Save the rainforests, save the planet

OK, it does sound a little cheesy, and yes I kind of copied it from the popular show “HERO”….  

But there’s no joke about the disappearance of rainforests around the world and the significant impact on climate change!  Rainforests have traditionally been some of the best carbon sinks in the world.  Unfortunately, with severe deforestation and occasional unusual draughts, we’re quickly loosing the carbon sink!  This is a great article by Steve Connor focused on the Amazon rainforest, the biggest rainforest in the world.  Some of the most interesting facts are extracted from his article here:

• The Amazon rainforest covers an area of some 600 million hectares (2.3 million sq miles), an area of land 25 times bigger than Britain. 
• Responsible for about 40% of the world’s rainforest absorption of carbon dioxide.
• About 5,800 sq miles of the Amazon rainforest is burnt or cleared each year for cattle ranching, farming, …etc.
• More than half of the world’s estimated 10 million species of plants, animals and insects live in tropical rainforests. One-fifth of the world’s fresh water moves through the Amazon basin.
• Scientists estimate at least 100 billion tons of carbon stored in the trees of the Amazon rainforest 
• Each year the Amazon absorbs about 2 billion tons of CO2 from the atmosphere.
• During the extreme drought of 2005, the Amazon became a net producer of carbon dioxide, releasing an estimated 3 billion tons of the greenhouse gas into the atmosphere – a net increase of 5 billion tons.

Apart from Amazon, there are many other rainforests around the world and many projects to preserve the rainforests.  I came across “Replanting the Rainforest” and thought their campaign to raise $1 Mil by Earth Day 2009 is quite an exciting and ambitious venture!  Although their primary focus is to preserve wildlife, I believe that we should explore all opportunities that will make a difference to climate change whether it’s the primary objective or an “added value” to the project.  They are keen to kick off projects this year on Earth Day to replant three rainforests and need our help.  Please go to their website and have a look at their projects and understand the endangered species in some of the rainforests they work at!  

There is a really powerful and important message from Replanting the Rainforest:  

Replanting the Rainforests is not another “Plant a Tree” campaign.

- Replanting the Rainforests

Honestly I never thought much about the difference. It is quite interesting to note that planting trees in large scale, or “controlled forestry”, a methodology for forestry industries to continue generate revenue without severely harming the land.  I’m OK with that, because it’s not like we’ll stop using wood in many different capacities including fighting climate change through using wood pellet stoves and so on.  But controlled forests can’t increase it’s carbon sink capacity!  

And how do Replanting the Rainforests intend to replant the rainforests?  They developed a Sustainably Managed Permanent Rainforest Habitats.  The focus is to find under-producing agricultural lands, cattle ranches and degraded forests and restore them to more natural conditions. Read more about their projects here and chip in if you can!

Earth Day - do you know the earth day history?

Earth Day is April 20th, but how do we know that it’s Earth’s birthday?!  I have to admit that I don’t know why and how it came about.  Of course the logical spot to start is the Wikipedia, and yes, it has an answer for me most of the time….  including this article on Earth Day.

So this is how it starts and some interesting facts…

• 1969, U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin announced that in spring 1970 there would be a nationwide grassroots demonstration on the environment.  The concern then was about overpopulation.
• April 22, 1970, first ever Earth Day, which marks the beginning of the modern environmental movement.  
• Approximately 20 million Americans participated in the first ever Earth Day, with a goal of a healthy and sustainable environment.
• Many important laws were passed by the Congress in the wake of the 1970 Earth Day, including the Clean Air Act and the creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency.

Pretty impressive start and quite significant impact eh?

Food for thought - reducing rice carbon footprint seminar

I’m still stunned with the carbon footprint relating to rice production.  I had a few discussions with friends and family and I need to find out how to deal with this - because I simply can’t not eat rice….  

Found out that there’ll be a seminar on April 29^th, 2009 on “reducing carbon footprint of rice production” by Korean scholar Won Kyo Jung at the School of Environment & Natural Resources at the Ohio State University.  Here is the poster.  I’d like to know more about it.. will try get in touch with the organizer see if i can conference in.  I can update on what I find out.

Food for thought - carbon footprint of rice

Since I started reading about meats and their carbon footprints, I figured I should check the carbon footprint for some of my favourite food.  I grew up eating rice, so I googled rice carbon footprint.  It was a huge surprirse to me when I found out that rice has a much higher carbon footprint comparing to beef on the same weight basis.  According to this article, rice contributes 24 times more greenhouse gases to the environment than even beef and per pound rice is equivalent of 276  5 to 35? pounds of CO2-equivilant! NOTE: the author of the above mentioned article has had several discussions with readers to verify the actual CO2-equivalent figures based o n various literature sources. In one discussion he realizes that the calculation was off by 100 times, but does not believe that a number approximately 1000x smaller is the “right” number. Follow his discussions here. There has yet to be a conclusion - the number he still believed would to be 5 and 35 lbs of CO2-equivalent per lb rice produced. Something I should really look into as well…..

It might be one thing to stop eating beef, but it’s not really possible for me to stop eating rice!!  

So why does rice have such a high carbon footprint?  It is because methane is produced during flooded rice cultivation by the decomposition of organic matter in the soil.  Details to the carbon footprint of rice cultivation can be found in the agriculture section of the 2009 Draft U.S. Greenhouse Gas Inventory Report.

So what can we do?  Apparently the most significant factor for methane release is related to the amount of water that the rice is grown under!  In some areas where rice fields are not flooded, no methane is created!  Similarly, if the water level is more than 1m (so called deepwater rice fields), methane production is also limited.  In other words, if rice production is from shallow flooding (which is most of the case), then the amount of methane and therefore its carbon footprint is much much more significant.  

As someone growing up eating rice, most of the time I am quite picky about the type of rice (long grain, short grain, and so on) than the type of rice farming!  I will need to do a bit more research to find out the carbon footprint of my favourite type of rice…

Food for thought - cheeseburger carbon footprint

This was reported quite a while ago by Jamais Cascio of Open the Future.  Definitely some food for thought…. the carbon footprint of a cheeseburger is approximately 3.6-6.1 kg of CO2-equivalent per burger, similar to driving with 1L of gasoline.  Depending on the fuel efficiency, that means about 10km of driving….  Isn’t that amazing?!  WOW….  

A friend and I have talked about developing food carbon labels for a while, i guess it is already being developed.  When will we be seeing them on the mainstream market?  I can’t wait =)