BusinessWorld Online: The Laiban dilemma

BusinessWorld Online: The Laiban dilemma: "The Laiban dam project was conceived in the 1970s as a part of the Industrial Complex Plan in north eastern Luzon. It was deferred, however, as the project met opposition from people.

The project was later restored as a joint-venture of San Miguel Corp. and the Manila Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) to address the estimated 1.6 billion liter per day water shortage in Metro Manila by 2015. In fact, the Laiban Dam is seen as an alternative water source for Metro Manila, especially during times when the Angat Dam in Bulacan becomes an unviable source of water during typhoons.

To augment water supply, the project entails the construction of a dam in Tanay, Rizal utilizing the Kaliwa River Basin, which passes through the slopes of Sierra Madre and into the Pacific shoreline on the side of Quezon.

The dam is expected to yield approximately 1.9 billion liters a day intended to serve an estimated population of about 5.5 million in and around Rizal Province. It is also estimated to generate about 25 megawatts of hydropower. The NEDA-ICC approved cost amounts to P47.93 billion, and the construction is projected to be carried out within 5 years.

The project seems promising on the surface, considering the problem of water adequacy in the Metro amidst the growing demand from its expanding population. There are, however, hurdles that the government is facing in light of this enterprise, among them protests from the public and the church.

A costly enterprise

Appeals were sent to the MWSS by certain groups, saying that the dam “is the most expensive project to be undertaken by the MWSS, in terms of economic cost, size and expanse of the infrastructure, numbers of stakeholders to be affected, environmental effects, human rights, and the challenges to the existing environmental and indigenous laws”.

Apart from the obvious pecuniary costs, the project also appears to put several areas at even greater risk. Pambansang Kilusan ng Samahang Magsasaka (Pakisama) observes that the planned 113-meter high structure poses a threat to three Quezon provinces�”Infanta, Real and Gen. Nakar�”in case it collapses.

In addition, the Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC) has said that the area of planned reservoir is surrounded by a number of fault lines, five of which have been identified as active, including the Marikina-Infanta fault line.

The project is also said to affect around 27,800 hectares of ancestral and agricultural lands, including some 3,000 hectares of mangrove fish sanctuaries and farm irrigation systems in the towns of Gen. Nakar, Real, and Infanta. Habitats of endemic and endangered species in forested areas are likewise seen to be affected as the project rolls out.

Along with the alleged impact on the environment and the purported violations of laws such as the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) System, the National Integrated Protected Areas System Act (NIPAS), and the Wildlife Resources Conservation and Protection Act (Wildlife Protection Act), as well as the Indigenous People’s Rights Act (IPRA), concerns on the welfare of affected families have also been put forward as one of the project’s biggest challenges.

The dam is expected to displace thousands of families, including the indigenous communities of Dumagats and Remontados. Moreover, an alleged “take-or-pay” provision contained in the contract with the San Miguel Bulk Water Company, Inc. is seen to burden the MWSS with costs should supply exceed actual demand. Advocacy groups fear that these costs may eventually be passed on to households through higher water charges.

Other options

Other options to address the water shortage have been presented amid the intense opposition and challenges.

Local firm Sierra Madre Water Corp. (SMWC) proposes a cheaper and an allegedly more environment friendly source of water. The SMWC promises a supply of 2 billion liters per day and can be operational in 24 months�”which, offhand, trumps Laiban’s capacity of 1.9 billion liters per day and expected five-year roll-out.

The company also stresses that it has smaller environmental footprints, since its dam requires smaller construction with capital costs lower than the Laiban proposal. The SMWC also assures that no more than 100 families will be affected or will need to resettle; the water will also be released towards the Pacific Ocean, so there will be less risk of flooding in the surrounding areas.

Another proposed option is the Wawa Dam in Montalban. Oscar Violago, president of San Lorenzo Ruiz Builders and Developers Group, Inc., the company that owns the rights to the Wawa River Dam project, enumerates a few of the advantages of Wawa Dam over Laiban.

The Wawa reservoir is reportedly still full, and millions of water go over the dam and flows to the sea everyday. The dam also covers about 27,700 hectares, or almost the same as Laiban’s, so Wawa’s production capacity can be expected to be at par with Laiban’s.

The Wawa Dam also requires minor renovations�”for one, it already has existing pipelines, so it doesn’t require further tunneling�”and can thus be operational again within eight months. Just as important, it is not expected to affect communities, especially ancestral and agricultural lands.

On the other hand, NGOs contend that instead of building another dam, efficiency and effective forest protection or forest conservation are just as viable solutions. Environmental groups have also emphasized that strengthening the anti-logging campaign and the restoration of existing watersheds like Angat, Ipo, La Mesa and Wawa can enhance water flow.

Furthermore, the reduction of water demand and improvement of the efficiency of water delivery systems (e.g., by minimizing leakages and non-revenue water levels) are “simple and economical options”. In a public report, both Maynilad and Manila Water declared that their losses of 69% and 20%, respectively, were mainly due to leakages.

No easy task

In economic parlance, allocative efficiency is a key consideration in evaluating projects. That is, any decision to allocate resources produces both winners and losers. The benefit principle is an oft-used maxim: a project or a policy increases or maximizes allocative efficiency�”and, therefore, must be pursued�”as long as the benefits exceed the cost.

Securing the country’s water supply is no easy task and rightfully earns its spot among the country’s priorities. The threat of shortage is real and requires speedy interventions from the government. But any proposed solution should be carefully considered and weighed against a viable alternative, if only to ensure that the end-result comes at a minimal cost.

The Institute for Development and Econometric Analysis, Inc. (IDEA) is an economic think-tank based in the University of the Philippines - Diliman. For inquiries on IDEA, please contact Eduard Robleza at edjrobleza@idea.org.ph.

References:
National Economic Development Authority. Advanced Manual on Project Evaluation, Vol.2. 2006
“Bishops join people’s outrage against Laiban Dam,”CBCP News.
Manila Waterworks and Sewerage System
Various articles from GMANews.tv and The Philippine Daily Inquirer."

The Buffett System - The Automatic Way to Invest like Warren Buffett

The Buffett System - The Automatic Way to Invest like Warren Buffett: "'There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult.' - Warren Buffett"

HOPENHAGEN

HOPENHAGEN:
Bloomberg Specials
Written by Kim Chipman & Todd White / Bloomberg News
Tuesday, 08 December 2009 18:59

Now that US President Barack Obama has given fresh impetus to climate-change negotiations in Copenhagen, corporate leaders supporting an agreement to control greenhouse-gas emissions are pressing anew for action. Two weeks of talks among 192 nations opened on Monday in the Danish capital, and Obama’s decision to show up on the final day helps ensure “an ambitious outcome,” United Nations climate chief Yvo de Boer told reporters in Copenhagen.

The International Energy Agency (IEA), a trade group for the US and 27 more oil-consuming nations, and companies from Allianz SE to Coca-Cola Co. say envoys can agree to halt the growth of emissions within 10 years and keep global temperatures from rising by more than 2 degrees Celsius.

“We need a signal at Copenhagen to cap emissions by 2020 and a 2-degree scenario,” Fatih Birol, chief economist for the agency, said in a phone interview. “All the measures we suggest will bring energy security, because we’ll use less oil” and more clean energy, said Birol, who plans to visit Copenhagen for the second of the two weeks of talks.

World leaders already have said the talks will fail to reach the original goal of completing a treaty, a deadline moved to next year. While Obama and de Boer didn’t specify how much can be achieved in Copenhagen, company executives and lobbyists say they want quantifiable goals that have been sought for years by environmentalists and scientific groups.

Supporters of the temperature and 2020 targets include 850 business leaders who signed this year what’s called the Copenhagen communiqué, a project by the University of Cambridge in the UK. Signatories include General Electric Co. chief executive officer Jeffrey Immelt, Coca-Cola CEO Muhtar Kent, BP Plc. CEO Tony Hayward, HSBC Holdings Plc. chairman Stephen Green, Nestlé SA CEO Paul Bulcke and Nike Inc. CEO Mark Parker.

Executives from many of these companies are joining the 15,000 delegates who will come to the city’s Bella convention center for talks through December 18.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs announced last week that Obama will show up for the conclusion of the talks, when most of the 100 or so heads of government will arrive and help guide final decisions. Earlier Obama had planned to stop by on December 9. “There is progress toward a meaningful Copenhagen accord,” Gibbs said.

Obama found after speaking with UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and other leaders that there’s an “emerging consensus” to provide $10 billion a year by 2012 to help poor countries deal with global warming.

“The United States will pay its fair share of that amount and other countries will make substantial commitments as well,” Gibbs said in the statement. The administration also believes longer-term financing should be considered in Denmark, he said.

Negotiators in the Danish capital must provide companies with the certainty they need to make annual investments that may rise to trillions of dollars, said John Hawksworth, chief of macroeconomics at PricewaterhouseCoopers in London. Businesses need to know the scale of planned carbon cuts in order to gauge how expensive tradable carbon allowances will become, he said.

“The fundamental thing is to come up with a deal on the intermediate targets for 2020,” Hawksworth said in a telephone interview. “Once you’ve got the price on carbon, that sends the signal that businesses need in order to make the long-term investments in low carbon technologies and processes.”

Allianz, Europe’s largest insurer, supports the 2-degree limit as well as financing for developing countries to adapt to climate change, said Nick Tewes, a spokesman. By limiting the risks associated with climate change, the insurer will also minimize its potential claims, he said.

Those on the other side of the issue also will be in Copenhagen, including representatives of the Washington-based US Chamber of Commerce, the biggest US business-lobbying organization. The group has questioned mandatory emissions cuts as part of an international accord and is calling for an emphasis on clean-energy technology.

The Chamber is fighting against US legislation, which passed the House and is stalled in the Senate, to require a cut in greenhouse-gas pollution. It would cap emissions and set up a market to trade pollution allowances.

The US Environmental Protection Agency issued a rule on Monday giving it the power to regulate carbon-dioxide pollution.

The Paris-based IEA estimates that efforts to keep warming to less than 2 degrees since industrialization will add $10.5 trillion to the investment needed by 2030 to upgrade power stations, pipelines and refineries. The IEA also backs keeping the concentration of heat-trapping carbon dioxide to 450 parts per million, compared with about 385 now.

Amsterdam-based Greenpeace has called for an increase of no more than 2 degrees for at least seven years, said Kaisa Kosonen, a climate adviser for the environmental group. Greenpeace calls for global emissions to peak by 2015, five years earlier than the corporations.

Enel SpA, Italy’s largest utility, wants competitors around the world to accept CO2 regulations similar to those the Rome-based company already faces in the European Union.

“In order to get these targets, for 2 degrees of 450 parts per million, and emissions cuts, you need private investors like us,” said Simone Mori, head of regulation and environment at Enel, who may travel to Copenhagen.

The two-degree target has been a goal for the 27-nation European Union since 1996. In July, major greenhouse-gas polluters including the US, China, India and Japan signed up to the target, which has also been discussed in the UN negotiations as a possible long-term “shared vision.”

The move marked the first time developing nations had set such a target to fight climate change.

The talk of momentum doesn’t sway one of the US Congress’s biggest climate-change skeptics, Republican Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, who also will come to Copenhagen. He says the meeting is doomed, even with Obama’s entourage attending on the last day.

“No amount of lofty rhetoric or promises of future commitments can save it,” Inhofe said in a statement. That’s in part because legislation pending in the Senate to cap emissions “is dying on the vine.”
IN PHOTO -- Vestas wind turbines operate near their factory in Lem, Denmark. Vestas Wind Systems A/S, the world’s biggest maker of wind turbines, said it plans to almost double its capacity to produce wind-power equipment in India as the government offers new incentives for renewable energy. Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg"

Copenhagen's Real Challenge: Technology to Meet the Targets

Copenhagen's Real Challenge: Technology to Meet the Targets

By BRYAN WALSH Wednesday, Dec. 09, 2009

Over the next two weeks, the intense negotiations at the U.N. summit on climate change in Copenhagen will focus on numbers: emissions cuts (in percentages), money for climate adaptation (in dollars), atmospheric carbon concentrations (in parts per million) and global temperature targets (in degrees). Already, grinding diplomacy and criticism have overshadowed the good feelings and pageantry of the opening day of the summit, with a leaked negotiation draft revealing the deep divisions that still exist between rich and poor countries on climate. (See the top 10 green ideas of 2009.)

But there is one number that may not get discussed much at Copenhagen, even though it is as important as all the others: $10.5 trillion. That is the additional investment needed between now and 2030 to set the world on the path to low-carbon development, according to the International Energy Agency — a number that is far above the pittance the world currently spends on clean-energy research and development. As Jesse Jenkins and Devon Swezey of the think tank Breakthrough Institute wrote on Dec. 7, "Without measurable progress that dramatically increases global investments in clean energy, we can forget stabilizing global temperatures or atmospheric carbon dioxide at any level."

In other words, while global politics may shape how quickly and appropriately we structure our response to climate change, the actual work of reducing carbon emissions will ultimately be a technological problem. Beyond the policy wars in the halls of U.N. summits and on Capitol Hill, the battle against climate change requires better and cheaper forms of alternative energy, which will need to be deployed fast. Unfortunately, they don't exist. "Stabilizing the climate is a huge technological challenge, and the solution of ready-to-deploy, scalable low-carbon technologies is far from being a reality," wrote University of Montreal economists Christopher Green and Isabel Galiana in a commentary in the Dec. 3 issue of Nature. (See the top 10 scientific discoveries of 2009.)

Green and Galiana calculate just how far we are today from the reality of a truly low-carbon world. They estimate that, for instance, to keep global temperatures from rising more than 2°C higher than preindustrial levels — a projected upper limit of temperature rise before climate change could turn catastrophic — global carbon emissions would have to be reduced at least 80% by the end of the century. Assuming that global economic growth remains at a healthy 2.2%, which is necessary if developing countries are to continue to grow and pull their people out of poverty, the energy intensity of the global economy would need to be reduced to one-third its 2000 level, while total consumption of carbon-free energy would have to be three times greater than the total amount of energy consumed in 2000.

Trying to predict energy-use patterns nearly 100 years into the future is difficult, to say the least, but even if these numbers are off, Green and Galiana's research shows just how immense a challenge it will be to replace our fossil-fueled energy system with one that is free of carbon, especially while the global economy and population are growing. Legislating carbon reductions through a cap — which is ultimately the aim of both the U.N. negotiations and U.S. action on Capitol Hill — is important because it would give security to the business world and begin to price out cheap fossil fuels.

Ultimately, however, we will need better renewable-energy technologies — and that will require increased spending on innovation, in the U.S. and elsewhere. "Energy technology research and development will be essential to decarbonize the global economy," write Green and Galiana.

The authors argue that the best way to raise funds for energy R&D is to levy a small carbon tax — perhaps $5 per ton — that could produce as much as $150 billion annually for energy research around the globe. That would pay for several Manhattan Projects a year. Green and Galiana recommend steadily raising the tax to keep the funding going. To prevent that money from being abused by special political interests (the ongoing flow of funds to corn ethanol in the U.S. shows what happens when energy policy is infected by politics), they argue that allocation of the funds should be left to experts like the Gates Foundation.

Is this the global solution? Certainly it's part of it. Far too little is spent on energy R&D in the U.S., and the percentage of what is spent there has dropped in recent decades, even as concerns over global warming have intensified. President Obama's Department of Energy has done an admirable job of shifting direction, funding more innovation at the university level and focusing on helping new energy start-ups cross the "valley of death" to profitability. Energy R&D leads to new industries and, of course, new jobs. "Because our economic future depends on our leadership in the industries of the future, we are investing in basic applied research," said Obama in a speech on employment on Tuesday, Dec. 8. "We know the nation that leads in clean energy will be the nation that leads the world."

Meanwhile, the battle over carbon caps will continue in Copenhagen and in Washington, and it will be very contentious. Indeed, on the third day of negotiations in Copenhagen, a new rift opened between the most-threatened developing nations, which are pushing for tough emissions caps, and larger developing nations, whose main concern is the economic impact of caps. In this context, perhaps the biggest advantage to a more technology-focused climate policy could be in global public opinion. Carbon caps are politically controversial because they implicitly acknowledge that the world has limits and that countries will have to fight for their individual shares. But technology offers the promise that with the right breakthroughs, we can keep growing. "Investing in R&D to make clean energy cheap is the most popular energy proposal there is," says Michael Shellenberger of the Breakthrough Institute. That may be a global deal everyone can embrace.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1929071_1929070_1946649,00.html#ixzz0bbzaOgRR

Copenhagen Topic: Technology to Reduce Carbon Emissions - COP15: Climate-Change Conference - TIME

Copenhagen Topic: Technology to Reduce Carbon Emissions - COP15: Climate-Change Conference - TIME:

"Over the next two weeks, the intense negotiations at the U.N. summit on climate change in Copenhagen will focus on numbers: emissions cuts (in percentages), money for climate adaptation (in dollars), atmospheric carbon concentrations (in parts per million) and global temperature targets (in degrees). Already, grinding diplomacy and criticism have overshadowed the good feelings and pageantry of the opening day of the summit, with a leaked negotiation draft revealing the deep divisions that still exist between rich and poor countries on climate. (See the top 10 green ideas of 2009.)

But there is one number that may not get discussed much at Copenhagen, even though it is as important as all the others: $10.5 trillion. That is the additional investment needed between now and 2030 to set the world on the path to low-carbon development, according to the International Energy Agency — a number that is far above the pittance the world currently spends on clean-energy research and development. As Jesse Jenkins and Devon Swezey of the think tank Breakthrough Institute wrote on Dec. 7, 'Without measurable progress that dramatically increases global investments in clean energy, we can forget stabilizing global temperatures or atmospheric carbon dioxide at any level.'

In other words, while global politics may shape how quickly and appropriately we structure our response to climate change, the actual work of reducing carbon emissions will ultimately be a technological problem. Beyond the policy wars in the halls of U.N. summits and on Capitol Hill, the battle against climate change requires better and cheaper forms of alternative energy, which will need to be deployed fast. Unfortunately, they don't exist. 'Stabilizing the climate is a huge technological challenge, and the solution of ready-to-deploy, scalable low-carbon technologies is far from being a reality,' wrote University of Montreal economists Christopher Green and Isabel Galiana in a commentary in the Dec. 3 issue of Nature. (See the top 10 scientific discoveries of 2009.)

Green and Galiana calculate just how far we are today from the reality of a truly low-carbon world. They estimate that, for instance, to keep global temperatures from rising more than 2°C higher than preindustrial levels — a projected upper limit of temperature rise before climate change could turn catastrophic — global carbon emissions would have to be reduced at least 80% by the end of the century. Assuming that global economic growth remains at a healthy 2.2%, which is necessary if developing countries are to continue to grow and pull their people out of poverty, the energy intensity of the global economy would need to be reduced to one-third its 2000 level, while total consumption of carbon-free energy would have to be three times greater than the total amount of energy consumed in 2000.

Trying to predict energy-use patterns nearly 100 years into the future is difficult, to say the least, but even if these numbers are off, Green and Galiana's research shows just how immense a challenge it will be to replace our fossil-fueled energy system with one that is free of carbon, especially while the global economy and population are growing. Legislating carbon reductions through a cap — which is ultimately the aim of both the U.N. negotiations and U.S. action on Capitol Hill — is important because it would give security to the business world and begin to price out cheap fossil fuels.

Ultimately, however, we will need better renewable-energy technologies — and that will require increased spending on innovation, in the U.S. and elsewhere. 'Energy technology research and development will be essential to decarbonize the global economy,' write Green and Galiana.

The authors argue that the best way to raise funds for energy R&D is to levy a small carbon tax — perhaps $5 per ton — that could produce as much as $150 billion annually for energy research around the globe. That would pay for several Manhattan Projects a year. Green and Galiana recommend steadily raising the tax to keep the funding going. To prevent that money from being abused by special political interests (the ongoing flow of funds to corn ethanol in the U.S. shows what happens when energy policy is infected by politics), they argue that allocation of the funds should be left to experts like the Gates Foundation.

Is this the global solution? Certainly it's part of it. Far too little is spent on energy R&D in the U.S., and the percentage of what is spent there has dropped in recent decades, even as concerns over global warming have intensified. President Obama's Department of Energy has done an admirable job of shifting direction, funding more innovation at the university level and focusing on helping new energy start-ups cross the 'valley of death' to profitability. Energy R&D leads to new industries and, of course, new jobs. 'Because our economic future depends on our leadership in the industries of the future, we are investing in basic applied research,' said Obama in a speech on employment on Tuesday, Dec. 8. 'We know the nation that leads in clean energy will be the nation that leads the world.'

Meanwhile, the battle over carbon caps will continue in Copenhagen and in Washington, and it will be very contentious. Indeed, on the third day of negotiations in Copenhagen, a new rift opened between the most-threatened developing nations, which are pushing for tough emissions caps, and larger developing nations, whose main concern is the economic impact of caps. In this context, perhaps the biggest advantage to a more technology-focused climate policy could be in global public opinion. Carbon caps are politically controversial because they implicitly acknowledge that the world has limits and that countries will have to fight for their individual shares. But technology offers the promise that with the right breakthroughs, we can keep growing. 'Investing in R&D to make clean energy cheap is the most popular energy proposal there is,' says Michael Shellenberger of the Breakthrough Institute. That may be a global deal everyone can embrace."

Do Rich Nations Owe Poor Ones a Climate Debt? -- TIME MAGAZINE

Do Rich Nations Owe Poor Ones a Climate Debt?

By BRYAN WALSH Thursday, Dec. 10, 2009

In two decades of climate change negotiations, a deep divide has remained between wealthy nations and developing ones, each side insisting the other move first to lower carbon emissions and curb the effects of global warming.

But this year there was an uncommon optimism, in the days preceding the U.N. climate change summit in Copenhagen, that the rift could someday be bridged. President Barack Obama's delegation announced it would bring reliable carbon emissions targets to the negotiating table — an about-face from past U.S. climate envoys, who have always played the spoiler role at the annual summit — opening the door for major developing nations, such as China and India, to bring their own pledges to Copenhagen as well. (See TIME's special report about the Copenhagen Climate-Change Conference.)

But if the deadlock between developed and developing nations appeared to have been loosening, it could not have helped when Todd Stern, the top U.S. climate negotiator, categorically dismissed the idea that wealthy countries like the U.S. should owe the developing world a debt for the years of unfettered carbon emissions that are now contributing to climate change. "I actually completely reject the notion of a debt or reparations or anything of the like," Stern said in Copenhagen on Wednesday.

Still, Stern agreed that the U.S. and other developed nations would cut emissions and give aid to developing countries that need it. The details are yet to be determined: right now, delegates at the Copenhagen summit are busy passing around draft texts and proposals, preparing for the arrival next week of environment ministers and heads of state, who will wrap up the talks. The negotiators' focus is on actions — reducing emissions, ramping up clean energy, furnishing aid for adaptation — that are politically and economically viable. (See pictures of the world's most polluted places.)

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1929071_1929070,00.html#ixzz0bby8NHTg

Do Rich Nations Owe Poor Ones a Climate Debt? - COP15: Climate-Change Conference - TIME

Do Rich Nations Owe Poor Ones a Climate Debt? - COP15: Climate-Change Conference - TIME:

"In two decades of climate change negotiations, a deep divide has remained between wealthy nations and developing ones, each side insisting the other move first to lower carbon emissions and curb the effects of global warming.

But this year there was an uncommon optimism, in the days preceding the U.N. climate change summit in Copenhagen, that the rift could someday be bridged. President Barack Obama's delegation announced it would bring reliable carbon emissions targets to the negotiating table — an about-face from past U.S. climate envoys, who have always played the spoiler role at the annual summit — opening the door for major developing nations, such as China and India, to bring their own pledges to Copenhagen as well. (See TIME's special report about the Copenhagen Climate-Change Conference.)

But if the deadlock between developed and developing nations appeared to have been loosening, it could not have helped when Todd Stern, the top U.S. climate negotiator, categorically dismissed the idea that wealthy countries like the U.S. should owe the developing world a debt for the years of unfettered carbon emissions that are now contributing to climate change. 'I actually completely reject the notion of a debt or reparations or anything of the like,' Stern said in Copenhagen on Wednesday.

Still, Stern agreed that the U.S. and other developed nations would cut emissions and give aid to developing countries that need it. The details are yet to be determined: right now, delegates at the Copenhagen summit are busy passing around draft texts and proposals, preparing for the arrival next week of environment ministers and heads of state, who will wrap up the talks. The negotiators' focus is on actions — reducing emissions, ramping up clean energy, furnishing aid for adaptation — that are politically and economically viable. (See pictures of the world's most polluted places.)"

Do Rich Nations Owe Poor Ones a Climate Debt? - COP15: Climate-Change Conference - TIME

Do Rich Nations Owe Poor Ones a Climate Debt? - COP15: Climate-Change Conference - TIME:

"In two decades of climate change negotiations, a deep divide has remained between wealthy nations and developing ones, each side insisting the other move first to lower carbon emissions and curb the effects of global warming.

But this year there was an uncommon optimism, in the days preceding the U.N. climate change summit in Copenhagen, that the rift could someday be bridged. President Barack Obama's delegation announced it would bring reliable carbon emissions targets to the negotiating table — an about-face from past U.S. climate envoys, who have always played the spoiler role at the annual summit — opening the door for major developing nations, such as China and India, to bring their own pledges to Copenhagen as well. (See TIME's special report about the Copenhagen Climate-Change Conference.)

But if the deadlock between developed and developing nations appeared to have been loosening, it could not have helped when Todd Stern, the top U.S. climate negotiator, categorically dismissed the idea that wealthy countries like the U.S. should owe the developing world a debt for the years of unfettered carbon emissions that are now contributing to climate change. 'I actually completely reject the notion of a debt or reparations or anything of the like,' Stern said in Copenhagen on Wednesday.

Still, Stern agreed that the U.S. and other developed nations would cut emissions and give aid to developing countries that need it. The details are yet to be determined: right now, delegates at the Copenhagen summit are busy passing around draft texts and proposals, preparing for the arrival next week of environment ministers and heads of state, who will wrap up the talks. The negotiators' focus is on actions — reducing emissions, ramping up clean energy, furnishing aid for adaptation — that are politically and economically viable. (See pictures of the world's most polluted places.)

But the question of exactly what the rich nations of the world owe the poor ones is still up in the air. According to many environmental activists and representatives of the most vulnerable nations in the world, climate change should be viewed first and foremost as an ethical challenge, rather than an economic or political one. Industrialized nations have flourished in part because they were able to burn fossil fuel indiscriminately for decades, and the impact of those emissions is only now being recognized as climate change. As poor countries see it, rich nations got rich at their expense: as the planet continues to warm, it will heighten water scarcity, intensify flooding and droughts, and worsen some infectious disease — all of which will first hit developing countries that have not yet had the chance to burn fossil fuels in large quantities. 'We are living on the front lines of climate change,' said Dessima Williams, the head of the Alliance of Small Island States, a coalition of 43 island nations.

Poor nations around the world have struggled with natural disasters and disease for years, of course, and developed countries have always felt an obligation to help; hence, global programs like the U.N. Millennium Development Goals, which aim to reduce poverty, disease and mortality, and empower developing countries. But from an ethical perspective, climate change is different because it has a clear cause: man, or more specifically, Western man. The ability to track carbon emissions means that we can calculate how much responsibility each country — and practically each person — bears for a warmer world. And because carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for centuries, we can even calculate the historic responsibility that nations bear for global warming."

Google takes real-time advantage

Google takes real-time advantage

By Richard Waters in San Francisco

Published: December 8 2009 02:06 | Last updated: December 8 2009 02:06

Google has again pulled ahead of Microsoft’s Bing in the race to draw instant Twitter updates and other “real-time” information from the web, as the rival tech giants intensified their efforts to gain the upper hand in some of the hottest new areas of internet search.

Google also outlined on Monday a number of ambitious new search applications for mobile phones, bringing advanced image- and voice-recognition technology to bear in the most promising new part of the search business.

The announcements follow last week’s attempt by Microsoft to grab attention for Bing by showing off a range of its own recent innovations.

Microsoft also scored a rare publicity victory over Google in search technology two months ago when it became the first to reach a deal with Twitter and Facebook to receive a “feed” of real-time tweets and updates from the services.

But in response on Monday, Google went one step further with a demonstration of a service that draws real-time information directly into its regular search results pages.

The freshest tweets and other pieces of information on any online search topic scroll past in real-time, without any need to refresh the page.

Amit Singhal, who as a Google “fellow” holds one of the company’s top engineering positions, said the service crawls more than 1bn web pages and makes fresh information available through the search engine within seconds of it being posted.

The service draws from news and blog sources, as well as Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and a number of other sources, and will be extended from the US to other countries early next year, Mr Singhal added.

While Twitter’s soaring popularity this year has made the real-time web one of the hottest issues in Silicon Valley, Google put much of its emphasis on Monday on mobile search, where it is relying on big investments in a number of advanced technologies to gain an edge.

One trial service, known as Google Goggles, uses image-recognition software to identify a picture taken on a mobile phone, then returns information about the object through a search.

The technology is theoretically powerful enough for the service to recognise individual faces, but Google has decided for privacy reasons not to make that capability available, said Vic Gundotra, the company’s vice-president of engineering.

Google also showed off a service that uses voice-recognition software to identify words spoken into a mobile phone, then plays back a translation of the words in a different language within seconds.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009.

FT.com / Technology - Google takes real-time advantage

FT.com / Technology - Google takes real-time advantage: "By Richard Waters in San Francisco

Published: December 8 2009 02:06 | Last updated: December 8 2009 02:06

Google has again pulled ahead of Microsoft’s Bing in the race to draw instant Twitter updates and other “real-time” information from the web, as the rival tech giants intensified their efforts to gain the upper hand in some of the hottest new areas of internet search.

Google also outlined on Monday a number of ambitious new search applications for mobile phones, bringing advanced image- and voice-recognition technology to bear in the most promising new part of the search business.

The announcements follow last week’s attempt by Microsoft to grab attention for Bing by showing off a range of its own recent innovations.

Microsoft also scored a rare publicity victory over Google in search technology two months ago when it became the first to reach a deal with Twitter and Facebook to receive a “feed” of real-time tweets and updates from the services.

But in response on Monday, Google went one step further with a demonstration of a service that draws real-time information directly into its regular search results pages.

The freshest tweets and other pieces of information on any online search topic scroll past in real-time, without any need to refresh the page.

Amit Singhal, who as a Google “fellow” holds one of the company’s top engineering positions, said the service crawls more than 1bn web pages and makes fresh information available through the search engine within seconds of it being posted.

The service draws from news and blog sources, as well as Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and a number of other sources, and will be extended from the US to other countries early next year, Mr Singhal added.

While Twitter’s soaring popularity this year has made the real-time web one of the hottest issues in Silicon Valley, Google put much of its emphasis on Monday on mobile search, where it is relying on big investments in a number of advanced technologies to gain an edge.

One trial service, known as Google Goggles, uses image-recognition software to identify a picture taken on a mobile phone, then returns information about the object through a search.

The technology is theoretically powerful enough for the service to recognise individual faces, but Google has decided for privacy reasons not to make that capability available, said Vic Gundotra, the company’s vice-president of engineering.

Google also showed off a service that uses voice-recognition software to identify words spoken into a mobile phone, then plays back a translation of the words in a different language within seconds.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009."

Carbon-cut target a 'milestone'

Carbon-cut target a 'milestone': "By Fu Jing (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-11-28 07:24
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A high-ranking United Nations official said China's decision to make a 40 to 45 percent cut in carbon intensity by 2020 is 'a milestone' leading up to the Copenhagen summit, which opens Dec 7.

On Friday, UN Development Program (UNDP) administrator Helen Clark downplayed the potential of the Copenhagen summit, predicting that leaders will have a tough time reaching a global alliance next month.

She urged closer cooperation in mitigating climate change between China and the UN in a speech she made in Beijing on Friday at the 30th anniversary celebration of her organization's presence in China.

'The Chinese government's decision is more of a milestone announcement on the way to Copenhagen and it is one of the big moves forward,' Clark said in her remarks at the ceremony.

But she is cautious about the outcome of the Copenhagen summit.

'It may be difficult to reach a high-quality, new climate agreement in Copenhagen,' said Clark. 'But such a deal is urgently needed.'

Clark did not elaborate on her statement.

Premier Wen Jiabao held talks with Clark on Thursday when China announced its plans to reduce carbon intensity by 2020.

Clark said the UN will strengthen cooperation with China in tackling climate change, together with reducing poverty and increasing the country's global presence.

'Three such areas in particular merit attention but the first is tackling climate change,' Clark said. 'This is one of the most pressing development challenges our world faces.'

She expressed delight that UNDP and China are already working closely together as China takes steps towards becoming a lower-carbon economy."

GARDENING FOR KIDS

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BAMBOO / FASHION

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Boom in bamboo buildings - World environment- msnbc.com

Boom in bamboo buildings - World environment- msnbc.com: "updated 6:26 p.m. ET Feb. 3, 2008

GIRARDOT, Colombia - Forget steel and concrete. The building material of choice for the 21st century might just be bamboo.

This hollow-stemmed grass isn't just for flimsy tropical huts any more _ it's getting outsized attention in the world of serious architecture. From Hawaii to Vietnam, it's used to build everything from luxury homes and holiday resorts to churches and bridges.

Boosters call it 'vegetal steel,' with clear environmental appeal. Lighter than steel but five times stronger than concrete, bamboo is native to every continent except Europe and Antarctica."

Space shuttle Atlantis fueled up for launch - Return to Flight- msnbc.com

Space shuttle Atlantis fueled up for launch - Return to Flight- msnbc.com: By Clara Moskowitz
updated 9:27 a.m. ET Nov. 16, 2009

WASHINGTON - The space shuttle Atlantis was fueled up Monday for its mission to ferry six astronauts and tons of spare parts to the International Space Station.

Atlantis is slated to lift off at 2:28 p.m. ET from Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla.

Overnight, forecasters reduced the chances of acceptable weather for launch slightly, from 90 percent to 70 percent. 'Our primary concern for launch is a low cloud ceiling,' meteorologists said in their Monday morning update."

Shuttle mission to extend life of space station | Science | Reuters

Shuttle mission to extend life of space station | Science | Reuters: By Irene Klotz

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - The space shuttle Atlantis was poised for launch on Monday on one of the final missions to outfit the International Space Station so it can remain flying long after the shuttles are retired.

Liftoff of Atlantis and its six-man crew on the last shuttle mission of the year is scheduled for 2:28 p.m. EST (1928 GMT) from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Forecasters predict a 70 percent chance that the weather will be suitable for launch.

NASA plans to end the 30-year-old space shuttle program next year, bowing to long-standing concerns about safety and the expense associated with maintaining and flying Atlantis and its two sister ships, Discovery and Endeavour.

The shuttle program costs NASA about $5 billion a year, and has claimed the lives of 14 astronauts. The first crew of seven perished during a launch accident in 1986 and the second died during a landing attempt in 2003 due to a heat shield breach.

The U.S. space agency has been working to replace the shuttles with a partly reusable, capsule-style spacecraft called Orion to fly crews to the moon and other destinations in the solar system in addition to the space station, which orbits 225 miles above Earth.

The station, a $100 billion project of 16 countries that has been under construction for more than a decade, is due to be completed in 2010. After Atlantis' mission, five flights remain to finishing building and outfitting the station.

Atlantis is loaded with about 30,000 pounds (13,610 kg) of equipment too big to be transported by the Russian, European and Japanese cargo ships that will keep the station stocked with food, fuel and other supplies after the shuttles are retired."

NASA - LCROSS Impact Data Indicates Water on Moon

NASA - LCROSS Impact Data Indicates Water on Moon:

The argument that the moon is a dry, desolate place no longer holds water.

Secrets the moon has been holding, for perhaps billions of years, are now being revealed to the delight of scientists and space enthusiasts alike.

NASA today opened a new chapter in our understanding of the moon. Preliminary data from the Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, indicates that the mission successfully uncovered water during the Oct. 9, 2009 impacts into the permanently shadowed region of Cabeus cater near the moon’s south pole.

The impact created by the LCROSS Centaur upper stage rocket created a two-part plume of material from the bottom of the crater. The first part was a high angle plume of vapor and fine dust and the second a lower angle ejecta curtain of heavier material. This material has not seen sunlight in billions of years.

'We're unlocking the mysteries of our nearest neighbor and by extension the solar system. It turns out the moon harbors many secrets, and LCROSS has added a new layer to our understanding,' said Michael Wargo, chief lunar scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

Scientists have long speculated about the source of vast quantities of hydrogen that have been observed at the lunar poles. The LCROSS findings are shedding new light on the question of water, which could be more widespread and in greater quantity than previously suspected.

Permanently shadowed regions could hold a key to the history and evolution of the solar system, much as an ice core sample taken on Earth reveals ancient data. In addition, water, and other compounds represent potential resources that could sustain future lunar exploration.

Since the impacts, the LCROSS science team has been working almost nonstop analyzing the huge amount of data the spacecraft collected. The team concentrated on data from the satellite's spectrometers, which provide the most definitive information about the presence of water. A spectrometer examines light emitted or absorbed by materials that helps identify their composition.

'We are ecstatic,' said Anthony Colaprete, LCROSS project scientist and principal investigator at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. 'Multiple lines of evidence show water was present in both the high angle vapor plume and the ejecta curtain created by the LCROSS Centaur impact. The concentration and distribution of water and other substances requires further analysis, but it is safe to say Cabeus holds water.'

The team took the known near infrared spectral signatures of water and other materials and compared them to the spectra collected by the LCROSS near infrared spectrometer of the impact.

'We were only able to match the spectra from LCROSS data when we inserted the spectra for water,' said Colaprete. 'No other reasonable combination of other compounds that we tried matched the observations. The possibility of contamination from the Centaur also was ruled out.'

Additional confirmation came from an emission in the ultraviolet spectrum that was attributed to hydroxyl, one product from the break-up of water by sunlight. When atoms and molecules are excited, they release energy at specific wavelengths that are detected by the spectrometers. A similar process is used in neon signs. When electrified, a specific gas will produce a distinct color. The ultraviolet visible spectrometer detected hydroxyl signatures just after impact that are consistent with a water vapor cloud in sunlight.

Data from the other LCROSS instruments are being analyzed for additional clues about the state and distribution of the material at the impact site. The LCROSS science team along with colleagues are poring over the data to understand the entire impact event, from flash to crater, with the final goal being the understanding of the distribution of materials, and in particular volatiles, within the soil at the impact site.

'The full understanding of the LCROSS data may take some time. The data is that rich,' said Colaprete. 'Along with the water in Cabeus, there are hints of other intriguing substances. The permanently shadowed regions of the moon are truly cold traps, collecting and preserving material over billions of years.'

LCROSS was launched June 18, 2009 as a companion mission to the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. After separating from LRO, the LCROSS spacecraft held onto the spent Centaur upper stage rocket of the launch vehicle, executed a lunar swingby and entered into a series of long looping orbits around the Earth.

After traveling approximately 113 days and nearly 5.6 million miles (9 million km), the Centaur and LCROSS separated on final approach to the moon. Traveling as fast as a speeding bullet, the Centaur impacted the lunar surface shortly after 4:31 a.m. PDT Oct. 9 with LCROSS watching with its onboard instruments. Approximately four minutes of data was collected before the LCROSS itself impacted the lunar surface.

Working closely with scientists from LRO and other observatories that viewed the impact, the LCROSS team is working to understand the full scope of the LCROSS data. LRO continues to make passes over the impact site to give the LCROSS team additional insight into the mechanics of the impact and its resulting craters.

What other secrets will the moon reveal? The analysis continues!



Jonas Dino
NASA Ames Research Center"

Pinoy Boxing Republic - GMANews.TV Sports

Pinoy Boxing Republic - GMANews.TV Sports:

LAS VEGAS – Legendary Panamanian boxer Roberto Duran sees himself in Manny Pacquiao, reason why he’s picking the explosive Filipino boxer to win over Miguel Cotto in their 12-round World Boxing Organization (WBO) welterweight title fight Saturday (Sunday in Manila).

“It’s gonna be a tough fight, but I like Pacquiao,' said the 58-year-old boxing legend dubbed “Hands of Stone.'

“Pacquiao is very tough when he fights. He’s very strong. So I like him.'"

The Associated Press: Splash! NASA moon crash struck lots of water

The Associated Press: Splash! NASA moon crash struck lots of water: "By ALICIA CHANG (AP)

LOS ANGELES — The lunar dud for space enthusiasts has become a watershed event for NASA.

Spacecraft that crashed into the moon last month kicked up a relatively small plume. But scientists have confirmed the debris contained water — 25 gallons of it — making lunar exploration exciting again.

Experts have long suspected there was water on the moon. So the thrilling discovery announced Friday sent a ripple of hope for a future astronaut outpost in a place that has always seemed barren and inhospitable.

'We found water. And we didn't find just a little bit. We found a significant amount,' Anthony Colaprete, lead scientist for the mission, told reporters as he held up a white water bucket for emphasis.

He said the 25 gallons of water the lunar crash kicked up was only what scientists could see from the plumes of the impact.

Some space policy experts say that makes the moon attractive for exploration again. Having an abundance of water would make it easier to set up a base camp for astronauts, supplying drinking water and a key ingredient for rocket fuel.

'Having definitive evidence that there is substantial water is a significant step forward in making the moon an interesting place to go,' said George Washington University space policy scholar John Logsdon.

The October mission involved two strikes into a permanently shadowed crater near the south pole. First, an empty rocket hull slammed into the Cabeus crater. Then, a trailing spacecraft recorded the drama live before it also crashed into the same spot four minutes later.

Though scientists were overjoyed with the plethora of data beamed back to Earth, the mission was a public relations dud. Space enthusiasts who stayed up all night to watch the spectacle did not see the promised giant plume of debris.

NASA scientists had predicted the twin impacts would spew six miles of dust into the sunlight. Instead, images revealed only a mile-high plume, and it was not visible to many amateur astronomers peering through telescopes.

Members of the blue-ribbon panel reviewing NASA's future plans said the discovery doesn't change their conclusion that the program needs more money to get beyond near-Earth orbit. The panel wants NASA to look at other potential destinations like asteroids and Mars.

'This new and terrific result reassures us about lunar resources, but ... the challenges currently facing the human spaceflight program remain,' Chris Chyba, a Princeton astrophysicist who is on the panel, said in an e-mail.

President George W. Bush had proposed a more than $100 billion plan to return astronauts to the moon, then go on to Mars; a test flight of an early version of a new rocket was a success last month. President Barack Obama appointed the special panel to look at the entire moon exploration program. The decision is now up to the White House, and NASA's lunar plans are somewhat on hold until then.

As for unmanned exploration, previous missions had detected the presence of hydrogen in lunar craters near the moon's poles, possible evidence of ice. In September, scientists reported finding tiny amounts of water in the lunar soil all over the moon's surface.

But it was NASA's Oct. 9 mission involving the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, LCROSS, that provided the stunning confirmation announced Friday — water, in the forms of ice and vapor.

'Rather than a dead and unchanging world, it could in fact be a very dynamic and interesting one,' said Greg Delory of the University of California, Berkeley, who was not involved in the mission, led by NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif.

The LCROSS spacecraft only hit one spot on the moon and it's unclear how much water there is across the entire moon.

Scientists spent a month analyzing data from the spacecraft's spectrometers, instruments that can detect strong signals of water molecules in the plume.

'We've had hints that there is water. This was almost like tasting it,' said Peter Schultz, professor of geological sciences at Brown University and a co-investigator on the LCROSS mission.

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin, who in 1969 made his historic Apollo 11 moonwalk with Neil Armstrong, was pleased to hear the latest discovery, but still believes the U.S. should focus on colonizing Mars.

'People will overreact to this news and say, `Let's have a water rush to the moon,'' Aldrin said. 'It doesn't justify that.'

Mission scientists said it would take more time to tease out what else was kicked up in the moon dust.

AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved."

RESTHOUSE

hooch.jpg (JPEG Image, 350x353 pixels)

BAMBOO LAPTOP

The Environmental Bamboo Foundation

The Environmental Bamboo Foundation (EBF) is an Indonesian non-profit organization started in 1993 by designer and environmentalist, LINDA GARLAND. The EBF strives to protect tropical forests by promoting and demonstrating the many conservation and development opportunities that bamboo offers. The mission of the Environmental Bamboo Foundation is to encourage, through research and education, the sustainable planting and utilization of bamboo in an effort to promote its many environmental benefits and protect the world's remaining tropical forests and mangroves.
Based in Bali, Indonesia, the EBF has affiliate non-profit organizations in the United States and in Holland.

EBF-Environmental Bamboo Foundation, Bali, Indonesia

EBF-Environmental Bamboo Foundation, Bali, Indonesia:

"ENVIRONMENTAL BAMBOO FOUNDATION

WHY BAMBOO? ... HERE'S WHY ...

DEFORESTATION and increased CO2 emissions threaten the earth's biodiversity and the very air we breathe...
Perhaps the environmental crisis' at hand have not yet touched your life, but the time is shortly to come. Recent NASA reports of a 60% loss of ozone over the arctic provide an explanation for increased severity in the worlds weather patterns which has only begun to affect us whether directly or indirectly. The social, political and economic implications are difficult to imagine as our ozone layer continues to thin, forests disappear and desertization is occurring at an alarming rate.

BAMBOO HAS AN IMPORTANT ROLE TO PLAY...
The earth desperately needs the attention and action of us all or our children's children will surely not have a world fit to live in. There is no one solution but amazingly, the simple bamboo plant can make a dramatic positive impact in many areas. It is our goal to inform and raise awareness about 'Bamboo, People and the Environment' and provide the tools and information to then respond in one's own way in their own world. Every action counts, every person counts...

ENDURING THROUGH TIME...
Thomas Edison successfully used a carbonized bamboo filament in his experiment with the first light bulb. This light bulb still burns today in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC. He also used a bamboo as rebar for the reinforcement of his swimming pool. To this day, the pool has never leaked. An unrivaled utility, (One resource book lists over 5,000 uses including paper, scaffolding, diesel fuel, airplane 'skins', desalination filters, aphrodisiacs, musical instruments, medicine, food and was Alexander Graham Bell's first phonograph needle

SURVIVING THROUGH HARDSHIP...
Amidst death and destruction, bamboo survived the Hiroshima atomic blast closer to ground zero than any other living thing and provided the first re-greening in Hiroshima after the blast in 1945.

GROWING WITH STRENGTH AND SPEED...
With a tensile strength superior to mild steel (withstands up to 52,000 Pounds of pressure psi) and a weight-to-strength ratio surpassing that of graphite, bamboo is the strongest growing woody plant on earth with one of the widest ranging habitats of more than 1500 species thriving in diverse terrain from sea level to 12,000 feet on every continent but the poles. It also grows the fastest: clocked shooting skyward at 2 inches an hour. Some species grow one and a half meters a day.

BAMBOO PROTECTS THE ENVIRONMENT AND THE AIR WE BREATHE...
Bamboo is the fastest growing canopy for the regreening of degraded lands, and its stands release 35% more oxygen than equivalent stands of trees. Some bamboo even sequester up to 12 tons of carbon dioxide from the air per hectare. Bamboo can also lower light intensity and protects against ultraviolet rays. Traditional belief holds that being in a bamboo grove - the favorite dwelling place of Buddha - restores calmness to emotions and stimulates creativity.

Carbon Sequestration Information
Net production and carbon cycling in a bamboo Phyllostachys pubescens stand.
AU: Isagi-Y; Kawahara-T; Kamo-K; Ito-H
AD: Kansai Research Center, Forestry and Forest Products Research
Institute, Momoyama, Fushimi, Kyoto 612, Japan.
SO: Plant-Ecology. 1997, 130: 1, 41-52; 48 ref.
PY: 1997
LA: English
AB: Phyllostachys pubescens is one of the largest bamboo species with a leptomorphic (a type of rhizomatous system with solitary culms scattered rather evenly) root system in the world. The species originates in China and has been naturalized in neighbouring countries. It was introduced in 1746 into Japan because of the economic value of the young sprouts and culm woods. It escaped from the planted areas and expanded by invading the native vegetation. In order to clarify the basic ecological characteristics of the species,carbon fixation and cycling were determined in a stand of Phyllostachys pubescens in Kyoto Prefecture. The standing culm density and average DBH (diameter at breast height) in 1991 were 7100 ha-1 and 11.3 cm, respectively. The above-ground biomass was 116.5 t ha-1 for culms, 15.5 t ha-1 for branches, 5.9 t ha-1 for leaves and 137.9 t ha-1 in total. The total above-ground biomass is one of the largest among the world's bamboo communities. The biomass of rhizomes and fine roots was 16.7 t ha-1 and 27.9 t ha-1, respectively. Annual soil respiration was 52.3 t CO2 ha-1, the highest among those determined in Japan. The gross annual production was high, at 32.8 t C ha-1, and allocation of annual gross production to the root system was also high at 11 t C ha-1 - 34% of gross production, and 46% of the fluxes out of the leaves. This pattern of allocation results in a net annual above-ground production of 18.1 t ha-1, which is within the average range of productivity of forests under similar climatic conditions. The correspondence of the allocation pattern of the species with its successful range expansion is discussed.
DE: asexual-reproduction; biological-production; biomass-production; carbon-cycle; bamboos-; nutrients-; distribution-; carbon-; photosynthesis-; stand-characteristics; biomass-; cycling

AN: 950608033
TI: Carbon stock and cycling in a bamboo Phyllostachys bambusoides stand.
AU: Isagi-Y
AD: Laboratory of Silviculture, Kansai Research Center, Forestry
and Forest Products Research Institute, Kyoto 612, Japan.
SO: Ecological-Research. 1994, 9: 1, 47-55; 42 ref.
PY: 1994
LA: English
AB: Gross production and carbon cycling in a Phyllostachys bambusoides stand in Kyoto Prefecture, central Japan, were determined, and then a compartment model showing the carbon stock and cycling within the ecosystem was developed. Aboveground carbon stock was 52.3 t/ha, increasing at an annual rate of 3.6 t/ha. Belowground carbon stock was 20.8 t/ha in the root system and 92.0 t/ha in the soil. Aboveground annual net C production was 11.2 t/ha. Belowground annual net C production was crudely estimated at 4.5 t/ha. Gross annual production was estimated at 41.8 t/ha by summing the amount of outflow to the environment and the increment in biomass. Leaves consumed 13.7 t C/ha per year by respiration; the rest (41.8 - 13.7 = 28.1 t C/ha per year) was surplus production of leaves and flowed into the other compartments. Annual amounts of construction and maintenance respiration of aboveground compartments were 3.4 and 18.5 t/ha, respectively. The annual amount of soil respiration was 11.2 t/ha. Soil respiration levels of 4.3 and 3.1 t C/ha per year were estimated for the flow of root respiration and root detritus. The proportion of net to gross production was 37%, which fell within the range of young and mature forests. A shorter life span of culms, compared to tree trunks, resulted in smaller biomass accumulation ratio (biomass/net production) in the ecosystem, of 4.66.
DE: bamboos-; respiration-; biomass-; carbon-; models-; carbon-
cycle; biomass-production; simulation-; cycling-

EROSION CONTROL ...
A peerless erosion control agent,. it's net like root system create an effective mechanism for watershed protection, stitching the soil together along fragile riverbanks, deforested areas, and in places prone to earthquakes and mud slides. Because of their wide-spreading root system, uniquely shaped leaves, and dense litter on the forest floor, the sum of stem flow rate and canopy intercept of bamboo is 25% which means that bamboo greatly reduces rain run off, preventing massive soil erosion and keeping up to twice as much water in the watershed. Bamboo is a pioneering plant and can be grown in soil damaged by overgrazing and poor agricultural techniques. Unlike with most trees proper harvesting does not kill the bamboo plant so topsoil is held in place.

SAVING RAINFORESTS ...
Bamboo is one of the strongest building materials. Bamboo's tensile strength is 28,000 pounds per square inch versus 23,000 pounds per square inch for steel. In the tropics it is possible to plant and 'grow your own home;. in Costa Rica, 1000 houses of bamboo are built annually with material coming only from a 60 hectare bamboo plantation. If an equivalent project used timber, it would require 500 hectares of our diminishing tropical rainforests. Using bamboo to replace timber saves the rainforests. With a 10-30% annual increase in biomass versus 2 to 5% for trees, bamboo creates greater yields of raw material for use. One clump can produce 200 poles in the three to five years. Bamboo generates a crop every year.

A RENEWABLE RESOURCE ...
Bamboo is a high-yield renewable resource: 'Ply boo' is now being used for wall paneling and floor tiles; bamboo pulp for paper-making; briquettes for fuel, raw material for housing construction; and rebar for reinforced concrete beams. There are 1500 species of bamboo on the earth. This diversity makes bamboo adaptable to many environments. It can be harvested in 3-5 years versus 10-20 years for most softwoods. Bamboo tolerates extremes of precipitation, from 30-250 inches of annual rainfall.

HOUSING ...
Bamboo related industries already provide income, food, and housing to over 2.2 billion people worldwide. There is a 3-5 year return on investment for a new bamboo plantation versus 8-10 years for rattan. The governments of India and China, with 15 million hectares of bamboo reserves collectively, are poised to focus attention on the economic factors of bamboo and its protection. In Limon, Costa Rica, only bamboo houses from the national Bamboo Project stood after their violent earthquake in 1992. Flexible and lightweight, bamboo enables structures to 'dance' in earthquakes. Go to the 'Comparative Strength of Bamboo or Grow Your Own House page.

FOOD ...
Bamboo shoots provide nutrition for millions of people worldwide. In Japan, the antioxidant properties of pulverized bamboo skin can prevent bacterial growth, and it is used as a natural food preservative. Bamboo :litter: make fodder for animas and food for fish. Taiwan alone consumes 80,000 tons of bamboo shoots annually, constituting a $50 million industry.
`Bamboo leaves are normally utilized as fodder during scarcity. Young bamboo leaves and twigs are a favorite meal for elephants and the Panda. D. strictus leaves have (on dry matter basis) crude protein,15.09; crude fiber,23.15; ether extract 1.43; ash 18.03; phosphorus-170 and calcium -1550 mg/100g respectively. Their digestible crude protein
and total digestible nutrient contents are 93.34 and 48.9% respectively. The leaves of B.arundinacea have crude protein 18.64;crude fiber, 24.1; ether extract 4.1; N- free extract 41.4; ash-11.75%; phosphorus-170 mg and calcium 56mg/100g respectively. The digestible crude protein and total digestible nutrient contents are 13.5 and 46.5% respectively. The protein contained methionine and lysine. Copper and zinc are also found. The nutrient contents differed significantly in samples collected from high altitudes.
For B.vulgaris the figures are crude protein,10.1;crude fiber 21.7; ether extract, 2.5 and ash, 21.3%; phosphorus-86,iron-13.4,vitamin B1, 0.1;vitamin B2- 2.54, and carotene 12.3 mg/100g respectively. The meal is used as a supplement to vitamin A deficient diets for chicks '.
For further details contact either the Bamboo Information Center in India -at KFRI -Tropical species, or The Bamboo Information Center in China-at CAF,Beijing - Temperate species.

AN ANCIENT MEDICINE ...
Bamboo has for centuries been used in Ayurvedic medicine and Chinese herbal medicine . Tabasheer, the powdered, hardened secretion from bamboo is used internally to treat asthma, coughs and can be used as an aphrodisiac. In China, ingredients from the root of the black bamboo help treat kidney disease. Roots and leaves have also been used to treat venereal disease and cancer. Sap is said to reduce fever, and ash will cure prickly heat. A village in Indonesia reports that the water form within the culm is used to treat broken bones effectively and that the tabasheer is used to promote fertility in their cows. Current research points to bamboo's potential in a number of medicinal uses.

A LANDSCAPE DESIGN ELEMENT & WASTE WATER SYSTEM ...
Bamboo is an exquisite component of landscape design. For the human environment bamboo provides shade, wind break, acoustical barriers, and aesthetic beauty.
'The Bamboo Forest is an ecological wastewater utilization system that essentially grows away, waste, producing a marketable crop in the process. Comprised of a subsurface evaporation-transpiration bed planted with bamboo and other rapid-growing, non-invasive plants, the system is engineered to provide an aerobic rhizosphere (the home of living organisms in the root system), in which damaging polluting components are transformed into plant nutrients' Go to the Discover magazine article on Bamboo used to treat waste water!

INTEGRALLY INVOLVED IN CULTURE AND THE ARTS ...
Bamboo is a mystical plant: a symbol of strength, flexibility, tenacity, and endurance. Throughout Asia, bamboo has for centuries been integral to religious ceremonies, art, music, and daily life. It can be found in the paper, the brush, and the inspiration for poems and paintings. Some of the earliest historical records form the 2nd century B.C. were written on green bamboo strips.
As evidenced by all of the above qualities, bamboo rightfully deserves its nickname, 'the miracle plant.' The EBF in Indonesia and Holland and the IBF in Hawaii strive to promote the use of bamboo and educate others about the greatly misunderstood and underutilized benefits of using and preserving this plant. One of the main ways in which we hope to accomplish this is through our educational and agro forestry programs worldwide, our consultant services and by your continued participation and support."

Google Similar Images

Google Similar Images: "Woven bamboo house designed by Danish architect Søren Korsgaard.

A house designed as a showcase to promote bamboo as sustainable building material, must be unusual and eye-catching.
Bamboo has been used for making everything from kitchenware to buildings for thousands of years in most Asian countries. Among the many beautiful methods of treating bamboo, highly sophisticated weaving techniques have been developed. Woven house is an attempt to take this tradition and use it in modern architecture and in a much larger scale than anyone have ever seen before. Birds are using weaving for making their nest from materials in their habitats.
Using the unique flexibility and strength of bamboo for weaving a vacation house, that appears futuristic and dynamic and gives a unique architectural experience, where walls, floors and ceiling is one continuously surface, that also can be shaped into sitting areas and shelves.
The woven bamboo surface can be a closed surface or open to let in light.

The house should be build on a site where the material is growing, so that there will be no pollution from transport, and in a region where there is a tradition of weaving."

The Sushi Wars: Can the Bluefin Tuna Be Saved? - TIME

The Sushi Wars: Can the Bluefin Tuna Be Saved? - TIME: "If an army marches on its stomach, then the key item in the kit bags of the Roman legions that conquered southern Europe about 2,000 years ago was dried bluefin tuna. But having survived the demands of the Roman conquest, the species — each of which can weigh as much as 1,500 lbs. and live as long as 40 years — might finally have met its match in the contemporary global appetite for sushi.

If environmentalists and marine scientists are right, the world's remaining stocks of bluefin tuna, 90% of which are in the Mediterranean, could be on the verge of extinction. Says Alain Fonteneau, a marine biologist at France's government-run Institute for Development Research in Montpellier: 'If we do nothing, in five years we will fish the last bluefin tuna.'

But not everyone is ready to heed the warning. A weeklong international meeting to save the species ended in splenetic arguments Monday night, as European officials thwarted a proposal by the U.S. and environmental groups to impose a partial moratorium on bluefin-fishing and to drastically reduce catch quotas.

Officials from the 46 members of the International Consortium for the Conservation of the Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) had spent days behind closed doors in the Moroccan city of Marrakech, battling over a rescue plan for the species. Several smaller ICCAT members such as Guatemala and Panama had initially backed a proposal supported by the U.S. and environmental groups to halt all bluefin-fishing for nine months of the year and to crack down hard on violators. But European officials persuaded them to adopt instead a reduced quota of 22,000 tons in 2009 and 19,950 tons in 2011. That certainly represents a sharp drop from last year's estimated global sales of 61,000 tons of bluefin tuna — and even from this year's official quota of about 29,000 tons — but it's still far above the 15,000 tons that marine scientists advise is the limit that can be fished without the species becoming extinct."

Scenes from the Tuna Trade - Photo Essays - TIME

Scenes from the Tuna Trade - Photo Essays - TIME: "Tuna populations around the world are being fished more aggressively. Even General Santos, the so-called Tuna Capital of the Philippines, sashimi export and canneries have been hit by a downturn in the number of fish coming to port."

Bluefin Tuna Catch - Video - TIME.com

Bluefin Tuna Catch - Video - TIME.com

Hunting for Tuna: The Environmental Peril Grows - TIME

Hunting for Tuna: The Environmental Peril Grows - TIME:

Nearly every day at dawn, John Heitz falls a little bit in love. Leaning over a 150-lb. (70 kg) yellowfin tuna, the 55-year-old American, whose business is exporting fish, circles his forefinger around its deep eye socket. 'Look how clear these eyes are.' He traces the puncture where the fish was hooked, and the markings under its pectoral fin where it struggled on the line. 'Sometimes,' Heitz says, 'I see a good tuna, and it looks better to me than a woman.'"

Taiwan, China to sign financial agreement: report - Latest news around the world and developments close to home - MSN Philippines News

Taiwan, China to sign financial agreement: report - Latest news around the world and developments close to home - MSN Philippines News:

Taiwan is expected to forge an agreement on financial cooperation with China 'soon', in yet another sign of evolving ties between the two former bitter rivals, it was reported Sunday.

A senior Taiwanese official in charge of relations with China said over the weekend the formal signing of the agreement, which calls for closer banking, insurance and securities cooperation, 'could take place soon,' local media reported."

The Vertical Farm Project - Agriculture for the 21st Century and Beyond | www.verticalfarm.com

The Vertical Farm Project - Agriculture for the 21st Century and Beyond | www.verticalfarm.com:

September 21st, 2009
Skyland by ENEA WebTV
Added new images to The Living Skyscraper design

September 9th, 2009
The New York Times – Big Food vs. Big Insurance by Michael Pollan

August 31st, 2009
The New York Times – A Farm on Every Floor by Dickson Despommier
The New York Times – Connecting Nature's Dots by Thomas Friedman

June 11th, 2009
Added new Vertical Farm designs
Veritcal Farming For the Greener Good
American Society of Landscape Architects Interview

June 8th, 2009
Added Zabeel Park Vertical Farm design

May 19th, 2009
Vertical Farm Interview by Miller-McCune -- Going Up? Farming in High-Rises Raises Hopes

The Problem

By the year 2050, nearly 80% of the earth's population will reside in urban centers. Applying the most conservative estimates to current demographic trends, the human population will increase by about 3 billion people during the interim. An estimated 109 hectares of new land (about 20% more land than is represented by the country of Brazil) will be needed to grow enough food to feed them, if traditional farming practices continue as they are practiced today. At present, throughout the world, over 80% of the land that is suitable for raising crops is in use (sources: FAO and NASA). Historically, some 15% of that has been laid waste by poor management practices. What can be done to avoid this impending disaster?

A Potential Solution: Farm Vertically

The concept of indoor farming is not new, since hothouse production of tomatoes, a wide variety of herbs, and other produce has been in vogue for some time. What is new is the urgent need to scale up this technology to accommodate another 3 billion people. An entirely new approach to indoor farming must be invented, employing cutting edge technologies. The Vertical Farm must be efficient (cheap to construct and safe to operate). Vertical farms, many stories high, will be situated in the heart of the world's urban centers. If successfully implemented, they offer the promise of urban renewal, sustainable production of a safe and varied food supply (year-round crop production), and the eventual repair of ecosystems that have been sacrificed for horizontal farming.

It took humans 10,000 years to learn how to grow most of the crops we now take for granted. Along the way, we despoiled most of the land we worked, often turning verdant, natural ecozones into semi-arid deserts. Within that same time frame, we evolved into an urban species, in which 60% of the human population now lives vertically in cities. This means that, for the majority, we humans are protected against the elements, yet we subject our food-bearing plants to the rigors of the great outdoors and can do no more than hope for a good weather year. However, more often than not now, due to a rapidly changing climate regime, that is not what follows. Massive floods, protracted droughts, class 4-5 hurricanes, and severe monsoons take their toll each year, destroying millions of tons of valuable crops. Don't our harvestable plants deserve the same level of comfort and protection that we now enjoy? The time is at hand for us to learn how to safely grow our food inside environmentally controlled multistory buildings within urban centers. If we do not, then in just another 50 years, the next 3 billion people will surely go hungry, and the world will become a much more unpleasant place in which to live."

Table of Contents

Table of Contents: "Status of Interactions of Pacific Tuna Fisheries in 1995"

Table of Contents

Table of Contents: "Richard S. Shomura
Honolulu, Hawaii 96822, USA

Jacek Majkowski
Marine Resources Service
Fishery Resources Division
Fisheries Department

Robert F. Harman
ARGONAUT
Honolulu, Hawaii 96805, USA

Proceeding of the Second FAO Expert Consultation
on Interactions of Pacific Tuna Fisheries
Shimizu, Japan 23 to 31 January 1995

The designations employed and the presentation of material in this publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries.

M-40
ISBN 92-5-103921-6

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. Applications for such permission, with a statement of the purpose and extent of the reproduction, should be addressed to the Director, Information Division, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Viale delle Terme di Caracalla, 00100 Rome, Italy.

© FAO 1996
Table of Contents

Preparation of this document

Acknowledgements

Preface

Cooperative research on interactions of Pacific tuna fisheries: FAO's project and the associated Consultations

Common themes in the proceedings of the first Consultation on Interactions of Pacific Tuna Fisheries

Types of tuna fisheries interactions

Some technical issues regarding the study of fisheries interactions

Unresolved problems and questions from the first FAO Consultation on Interactions of Pacific Tuna Fisheries

Multi-species and multi-gear tuna fisheries in the Atlantic and possible interactions between gears and species

Some interaction issues in the fisheries for tunas and tuna-like fishes of the Indian Ocean

Interactions between tuna fisheries: A global review with specific examples from the Atlantic Ocean

Interactions among fisheries in separate grounds: a tag-recapture method

A method to estimate movement from changes in estimated distributions, and then revise those estimates

An aggregate model of effort distribution for the eastern Pacific tuna fishery

A simulation model of tagging experiments for yellowfin tuna in the western Indian Ocean

Formulation of model for studying interactions of yellowfin tuna fisheries in the western Pacific

Interaction between small-scale fisheries in Kiribati and the industrial purse seine fishery in the western and central Pacific Ocean

Do local catches affect local abundance? Time series analysis on Hawaii's tuna fisheries

Interactions of tunas and big pelagic fishes among sport and commercial fisheries in Mexican waters of the Pacific Ocean

Tuna fisheries interactions in Malaysia

Monitoring landings of Taiwanese tuna longliners at Penang Harbour

Interaction of Thai tuna fisheries: Problems, research and development

Studies of Indonesian tuna fisheries, Part 1: Interactions between coastal and offshore tuna fisheries in Manado and Bitung, North Sulawesi1

Studies of Indonesian tuna fisheries, Part 2: Changes in yellowfin abundance in the Gulf of Tomini and North Sulawesi1

Western Pacific Yellowfin Tuna Research Group findings on tuna fisheries interactions

Korean tuna fisheries in the Pacific Ocean and interaction between the fisheries

A spatial model to investigate the effects on catches of tunas in the eastern Pacific Ocean which might have ensued from curtailment of certain fishing methods

Interaction between vessels fishing for yellowfin tuna (Thunnus albacares) in the northeastern and southeastern Pacific

Interaction between Mexican longline and purse seine fisheries for yellowfin tuna in the eastern Pacific Ocean

Influence of purse seine fishery on longline fishery for yellowfin tuna (Thunnus albacares) in the western Indian Ocean

Studies on the population structure of skipjack tuna, Katsuwonus pelamis, in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean: Signs of interaction potential using environmental data

Skipjack movement and fisheries interaction in the western Pacific

A method for estimating fishery interactions from South Pacific albacore catch-at-length data using the SPARCLE model

Movement of large bluefin tuna, Thunnus thynnus, in the North Pacific Ocean, as determined from the Japanese longline fishery, and implications regarding interactions between the fisheries of the western and eastern Pacific Ocean

Indices of abundance of northern bluefin tuna, Thunnus thynnus, in the eastern Pacific Ocean

Interactions of Atlantic bluefin tuna fisheries

Interactions between surface and longline fisheries for southern bluefin tuna based on recent tagging results: the implications of reporting rates

Interactions of longtail tuna fisheries in the western South China Sea

Human interaction in tuna fishery management

United Nations Conference on Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks: Summary of developments and relevance to the FAO Consultation on Interaction of Pacific Tuna Fisheries

Examination of data relevant to tuna fisheries interactions in the Philippines and Indonesia

Species Identification of small juvenile tunas caught in surface fisheries in the Philippines

Overview of the biological, economic, social and political concerns related to interactions of Pacific tuna fisheries

Recent developments in the tuna fisheries of the Federated States of Micronesia

Report generation and data display from the NMT memory tag: A software demonstration

An indexed bibliography of papers on tagging of tunas and billfishes: Supplement 1"

The Trouble with Tuna - Video - TIME.com

The Trouble with Tuna - Video - TIME.com

Kiva - Loans that change lives

Kiva - Loans that change lives

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Letter of credit - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Letter of credit - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

"A standard, commercial letter of credit is a document issued mostly by a financial institution, used primarily in trade finance, which usually provides an irrevocable payment undertaking.

The LC can also be the source of payment for a transaction, meaning that redeeming the letter of credit will pay an exporter. Letters of credit are used primarily in international trade transactions of significant value, for deals between a supplier in one country and a customer in another. They are also used in the land development process to ensure that approved public facilities (streets, sidewalks, stormwater ponds, etc.) will be built. The parties to a letter of credit are usually a beneficiary who is to receive the money, the issuing bank of whom the applicant is a client, and the advising bank of whom the beneficiary is a client. Almost all letters of credit are irrevocable, i.e., cannot be amended or cancelled without prior agreement of the beneficiary, the issuing bank and the confirming bank, if any. In executing a transaction, letters of credit incorporate functions common to giros and Traveler's cheques. Typically, the documents a beneficiary has to present in order to receive payment include a commercial invoice, bill of lading, and documents proving the shipment was insured against loss or damage in transit. However, the list and form of documents is open to imagination and negotiation and might contain requirements to present documents issued by a neutral third party evidencing the quality of the goods shipped, or their place of origin."