(BBC) More than 300 people are feared dead after heavy rain caused a series of landslides in the mountainous eastern region of Bududa in Uganda. A trading centre in a village was flattened, leaving shops and houses buried under the mud, officials said. Rescuers are digging in the mud with hand-held tools as mechanical diggers cannot reach the affected villages. President Yoweri Museveni visited the affected area, and criticised residents for settling on a floodplain. The president also said the disaster could be partially blamed on local farmers for stripping the land of thick plant life. Some 86 deaths have been confirmed, with local officials saying at least 250 people remain missing.
Environment
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: A Chance to Get it Right
The horrendous destruction visited on Haiti last week has sparked a torrent of compassion from around the world. Even the bioenergy community has turned out to support the relief effort. But when the relief agencies move on to the next crisis and the last US marine has returned home, Haiti will still be an impoverished and broken country suffering the consequences of decades of profound social, economic, and environmental neglect. There is much talk of planning for the long term stability and growth of the nation. But any development aid and growth plans will take time to bear fruit. Even Continue reading
Kim's Top 10 predictions for 2010. Or why 2010 will be better than 2009.
The first of my top ten predictions for the year is…
1. The US Senate will consider levying taxes against India and China in an effort to “level” the playing field with these top CO2 polluters.