A new alternative fuel project recently launched in Rwanda promises to combat the deforestation of national parks where mountain gorillas live. The Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project (MGVP) and Art of Conservation, have partnered together to introduce the new alternative fuel technology–fuel briquettes composed of recycled materials that can be made easily with simple wooden presses–to the communities living near mountain gorilla habitat. Continue reading
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Images of African charcoal and deforestation
Photographer and development expert Len Abrams has put together a visually arresting slideshow and some insightful commentary on the state of African charcoal and deforestation.
Can Haiti be the new Katrina?
What will it take?
What will it take to tip the scale in favor of a global crash program to swap out three-stones-and-a-pot for energy-efficient stoves, kilns, and sustainable alternative biofuels?
Will Haiti be to bioenergy what Katrina was to climate change?
How long before Al Gore, Angelina, or Bono take on bionergy as the next big inconvenient truth? The Charcoal Project’s intelligence services tell us there is already a film in the works. Will Bono embrace the rocket stove onstage to his fan’s delight?
Perhaps it will be the lure of a multi-billion dollar global market in carbon offsets from stoves, kilns, and briquettes programs that will do the trick. Or maybe it will be the on-the-ground realities of implementing REDD that will undo the Gordian knot.
And the point is…?
Actually, there are four points and they boil down to this: Continue reading
Haiti Earthquake: Greening of Hillsides Can Bolster Recovery
“To me this is one of the top three most important things for Haiti,” said Marc Levy, a Columbia University professor of international and public affairs working on a joint effort of Columbia and its Earth Institute with the United Nations Environment Program. Continue reading
Rebuilding Haiti: On trees, charcoal, compost and low-tech…
On links between environmental and public health; Rebuilding Haiti from the soil microbes up; A humanitarian aid petri dish; Jared Diamond’s checklist for collapse & Haiti as vision what could be in store for the rest of us; Charcoal cartels, Amy Smith’s better answer & Nicholas Kristof’s compost toilet tour Continue reading