charcoalproject

Fifteen years ago I was driving out of Dhaka, Bangladesh, to film a segment on family planning practices in rural villages. While looking out the window of our van as we drove past an open landfill I noticed there was not a single scrap of inorganic material to be seen. No bright red or yellow […]

I wonder if the 2006 film Blood Diamond (Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Connelly) would  have garnered as much attention if the object of discord had been charcoal instead of diamonds. It’s hard to imagine that charcoal – charcoal! – could be the cause of gruesome murders, a thriving black market, sinister cartels, and the source of

The December 21st issue of The Newyorker magazine has a fascinating article about one inventor’s quest for the perfect stove for the developing world. In typical Newyorker fashion, the story focuses on some of the quirkier aspects of the inventors of stoves and the trials and tribulations of getting these done and adopted. Still, it’s

A dispatch from Kenya this morning made me wonder if efforts to ban the charcoal trade in various African countries is at all effective. Can it be enforced? Who suffers? Has this strategy yielded results somewhere? I don’t know. What is clear is that the pace of decimation of African forests for charcoal and woodfuel

I thought it useful to share some links to ongoing coverage of negotiations in Copenhagen. We are especially interested in green tech and clean fuels for the energy poor, of course, but REDD is also on our mind, so if you have any information you’d like to share, don’t hesitate to submit it! I’d also