13.7 Billion Years: 2/1/11

Monday, February 28, 2011

Africa Month: Killing African Elephants for Asian Ivory Market

The demand for ivory. The slaughter of elephants. The purchase of arms. It's a cycle of barbarism and death that begins with the illogical, irresponsible and immoral Asian consumer

[Editor's note: February is "Africa Month" on 13.7 Billion Years, focusing on biodiversity, conservation, sustainable development and ethical consumption.]

"In the last year, approximately 250 elephants were killed in Chad," according to a press release issued last week by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW). "It is thought that most of the poachers were from Sudan. The ivory sales are used to finance arms purchases and other illicit enterprises but large quantities of ivory are also illegally shipped to Asia to satisfy the growing demand for that product."

"The size of the haul indicates that a well-organised team of poachers was involved likely divided into teams of shooters and carriers," said IFAW elephant poaching Céline Sissler-Bienvenu.

"They may have used horses, camels or cars to transport the ivory out of Chad. But it is difficult to know for certain. In the past, ivory poaching was committed by non-Chadians and has fueled conflict in Darfur in the Sudan and the Central African Republic. Chadians have also disguised themselves in foreign clothing to throw suspicion onto others."

Elephant poaching is immoral and irresponsible, but the Asian demand for ivory is both those things -- and also illogical. And while African park rangers struggle mightily against well-armed poachers, it is the ivory consumer in Asia who starts this chain of events that ultimately leads to elephants being brutally slaughtered and humans acting like barbarians.

According to IFAW, there were only 2,500 elephants remaining in Chad as of last year, down from 4,000 individuals counted in 2006. The rate of killing is simply shocking -- an almost 40% drop in just four years.

"Elephants are in crisis," said Sissler-Bienvenu. "The ivory trade continues to flourish and seizures of illegal ivory are scratching the surface of this multi-million euro business."

Demonstrating a remarkably wide range of complex behaviors that indicate compassion, grief, learning, memory, mothering, play, tool use, self-awareness and language, there is no doubt that elephants are one of the smartest animals, a fact that is certainly connected to its large brain size. When in comes to native intelligence, elephants are ranked next to primates and cetaceans.

So it's not a surprise that one of Buddhism's "Seven Jewels of Royal Power" is the "Precious Elephant," which symbolizes the calm and noble strength of one who is on the path towards enlightenment.

There are few precious elephants left. And unfortunately for them, there are frighteningly too many Asian consumers who are not on the same enlightened path.

GET INVOLVED

Sign an Avaaz.org petition urging the 175 parties of the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species to reject any exemptions in the global ban on the ivory trade, to extend that ban for at least 20 years, and to take all necessary steps to enforce that ban and protect the elephants
Adopt an elephant from the World Wildlife Fund for $25
Donate to Save the Elephants
Buy Coming of Age with Elephants: A Memoir, by Joyce Pool (Amazon.com)
Subscribe to Elephant Voices
Follow 13.7 Billion Years on Twitter

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Saturday, February 26, 2011

SPECIAL ACTION ALERT: Canada's Seal Hunt Has Begun

Canada's barbaric seal hunt has begun. It is the largest annual slaughter of marine mammals in the world

[Editor's note: This is a 13.7 special action alert. "Africa Month," focusing on biodiversity, conservation, sustainable development and ethical consumption, will continue on Monday.]

URGENT ACTION ALERT

Please sign and distribute this urgent international petition calling on Prime Minister Stephan Harper to end this cruel and inhumane practice that does very little for the economy of Canada and puts a black mark on the nation's image in the global community. Below please find other active anti-seal hunt petitions and Canadian boycott pledges.

Last year, the EU voted to ban products made from Canada's seal slaughter and the United States Senate passed a resolution introduced by Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) urging the Government of Canada to end the commercial seal hunt. Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Austria, Croatia, Slovenia, Germany, Switzerland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Mexico and Panama have either banned seal products or have made moves to do so.

Even the majority of Canadians are expressing their distaste for the hunt. A recent poll found that 72% of Canadians support regulations banning the hunting of seal pups and 81% would not be upset if the commercial seal hunt were to end altogether. The hunt represents a very small portion of the nation's $1.3 trillion GDP. It is a leftover from a dark past, and must be stopped. But Canadian lawmakers insist on keeping this horrible legacy.

There is however one Canadian senator who is taking a stand: Mac Harb. "Canada’s commercial seal hunt is a dying industry based primarily on demand for fur for luxury items," writes Senator Harb on his Web site. "But markets for seal fur are disappearing and sealers’ earnings have plummeted." Each sealer earns about $1,000 minus expenses for participating in the hunt. Harb has introduced a bill to end the hunt.

Tell Canada to end the barbaric seal hunt now.

PLEASE SIGN HERE: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/818/254/058/

According to Brittanica Advocacy for Animals: "This week marks the beginning of the annual Canadian harp seal hunt, by far the largest marine mammal hunt in the world and the only commercial hunt in which the target is the infant of the species. For six to eight weeks each spring, the ice floes of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the eastern coast of Newfoundland and Labrador turn bloody, as some 300,000 harp seal pups, virtually all between 2 and 12 weeks old, are beaten to death, their skulls crushed with a heavy club called a hakapika or shot. They are then skinned on the ice or in nearby hunting vessels after being dragged to the ships with boat hooks. The skinned carcasses are usually left on the ice or tossed in the ocean."

ACTIVE ANTI-SEAL HUNT PETITIONS

Sign an IFAW petition supporting the Harb Bill to end Canada's seal hunt
Tell Canada what you would be willing to do if they ended their seal hunt
Sign the PETA petition to boycott Canadian maple syrup as long as the seal hunt continues
Sign the Humane Society boycott of Canadian seafood

image: Britannica Advocacy for Animals

Friday, February 25, 2011

Africa Month: Building a Plastic Bottle Boat in Kenya

Tourists regularly leave plastic water bottles on Kenya's beaches. One man decided to do something about it -- in the form of a boat

[Editor's note: February is "Africa Month" on 13.7 Billion Years, focusing on biodiversity, conservation, sustainable development and ethical consumption.]

Known as Kenya's oldest living town, Lamu is the largest town on Lamu Island, part of the Lamu Archipelago. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, Lamu is one of the original Swahili settlements on the East African coast.

It is also the site of lots of plastic trash, thanks to irresponsible tourists. But one man decided to turn all that waste into something quite useful for this port town -- a boat.

According to AfriGadget.com, a website devoted to African ingenuity, this young man wakes up early in the morning and goes to the beach to collect plastic bottles that are either left by tourists or washed ashore from the sea. Using boiled tar, he seals the gaps with used slippers also collected from the beach.

"Most marine debris found in the oceans is plastic, according to the Sea Turtle Restoration Project (STRP).

"This pollution harms and kills an estimated 100,000 sea turtles and marine mammals, and 1,000,000 sea creatures each year. Many marine animals, not just sea turtles, mistake plastic bags for food, ingest them, and are unable to digest them. As a result animals can suffer intestinal blockage, nutrient dilution, and may starve to death."

The plastic bottle boat of Lamu is not yet complete. And while this is a wonderful example of plastic waste recycling, hopefully Kenya's tourists will wise up and stop leaving more material for this young man's ingenious and commendable project.

GET INVOLVED

Find out how you can reduce your plastic waste
Support AfricaAid's efforts to build high-impact, low-cost programs through innovative ideas and creative relationships with American universities
Follow 13.7 Billion Years on Twitter

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Thursday, February 24, 2011

Africa Month: Powered by South African Sunshine

South Africa is planning the world's largest solar station

[Editor's note: February is "Africa Month" on 13.7 Billion Years, focusing on biodiversity, conservation, sustainable development and ethical consumption.]

"The sun never sets that there has not been fresh news," according to a Zulu proverb. And for South Africa, there is good news on the horizon, or perhaps high in the sky, around noontime.

Plans to build a 5GW solar power station, which would be the world's largest, have been confirmed by South Africa's energy minister Dipuo Peters, reports Forum for the Future. The proposed $10-15 billion facility will be built in the Northern Cape, one of the sunniest locations on Earth.

"The abundance of sunlight in the province would in future not only benefit farmers, holiday resorts and ice cold liquor merchants, but will also contribute significantly in relieving the stress on the national electricity grid," writes Earl Coetzee of the South African newpaper The New Age. The plant could supply South Africa with up to 10% of it electricity needs.

The master plan will be drawn up by the American engineering company Fluor Corporation (FLR) in collaboration with the Clinton Climate Initiative and the United States Department of Energy.

"The Solar Park which will be based in Upington, will to a large extent change the economic landscape of the province from over-reliance on agriculture and mining, to other sectors such as manufacturing and the supply of solar related parts and components," said Northern Cape Province Premier Hazel Jenkins during Friday’s state of the province address.

Soon, that Zulu proverb might as well say, "The sun never sets that there has not been fresh solar power."

GET INVOLVED

Support the WCN Solar Project in their effort to provide solar electricity to conservationists in the field
Support AfricaAid's efforts to build high-impact, low-cost programs through innovative ideas and creative relationships with American universities
View the World Sunlight Map to see where the Sun in shining on the Earth right now
Find out how to use solar power at home
Follow 13.7 Billion Years on Twitter

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Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Africa Month: Climate Change Education in Uganda

Uganda is one of the most affected African nations by climate change. It is taking this message to the schools

[Editor's note: February is "Africa Month" on 13.7 Billion Years, focusing on biodiversity, conservation, sustainable development and ethical consumption.]

Uganda's Ministry of Water and Environment "says climate change has led to adverse effects in Uganda which include; declining water resources, reduced agricultural productivity, spread of vector-borne diseases to new areas, drop in fish population and increased flooding and heavier rainfall," according to Degsew Amanu of AfricaNews.com.

Amanu adds that "a recent International Climate Risk Report also labels Uganda as one of the most unprepared and most vulnerable countries in the world as a country that agriculture takes 80 percent of the total GDP."

In order to increase public awareness of this critical issue, the ministry is taking this urgent message to the schools, where climate change education will be included in the curriculum "in an effort to ensure that students are mindful about their environment when they are faced with situations which may push them to compromise its conservation," according to Stephen Otage of the Daily Monitor.

"We are going to...generate as much information as possible on climate change so that when a child grows from nursery the university, they know what is good for the environment and what is not," said Grace Baguma, the director of Uganda's National Curriculum Development Center.

According to a Swahili proverb, "There are three things which if one does not know, one cannot live long in the world: what is too much for one, what is too little for one, and what is just right for one."

As the NCDC conducts their curriculum review, hopefully they will find what is "just right" when it comes to educating children about climate change.

GET INVOLVED

Support AfricaAid's efforts to build high-impact, low-cost programs through innovative ideas and creative relationships with American universities
Monitor the growing devastation with Peter Russell's World Clock
Analyze and reduce your impact on the environment with the National Grid Floe
Add your voice to the WE Campaign to affect bold action on climate change
Follow 13.7 Billion Years on Twitter

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Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Africa Month: The Price of Rhino Horn, the Root of Evil

With rhino horn reaching the same price as cocaine, who can argue that money isn't root of evil?

[Editor's note: February is "Africa Month" on 13.7 Billion Years, focusing on biodiversity, conservation, sustainable development and ethical consumption.]

Fetching £31,000 a kilo, rhino horn is now the same price as cocaine, according to the Daily Mirror.

"Reports of horns sawn off come in almost daily," said Mark Jones of Care for the Wild International. "Poachers and rangers are in shoot-outs, with deaths on both sides. It’s a war."

"While illegal rhino poaching is occurring from India to Kenya, South Africa has been especially hard hit," says Jeremy Hance of Mongabay.

"Last year, a record 333 rhinos were killed in South Africa alone," Hance writes. "Ten of the rhinos were black rhinos (Diceros bicornis), which are listed as Critically Endangered by the IUCN Red List. Today around 4,000 survive."

A century ago, several hundred thousand black rhinos roamed Africa.

Though not scientifically proven to have any medicinal value, the pulverized horn powder is prized in Chinese traditional medicine. The inhumane slaughter of these endangered animals, fueled by the Chinese market, is a clear example of an all-too-true sentiment expressed in First Epistle to Timothy in the New Testament (1 Timothy 6:10): "The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil."

GET INVOLVED

Support Save the Rhino's Operation Javan Rhino
Adopt a rhino from Care for the Wild
Watch a trailer's for the film Milking the Rhino, "the first major documentary to explore wildlife conservation from the perspective of people who live with wild animals"
Follow 13.7 Billion Years on Twitter

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Also on 13.7 Billion Years: "Reports from 2050," a series of imagined reports from the year 2050, supported by current news, recent discoveries and scientific predictions.

image: Care2

Monday, February 21, 2011

Africa Month: Killing (and Mutilating) the King of Jungle

It is hard to see, but it must be seen. And it must be stopped. This lion was killed by a poison trap, then stripped of its skin, teeth and claws

[Editor's note: February is "Africa Month" on 13.7 Billion Years, focusing on biodiversity, conservation, sustainable development and ethical consumption. The following is reprinted from Wildlife Extra News.]

Wildlife Extra News: Two lions have been found dead and their bodies mutilated after being deliberately poisoned in Tanzania. First, a female lion was targeted after it had killed a cow, and once the lion was dead, its skin, teeth and claws were removed -- all items that would fetch a lot of money on the black market.

Then another cow from the same farmer's herd was killed -- this time by four lions -- a large male and three young females. This time the remains of the cow were skinned and several slabs of meat were removed, sprinkled with poison and then places on strategic paths and trails. The remainder of the carcass was also poisoned and left for scavengers. The poison used is one of the world's most toxic pesticides, carbofuran -- marketed under the name Furadan.

 Although it had been originally reported that all four lions were killed by the poisoned meat, investigations by conservation action group Lion Guardians found that only the male lion returned to the carcass. He ate the meat and died shortly afterwards. Once again, the skin, teeth and claws were removed from his body, after which the culprits sprinkled more Furadan over the remains.

Thankfully, the Lion Guardians team found the three females resting under a tree, looking healthy.

It is thought the lions had, in fact, crossed the border to Tanzania from their more regular home in Amboseli in Kenya.

Now the Lion Guardian team is calling for a more active monitoring of wildlife over the porous border between Tanzania and Kenya. "The different legal and enforcement regimes from both countries need to be harmonised to more effectively capture and prosecute these killers," said a Lion Guardians spokesperson.

"The lack of enforcement by the Tanzanian wildlife authorities with regards to the illegal hunting and killing of different wildlife species leaves a lot to be desired. Already, rumours have been circulating that any Kenyan entering Tanzania to follow up on any incidents will be arrested or beaten-up by the local community.

"The so-called 'East African Community Spirit' is coming under severe testing. As the Lion Guardians have been so effective at mitigating conflict and stopping lion killing in Kenya, we would like to recruit some Lion Guardians on the Tanzanian side of the Amboseli border in an attempt to prevent any further carnivore poisonings."

Living with Lions initiated the Lion Guardians project in 2006 in collaboration with the local communities of Mbirikani group ranch and the Maasailand Preservation Trust. Retaliatory and traditional spearing by Maasai warriors (morans) is the greatest threat to the survival of lions in Kenyan Maasailand today. The Lion Guardians project attempts to reduce the pressure on lions by employing their former greatest enemy, the Maasai warrior, to conserve them rather than kill them.

GET INVOLVED

Sign a petition urging Tanzania to increase wildlife protection by the Amboseli border
Support Lion Guardians
Adopt a lion from the World Animal Foundation
Follow 13.7 Billion Years on Twitter

13.7 BILLION YEARS 2011 CALENDAR

Also on 13.7 Billion Years: "Reports from 2050," a series of imagined reports from the year 2050, supported by current news, recent discoveries and scientific predictions.

image: Wildlife Direct

Friday, February 18, 2011

Africa Month: Secret Land Grab

Secretive, one-sided land deals displace Africans and threaten the environment

[Editor's note: February is "Africa Month" on 13.7 Billion Years, focusing on biodiversity, conservation, sustainable development and ethical consumption.]

In order to fuel their recent explosive growth, China has looked to Africa for minerals and energy. Now, a crippling drought has affected 12.75 million acres of China's 35 million acres of wheat fields, according to a February 8 United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization special alert, leading Dr. Randolph Kent of the Humanitarian Futures Programme to ask "whether falling agricultural output in China will have a knock-on effect in Africa."

But, says former senior official at the African Development Bank Sanou Mbaye in The Guardian, "Africa will not put up with a colonialist China." Yet he also wonders, "Might Chinese manufacturers then look to Africa as a base for production, using the facilities they have built and the hordes of workers they have been steadily exporting there?"

These are good questions. But it's not just China that is looking at the vast expanses of land in Africa that remains undeveloped or underdeveloped, because as Abou Sow, the executive director of Mali's Office du Niger, notes, "Even if you gave the population there the land, they do not have the means to develop it, nor does the state. His public agency is responsible for three million acres along the Niger River.

Abou "listed countries whose governments or private sectors have already made investments or expressed interest," according to Neil MacFarquhar in the New York Times. "China and South Africa in sugar cane; Libya and Saudi Arabia in rice; and Canada, Belgium, France, South Korea, India, the Netherlands and multinational organizations like the West African Development Bank."

But something is very amiss, and on a very large scale, according to a new report by Lorenzo Cotula, Senior Researcher in Law and Sustainable Development at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), "Land deals in Africa: What is in the contracts?"

An IIED press release contends that "rushed, secretive and one-sided deals...fail to deliver real benefits or create new social and environmental problems."

"In many of the contracts reviewed, local people appear to have been marginalised in decision-making -- it is the government that usually calls the shots in contracting and land allocation procedures," writes Cotula. "So even in the better negotiated contracts, the gap between legality (whereby the government may formally own the land and freely allocate it to investors) and legitimacy (whereby local people feel the land they have used for generations is theirs) exposes local groups to the risk of dispossession and investors to that of contestation."

"People have been pushed off land in countries like Ethiopia, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia and Zambia," said MacFarquhar. "It is not even uncommon for investors to arrive on land that was supposedly empty."

The IIED study found Liberian contracts with extended terms up to 50 years. A 50-year Mali contract was found to be renewable for another term for a total of 100 years. Contracts with Sudan and Senegal were renewable for a total of 99 years.

"Such long durations mean that, where local people lose their land, they will be separated from it for several generations," Cotula writes.

In his 2002 book Longitudes and Attitudes: Exploring the World After September 11, New York Times columnist Tom Friedman wrote, "There is a message in this bottle for America: For too many years we've treated the Arab world as just a big dumb gas station, and as long as the top leader kept the oil flowing, or was nice to Israel, we didn't really care what was happening to the women and children out back -- where bad governance, rising unemployment, and a soaring birthrate were killing the Arab future."

China and other countries signing unfair deals with Africa should take a moment to read the message in the bottle.

GET INVOLVED

Support AfricaAid's efforts to build high-impact, low-cost programs through innovative ideas and creative relationships with American universities
Join Jeremy Irons and sign the 1billionhungry.org petition to end world hunger
Follow 13.7 Billion Years on Twitter

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Thursday, February 17, 2011

Africa Month: War of the Roses

When is a rose not a rose? When cultivating it is bad for farm workers and the environment

[Editor's note: February is "Africa Month" on 13.7 Billion Years, focusing on biodiversity, conservation, sustainable development and ethical consumption.]

Valentine's Day always causes a surge in the sale of roses. But while many may swoon at the sight of this classic offering of love and devotion, for scientists like ecology and conservation biologist Dr. David Harper of the University of Leicester, it is cause for great concern.

For over three decades, Harper has studied wetland conservation at Kenya's Lake Naivasha, a freshwater lake northwest of Nairobi that is part of the Great Rift Valley. Its name comes from the local Maasai word Nai'posha, which means "rough water," referring to the sudden storms that crop up across its 53-square-mile (139-square-kilometer) expanse.

But rough or not, there may not be much water left if the international flower industry continues along its path of unsustainability -- and consumers continue to make unethical purchases. Harper said that floriculture, the main industry around Naivasha, is putting Kenya's ecology in danger by draining the lake's critical water supply through unregulated irrigation. Water is Kenya's scarcest natural resource. And it's not just humans who need a healthy Naivasha -- a wide variety of wildlife, including hippos and over 400 species of birds, call it home.

Harper has urged UK supermarkets to demonstrate more corporate social responsibility and consider the source of the flowers they sell. More than two-thirds of roses sold in European supermarkets come from Kenya. The origin of many of these roses is purposely made unclear by distributors who sell them at auction in Amsterdam to give the impression that they were cultivated in Holland, when in fact they come from unsustainable and unregulated flower farms elsewhere, some of which have records of labor rights abuses. However, there are some Kenyan farmers who have taken it upon themselves to make a positive difference.

"A notable few of the farmers sending roses to Europe are showing concern and an eagerness to pioneer a sustainable way forward: The best flower farms have achieved Fair Trade status, which brings money back into the workforce for social welfare improvements. Two farms have even seconded senior managers to help Kenya's water management agency at Naivasha," said Harper, according to Climate Action, a non-profit partner of the United Nations Environment Programme.

And some retailers are also changing their ways for the better, thanks to public action in the form of petitions. According to statement released last week by Change.org: "Within 72 hours of Change.org's promotion of a campaign asking 1-800-Flowers to offer Fair Trade certified arrangements, the company agreed to offer a Fair Trade collection by Mother's Day, publish information on flower sourcing, and create a code of conduct for suppliers that prohibits forced and child labor. These steps make the world's largest florist also one of the most proactive and responsive companies in the industry -- a major victory for advocates and workers."

For the environment and workers in Kenya and elsewhere, a better future is only possible when all actors -- producers, distributors, retailers, lawmakers and consumers -- make ethical decisions. As Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote in his famous 1943 novella The Little Prince, "You are responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose."

GET INVOLVED

Sign the Fair Flowers for Human Rights petition
Sign the petition to adopt Article 31 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights giving all people the right to clean and accessible water
Tell your government to support the Human Right to Water and Sanitation
Send a Blue Planet Project letter to your United Nations representative urging them to support the Human Right to Water and Sanitation
Support AfricaAid's efforts to build high-impact, low-cost programs through innovative ideas and creative relationships with American universities
Follow 13.7 Billion Years on Twitter

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Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Africa Month: Vanishing Lake Chad

Climate change and poor water management are working together to destroy a critical African lake

[Editor's note: February is "Africa Month" on 13.7 Billion Years, focusing on biodiversity, conservation, sustainable development and ethical consumption.]

Lake Chad, which sits at the edge of the Sahara Desert, surrounded by Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Nigeria, has been shrinking at an astonishing rate due to climate change and poor damming and irrigation methods.

Around 4,000 BC, it was bigger than Germany or Japan are today, spanning an area of about 154,000 square miles (400,000 square kilometers). Now, it is just around 840 square miles (1,350 square kilometers). That's not even twice as big as Los Angeles. United Nations estimates show that the lake has shrunk 95% since the early 1960s. Lake Chad -- which gets its name from a local word meaning "great expanse of water" -- has been misnomer for a long time.

If nothing is done, scientists warn, the lake could be gone in 20 years. That would spell doom for the more than twenty million people who rely on the shallow, ancient lake for their survival.

"Agricultural engineers have been working for two decades to boost Lake Chad region’s productivity by building irrigation schemes," writes Shantha Bloemen of UNICEF.

"So far, they have increased the area under irrigation to 140,000 hectares, including 30,000 from an electric pump scheme that was started in 2005. But water levels are too low for these schemes to operate as they should. Instead of growing, the region’s agricultural productivity has fallen, compounded by years of scant rains. An estimated 35,000 tonnes of annual food production has been lost."

"It's a severe and silent problem," said UNICEF Chad nutrition chief Roger Sodjinou, according to Emily Miller in South Africa's Mail & Guardian. "Our latest figures show that 225 000 children are dying every year from malnutrition in Africa's Sahel belt."

But it's not just humans who rely on the health of Lake Chad. It is home to declining populations of hippopotamus and crocodile, as well as and large populations of birds such as Ruff (Philomachus pugnax), River Prinia (Prinia fluviatilis), the Rusty Lark (Mirafra rufa) and the Black Crowned Crane (Balearica pavonina pavonina).

"In Bol, a town that once was on the shores of the lake, environment chief Faradj Dembell begged nations like South Africa to curb pollution from transport and industry that is contributing to Chad's emergency," Miller writes.

"He said, 'I am pleading with the rest of the world to help stop climate change so we can survive.'"

GET INVOLVED

Support UNICEF
Sign the petition to adopt Article 31 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights giving all people the right to clean and accessible water
Tell your government to support the Human Right to Water and Sanitation
Send a Blue Planet Project letter to your United Nations representative urging them to support the Human Right to Water and Sanitation
Support AfricaAid's efforts to build high-impact, low-cost programs through innovative ideas and creative relationships with American universities
Analyze and reduce your impact on the environment with the National Grid Floe
Sign a Sierra Club petition to protect wildlife habitat from the effects of climate change
Follow 13.7 Billion Years on Twitter

13.7 BILLION YEARS 2011 CALENDAR

Also on 13.7 Billion Years: "Reports from 2050," a series of imagined reports from the year 2050, supported by current news, recent discoveries and scientific predictions.

image: A composite of images showing the diminishing Lake Chad from 1973 to 2001. The large image is a composite of photos taken with en:Landsat-7. (credit: NASA GSFC Scientific Visualization Studio and Landsat 7 Project Science Office, Wikimedia Commons)

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Africa Month: Solar Lighting

Tapping the power of the sun to keep lights on and cellphones charged in Sub-Saharan Africa

[Editor's note: February is "Africa Month" on 13.7 Billion Years, focusing on biodiversity, conservation, sustainable development and ethical consumption in Africa.]

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA) report "World Energy Outlook 2010," 1.4 billion people do not have electricity. By 2030, based on current trends, that number will be still be very high -- 1.2 billion. That means that if nothing more is done, only 10 million more people per year on average will get electricity over the next 20 years.

That rate is much too slow -- Starbuck's serves 10 million people in just two days. Sure, giving someone electricity is a lot more complicated than giving them a cup of coffee. But that might change on in Sub-Saharan Africa if Lighting Africa has anything to say about it.

A joint program of the World Bank and its private sector lending arm International Finance Corporation (IFC), Lighting Africa "seeks to accelerate the development of markets for modern off-grid lighting products in Sub-Saharan Africa where billions of dollars are spent annually on hazardous and low quality fuel-based lighting," according to their recent report, "Solar Lighting for the Base of the Pyramid - Overview of an Emerging Market."

The program focuses on the benefits of solar portable lights (SPLs), which are safe, inexpensive and much better for the environment than the carbon-emitting kerosene- and other biofuel-based lighting currently used by more than a billion people across the continent.

According to Christine Mungai of the East African, the "growth in mobile phone usage heightens the need for innovators to come up with portable solar products to fill the energy gap, driven by a basic requisite in mobile communications -- the need to charge a cellphone." As of 2009, just 35% of the African population was connected to an electric grid.

"The goal is to mobilize and provide support to the private sector in supplying high-quality, affordable, and safe lighting to 2.5 million people by facilitating the sale of 500,000 off-grid lighting units by 2012 while creating a sustainable commercial platform to realize the vision of providing 250 million people with modern off-grid lighting products by 2030," the report states.

"Promoting the use of improved low cost off-grid lighting technology will provide an avenue for social, health, and economic development, especially for households and small businesses, which will realize significant cost savings and increases in productivity from the transition."

The Lighting Africa project recognizes the basic truth of an old African proverb: "The sun does not forget a village just because it is small."

GET INVOLVED

Support the WCN Solar Project in their effort to provide solar electricity to conservationists in the field
View the World Sunlight Map to see where the Sun in shining on the Earth right now
Find out how to use solar power at home
Support the WCN Solar Project in their effort to provide solar electricity to conservationists in the field
Follow 13.7 Billion Years on Twitter

13.7 BILLION YEARS 2011 CALENDAR

Also on 13.7 Billion Years: "Reports from 2050," a series of imagined reports from the year 2050, supported by current news, recent discoveries and scientific predictions.

image: Lighting Africa

Monday, February 28, 2011

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Thursday, February 24, 2011

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