Hello World,

Nature is working for you. If you don’t know how, consider your faucet. You bought the plumbing, and in your monthly bill you pay for the filtration plant and pipes that deliver the water, metered, to your house. But that water likely began its journey to your home probably hundreds of miles away, percolating through a forested watershed that captured the rainfall, combed it of impurities, oxygenated it in streams, delivered it to a river, and ultimately, to a municipal drinking-water reservoir. Nature provided the water composing the ice cubes rattling in your lemonade, for free. You can’t easily buy a substitute for the rainfall, the watershed, or the stream flows. It makes you wonder how much they are worth.

In similar fashion, the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the climate we depend on are all supplied in large measure by services that nature performs for free and we take it granted. There’s no doubt about the magnitude of human impact on the planet and nature – the degree of disruption human species have caused by altering the biological function of nearly every corner of the Earth and changing the chemistry of its atmosphere, oceans, and soils. Almost nothing remains “wild” or untouched by humans, and what does remain exists by our sufferance and will endure only with our conscious commitment. None of this, it seems is really a matter of much debate; it’s just how the world is now.

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The reality is that modern humanity and human civilization are the fruit of a very tightly interconnected set of climate and biological conditions. In order to thrive, we need a certain kind of world – essentially the mild, moderately wet, biologically abundant world as is the natural world. We don’t know of another set of conditions – human designed or otherwise – that would allow us to thrive on this planet.

Human Impact

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The magnitude of our ignorance about even the most fundamental aspects of the planetary systems on which we depend staggers the informed mind. We are just coming to understand the climate system. We have discovered only a fraction of the planet’s species. We are almost still in the age of alchemy when it comes to understanding the interplay of influences that make up an ecosystem. We are simply not up to the task of running the biosphere like a machine, because we don’t have a copy of the operating manual (and we are probably still illiterate). And this may be true for generations to come.

Mapping Human Influence on Planet Earth

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That does not stop us from having to make all sorts of choices about how the planet functions. We are effectively, choosing to screw up the climate system in many ways; some of the outcomes of this are predictable and unpleasant, while others are unpredictable and potentially disastrous. Wild nature now exists almost exclusively where we protect it and garden it such as national parks and reserves. A great many species will survive only if we make saving them a priority. What the planet looks like is now largely a matter of our choices.

Earth pollution:

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Restoring the Earth Community

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Preserving those ecosystems, and the species within them, is the best thing we can do. Humble and attentive restoration is the next best. Everything else is a distant, almost wishful, possibility.

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Hello World,

It’s a shame that Canada is the first country to pull out of Kyoto Protocol. Let me tell you what exactly is Kyoto Protocol.

Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement to reduce greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions so that climate change can be decelerated. Recognizing that developed countries are principally responsible for the current high levels of GHG emissions in the atmosphere as a result of more than 150 years of industrial activity, the protocol sets binding targets for 37 industrialized countries and the European community to reduce their GHG emissions. The protocol was adopted in Kyoto, Japan, on 11 December 1997 and entered into force on 16 February 2005.

The details of the Kyoto Protocol can be read at the following link.

Kyoto Protocal

Watch this video: the Kyoto Protocol

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Global Warming

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The Kyoto mechanisms

Under the Treaty, countries must meet their targets primarily through national measures. However, the Kyoto Protocol offers them an additional means of meeting their targets by way of three market-based mechanisms. 

The Kyoto mechanisms help stimulate green investment and help Parties meet their emission targets in a cost-effective way.

The Kyoto mechanisms are:

• Emissions trading – as set out in Article 17 of the Kyoto Protocol, allows countries that have emission units to spare – emissions permitted them but not “used” – to sell this excess capacity to countries that are over their targets. Thus, a new commodity was created in the form of emission reductions or removals. Since carbon dioxide is the principal greenhouse gas, people speak simply of trading in carbon. Carbon is now tracked and traded like any other commodity. This is known as the “carbon market.” 

Watch this video: Carbon Trading

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• Clean development mechanism (CDM) – defined in Article 12 of the Protocol, allows a country with an emission-reduction or emission-limitation commitment under the Kyoto Protocol (Annex B Party) to implement an emission-reduction project in developing countries. Such projects can earn saleable certified emission reduction (CER) credits, each equivalent to one tonne of CO2, which can be counted towards meeting Kyoto targets. A CDM project activity might involve, for example, a rural electrification project using solar panels or the installation of more energy-efficient boilers.

Watch this video: Clean Development Mechanism

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• Join implementation (JI) – defined in Article 6 of the Kyoto Protocol, allows a country with an emission reduction or limitation commitment under the Kyoto Protocol (Annex B Party) to earn emission reduction units (ERUs) from an emission-reduction or emission removal project in another Annex B Party, each equivalent to one tonne of CO2, which can be counted towards meeting its Kyoto target.

             Joint implementation offers Parties a flexible and cost-efficient means of fulfilling a part of their    Kyoto commitments, while the host Party benefits from foreign investment and technology transfer.

How to reduce your carbon footprint

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Reduce your carbon footprint – Save this beautiful planet!

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Hello World,

Today I would like to discuss demanding transparency in the governing systems and processes which control our world.

Corruption is a global problem. It’s not just a problem in developing world but also in developed world. Those of us in the Global North face electoral systems that essentially allow open bribery, in one form or another. Those of us in the Global South often face systems that skip over the elections altogether and go straight to the bribes…haha…what a joke with society and citizens?

And corruption tends to reinforce itself across borders, as dirty deals know no boundaries. From oil to diamonds, the commodities that make life rich in the North support corruption and oppression in the South. The corrupt have their own global network.  Corruption breeds in dark corners. It also makes good government – the intelligent policy making that underpins most solutions – virtually impossible. Schools and hospitals suffer when the bureaucrats overseeing them are skimming money.

Businesses trying to make money without polluting suffer when compromised regulators let their competitors get away with breaking environmental laws. Elected officials who owe their offices to the campaign contributions of powerful interests find voting on the merit of laws a threat to their jobs. If we want governments that work, we need to demand transparency.

What is transparency?

Openness, in all things. Transparent societies demand that their leaders conduct public business in public – they demand to see the books, to inspect the records, and to be kept abreast of potential conflicts of interest. They demand that those in power be accountable to independent legal authorities when they break the rules.

Transparency is the battle cry of twenty first century politics.

Hello World,

Both tropical rain forests and boreal forests are being destroyed at an alarming rate by humans for economic reasons. By the time you will finish reading this article here, an area of Brazil’s rain forest larger than 200 football fields will have been destroyed. Surprised? Don’t be surprised, humans have developed machines to rip this planet off in a matter of minutes and hours. Let’s not talk about nuclear weapons or wars but just simple natural rain forests.

Industrial scale soybean producers in Amazon watershed are joining loggers and cattle ranchers in the land grab. Roads are cut through the forest to make valuable hardwood trees more accessible and transportable. In the Amazon, there are more than 105,000 miles of these roads, almost all made illegally, which then are used by squatters, farmers, and ranchers who clear the land by burning off the underbrush and trees that remain.

Picture: Stop Deforestation

Let’s discuss the role of Amazon rainforest. The benefits the Amazon provides are of incalculable worth including but not limited to:

• water cycling (the forest produces not only half its own rainfall, but also much of the rain south of the Amazon and east of the Andes),
• carbon sequestering (by holding and absorbing carbon dioxide, the forest mitigates global warming and cleanses the atmosphere), and
• maintenance of an unmatched panoply of life

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20% or more of the Amazon rain forest has been cut down so far. When another 20%  is destroyed, it will change forest ecology and earth’s environment significantly. This would reduce the amount of rainfall that the forest produces through the moisture the trees release into the atmosphere. To this, add global warming: remaining trees then dry out, leading to droughts and susceptibility to fire.

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Amazon forest fires burned unchecked for months during the record drought of 2005 -2006, followed in 2007 by the worst rain forest fire in human history. Smoke releases tons of carbon dioxide and other pollutants in the atmosphere, directly raising the global temperature, and further contributing to the global warming by the production of more greenhouse gases.

Deforestation in Amazon

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To give you a glimpse of role of a single tree in Amazon allow me to provide you some details. A single tree in Amazon rain forest lifts hundreds of liters of water everyday. The rain forest behaves like a green ocean, transpiring water that rains upward, as though gravity were reversed. These transpired mists then flow across the continent in great rivers of vapor. The water condenses, falls as rains, and is pulled back up again through the trees.

Similar to Amazon rain forests, the North American continent has its own vast, endangered boreal forests of conifers. Canada’s boreal forest is an emerald halo of woodlands, wetlands, and rivers that mantles the North America. This is the greatest wilderness on the continent, a 1.3 billion-acre forest stretching from Newfoundland all the way to the Yukon.

Boreal forests of Canada

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The Canadian boreal forests hold a quarter of the world’s forests and most of its unfrozen freshwater, and sequesters 1.3 trillion metric tons of carbon. Wow, is not that interesting to know. More than 300 bird species breed there, and as many as 5 billion individual birds fly south from the boreal each autumn. Now these trees are being clear-cut to make paper, for books, catalogs, paper towels, and toilet paper.

Stop cutting trees and clearing forests which support millions other species including us who depend on them. Think and act responsibly. Who gave you right to clear any forests when you did not plant a tree in your life? Why would you destroy the natural world when you are not helping to stay it healthy or grow it? By clearing the forests, you are destroying the habitat of species who live there and forcing them to extinction. Just think about an animal destroying your home, how would you think and react? Can you feel their pain and suffering? Time to wake up people, what a mess you have created?

Water gives food firm texture

Water is crucial for good food. The water content of e.g. prime grade pork is 60 grams per 100 grams of food, while an apple contains about 90% water. Without this water, the remaining food components would be quite tasteless. Water is needed to maintain a pressure in the cells that make up the food, and makes the food fresh and firm.

Water also takes part in the reactions with the other ingredients of food. Salts and mineral compounds, and also low molecular organic compounds, are transported in water. The biochemical reactions in the cell occur in the aqueous phase. A few % of the water in the food take part in the stabilizing reactions with nucleic acids, phospholipids and proteins, and enables these to form a molecular structure in two and three dimensions, so that cell membranes, RNA, enzymes and so on can function.

Micro-organisms also need water for their metabolism. It is a common feature of all the methods used to conserve food that the available quantity of water is reduced in the food. Chemical preservatives which inhibit microbial growth are an exception. But salting, preserving, drying, smoking, bottling and deep freezing all decrease the ability of microorganisms to grow by inhibiting water activity.

Watch this video: Virtual Water for Food

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Hello World,

I would like to discuss about wetlands today. I will start with basic understanding of wetlands and the issues related with restoring wetlands (e.g. what is wetlands, how can we store wetlands, why are wetlands so useful, biodiversity and ecosytem function and productive wetlands etc.). I would also like to challenge you to think outside our traditional thinking, when it comes to what can we do or where our researches should focus in future.

Wetlands – bogs, swamps, and marshes – act like sponges. They filter out impurities in the water, absorb silt, regulate the flow of water and add moisture to the atmosphere. Without them, river flow too fast, lakes become overburdened with organic matter, and coastlines are eroded. Wetlands are thus a huge natural filter system which cleans water. Wetlands also act as  sponges or storage space during floods which store extra flood water thus preventing flood damages to nearby towns or neighborhood.

Half of the world’s wetlands were lost in the last century, when they were too often perceived as waste ground that only required draining to provide much-needed extra space for development. A fear of malaria, spread by mosquitoes breeding in still water, provided a further rationale for much wetland clearance. Was that a wise decision? No, you see the consequences of frequent flooding and damages.

The destruction of wetlands can have a devastating impact on the environment, including the extinction of freshwater fish and other wildlife, and the consequent loss of livelihood for local people.

In 1971, the Convention on Wetlands was signed at Ramsar in Iran. A list of 1,388 important international wetlands has been drawn up over the intervening years by the 138 signatory states, with the aim of conserving these vital areas.

Hello World,

Today I would like to discuss “designing a sustainable world”.

“The critical issue – for people, organizations, and governments alike – is knowing where we want to be. The imaginary, an alternative cultural vision, is vital in shaping expectations and driving transformational change. Shared visions act as forces of innovation, and what designers can do- what we all can do – is imagine some situation or condition that does not yet exist but describe it in sufficient detail that it appears to be a desirable new version of the real world.” – John Thackara

For better or for worse, the material stuff that surrounds us shapes our lives. Products have brought what is arguably the zenith of human comfort to those who can afford them. We are knee-deep in useful things such as refrigerators and quality footwear, yet we are also laden with the detritus of the last generation of objects. The periphery of our comfort zone is lined with waste. The fact that all stuff – every ballpoint pen, every pair of flip-flops – was made with intention is almost as astounding as the sheer number of things around the world. Some designer ensured that it would take scarcely any thought to use our coffee percolator. While we were not paying attention, the designer also made sure that it would look embarrassingly out of date as soon as possible.

This habit of design for obsolescence, using centuries-old technologies, has created a huge set of challenges. We could resolve them by collectively renouncing all but the most basic of material comforts.Alternatively, we could accept the status quo. But while one approach seems retrograde, doomed to failure, the other is simply unthinkable. Perhaps our ticket to a better, more sustainable future is to do what human beings to best, given the chance – design our way out of the conundrum.