It looks like India is planning to break the world record for the number of trees planted in a single day. Their goal? 10,266,736 at over 9,000 sites across the country. This is great stuff.
India eyes tree planting record - [BBC News]
A sweet little site with the goal of planting 8 million trees in the shape of a heart right in the heart of one of the poorest countries in the world, Niger.
I'm hoping this is a legit thing, but I'm not entirely sure yet. I haven't heard much about the organization, and I have yet to see any pictures or tangible evidence of them actually doing what they claim. I also wonder how they plan on keeping those 8 million trees alive in the desert. It seems like they have chosen tree varieties that can survive the extreme arid climate, but with the threat of climate change, especially for the African continent, will their long term goals be feasible?
I noticed that one of the trees they chose to plant was a Baobab tree, which they charge 75 Euros to plant. I have actually attempted to grow a Baobab tree in my apartment a few times, and it's worked for about the cost of a Starbucks coffee.
The problem is after about 6 months it only had 4 leaves and was about 3 inches tall. It looked like a bean sprout. Much to my dismay, I eventually killed the thing due to a prolonged weekend away from it.
The Baobab's they show in their example are fully mature and may be hundreds or thousands of years old, impossible to know since Baobabs don't produce growth rings. So I wonder what the 75 Euros is for, the seeds can't cost more than a few cents. How much care are they going to give to the trees over their 1,000 year period of maturation?
Their domain isn't even a .org, neither is ours but then again we don't solicit donations. The average price of planting a tree with these guys is 32.5 Euros, times 8 million, equals 2.6 Billion Euros. It's either a very ambitious environmental project or a potentially very lucrative scam.
Enough already, I want to believe, I really do. I'm going to keep an eye on these guys and perhaps buy a tree if they give me a solid reason to trust them.
The Svalbard International Seed Vault is a bunker of sorts that will one day safely store every known strain of agricultural seed in case of global catastrophe. The vault will be built deep inside a mountain in one of the Svalbard islands. The location was chosen for it's projected long term stability.
Shall we change or shall we give up and accept what comes to us? I say let's change… some say fuck it, I say fuck that.
Two days ago I received an email with some very good questions regarding climate change. I thank the person who sent it because it's wonderful to address my readers real and very legitimate concerns regarding this very complex issue.
The original email text is in bold below in it's entirety and my response is interspersed.
If there is an excess of CO2 in our atmosphere caused by oxygen fueled combustion, why is there not an obvious corresponding shortage of oxygen?
Very good point but there is an effect on atmospheric oxygen levels. You need to keep in mind though that our atmosphere is roughly 20% oxygen while CO2 only accounts for about .038%. That means any effect on atmospheric oxygen will be pretty small. Here's a great article about the measured drop in oxygen levels recorded over the last 20 years or so. The interesting thing is that it's not just from the combustion of fossil fuels, but also from deforestation. It is possible though that the drop in oxygen is minimized by the increase in CO2 which may make existing plants grow faster and better.
CO2 comes out of my mouth and plants need it to survive, and Methane comes out of my ass. How can these elements that were at one time the building blocks of life on earth now suddenly cause the icecaps to melt?
My last post on the site addresses how CO2 can be considered a pollutant even though it's a naturally occurring substance necessary for life on Earth. The long and the short is that too much of something, natural or not, in our atmosphere will have real effects and we're drastically increasing the amount of CO2 in our atmosphere by about 1 percent every two years.
Explain how the UN now blames cows, not humans for causing excess CO2?
Excess methane, not CO2 and they're right. Scientists estimate about 25% of anthropogenic methane emissions are due to cows and other livestock. Cows burp and fart methane gas when they eat, so yeah, global warming is partly due to cow farts.
Methane is #2 on the list of greenhouse gases that we need to get under control. Perhaps more attention should be paid towards reducing methane emissions.
Next year marks the 20th anniversary of the UN announcing that the earth has been experiencing unprecedented warming for several years. I say again that was twenty years ago. The question is obvious.
I think you're talking about the report the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released in 1996 which was only 10 years ago and is still valid.
The journal Nature, says that a sample of air from 50 years ago before pollution controls and when we heated our homes with fuel oil and coal, is dirtier than a sample of air from today. Please explain.
Particulate matter in our atmosphere is different from CO2 and methane which are colorless and odorless. You're right though, we have succeeded in reducing the amounts of particulate matter in our atmosphere which is good thing… mainly for public health. There is an effect called global dimming though that is a result of "dirt" in our atmosphere, check out this post.
If the earth’s environment was like a stagnant fish tank, your points would standup (sic). However, our planet is resilient and adaptable because of the carbon cycle that cleans our atmosphere. Volcanoes come to mind?
The carbon cycle is a long one. The CO2 that we release today will continue warming our planet for between 50 - 200 years. Although I agree with you that our planet is very resilient and self-correcting by nature, we are overwhelming the natural processes which remove CO2 from our atmosphere which is why atmospheric levels of CO2 are increasing. We're disturbing the balance.
Volcanoes can also overwhelm the natural balance of our planet's systems, but we can't control that. We can control what we do to affect our climate. We only have one Earth to mess with, if we screw it up too much, we're only screwing ourselves.
Nobel laureate Steven Chu has turned his attention to Termite guts in order to find a carbon neutral fuel source. Termites have a knack for converting cellulose into liquid ethanol. Most of the matter that makes up plants is cellulose, so this would mean we could tap nearly unlimited sources of ethanol by simply feeding a bio-reactor of some sort, rubbish plant matter. Imagine turning Fall leaves, lawn clippings, downed trees or even organic household rubbish into liquid fuel. It would be pretty revolutionary.
Chu left his current job to work for Lawrence Berkeley Livermore Labs to kick start an inquiry into the possibility.
'Termite guts can save the planet', says Nobel laureate - [Physorg.com]
A new report developed by the United Nations points out that livestock production produces more greenhouse gas emissions than the entire human transportation sector. According to the report, here's how much livestock production contributes to the total emissions released by human activities: 9% of all C02 emissions and 37% of all Methane emissions which is a much more efficient greenhouse gas than C02, 23 times more efficient.
There is no sign of this problem getting any better, since people are demanding more and more dairy and meats in their diets. It's just a byproduct of prosperity and yet another reason to go vegetarian.
Livestock gases worse than cars - [United Press International]
Here's part II of my previous article on why vegetarianism can help save the world. I ended the last article just as I was about to explain what the power of 10 rule has to do with global warming. So here it is:
Large amounts of greenhouse gas emissions are produced by our food industry. I've heard estimates that up to 17% of our fossil fuel use goes towards food production in the US. Vegetable production is no exception, you need all sorts of mostly gas powered vehicles to plow, sow, harvest, and distribute much of the plants we eat.
CO2 is released during the production of crops, although some if not all of it is offset by the plants themselves which remove CO2 from the atmosphere during their growth. Though we still need to transport the fresh plant matter to processing plants or distribution facilities which then create greenhouse gas emissions themselves. Then we can either transport the plants to supermarkets, or we can feed the stuff to animals which will go on to produce our meat in addition to Methane gas among other things which contribute to global warming. Then the animals need to be processed and the food transported yet again to our supermarkets, which we probably drove to in a gas guzzling car. Finally we need to cook the meat which will take even more energy and most likely result in even more greenhouse gas emissions.
Although it's not perfectly accurate, there's a concept out there that helps to illustrate how a vegetarian diet can help save the world. I'm not talking about health issues here because that's not the point of this blog. I'll also mention that I'm not a vegetarian myself, although I would love to be. My girlfriend on the other hand is, and maybe one day I'll join her among the ranks of the ultra efficient energy eaters. That being said, if I start to sound preachy I'm not trying to be, I'm just passing the hard truth onto you.
So here's my attempt at an explanation of the power of 10 rule:
Basically, the rule roughly estimates that as you climb the food chain, you only preserve 1/10th of the original energy input. The main energy source on our planet is the sun and some of the sun's energy goes towards growing plants. Some animals eat the plants and some animals eat other animals. The most efficient use of the solar energy, or energy in general, is to eat the sunlight, but hey that's what the plants do. The second most efficient option for us as walking talking creatures is to eat the plants.
Though when we eat the plants, we are unable to make use of 100% of the energy the plant absorbed itself. Some of that energy went towards the plant growing, reproducing, other biological processes, as well as heat emission. Plus our digestive systems are not 100% efficient, thus some of the energy is lost there as well. In the first stage, it is estimated that the plants only make use of 10% of the energy they absorb. Then when we eat the plants, we only make use of 1% of the original energy. Now let's say you get eaten by a crazed carnivorous animal, sucks for you. The creature who was so lucky to have had such a tasty vegetarian for dinner will only make use of .1% of the original energy input from the sun. The energy transfer starts at 100%, plants get 10%, vegetarians get 1%, and carnivores get a measly .1%.
On and on it goes up the food chain of energy loss. So, let's now put it into a context that's really easy to understand. You can either eat 10 pounds of grain yourself, or you can feed that 10 pounds of grain to a vegetarian creature and net yourself about 1 pound of meat. Which do you think would feed the most people?
It's a grossly simplified analogy and again the math isn't 100% accurate, but the loss is real and significant, and it's good to be conscious of the energy footprint your next meal will have on the world. I won't even go into how many more people our planet could feed if we stopped feeding perfectly edible people food to animals just so we can harvest their meat.
What does this have to do with global warming? Check out part II of this article and I'll explain, I promise.
An increase in global temperatures may result in an insect population boom. The warmer temperatures may increase the metabolism of the creepy crawlies causing them to reproduce more frequently. It could lead to an increase in insect transmitted diseases like malaria and lyme disease. More importantly perhaps is that it could lead to a decrease in crop production due to an increase in pests, which would of course lead to an increase in pesticide use which hurts everyone.
Anyway, it's not good, even if you are an entomologist.
Global Warming Could Trigger Insect Population Boom » [LiveScience.com]
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