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Joelle Nebbe-Mornod

The Super Chickpea, and the silent heroes in the war against hunger. | CCAFS - 0 views

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    Sufficient food, but also a balanced food intake are key to battle malnutrition. Often the world's attention goes to staple foods like rice, maize or wheat. We often forget it takes other crops too, to make a balanced diet, in a global fight against hunger. Chickpeas is one of those crops, and an important one, as they make up for more than 20 percent of the world pulse production. Chickpeas contain 22-25% proteins, and 2-3 times more iron and zinc than wheat. Chickpea protein quality is better than other pulses. … So understandably, agricultural researchers, like Dr. Pooran M.Gaur, a principal scientist and chickpea breeder at ICRISAT, make continuous efforts to develop new chickpea varieties, adapted to fast changing environmental conditions. "Super Chickpeas", as it were. Bred by -what I would not hesitate to call - "super scientists", in the quiet isolation of agricultural research centers.
Benno Hansen

Chevron fined $8bn over Amazon 'contamination' | Dominic Rushe | Environment | The Guar... - 0 views

  • An Ecuadorian judge has ruled that Chevron was responsible for widespread contamination of the country's Amazon basin and fined the company $8bn (£5bn).
  • far below the $27.3bn sought by the plaintiffs – and they may appeal
  • The epic and bitterly fought lawsuit over the "Amazon Chernobyl" has been going on for 18 years. It was brought on behalf of 30,000 people whose health and environment were allegedly damaged by chemical-laden waste water dumped by Texaco's operations from 1972 to 1990. Chevron bought Texaco in 2001.
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  • Chevron had claimed that Ecuador was violating the terms of a 1997 trade pact with the US.
  • According to a report by Sweden's Umeå International School of Public Health more than 30bn gallons of toxic wastes and crude oil had been discharged into the land and waterways of Ecuador's Amazon basin - or "Oriente". This compares to the 10.8m gallons spilled in the Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989 in Alaska or 205m gallons spilt in BP's Deepwater Horizon disaster. The report claims there are at least two big oil spills per week in the area. Printable version Send to a friend Share Clip Contact us larger | smaller Environment Pollution · Oil · Energy Business Oil · Commodities World news Ecuador More news Related 7 Jun 2010 Exxon Mobil argues against knee-jerk reaction to Gulf oil spill 31 Aug 2010 Greenland's prime minister lambasts Greenpeace for raiding Arctic oil rig 7 May 2010 Chevron wins access to film-maker's Amazon pollution footage 1 Dec 2010 A climate journey - The Andes: Ecuador's rainforests
Andy Sternberg

Forum For The Future - 0 views

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    Forum for the Future works with leaders from business and the public sector to create a green, fair and prosperous world
Mark Kabbbash

New Plant - Some of the highest quality diesel fuel in the world from Animal Fat. - 0 views

  • Operations are underway at the new Dynamic Fuels plant, which is successfully converting animal fats and greases into high quality renewable fuels, officials from Syntroleum Corporation (NASDAQ: SYNM) and Tyson Foods, Inc. (NYSE: TSN) announced today. Production began in early October and the volume being produced is 2,500 barrels per day and growing.
  • Gary Roth, chief executive officer of Syntroleum, said, "Our U.S. plant is producing some of the highest quality diesel fuel in the world, and best of all, it is renewable with a carbon footprint 75% below that of petroleum diesel. We can also make renewable, high value specialty distillate products that can be used in a wide variety of applications such as dry cleaning, ink cartridges and drilling fluids, and we are actively pursuing these markets."
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    This is an excellent means to create (reuse?) Check this video out ...
Benno Hansen

BBC News - Placing a value on Kenya's largest forest - 0 views

  • Prized as a "natural water tower", the forest has also been the target for aggressive clearance and timber logging in recent decades and its size has been cut by at least 40%.
  • Research by the Kenya Forest Research Institute (KEFRI) and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) estimates the economic benefit of the forest to be more than $1.3bn per year.
  • Bordering the trees are some of Kenya's largest tea plantations - tea is one of the country's key exports and the research calculates that it benefits from the forest to the tune of $163m a year.
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  • half of the country's power is driven by water
  • The study calculates that the Mau Forest's value to the electricity sector is $131.6m.
  • This blaze of lurid colour helps to make tourism one of Kenya's biggest earners, and the study reckons this industry receives $65 million in benefits from the forest.
  • Further services provided by the forest include an estimated $89million in storing carbon, $98million in controlling soil erosion and $21million in support for fisheries.
Benno Hansen

BBC News - Kenya's largest forest under threat - 1 views

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    2 min video
Benno Hansen

Climate change action through the courts - 1 views

  • "A large part of the relevant legal literature suggests that the main polluting nations can be held responsible under international law for the harmful effects of their greenhouse-gas emissions," says the paper's author, lawyer Christoph Schwarte.
  • "Developing country governments are understandably reluctant to challenge any of the big donor nations in an international court or tribunal. But this may change once the impacts of climate change become even more visible and an adequate agreement remains wanting."
  • FIELD is a group of public international lawyers based in London working towards a fair, effective and accessible system of international law that protects the global environment and promotes sustainable development.
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    Foundation for International Environment Law and Development (FIELD)
Benno Hansen

Environmental progress looks south | Blog | Ode Magazine - 0 views

  • the overdeveloped nations of the world need to follow the example of their poor neighbors to the south, which dump far fewer pollutants into the global commons
  • these are the places where precious biodiversity, rainforests and other ecological treasures still exist - the natural ecosystems of Europe and North American were largely ravaged a century ago
  • In 2008, Ecuador became the first nation in the world to enshrine the rights of nature in its constitution. The document now asserts that nature "has the right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in evolution"
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  • Kenya adopted a new constitution that declares in Article 42, "Every person has the right to a clean and healthy environment, which includes the right - a) to have the environment protected for the benefit of present and future generations through legislative and other measures."
  • Article 69 of the new constitution also holds the state responsible for maintaining tree cover over at least ten percent of the nation’s land; for encouraging public participation in protecting and managing the environment; protecting indigenous knowledge of biodiversity; and establishing systems of environmental impact assessment.
Benno Hansen

Eco warrior's Pacific journey shows how 'dumb plastic' is killing our seas | Environmen... - 0 views

  • "One of the difficulties in conveying it to people," De Rothschild says, "is that you can't photograph it, the flecks are too small.
  • Heyerdahl could survive on fish, but on board the Plastiki they have caught only a couple of tuna in three months, despite having their lines in the water every day.
Benno Hansen

allAfrica.com: Africa: Finance Ministers Vs. Development Goals (Page 1 of 3) - 0 views

  • South Africa, Rwanda and Egypt succeeded in deleting any reference to budgetary targets for education, health, agriculture and water in the Common Position on MDGs and the conference report and resolutions
Benno Hansen

Reduction Arctic summer ice is source of great concern | NWCN.com | NWCN - News - 0 views

  • But Martin says the concern level in the South Pole is mild compared to the Arctic in the north, that several times in recent years has become a virtually open ocean. "The reduction in summer ice is a source of great concern. And Antarctic ice is essentially in balance or very slightly increasing, with the exception of one region," he said.
    • Benno Hansen
       
      The South Pole is melting too http://bit.ly/7HcA02
Benno Hansen

Off the Shelf - 'Green Gone Wrong' - Can Capitalism Save the Planet? - Review - NYTimes... - 0 views

  • corporate America has led us into thinking that we can save the earth mainly by buying things
  • ‘lazy environmentalism,’ is geared toward the masses that aren’t willing to sacrifice,”
  • armchair activism actualizes itself most fully in the realm of consumer goods; through buying the right products we can usher our economic system into the environmental age.”
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  • many of the small organic producers who are expected to lead the reinvention of the food system can barely make ends meet
  • If there was ever a time to ponder the long-term consequences of our spending habits, it’s in the wake of the worst economic crisis in decades, which was fueled by rampant consumer borrowing.
Mark Kabbbash

Tires to Oil GBRC puts a good spin on old tires by recycling them into OIL! - View Message - 1 views

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    GRC has developed a proof of concept machine (Patriot 1) that is capable of processing tires on a continuous basis. An example of GRC's tire processing system: For every 1 ton of tires processed in the GRC Patriot 1, there is 120 gallons of oil, 5000 cubic ft. of combustible gases, 200 pounds of reusable steel and 750 pounds of carbon ash produced which are all marketable commodities. \n
Benno Hansen

Why Small Organic Farming Is Indeed Radical (and Beautiful) | Food | AlterNet - 0 views

  • focus is on the quality of the crops grown and their suitability for human nutrition
  • I often think of how much further all that effort could have gone had I grown up on a "real" farm but then I realize that if I had, it would have required an equal effort to change from the "quantity first" focus that has so characterized American agriculture to the new "quality first" focus established by the organic pioneers.
    • Arabica Robusta
       
      Food Rebellions! is a very useful book in this context, arguing that organic small farms actually produce more yield per acre (perhaps per unit of energy too) than large farms.
  • There is no reason that large farms, whatever path they may have been on, cannot learn to meet those standards if they understand that it is not the scale of the farm but the attitude of the farmer that the public is interested in.
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  • The small organic farm greatly discomforts the corporate/industrial mind because the small organic farm is one of the most relentlessly subversive forces on the planet.  Over centuries both the communist and the capitalist systems have tried to destroy small farms because small farmers are a threat to the consolidation of absolute power.  Thomas Jefferson said he didn't think we could have democracy unless at least 20% of the population was self-supporting on small farms so they were independent enough to be able to tell an oppressive government to stuff it.  It is very difficult to control people who can create products without purchasing inputs from the system, who can market their products directly thus avoiding the involvement of mercenary middlemen, who can butcher animals and preserve foods without reliance on industrial conglomerates, and who can't be bullied because they can feed their own faces.
  • Massive industrial conglomerates that look upon people as anonymous passive serfs, obedient cogs in a mechanistic world, now control far too many aspects of human existence.
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