14 June, 2010 via WWF website
Toliara – Field staff at WWF Toliara in Southwestern Madagascar have reported a substantial increase of charcoal production in the last couple of months in their zones of operation. Due to the missing rainy season, farmers abandoned their fields by the hundreds and try to make a living producing charcoal. The lack of regulations and control makes the charcoal business an easy one to work in.
Bill Gates last week joined the CEOs of GE, Bank of America, Xerox, Lockheed Martin, and others, in calling for the United States to modernize its energy systems with investments in cleaner, more energy efficient technologies.
What seemed especially eerie is how the group’s exhortation could easily have been uttered by the top CEOs of companies based in developing countries.
BP, the US Congress, and the White House don’t know this yet, but we think the Macondo gusher in the Gulf of Mexico is going to help put better cookstoves, fuels, and policies in the pots of the world’s 3 billion energy-poor households.
By Amanda Wheat Although Somalis are no strangers to devastating droughts, uncertainty about weather patterns are rising with the temperature. As the climate changes and crops dwindle, many Somalis are forced to find alternate means of income. The result is an increase in charcoal production, which further compounds the degradation of Somalia’s forests and livelihoods. Read more. Continue reading
Is someone selling you counterfeit malaria pills? Let a mobile phone check on that for you. (1)
Too poor to have a bank account? Try mobile banking.(2)
Are you a herder in Kenya or Tanzania and have a sick goat? Track it on a mobile phone. (3)
Someone trying to pull a real estate scam on you in Lagos? Let Google’s Android handle that for you.(4)
Now, the World Bank is wondering if the mobile phone story may be the ticket out of energy poverty for rural sub-Saharan Africa.