Fragilecologies

Tag: global warming

  • Global Warming: Stakeholders can’t see the forest for the trees.

    Each tree represent an organization or perspective about the climate change issue. Without looking at the big picture — climate change as a global phenomenon — one’s views are distorted by what is going on only in one’s surroundings. This is an obvious play on the adage that “one can not see the big picture because they are thinking locally,” that is, that one cannot see the forest because the trees are in the way!

    I tried to see why it has been so difficult to get the US political leaders to take action to cope with the causes of climate change, primarily the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas) and less so tropical deforestation.

    Maybe you can come up with a different graphic about this situation? To download a PDF enlargement of the this forest image just click on the photo above.

  • Words of Wisdom from the Flat Earth US Congress

    Words of Wisdom from the Flat Earth US Congress

    Senator Inhoff (R-Oklahoma) has been an outspoken critic of the global science consensus (not unanimity) on the human contribution to global warming of the atmosphere. there is nothing that can be said or discovered that would get him to change his view. By calling it a hoax he suggests that the scientific community is out to lie to the public for its financial benefit. Hogwash I say. his stance on global warming is equivalent to those people centuries ago who thought the earth was flat. it seems their ancestors are alive and well in the US tea party wing of Congress.

    Global Warming Ostriches take over US Congress 2011
    Global Warming Ostriches take over US Congress 2011

    NB: Cartoon is from Photo Credit: Pett, Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader, Cartoonists and Writers Syndicate, for USA TODAY

  • US Congress and Climate Change

    US Congress and Climate Change

    – Proof Positive That American Education is Falling Behind

    Lately I’ve been wondering about how some US Congresspeople (senators and representatives) can still flatly deny the possibility that human activities are emitting gases that can heat up the temperature of the atmosphere. So many scientists around the globe have researched the global climate system as well as ecosystems worldwide and have come to a consensus that human activities are heating up the atmosphere. Yet, a few key senators and some likeminded congresspeople continue to block efforts at the local as well as federal level to deal with the global warming reality (note the emphasis is on global not national). The US is a major contributor of carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere, though China has recently surpassed the US in this regard.

    True, there is still a lot to learn about the interplay of climate, society and the environment. In scientific research there is always some degree of uncertainty. Nevertheless, evidence of worrisome changes in climate and in the impacts of those changes on ecosystems, if not yet on society, has been mounting especially in recent times. At first (from 1898 to the mid-1950s) a warming of the atmosphere was viewed as a good thing, because it would hold back the Ice Age that was likely awaiting its onset. But after 1956, the warming began to take on the image of a bad thing.

    The rest of the world scratches their collective heads over the lack of political interest in joining other nations to accept, let alone combat, global warming. Civil societies in distant lands, especially their youth truly concerned about global warming, watch the media in disbelief about a U.S. Congress that seems to be science-illiterate (examples are many. Here are two: attempts to reduce the involvement of the US Environmental Protection Agency in setting limits for greenhouse gas emissions or the attempt to strip NOAA of much of its early warning capabilities).

    People in America want to believe that America is a world leader today, as it had been in much of the 20th century. The reality is that it is not. According to the Alliance for Excellent Education (USA, 2008),

    “The United States ranks 21st of 30 OECD countries in scientific literacy, and the U.S. score of 489 fell below the OECD average of 500 (OECD 2007b). One quarter (24.4 percent) of U.S. fifteen-year-olds do not reach the baseline level of science achievement. This is the level at which students begin to demonstrate the science competencies that will enable them to use science and technology in life situations (OECD 2007b).”

    And America’s poor performance is not restricted to science alone. The Alliance also noted,

    “But as globalization has progressed, American educational progress has stagnated. Today, the United States’ high school graduation rate ranks near the bottom among developed nations belonging to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). And on virtually every international assessment of academic proficiency, American secondary school students’ performance varies from mediocre to poor. Given that human capital is a prerequisite for success in the global economy, U.S. economic competitiveness is unsustainable with poorly prepared students feeding into the workforce.”

    To me many of our congresspeople are proof positive of that American decline in scientific understanding and reasoning. I sometimes wonder if they believe that the Earth is flat! They are also proof positive that the US Congress must increase its support to education at the k to 12-grade level, instead of being hell-bent to cutting that support.

    How then can we — The People — bring sense to a senator like Sensenbrenner or hope back to a senator like Inhofe? Through improved education a smarter, wiser public will lead to a smarter, wiser Congress (both Houses of Congress) and a better appreciation of the importance of educating Americans from “K to Grey.” Get Smart, Congress. Put aside your petty political ambitions and strengthen K to 12 education NOW. Don’t destroy American education in order to save it. that is a failed strategy.

  • “Twenty Somethings” of the World Unite (Prepared at COP 16 in Cancun, Mexico). Mickey Glantz. 8 December 2010

    “Twenty Somethings” of the World Unite (Prepared at COP 16 in Cancun, Mexico). Mickey Glantz. 8 December 2010

    “Twenty Somethings” of the World Unite (Prepared at COP 16 in Cancun, Mexico)

    Mickey Glantz
    8 December 2010

    This is a quick note (that is, I wrote it as if I were speaking to someone) that was first sent to the group of students who participated in the First International Graduate Conference on Climate Change and People” held 15-19 November in Kathmandu, Nepal. I have been learning a lot (see, old people can still learn!) being at the COP16 side event, though I was not there as an active negotiator. Negotiations that have occurred in the first week may end up having little to do with what will happen in the second week (now in progress) when the Ministers’ level gets involved in negotiations. They are likely less familiar with the details and nuances of climate change science and its impacts that the negotiators have been dealing with and they are more political I believe than most of their national negotiators. (more…)

  • “You Don’t Have to be an Engineer to Understand Wind Power!” Mary Jones, Guest Editorial

    Mary Jones, Guest Editorial

    Wind is a result of the uneven heating of the Earth by the sun and the fact that temperatures will always seek to reach an equilibrium (heat moves to a cooler area). With the rising price of energy and the destruction of the environment from non-renewable fuels, it is increasingly important to harvest this renewable resource.

    The benefits of wind energy are that it’s virtually free (once you buy the equipment) and there is no pollution. The disadvantages include the fact it’s not a continuous source of energy (that is, wind velocity varies and many times it is insufficient to produce electricity) and that it typically requires about an acre of land.

    How Wind Energy Works

    The quantity of power that is available varies by wind speed. The total amount available is known as its power density (measured in watts per square meter). The U.S. DOE (Department of Energy) has divided wind energy into classes from 1 to 7. The typical wind speed for class 1 is 9.8 mph or less, while the average for a class 7 is 21.1 mph or more. For effective power production, class 2 winds are often required (11.5 mph average speed).

    Generally, wind speeds increase as you get higher above the Earth’s surface. Because of this, the normal wind generator is a component of a tower no less than 30 feet above obstructions. There are 2 basic kinds of towers employed for residential wind power systems, free standing and guyed. Free standing towers are self supporting and are usually heavier, meaning that they require special equipment (e.g., cranes) to erect them. Guyed towers are supported on a concrete base and anchored by wires for support. Typically, they are not as heavy and most manufacturers produce tilt-down models which can easily be raised and lowered for maintenance.

    The kinetic (moving) energy from the winds is harnessed by a device known as a turbine. The turbine includes airfoils (blades) that capture the power of the wind and use it to turn the shaft of an alternator (like the alternator on a car, only bigger). There are 2 basic kinds of blades, drag style and lifting style. We all have seen pictures of traditional windmills with the large flat blades which are a good example of the drag style of airfoil. Lifting style blades are twisted rather than flat and resemble the propellor of a small airplane.

    A turbine is classified as to whether it is made to be installed with the rotor in a vertical or horizontal position and whether the wind strikes the blades or the tower first. A vertical turbine typically requires less land for its installation and is an improved option for the relatively more urban areas. An upwind turbine is made for the wind to impact the airfoils before it impacts the tower.

    www.residentialwindturbines.org/residential-wind-turbine.jpg

    These units ordinarily have a tail on the turbine which must maintain the unit pointing into the wind. A downwind turbine does not need a tail, as the wind acting on the blades tends to keep it oriented properly. These turbine systems would be damaged if they were to be permitted to turn at excessive speeds. Therefore, units should have automatic over-speed governing systems. Some systems use electrical braking systems while some use mechanical-type brakes.

    The output electricity from the alternator is sent to a controller which conditions it for use in the home. Using residential wind power systems requires the home either to remain linked with the utility grid or to store electricity in a battery for use when the wind doesn’t blow at sufficient speeds. When the home is linked with the grid, the surplus electricity that is made by the residential wind power system can be sold to a utility company to reduce or even eliminate your utility bill. During periods with not enough wind, the home is supplied power from the utility company.

    www.residentialwindturbines.org/wind-scheme-grid-tied.gif

    The Price of Wind Energy

    Small residential wind power turbines can be an attractive alternative — or an addition — to those people in need of more than 100-200 watts of power for their home, business, or remote facility. Unlike PVs (photo voltaics), which remain at basically a similar cost per watt independent of array size, the affordability of wind generators increases with increasing system size. At the 50-watt size level, for instance, a small residential power wind generator would cost about $8.00/watt when compared with approximately $6.00/watt for a photo voltaic module.

    For this reason, everything being equal, photo voltaics are more affordable for very small loads. As the system size gets larger, however, this “rule-of-thumb” reverses itself. At 300 watts the wind generator costs are down to $2.50/watt, while the PV costs are still at $6.00/watt. For a 1500 watt wind system the cost is down to $2.00/watt and at 10,000 watts the price of a wind generator (excluding electronics) is down to $1.50/watt.

    About Mary Jones:
    Mary writes for the residential wind power systems weblog. Her blog centers on ideas to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and to lower energy costs by using alternative power sources.

  • GUEST EDITORIAL: “Spain’s Climate Challenge: A brief reality check.” Lino Naranjo, Meteo Galicia. August 9, 2010

    For many people in the World, Spain brings to mind a sunny warm country with beaches along the Mediterranean Coast, with excellent food, friendly people and “Fiestas” with brave bulls. They might also think of Pamplona and the “running of the bulls” on narrow streets filled with young people. It is like talking about a piece of the tropics in the heart of Old Europe. However, the real Spain is much more than that. In fact it is vastly different from and broader than this touristic view.

    If we travel across the country from, South to North and from West to East, we come to realize that Spain is like a kaleidoscope with different cultures, peoples, languages, and especially different landscapes and very different climates. From the Mediterranean, passing across the arid, hot land of its South, to the cold and rainy regions of its North, Spain could be considered a paradigm of diversity, far from stereotypes built up over the decades. However, there is one thing where no difference exists among regions; that is, a varying but high vulnerability to the consequences of long-term climate change (a.k.a. global warming).

    One of the main pillars of the Spanish economy is its climate; in fact, climate-dependent activities like tourism, the wine industry, commercial livestock, are worldwide signatures of Spain. Climate in the Iberian Peninsula is becoming warmer and drier. Change rates are different among regions but warming trends are roughly the same. Regarding temperatures, The National Agency for Meteorology (AEMET) and others regional meteorological institutions such as Meteo Galicia in the Northwest have been identifying warming trends of between 0.4 to 0.8 ºC since the 1970s. That is about four times the long-term trend for the last 150 years. Precipitation seems to be a trend toward drier conditions in the past decades, mainly in the South and East, although in the North no significant change has been detected. Climatic projections from a standard GEI emission scenario indicate that these trends should continue in the next several decades.

    In addition, there is an increasing worry that weather extremes appear to becoming more frequent; severe drought in the South, heavy winds and storms in the North, heat waves in the summer and snowstorms in the winter are becoming usual headlines in the newspapers.

    All these changes, regardless of whether they are part of a long-term climate change or simply a multi-decade fluctuation of climate’s natural variability, present a strong challenge now and in the future of governance to the various levels of government in Spain, and more broadly on the Iberian Peninsula.

    Aside from the impacts of climate variability, extremes and change, Spain is also undergoing a long- lasting economic crisis along with stormy societal conflicts that compromise its own surveillance as a Nation. Therefore, consequences of the additional stress generated from a changing climate could be devastating, regardless of the regions, landscapes, cultural differences or languages, or people into this kaleidoscope called Spain.

  • “Global Warming ate my homework: In Defense of Legitimate Skepticism About Climate Change.” Mickey Glantz. June 30, 2010

    Poor “global warming.” It seems it is getting blamed for everything under the sun! It is blamed for droughts, floods, forest and bush fires, heat waves, disease outbreaks and the spreading of desert-like conditions. It is blamed for the illegal migration of people from one country to another, and so forth.

    When I was in middle school, teachers would give out homework assignments with instructions to turn in the homework the next day. One time I didn’t do it. When asked by the teacher why I didn’t give her my homework, I lied. I said, as did many other kids my age across America that “my dog Fido ate my homework.”dog_ate_my_homework

    Like Fido, the unruly dog, global warming gets blamed these days for everything unpleasant that happens. That is a disservice to Fido and it is clearly a disservice to the global warming issue. Some people argued that Hurricane Katrina, for example, was strengthen by global warming when in fact it was just a strong hurricane not an extraordinary one.

    Opinions about the possible impacts of global warming are rampant in the printed and electronic media and, in many instances, are not based on facts but on subjective opinions. Was this or that specific drought or flood or fire the result of natural variability in the climate system or was it the result of human induced warming of the global atmosphere? When will we be able to identify the actual impacts attributable to global warming: some say we can already see them while others say we’ll never be able to sort it out between what is the result of natural variability versus an actual warming of the global atmosphere.

    The media does not help. They tend to seek balance of opinions, even when balance is not really warranted. So, those who believe in global warming’s influence on intensifying hurricanes and in increasing their frequency will tend to state that perspective to the press. Even if a large majority believes it is so, the media still call for an opposing statement that rejects that perspective, seeking to ‘level the playing field’ when it does not need to be leveled. Fact and fiction are presented as are subjectively based wishful thinking and guesstimates.

    So, it is no wonder that the public remains confused about the science of global warming, about its real possible consequences. Global warming has become a business of sorts, an industry much like the drought industry (industria da seca) that exists to assess drought-plagued Northeast Brazil. The drought industry is made up of people who come from all social and economic sectors of society as well as from just about every academic discipline at a university. There is money to be made off of hazards. There’s money to be made: by researchers, by engineers, by technologists, by the news media, and especially by those who are savvy enough to capture the media’s attention to expose their views, opinions, whatever on climate change.

    We have to become more responsible about how we talk about the global warming issue. We have to reduce the hype, encourage solutions and educate individuals and policymakers about the issue and its relative priority to other pressing issues. We should openly and aggressively challenge knowingly false claims using sound reasoning.

    We quote polls and surveys which to me are interesting but relatively useless for action. I say this because accepting a poll’s findings requires trust and I for one have lost that trust for polls and interviews regarding beliefs about global warming. Though I might know better whom to believe or whose views to challenge, many people around the globe do not know how to calibrate the views of commentators about global warmingpollnumbers1250985368

    In the USA for example, a sizable portion of a survey’s respondents blamed the destruction of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina on God’s wrath because of the corrupt lifestyle of the city’s inhabitants! As another example, the UN Secretary General stated his belief that the violence in Darfur, western Sudan was the first global warming war! Comments like these must be challenged.

    Scientists, media, policy makers must be more responsible about attributing various climate-related impacts to global warming (or to denying such attributions). In truth anything that society does is happening under a changing climate; the climate is always changing. The contemporary concern is about the level to which it changes and the rate of that change.

    The UN has two definitions of how to look at adaptation as a response to climate change: (1) adaptation of society only to changes attributable directly to global warming and (2) any changes related to climate. The latter makes it easier to respond to climate impacts on the part of society. The former sets up an untenable situation in which human influence on climate must be unquestionably identified before action is to be taken, whereas the latter makes it easier for the researcher.

    My teacher knew right away that the homework had not been done and probably knew that I did not even have a dog. She was skeptical from the outset. I think that the attributions that are made by scientists, among others, require closer scrutiny than we have tended to do to date. Global warming like Fido should not be taking the blame for all our inconveniences. As research has shown time and again, the behavior of societies has a lot to do with the impacts of even normal weather. It may take decades before some of the occurrences in Nature can accurately be blamed on global warming.

  • “’Robocopping’ the Planet: Geo-engineering the Planet’s Climate system,” Mickey Glantz 1 June 2010

    Mickey Glantz,

    1 June 2010

    Almost twenty-five years ago, the Hollywood movie Robocop appeared on the silver screen. The plot summary was quite simple, according to IMDB: “In a dystopic** and crime ridden Detroit, a terminally wounded cop returns to the police force as a powerful cyborg,” part human and part machine. robocop-bigposter-orig

    It seems that the scientific community and governments around the world are following the Robocop plot, applying it, by analogy, to plant and animal species around the entire planet. For example, we continue to drive animals in the wild towards extinction but try to save a few for our zoos. Other species, known to be endangered, have continually increased in value to those who seek their products – the rhino for its horn (an alleged aphrodisiac in Asia) and the lowland gorilla for its paws (used as ash trays!) are two prominent examples. Less well known are the wetlands that are everywhere being drained and the rainforests that are worldwide being cut down for political and economic reasons. Indeed, we persistently destroy good, productive farmland and then attempt to grow the same amounts of food in less suitable soils and climates.

    These are but a few apt examples around the planet of the Robocop analogy: we destroy different parts of the earth’s surface then we resort more and more to technologies to create artificial environments to replace those environments we have destroyed. This growing trend has led to a nasty cycle wherein artificially created ‘technovironments’ are becoming more valuable to people, both economically and perceptually, than those natural environments that are being replaced. In recent years, this situation has emerged in consideration of the global climate system.

    A couple of thousand scientists from around the globe have published their consensus view that many human activities are now producing greenhouse gases that are intensifying the naturally occurring greenhouse effect. As a result, the atmosphere of planet earth is heating up. The concern is that this heating will increase temperatures by at least 2 to 3 degrees Celsius or more by the end of the century if not sooner. The question, of course, is whether or not societies and the ecosystems on which they depend can adapt to the changes that accompany climate change, especially at the rapid rates at which those changes could realistically occur. The consensus of those couple of thousand scientists who participated in the 4th assessment report of the Nobel Prize winning IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) appears to be that societies will be unable to keep up with those changes; even so, there is as yet apparently not enough political will to stop the industrial and land-use practices that continue to produce such greenhouse gas emissions.

    Enter Robocop . . . by analogy. The response of some key members of the scientific communities in both the USA and Europe has been to propose various ways (theoretical conjectures, really) to control the planet’s climate, either by ratcheting down the temperature or at least controlling it so that it does not turn into a runaway greenhouse effect. They have proposed mimicking volcanic eruptions by spewing aerosols into the stratosphere, evaporating sea water to brighten lower level clouds that prevent the sun’s rays from reaching the earth’s surface, putting millions of mirrors in space, creating artificial trees to suck carbon dioxide out of the air, and so on.

    The reality is that a field of artificial carbon-sucking tree-like technological devices is not a forest. Nor will it ever be. Pumping ever-increasing amounts of societally emitted greenhouse gases into the air is converting our atmosphere into an artificial (non-natural) environment. The question is when is a cyborg no longer a cyborg? At what point does replacing yet another living part of the planet with yet another technological device, further converting the cyborg – which is, at this point, partially natural life and partially designed machine – turn the entire planet into little more than a crudely assembled technological device? When does the earth as ‘technovironment’ become a much less-than-perfect “Robocopy” of the original living system so well described by James Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis?James Lovelock

    Geoengineering schemes are being proposed because governments seem to have put on the back-burner efforts to reduce their dependence on fossil fuels. They are likely to muddle along until a full-blown climate crisis occurs. They will continue to build coal-fired power plants, while trying to figure out how to suck that excess carbon dioxide out of the air. They will continue to cut down forests and try to manufacture artificial trees. They will do anything they can to continue “business as usual” and therefore they will not reduce the carbon emissions on which they now depend for economic development. In other words, their true interest lies in “Robocopping the planet’s climate.” If adaptations through such science fictions are allowed to continue, humanity is lost.

    The reality is that modern humans have not been around very long. Policymakers should be reminded each day of this truism: while we need much of the natural environment kept intact, it does not need us at all.
    ————————————————-

    ** Dystopia: An imagined universe (usually the future of our own world) in which a worst-case scenario is explored; the opposite of utopia. Dystopic stories have been especially influential on postmodernism, as writers and filmmakers imagine the effects of various aspects of our current postmodern condition, for example, the world’s take-over by machines (The Matrix); the social effects of the hyper-real (Neuromancer); a society completely run by media commercialism (The Running Man); the triumph of late capitalism (Blade Runner); bureaucratic control run amok (Brazil, 1984); and so on.

  • GUEST Editorial: “Brazil-Africa ‘Biofuels Diplomacy’: South-South Relations on the Rise.”

    Marcelo Paiva & Tsegay Wolde-Georgis, University of Colorado’s Consortium for Capacity Building. 8 March 2010


    Brazil is considered a global leader in sugarcane-based ethanol biofuel production & technology. It made strategic decisions to develop alternative forms of energy for transportation following the crisis and oil embargo in the early 1970s. In 1979, Brazil had developed the first commercial vehicle powered 100 % by ethanol.

    The record oil prices of 2007-08 shocked many leaders around the world. Both fuel and then food prices went through the roof both in developed and developing countries. Many developed countries began to introduce, or accelerate approval of, polices that encouraged the development of biofuels, while Brazil found itself in a very advantageous position to export its technology to other developing countries.
    braz-afrmap
    While over the years the price of food has gone up, so has the price of fossil-fuels on which the farmers’ machinery relies to work the land. In addition, there is concern about greenhouse gas emissions from fossil-fuel burning which contributes to the heating of global temperatures and to a constantly changing climate. What’s more, the peak oil clock ticks uninterruptedly so countries cannot expect to rely on non-renewable cheap forms of energy much longer.partys-over

    The idea that biofuels can rescue us from an irreversible energy crisis is contentious, and the reactions in different parts of the world have been dubious. Some argue that biofuel investment can take away the focus on land for food production, driving food prices up, whereas others argue that marginal lands (read: “unused land”) could be used at a positive net benefit for the environment while boosting infrastructural development in that area. Regions of the world that are perceived as “land rich”, like parts of Africa, became a focus of attention for biofuels investment.

    Several countries have been looking to Africa as a new frontier for cost-effective biofuel production, and the issue of peak oil makes energy security a matter of national security for countries like the US, but also for other nations around the world who see fossil-fuel dependence as an obstacle to development. Oil prices, however important, are not the only incentive for biofuel investment; “going green” can also be beneficial for rural community development and revitalization of the rural economy (there are less farmers and more “urban-ers” in the world every year), but also a long-term benefit found in the reliability on renewable-energy. Africa has land and Brazil has the technology and expertise, and the current political administration in Brazil has been championing biofuels diplomacy as an important piece of its foreign policy.

    One thing is certain: however stealth to the common energy consumer, the renewable-energy market shift is imminent, and is proving lucrative. As oil giants like Exxon-Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell move to partner with biofuels investors, it highlights new trends in energy development investment in the tropics. Also noteworthy is that Brazil’s biofuel diplomacy is taking place in a very competitive environment: other emerging economies like India and China are pursuing land acquisitions through the purchase and lease of land in Africa to grow biofuels feedstock and for food production geared toward their own domestic consumption. Competitiveness can provide for a very fast-growing market.
    gascanroots
    In Africa, biofuels could be viewed as the beginning of a brighter future, as a result of investing in renewable energy in countries that have been primarily exporting agricultural products with declining terms of trade. Many African leaders believe that the biofuels revolution will be a new opportunity leading to energy security and revitalization of the agricultural sector in Africa. Most energy sources of rural Africa are currently based on the direct use of biomass such as dung and wood, which are already being used as low-tech biofuel. Liquid biofuels can be a healthy transition into the future if used properly to substitute traditional biomass.

    The investment in biofuels also raises questions about the carbon footprint benefit of producing and using biofuels like ethanol from corn or sugarcane, since the overall gain (with current technology and market prices) may be marginal. The diminished carbon footprint, however, is but one argument in favor of biofuel production. As mentioned by Rory Williams in A Definition of Sustainable Mobility, the investment in biofuels provides, in addition to potential for a cleaner environment, the support for other sustainable objectives like improved energy security, through the reduced reliance on fossil fuels, and local job creation.

    The South-South partnership such as the one Brazil is pursuing in Africa is a way of maximizing African interests which have historically been exploited by the European neo-colonizers. Like China, Brazil is being utilized by African governments to counter the European infrastructural economic domination.
    lulaangola
    This increased interest in Africa reveals that it is possible to bring development to Africa and, while biofuels are seen as a profitable activity for investors, it also brings independence from fossil-fuels, economic stability and environmental benefits.

    Countries like Angola, Mozambique and Nigeria may well see the biofuels feedstock crops filling their landscapes, but they will hopefully see infrastructural development, employment and technology transfer as well for those working with the biofuels crops in the form of more schools, hospitals, better water treatment facilities and an improved quality of life. For this to ensue in a sustainable way, it is important to pay close attention to the laws and regulations of the African countries.

    The current “land grab” competition in Africa is representative of a new trend, but African policy makers must be prepared to cope with unintended consequences of the rush to embrace a new technology. To minimize those adverse side effects, biofuels strategies should incorporate adequate environmental and societal impact assessments. It should also include protection of farmers from being removed from their land (by design or accident) and the protection of ecosystems from a loss of biodiversity in the face of putting land into biofuels production. After all, development also needs to be cultivated with great care in order for it to yield its most positive results.sustainability-chart

  • Is Osama Bin Laden going ‘green’? Mickey Glantz, 1 February 2010

    Associated Press writers (Keath and Nasrawi) reported that Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaida leader, blamed the United States and other industrialized nations for climate change and said the only way to prevent disaster was to break the American economy, calling on the world to boycott U.S. goods and stop using the dollar.

    The AP writers suggested that bin-Laden’s message on climate change was designed to show the world that he and the movement he started were focused only on one issue: destroying America.

    “The effects of global warming have touched every continent. Drought and deserts are spreading, while the other floods and hurricanes unseen before the previous decades have now become frequent,” bin Laden said in his most recent audio recording, aired on the Arab TV network Al-Jazeera.

    The terror leader noted Washington’s rejection of the Kyoto Protocol aimed at reducing greenhouse gases and painted the United States as in the thrall of major corporations that he said “are the true criminals against the global climate” and are to blame for the global economic crisis, driving “tens of millions into poverty and unemployment.” Well, we know that bin Laden does not like the United States and would like to see it pay for all the damages worldwide resulting from its greenhouse gas emissions.

    The above commentary is real. Bin Laden did release an audio tape. He did talk about climate change and about America needing to be challenged for saturating the global atmosphere. But my first reaction was “Who cares what bin Laden thinks about the Earth’s environmental problems?”

    I certainly don’t. I can’t image that many people do. I wonder why the media bothered to even report it. Would the media care what Charles Manson has to say about climate change?

    Why did he do it? It was the first message from bin Laden devoid of mention of support for al Qaida and attacks on the US and its allies. But let’s play along and fantasize about al-Qaida’s attempt to broaden its support by appealing to environmental groups (as if that would work, or environmentalists would want their support).

    Here’s the whimsical (not real) scenario.

    Bin Laden has decided that arresting global warming has become more urgent that dislodging what he sees as America, the evil empire. He calls off the jihad again the USA and Europe. He issues a secret order to al Qaida operatives demanding that they prepare climate change risk disclosures (CCRDs) for their operations. He orders them to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2015. Al Qaida then is asked to participate in carbon cap and trade and to shift its energy dependence from fossil fuels (including Saudi Arabian oil) to renewable energy sources including solar and wind. He then demands that American engineering concerns provide new clean technologies to al Qaida cells and that the U.S. Treasury pay compensation for global warming related damages that have already occurred.

    Let’s take this tongue-in-cheek scenario a step further: might we soon be hearing headlines like, “bin Laden calls on al Qaida to field a football (soccer) team for FIFA,” or “al Qaida to participate in gymnastics competition at the 2012 Olympics,” or, perhaps, “bin Laden picks Saints to win Super Bowl”?

    More seriously, one has to wonder what prompted Osama bin Laden to speak out on global warming. Does he want to be remembered as a 21st century Gandhi? Is his health failing? Is he seeking to broaden his support among environmentalists? Is he striving for a Nobel Peace Prize? Or, is he feeling neglected?

    Only time will tell what motivated him to talk now about global warming. I think that whatever it was it was more personal and psychological than political.