Vardaman Virtual Forestry Company
FRIDAY REPORT OF 11/17/06
The Most Direct, Frequent Link to Knowledge Workers in the Eastern Forest Economy
“SCOOP ON POOP DISHED OUT BY NEW EXHIBITION”
by John Roach for NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC NEWS of 11/10/06:
“A traveling museum exhibition currently on display in Miami, Florida, is all about poop…The show runs at the Miami Metrozoo through January 10, 2007, before moving to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania…The exhibition’s 15 interactive stations allow visitors learn how scientists use poop to unravel an animal’s biology, how critters use poop to build homes and hide from enemies, and what to do about the growing problem of human waste…
“When Cristina Heredia, the exhibitions manager for the Miami Metrozoo learned about ‘The Scoop on Poop,’ she thought it could be a way to turn a distraction into an educational tool… Heredia…says visitor response to ‘the Scoop on Poop’ has been overwhelmingly positive. Attendance to the museum has risen by about 35 percent since the exhibit opened on October 13…”
To read the entire article, click on http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/11/061110-poop-scoop.html
“WORLD’S FORESTS REBOUNDING, STUDY SUGGESTS
by James Owen for National Geographic News
“Forests are branching out across the planet anew, raising hopes that an end to deforestation may be in sight, a new study claims…
“The researchers say that over the past 15 years the amount of woodland has increased in 22 of the world’s 50 most forested nations. China and the U.S. have achieved the greatest overall forest expansion, the team says, while tree cover has spread the fastest in China, Vietnam, and Spain.
“This encouraging picture of global forest growth comes from an international research team that studied data from a 2005 forest-resources assessment by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The team advocates ‘a more sophisticated approach’ to measuring forest cover. This approach takes into account both tree density and overall tree cover to provide a new perspective of a country’s total forest resources, the team says. In Japan, for instance, tree cover is shown to be virtually unchanged since World War II, but tree density has risen, producing an average annual 1.6 percent increase in forest biomass…
“Increased human migration from rural to urban areas and higher agricultural yields may also have aided regeneration, the authors say. In the U.S., for instance, forests in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois have expanded by half since the 19th century. The authors say factors behind reforestation in North America and Europe range from increased conservation and farming to a decline in newsprint demand following the rise of electronic media…
“Kauppi also points that forests act as important carbon sinks, tying up carbon that would otherwise appear in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas. He says global forest growth between 1990 and 2000 provided some 0.3 to 0.5 billion tons of extra carbon storage…”
To read the complete article, click on http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/11/061113-forests_2.html
REASON’S RONALD BAILEY REPORTS ON WORLD LEADERS’ CONFERENCE ON CLIMATE IN NAIROBI, KENYA
Here is an excerpt from an early report: “Next, Surya P. Sethi, the principal energy policy advisor to the Indian government, showed that the CEPS study is basically an exercise in climate change policy whimsy. Sethi began by reviewing the development challenges faced by India. He pointed out that 50 percent of its people have no access to electricity; cooking was the largest use of energy for 75 percent of households; and 70 percent of cooking was done using traditional biomass, wood and dung. In addition, 35 percent of India’s people live on less than $1 per day and 80 percent live on less than $2 per day. He pointed out that lack of access to modern energy supplies correlates with high infant mortality, low life expectancies, high gender inequality, and low literacy rates.
“Sethi then noted that India’s economy must grow at 8 percent per year for the next 25 years in order to lift the bottom 40 percent of its people to a decent standard of living. He pointed out that India was falling behind in achieving it Millennium Development Goals of reducing poverty due to persistent energy shortages. ‘Energy is central for development. Our energy consumption must go up,’ declared Sethi. Today India uses 471 million tons oil equivalent (MTOE) of energy each year of which 327 MTOE is primary commercial energy. The rest comes from burning traditional biomass. In order to achieve its poverty reduction goals, Sethi asserted that India needs to grow its energy supplies by 4.3 to 5.1 percent per year and to consume 1536 to 1887 MTOE by 2031. (For comparison the US consumes around 2300 MTOE annually now.) ‘India will need to tap all available energy supplies and pursue all available energy efficiency technologies. For India it is not a choice between energy and energy efficiency. It is both,’ said Sethi.
“Sethi contrasted India’s current total primary energy supply (TPES) per capita use with other countries. TPES per capita is calculated as the energy equivalent of the current amount of oil in kilograms (kgoe) a person consumes per year. In China the amount is 1090 kgoe, Brazil 1094, Denmark 3852, UK 3906, US 7835, Japan 4052, and the world average per capita energy use is 1688. Where does India stand? The average Indian consumes the equivalent of 439 kilograms of oil…
You’ll find his reports interesting and valuable. The first two are at http://www.reason.com/news/show/116681.html and http://www.reason.com/news/show/116724.html
Visit our partner Wiley.com to save 15% on How
to Make Money Growing Trees and their entire selection of Forestry and Agricultural titles. Your discount will be applied automatically
upon checkout. If you do you not see the discount being applied, please enter
code aff15 in the Promotion Code field and click the Apply Discount button.
|
