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
A few weeks ago a story in the Financial Times led with the stove project of Mercy Corps, a relief agency working in camp for Internally Displaced People in North Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo. We wanted to know more so we sent a list of questions to Elisha Moore-Delate. She is the Environment Program Manager for Mercy Corps in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the person responsible for the stoves program. We’re sharing her inspiring and insightful responses below. 1. When, and how, did you realize that introducing energy efficient stoves would help improve conditions for the IDPs? Continue reading
The December 21st issue of The Newyorker magazine has a fascinating article about one inventor’s quest for the perfect stove for the developing world. In typical Newyorker fashion, the story focuses on some of the quirkier aspects of the inventors of stoves and the trials and tribulations of getting these done and adopted. Still, it’s an excellent read. The article’s author discussed the story this morning with radio talkshow host Brian Lehrer on New York’s Public Radio, WNYC. The program took one call during the interview, which came from yours truly at The Charcoal Project. In the nanosecond we had, Continue reading
There is an excellent film by South Africa-based photojournalist Jeffrey Barbee that will hopefully get quite a bit of play in Copenhagen. It explores how African forests and woodfuel efficiency can play a big role in reducing CO2 emissions while improving people’s livelihood. We were especially interested to learn through this film about a stoves project in Malawi which is not only improving the lives the local inhabitants but also providing valuable carbon credits to an eco securities firm for sale on the voluntary carbon market. (The segment about Malawi and the stoves begins at 5:40 on part 2 but Continue reading
A December 3rd article in the Financial Times reports how a Mercy Corps-operated stove project in Goma (eastern Congo) is selling carbon offsets to western companies on the voluntary market. It is partially reproduced below but you can only read the complete article on the FT site. Among the more interesting facts reported are: * Projects like these are attractive to private investors in the the voluntary carbon market (as opposed to CDM) because the provide a social benefit as well as an environmental one. More bang for your buck, so to speak. * A project on this scale does Continue reading