Climate Change: U.S. Senate Dems Offer Clean EDGE

Yesterday, Senate Democrats put forth what they call the "Clean EDGE Act of 2006," which they hope will lay the groundwork for energy independence and a domestic clean energy industry. According to reports, the bill will "create good jobs, control gas prices, reduce dependence on foreign oil, and help curb global warming."

The new legislation will create a new Clean Energy Investment Administration, modeled after the Small Business Administration. The new agency will channel billions in federal loan guarantees to renewable energy and related industries.

According to the Apollo Alliance, the major focal points of Clean EDGE Act of 2006, include

Reducing Our Dependence on Foreign Oil: The legislation seeks to reduce our dependence on foreign oil by 40%, cutting U.S. oil use by nearly 6 million barrels a day in 2020.
Transitioning to Clean Home Grown Fuels: The Clean EDGE Act of 2006 aims to increase the number of flex fuel vehicles that can run on both gas and ethanol to half of all new U.S. vehicles sold by 2020. Furthermore, it mandates an increase in the number of gas stations selling alternative fuels.
Supporting Clean Energy and Good Jobs: It also acts as a catalyst for clean energy and good jobs by setting a national “renewable portfolio standard” that requires 10% of all electricity to come from renewable sources by 2020.
Ending Giveaways to Big Oil: The bill pays for itself by ending some subsidies to big oil and restricting certain oil industry incentives including royalty waivers. Furthermore, the legislation would make price gouging a federal crime
Investing in American Jobs and Industry: The Clean EDGE Act will create a clean energy investment administration to help deploy renewable power and related manufacturing technology. It also invests in education programs to develop a skilled domestic workforce, to create good new clean energy jobs.

Critics of the plan, such as Senator Pete V. Domenici of New Mexico, chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, claims "This latest plan is a sprinkling of good ideas, a heavy helping of bad ideas and distractions, and a pathetic absence of any effort to increasing American energy supply," according to a statement quoted in the New York Times.

Read more about it: Reuters and New York Times

Categories: climatechange, energy, oil

Climate Change: Warming set to 'devastate' coral reefs, BBC Reports

A report by BBC News today quotes a study by an international team of researchers who examined reefs in the Seychelles, in the Indian Ocean, where "a warming event in 1998 killed much of the live coral."

The group found the oceanic reef had experienced fish extinctions, algal growth, and only limited recovery.

Details have been published in the US journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The 1998 event saw Indian Ocean surface temperatures rise to unprecedented levels, killing off - or 'bleaching' - more than 90% of the inner Seychelles coral. Coral bleaching has been described as a vivid demonstration of climate change in action.

'[Bleaching events] are becoming more frequent and are predicted to become more severe in coming decades. They are directly linked to increases in sea surface temperatures,' said lead author Nick Graham, of the University of Newcastle, UK.

Read more at: BBC News/Coral Reefs

Categories: climatechange, environment, science

Climate Change: British Firm Quantifies Biofuel Contribution to CO2 Reduction

According to Reuters World Environment News, a British company has quantified for the first time carbon dioxide emission savings made through the sale of biofuels.

Greenergy, which supplies biofuels, claims that more than 40,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions have been saved during the first quarter of 2006.

"The savings, independently assessed by the Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Management, are equivalent to taking more than 50,000 family cars off the road for the three month period," says the firm.

"The use of biofuels, rather than fossil fuels, is intended to reduce carbon dioxide emissions which are believed to contribute to global warming.

The UK "has set a goal that five percent of all motor fuel sold in Britain must come from renewable sources by 2010."

Read more: Planet Ark

Categories: climatechange, energy, biofuels

Climate Change May Spread Diseases to New Areas

The Washington Post reported on Friday that a number of experts have found increased links between the spread of infectious diseases and climate change.

"Global warming -- with an accompanying rise in floods and droughts -- is fueling the spread of epidemics in areas unprepared for the diseases, say many health experts worldwide," according to the Post. "Mosquitoes, ticks, mice and other carriers are surviving warmer winters and expanding their range, bringing health threats with them."

Doug Struck, writing in the Post, cites cases of West Nile virus turning up in Canada, and of malaria reaching mountain populations in Africa and Latin America, as well as northern extensions of range for dengue fever and Lyme disease. "West Nile virus," writes Struck, "never seen on this continent until seven years ago, has infected more than 21,000 people in the United States and Canada and killed more than 800."

According to a 2002 report of the World Health Organisation (WHO), "climate change was estimated to be responsible in 2000 for approximately 2.4% of worldwide diarrhoea, and 6% of malaria in some middle-income countries." But that report also noted that "small changes, against a noisy background of ongoing changes in other causal factors, are hard to identify."

Nevertheless, recent findings by the WHO confirm that "the first detectable changes in human health may well be alterations in the geographic range (latitude and altitude) and seasonality of certain infectious diseases -- including vector-borne infections such as malaria and dengue fever, and food-borne infections (e.g. salmonellosis) which peak in the warmer months."

The WHO recognizes there may be additional "public health consequences of the disturbance of natural and managed food-producing ecosystems, rising sea-levels and population displacement for reasons of physical hazard, land loss, economic disruption and civil strife," although these "may not become evident for up to several decades."

As early as 1992, experts have expressed concern about the possible affects of climate shifts on infectious diseases.

According to Robert E. Shope of the Yale Arbovirus Research Unit, "The infections that will spread with climate change have some commonalities. They are focal, and their distribution is limited by the ecology of their reservoir, be it arthropod, snail, or water. They usually have a two- or three-host life cycle, meaning that in addition to infecting people, they infect a vector and frequently also a wild vertebrate animal host."

In such cases, the vector, host or both can be the reservoir, Shope wrote in a chapter of Global Climate Change: Implications, Challenges and Mitigation Measures, published by The Pennsylvania Academy of Science. He noted fourteen years ago that the agents "will probably survive by moving in a polar direction, north in the Northern Hemisphere, in order to find a temperature range that is ecologically permissive."

Still, not everyone agrees there is a relationship between climate change and mosquito-borne diseases. The "Green Consumer Guide" reported that Professor Paul Reiter of the Pasteur Institute and Harvard University, points out "the complex variables regarding diseases such as malaria, dengue and yellow fever."

"'It is naive to attempt to predict the effects of 'global warming' on malaria on the mere basis of temperature,'" Reiter comments. "'The natural history of all the mosquito borne diseases is extraordinarily complex, and the interplay of climate, weather, ecology and the biology of the vector and its hosts defies simple analysis.

A 1998 conference held by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention examined both sides of the argument. Ultimately, according to an article in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, there is a need for cooperation in researching the question. They called for a focus "on public health intervention measures that are properly implemented and [that] can mitigate the effect of global climate change on infectious disease incidence and geographic spread."

The Post article adds new voices to the fray, including the Canadian families of victims of West Nile and Dr. Paul Epstein, who worked in Africa and is on the faculty at Harvard Medical School. He suggests that scientists are not "worried enough about the problem." Dr. Epstein's report, which was released last November, suggests that temperature changes are an important factor and that it is a mistake to underestimate the links.

Quoted in the Post, Epstein says, "Things we projected to occur in 2080 are happening in 2006. What we didn't get is how fast and how big it is, and the degree to which the biological systems would respond."

The jury may be out on whether there are direct links between climate change and the spread of disease or how lasting these will be. Meanwhile, however, we may all be wise to increase our protection against mosquitoes as we head into the summer months.

Categories: climatechange, health, science

Social Entrepreneurs: What is Base of the Economic Pyramid?

Base of the Economic Pyramid or BOP for cute and short, is a growing movement designed to alleviate poverty while generating sustainable profits for companies both large and small. The concept was popularized by Stu Hart and C.K. Prahalad. It is an idea for where we are right now.

As Robert S. Katz of the World Resources Institute says, BOP practitioners are social entrepreneurs who "seek a middle ground where the private sector's power is brought to bear on persistent social, economic, and environmental problems."

Katz, writing in GreenBiz.com (a web publication for which I also write) this past March, makes the point that "social entrepreneurs need to be grounded in reality." The reality is, non-profit development -- and, for that matter, non-profit conservation -- is proving that it just doesn't pay. In developing countries, even places with burgeoning economies like India and China, the largely rural poor are cut out of the economic equation. They "need money to send their kids to school, buy medicines, and put food on the table," as Katz writes.

Katz points to two social entrepreneur-led organizations as examples of entities that are trying to right this wrong. He cites KickStart, not the Chuck Norris-led organization that uses Martial Arts to empower youth, but a Kenyan company formerly known as Approtec. Founded by "former aid workers searching for an alternative to top-down poverty alleviation strategies," the company develops and promotes technologies, including oilseed presses and water pumps known as "MoneyMakers," which help farmers increase yields and income using recharge waters.

Aavishkaar is another company discussed by Katz in his GreenBiz article. The rural India-based micro-venture capital fund provides capital to create, in the words of Upendra Bhatt, and quoted by Katz, "an enabling ecosystem of entrepreneurs, whom no one else is willing to fund."

Katz, a research analyst at the World Resources Institute focused on BOP business approaches to poverty, is an editor and contributor to NextBillion.net, a web site and blog devoted to "development through enterprise."

As Katz sees it, there is "a vital new approach to business and to ecosystem management. Natural resources are still -- and will remain for the foreseeable future -- the primary assets of the rural poor. Proper Management of these assets is critical not only to those who rely directly on agricultural land, or forests, or freshwater or oceans, but also of course, to all of us."

For those of us seeking an alternative to "top down" strategies for improving ecosystem health and well-being, this reminder of the base of the pyramid is timely and welcome.

Read more at Base of the Pyramid.

Categories: innovation, microcredit, water, socialentrepreneurs, poverty

Social Entrepreneurs: Kiva's Peer-to-peer Microfinance Network

My growing interest in microfinance and microcredit models got a boost recently when a friend turned me on to Kiva, a web site that lets people like you and me connect with small businesses in the developing world. Modest loans of $25-100 go a long way in countries like Honduras, Bulgaria, Uganda, and Cambodia.

The site is easy to navigate and well-organized around businesses and their status: In Need, Active, and Raised. Through brief profiles, you can quickly get a sense of the entrepreneurs and their business ideas. Status updates, including entrepreneurs who have paid back their loans, are also available through the site.

Take Elizabeth Omalla (pictured), for example, who received and paid back her $500 loan to start a business as a fishmonger in Tororo, Uganda. Through her loan, Kiva reports, Ms. Omalla got access to a better market and the profit enabled her to buy goats, cow, pigs, chicken and send her children to school. She writes in one journal entry,

I am a widow with eight Children and other three relatives who stay together with us in our home. Altogether, twelve (12) people have benefited from this money of the business. I have been dealing in fish mongering. I started by doing retail business until when I got a loan money that promoted me to a wholesale trader.

Kiva collaborates with local organizations to screen entrepreneurs, assess their businesses, and administer your loan. According to the website, Kiva claims its partners average an historical repayment rate of over 96 percent.

By choosing a business on the website and lending money through an online transfer (credit card or PayPal), investors sponsor a business, thereby helping the world's working poor get on the ladder of economic improvement. Optional monthly email updates during the course of the loan, usually 6-12 months, keep you informed about the progress of your loan and the small business you have sponsored. Finally, as loans are repaid, you get your original loan money back or you have the option to turn it into a donation.

Kiva is the brainchild of Matthew and Jessica Flannery. During several month's work in rural Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda, Jessica, then on staff with Village Enterprise Fund (VEF) and Matthew, a filmmaker, were "struck by the success of hundreds of small businesses started by VEF, the incredible impact of those businesses on their communities, and the vitality and potential of those businesses' entrepreneurs."

Time to take that $25 per week we spend on getting caffeinated over The Economist and turn it into micro-lending power!

Categories: innovation, microcredit, socialentrepreneurs, poverty