How many abandoned stove projects litter the world? How much money have donors sunk into ill-conceived stove designs? Poorly executed marketing campaigns? And lack of investment in capacity building?
I raise this question because a recent conversation forced me to rethink one of my cherished assumptions: that local stove production was the only way to go. Continue reading
The human toll of the Jan. 12 earthquake in Haiti has been devastating, with the government reporting more than 150,000 dead in the Port-au-Prince area alone. What, if anything, does the disaster mean for the environment? Continue reading
Malawi’s protected areas generate more than 60 percent of the charcoal consumed in the country’s four largest cities. Continue reading
In the Philippines town of Los Baños, 63 miles to the south of Manila, local town officials are marketing briquettes made of discarded waste paper. Continue reading
At the height of the Darfur emergency in 2004, women had to sometimes walk as long as seven hours to find firewood outside the refugee camps. The women were frequently the victims of rape during these treks.
Faced with these threats, the US government turned to Berkeley Lab scientist Ashok Gadgil to help find a solution to the problem. The Berkeley-Darfur Stove is the response devised by Ashok, his colleagues, and the women of Darfur. Continue reading