Tag Archives: water climate

International accords on saving forests have little impact

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International accords on saving vulnerable forests are having little impact because they do not attack the core causes such as growing demand for bio-fuels and food crops, a new report said.

With Africa and South American alone losing 7.4 million hectares of forest a year, the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) said a drastic change of policy is needed by the United Nations and governments.

Sixty international experts said in the report, to be presented at a UN forum this week that too much attention is being put on forests as a store of carbon dioxide, the main gas blamed for global warming.

Deforestation accounts for about a quarter of the global greenhouse gas emissions each year which are blamed for rising temperatures. Live trees act as a sponge for carbon but give it off when they decay or are burned.

“Our findings suggest that disregarding the impact on forests of sectors such as agriculture and energy will doom any new international efforts to conserve forests and slow climate change,” said Jeremy Rayner chairman of the IUFRO report panel.

Even the most recent UN backed initiative, Reducing Deforestation in Developing countries (REDD) is criticized because the panel said it seeks a single global solution.

The experts said that REDD and other international accords should focus more on supporting regional and national efforts to save the forests at risk.

“Unless all sectors work together to address the impact of global consumption, growing demand for food and bio-fuels, and problems of land scarcity, REDD will fail to arrest environmental degradation and will heighten poverty,” said Constance McDermott of Oxford University’s Environmental Change  Institute.

LOW COST POO-GLOOS FOR SEWAGE TREATMENT

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Low cost igloo-shaped devices nicknamed Poo-Gloos can clean up sewage just as effectively as multimillion-dollar treatment facilities. Kraig Johnson and his team developed the Poo-Gloo when he worked as a research assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Utah. The Poo-Gloo provides a large surface area on which bacteria can grow, providing the microbes with air and a dark environment so they consume waste water pollutants continuously with minimal competition from algae, according to a Waste water Compliance Systems statement in the US.

Waste water treatment in small, rural communities is an important and challenging engineering task. Proper treatment includes disinfection and the removal of unwanted pollutants.  Most rural communities rely on waste water lagoons as their primary method of treatment because they are simple and inexpensive to operate.

Lagoons are large ponds in which sewage is held for a month to a year so that solids settle and sunlight, bacteria, wind and other natural processes clean the water, sometimes with the help of aeration.

“The results of this study show that it is possible to save communities with existing lagoon systems hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars, by retrofitting their existing waste water treatment facilities with Poo-Gloos,” says Fred Jaeger. Jaeger is the Chief Executive Officer of Waste water Compliance Systems which sells the Poo-Gloo under the name  Bio-Dome.

Global sea level may rise by 12cm by 2100

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Melt-off from small mountain glaciers and ice caps will raise global sea levels 12 cm by 2100. The largest contributors to the projected sea level rise would be glaciers in Arctic Canada, Alaska and landmass-bound glaciers in the Antarctic, according to a new study.

Glaciers in the European Alps, New Zealand, the Caucasus, western Canada and the western US are projected to lose more than 50 per cent of their current ice volume, reported the journal Nature Geo science. The study modeled volume loss and melt-off from 120,000 mountain glaciers and ice caps and was one of the first to provide detailed projections by region, according to a University of British Columbia, Canada, statement. Currently, melt-off from smaller mountain glaciers and ice caps are responsible for a disproportionately large portion of sea level increases, even though they contain less than one percent of all water on Earth-bound glacier ice.

“There is a lot of focus on the large ice sheets but very few global scale studies quantifying how much melt-off to expect from these smaller glaciers that make up about 40 per cent of the entire sea level rise that we observe right now,” said Valentina Radic. Radic is a postdoctoral re-
searcher with the department of earth and ocean sciences of the university who led the study.

Increases in sea levels caused by the melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, and the thermal expansion of water, were excluded from the results.  Radic and colleague Regine Hock at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, modeled future glacier melt off based on temperature and precipitation projections from 10 global climate models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

“While the overall sea level increase projections in our study are on par with IPCC studies, our results are more detailed and regionally resolved,” said Radic.

Green loving celebrity Cameron Diaz

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A fashion model at 16 and a star at 21 with hit movie The Mask, Diaz truly practices what she promotes — she recycles, uses offsets for carbon neutral travel and chooses products that have been recycled. Born on August 30, 1972 at San Diego California, Diaz is a popular Hollywood actress and a former model. The actress debuted in 1990s with films like The Mask,

There’s Something About Mary, and My Best Friend’s Wedding. Apart from her successful role in there’s Something About Mary, Diaz’s roles in Gangs of New York, Vanilla Sky, Being John Malkovich were nominated for the popular Golden Globe awards.

The distinct beauty of the actress, a result of Cameron’s Anglo German-Native-American and Cuban American parentage, combined with Cameron’s excellent acting prowess is however not limited to her acting career only. She is an environmental hero, who shows concern for the environment and brings them into practice.

Environmental influence

For Diaz, the seed for environment conservation were perhaps sown when she was little. She shares her experience as a child living in a neighborhood in Long Beach that was not only near a large freeway, but also toxic waste refinery, which would dump waste at the end of her block. ‘Childhood’ also meant suffering from asthma, and an ongoing burning, itchy sensation in her eyes and throat.

Diaz’s concern for environment surfaced during 2004-2005, when the actress hosted and produced a 10-episode MTV reality show, Trippin’, which focused on issues concerning ecology and conservation. She had explored some of the planet’s environmentally unique locations while discovering ways to help preserve them for the Trippin’. In the show, the actress along with other celebrity friends explored some environmentally unique shooting locations across the globe. The entire show’s travel is offset with carbon credits. She has been actively vocal about her ‘green’ beliefs. In a feature on ABC News, Diaz spoke about the need for people to invest in green living and not just hop on board because it happens to be popular right now.

Supporting ALGORE’S CAUSE

In 2007, Al Gore, ex-Vice President of the US and currently a green celebrity, recruited 1,000 people to undertake An Inconvenient Truth, a global warming slideshow exercise. The slide show course was intended to pro-mote clean energy solutions to minimize global environmental footprint. The show focused on global warming issues including fossil fuel energy that is creating the current climate crisis. Diaz not just attended the exercise, but also participated actively by asking questions and staying on for evening events. She then went on to join Gore to announce the initiative Save Our Selves (SOS) — a campaign for a Climate in Crisis, kicking-off with a 24-hour summer concert series known as Live Earth.

She stood to Gore’s right during the announcement and answered reporters’ questions about her own green beliefs and hopes for the campaign. “If everyone just changed one aspect of their life, if they just did one thing differently, that alone is a step closer to solving the problem,” she told reporters.

Advocate of green living

On the personal front, the actress claims to follow an eco-friendly lifestyle by using reused and recycled products that are beneficial to the environment. Diaz claims to use only energy-efficient home appliances and minimal essential lighting, besides using carbon neutral offsets for travelling.

Furthermore, the actress’ environmental concern is revealed through her eco-friendly Prius vehicle, which is supposed to prevent global warming and decrease footprint on the environment. The superstar status of the actress seems to compliment her promotion of environmentally sustainable lifestyle. A one-time vegetarian, she has even been quoted as stating intentions of trying out simple countryside existence for one year by eating self cultivated food.

As a member of the Association, Diaz together with Gwyneth Paltrow, another promoter of energy conservation, filmed many public service pronouncements stressing the importance of energy conservation. Gen E (Generation Environment) program, promoted by the Environmental Media Association, integrates environmental concerns and Hollywood together on a single platform.

Green celebrity

Diaz decided to use her celebrity status and popularity to promote support for the environment. She believes that just starting the discussion is enough to get people thinking about their actions and the repercussions of their actions. Inspired by an annual TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) conference attended by the actress in California in 2009, Diaz attempted a documentary for increasing public awareness on various environmental issues. As part of the program, the actress traveled extensively collecting notes on people’s knowledge of certain major environmental issues. She has been travelling all over the US asking questions like “Do you know where your food, your water come from?” and “Do you worry about the environment?” In recent times, Diaz’s environmental concerns are getting attention in many ‘green’ gossip websites. Her commendable work through many green programs is drawing media attention unlike other celebrities who are vociferous in expressing environmental concerns but lack in action.