2009 April | Distant-Help

ALERT! Forest and Crop Biomass Can Never Ecologically Sustainably Power Industrial Society

By Rainforest Rescue with Ecological Internet

No Biomass/No Burning! Truly renewable energy must be defined as including no energy production or climate mitigation claims from food based agrofuels, live plants and ecosystems, or burning biomass of any type.

TAKE ACTION HERE NOW! As the urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is belatedly [...]

Monsanto takes legal action against Germany

Guess the next country to get sued is France since it is also banning MON810 … How money is more important then hman health. And the so called reason for using mon 810 are complete lies since it doesn’t produce more then conventional seeds. Again big bucks business

Here’s another example of [...]

‘Clean’ coal plants get go-ahead

The government has given the go-ahead for a new generation of coal-fired power plants – but only if they can prove they can reduce their emissions.

Up to four new plants will be built if they are fitted with technology to trap and store CO2 emissions underground.
The technology is not yet proven and would only initially apply to 25% of power stations’ output.
Green groups welcomed the move but said any new stations would still release more carbon than they stored.
Energy Secretary Ed Miliband’s announcement followed confirmation in the Budget that there would be a new funding mechanism for at least two – and up to four – “demonstration” carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects.

Continue reading ‘Clean’ coal plants get go-ahead

EU commission urges fishing cuts

By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News website

The EU has far too many fishing boats, and major cuts are needed to make fishing sustainable, according to the European Commission.

The commission’s green paper on Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) reform also says fishermen should be given more responsibility for managing stocks.
A copy obtained by BBC News prior to publication on Wednesday says 30% of EU fish stocks are beyond safe limits.
It says member states “micro-manage” decisions for political reasons.
Despite major reforms in 2002, it concludes, the reality for EU fish and fishermen consists of “overfishing, fleet overcapacity, heavy subsidies, low economic resilience and decline in the volume of fish caught”.
Eighty-eight percent of EU stocks are fished beyond their maximum sustainable yield – the highest catch that can be maintained over an indefinite period – and for some, such as North Sea cod, the vast majority of fish are caught before they have reproduced.
Fishermen would end up richer, the commission concludes, by reducing catches until depleted stocked recover – but the system is set up to ensure short-term profits are the driving factor.

Continue reading EU commission urges fishing cuts

Tree planting in the driest place on Earth

By John Walton BBC News

The southern coast of Peru is one of the driest places on Earth. Why would anyone choose this parched location to re-plant a forest?

The strip of desert between the Andean mountains and the Pacific Ocean has an annual average rainfall as low as 1.5mm.
By way of comparison, London enjoys around 650mm a year.
It’s not an obvious place to choose if you’re looking for somewhere to plant trees, but for restoration ecologist Oliver Whaley the harsh environment of the northern fringes of the Atacama desert is part of the point.

By helping to restore the shrinking native forests, the aim is to benefit local people and wildlife, prevent soil erosion, and help alleviate climate change.
“If we can get trees established here, and learn how to do it with as little water as possible, then it is a model for the rest of the world,” he says.
While the plight of the world’s rainforests are well known, the same cannot be said of tropical dry forests. These less biodiverse, but equally remarkable forests, face threats every bit as severe as their better known cousins.
The Atacama dry forest “is really an ecosystem on its last legs,” says Mr Whaley, of London’s Kew Gardens – an internationally renowned botanical research institution.
The tree under threat is the huarango, Prosopis limensis, found only in the Ica region of Peru.
In this parched landscape, the hardy huarango is no stranger to thirst. Although rain seldom falls, it is able to capture moisture from other sources – trapping fog on its leaves, directing the water downwards towards its roots. The roots themselves are among the longest of any plant – 50m to 80m – and seek out underground water sources that flow from the Andes.

Continue reading Tree planting in the driest place on Earth

VICTORY! California Leads in Saying No to Deforestation Biofuels

California is setting the precedent of regulating greenhouse gas emissions from transport fuels [ark]. The regulation requires producers, refiners and importers of gasoline and diesel to reduce the carbon footprint of their fuel by 10% over the next decade. And it launches the state on an ambitious path toward cutting its overall heat-trapping emissions [...]

Biochar backlash tries to bury carbon plan

Last year scientists at Cornell and elsewhere announced that they may have found a new weapon against climate change — in the soils of the Amazon Basin.

Amazon peoples thousands of years ago ploughed charred plants into the ground, perhaps to improve soil fertility or just as an ancient means of waste disposal.

Plants [...]

Biofuel from Corn Ethanol Is Not Renewable, Does Not Address Climate Change

TAKE ACTION! Let California Air Resources Board know all industrially produced biofuel crops from live biomass [search], edible or not, still require land, soil, water, fertilizer and other finite inputs. It is clear that industrial biofuels are not “renewable energy” given that these inputs are all in limited supply, and indirect land uses lead [...]

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ALERT! Forest and Crop Biomass Can Never Ecologically Sustainably Power Industrial Society

Monsanto takes legal action against Germany

‘Clean’ coal plants get go-ahead

Related Reading:

EU commission urges fishing cuts

Related Reading:

Tree planting in the driest place on Earth

Related Reading:

VICTORY! California Leads in Saying No to Deforestation Biofuels

Biochar backlash tries to bury carbon plan

Biofuel from Corn Ethanol Is Not Renewable, Does Not Address Climate Change

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