse gases. A review of media coverage leading up to the Cancun event downplays expectations for any significant breakthroughs during this […]
Concern about a land grab in Africa for the production of industrial-scale, ethanol-producing crops may well be justified, which is why bird-dogging the “African agricultural green-rush” is everyone’s responsibility.
Are plants, trees, and forests the new oil fields? Read More »
The world’s biggest corporations are rushing to grab and convert living plant matter – called “biomass” — into fuel, chemicals, and other profitable products. (…) “Plants, trees and forests are the new oil fields. They’re above the ground, and they’re easy to grab”
Agriculture: the new fuel for the global economy? Read More »
Officials stand by as forest burned to charcoal Nov. 2nd, 2010. Planted forests in the south central province of Phu Yen are being ravaged by charcoal and timber sellers. Due to a grave deriliction of duty on the part of the proper authorities, the trees’ planters say they have resorted to begging the wood prospectors
Charcoal & timber producer ravage Vietnamese forest Read More »
The pain of knowing that each year 2 million people — mostly women and children — die as a consequence of the inefficient combustion of household cooking and heating fuels, like wood and animal dung, is with good reason, the engine behind the launch of the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves this past September. But
Using cookstoves to protect Mountain Gorillas Read More »
Reported by Jessica Schoonover, Intern Reporter at The Charcoal Project More than half a million tons of charcoal have been produced and shipped over the past 8 years from the once dense but now denuded forests of Meghalaya, a small Indian state located north of Bangladesh. With one-third of the state covered by biologically diverse
INDIA: “Impending catastrophe” resonates within the basins of India’s Meghalaya forests Read More »
This New York Times article, based on the IEA (International Energy Agency) latest World Energy Outlook, suggests humanity is on the downward slope of the oil availability curve. We’ve often wandered what analogies, if any, existed between the concepts of “peak oil” and “peak biomass.” After all, both the fossil fuel industry and the biomass
Peak Oil vs Peak Biomass: Are we there yet? Read More »
By NATHANIAL GRONEWOLD of ClimateWire Published: November 11, 2010 UNITED NATIONS — Annual monetary losses for natural disasters are expected to rise to $185 billion worldwide by the end of the century, even without factoring in the anticipated negative impacts of climate change, a new joint U.N. and World Bank study concludes. With climate change
U.N. and World Bank Report Says Act Now or Pay Much More Later for Climate Disasters Read More »
Kirk Smith, Ph.D., is probably the world’s leading authority on the public health impact of indoor air pollution caused by the incomplete combustion of biomass fuels for cooking and heating. His recent remarks help cast some light on what stakeholders can expect from the recent launch of the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves. We’ve borrowed
A Insider’s Perspective on the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves Read More »
This BBC video report focuses on India’s public-private partnership to invest 55 million accelerate the deployment of solar panels for the country’s 450 million people who don’t have access to electricity.
VIDEO: India tackles energy poverty with solar panels Read More »
Speaking Tuesday at a briefing on Capitol Hill, EPA officials said that “black carbon” (BC), an important factor in global warming and major by-product of solid biomass fuel and dirty diesel emissions, would figure prominently in a International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report due out next year. BC emissions can also seriously affect the
IPCC to feature role of Black Carbon in next report Read More »
Dispatches from: Emerging Solutions for the Energy Poor. Technological, Entrepreneurial & Institutional Challenges NOVEMBER 5 and 6, 2010 Wittemyer Courtroom University of Colorado Law School Wolf Law Building 401 UCB, 2450 Kittredge Loop Boulder, CO 80309 USA The 2010 Conference is designed to be a sequel to the 2009 World Energy Justice Conference (WEJC 2009)
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