Also Try Biochar Soil Carbon Sequestration Sustainable Development Sustainable Living News African News for Sustainable Health and Peace (AllAfrica.com) Provides news related to water, health, agriculture, and biodiversity. 12-03 Brazil Reacts to High Food Prices (New York Times) "Luciano Alves planted beans, corn and grain on about 7,500 acres of his farm in southern Brazil last year. This year, he is planting 8,600 acres. And he credits Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, with the increase." " 'The government is helping us finance the purchase of new machinery,' said Mr. Alves. 'They reduced the interest rates we pay and have given us more time to pay off the loans. It’s vital.' " 08-08 Green Architecture Certification (New York Times) "On a recent Friday, when the rest of the staff of the architecture firm Beyer Blinder Belle was out of the office enjoying a beautiful August day, about 25 people sat in a windowless room learning about the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification process." 08-08 Vertical Farming for Sustainability (New York Times) "IF climate change and population growth progress at their current pace, in roughly 50 years farming as we know it will no longer exist. This means that the majority of people could soon be without enough food or water. But there is a solution that is surprisingly within reach: Move most farming into cities, and grow crops in tall, specially constructed buildings. It’s called vertical farming." 08-09 Papers -001 Lovelock: One Last Chance to Save Mankind (NewScientist.com) "There is one way we could save ourselves and that is through the massive burial of charcoal. It would mean farmers turning all their agricultural waste - which contains carbon that the plants have spent the summer sequestering - into non-biodegradable charcoal, and burying it in the soil. Then you can start shifting really hefty quantities of carbon out of the system and pull the CO2 down quite fast." "Would it make enough of a difference?" "Yes. The biosphere pumps out 550 gigatonnes of carbon yearly; we put in only 30 gigatonnes. Ninety-nine per cent of the carbon that is fixed by plants is released back into the atmosphere within a year or so by consumers like bacteria, nematodes and worms. What we can do is cheat those consumers by getting farmers to burn their crop waste at very low oxygen levels to turn it into charcoal, which the farmer then ploughs into the field. A little CO2 is released but the bulk of it gets converted to carbon. You get a few per cent of biofuel as a by-product of the combustion process, which the farmer can sell. This scheme would need no subsidy: the farmer would make a profit. This is the one thing we can do that will make a difference, but I bet they won't do it." 05-09 -Food Storage, Waste, and Biochar (VillageEarth.org) " 'In Latin America it has been estimated that there is a loss of 25 to 50 percent of harvested cereals and pulses; in certain African countries about 30 percent of the total subsistence agricultural production is lost annually, and in areas of Southeast Asia some crops suffer losses of up to 50 percent.' " Editor's Note: The losses are linked to poor storage and poor drying before storage. For crops that are lost, making biochar is the logical solution. Farmers can build low-tech kilns from mud and other local materials, make biochar from the crop waste, use the heat from burning biochar to dry crops, and then either sell the biochar or use it on the fields as fertilizer. This solution can help the farmers economically and can play a major role in reducing catastrophic climate change. If farmers globally make biochar out of their organic wastes, catastrophic climate change will be prevented. 05-09 A Vacuum Alternative to Pesticides (Science Daily) "A physical chemist has developed a new technique for ridding harvested produce of insect pests and microorganisms without using pesticides such as methyl bromide. The technique, called Metabolic Stress Disinfection and Disinfestation, suffocates pests by exposing them to cycles of vacuum and pressurized carbon dioxide. Treatment chambers could be easy to develop on a large enough scale for farmers to use." 09-08 Consume and Discard Lifestyles Not Sustainable (StephenWolfram.com) " 'We continue to depend on a series of ancient, genetically and socially determined habits and attitudes, many of which seem to have been more suitable for our hunter-gatherer ancestors,' " he [Peter Raven] says. " 'We must adopt new ways of thinking that will serve our descendants well in a world that is crowded beyond imagining, a world in which we shall always be the major ecological force. Unless, of course, we destroy ourselves.' " 8-02 Eat Less Beef (NewDream.org) Advocates that each of us eat one less beef meal per week. "If only 1,000 of us take this action, we will save over 70,000 pounds of grain, 70,000 pounds of topsoil and 40 million gallons of water each year!" 11-03 Fighting Hunger Globally - World Food Prize (WorldFoodPrize.org) "By pioneering ways to restore fertility to the poorest and most degraded soils in Latin America and Africa, the 2002 World Food Prize Laureate, Dr. Pedro A. Sanchez, has made a major contribution to preserving our delicate ecosystem, while at the same time offering great hope to all those struggling to survive on marginal lands around the world." 8-02 Fighting Hunger Globally - World Food Prize Laureates (WorldFoodPrize.org) Laureates are "those who have made significant and measurable contributions to improving the world's food supply." "The World Food Prize is the foremost international award recognizing -- without regard to race, religion, nationality, or political beliefs -- the achievements of individuals who have advanced human development by improving the quality, quantity or availability of food in the world." 8-02 Genetically Modified Potatos (VShiva.net) Describes the issues related to genetically modified organisms (GMO's), with an emphasis on the potato. Visitors sometimes misspell as organizms. 1-02 Iroquois "Three Sisters" (Cornell.edu) "Mt. Pleasant studies what traditionally are known as the "three sisters": beans, corn and squash. These staples of Iroquois cropping are traditionally grown together on a single plot, mimicking natural systems in what agronomists call a polyculture. Though the Iroquois technique was not developed scientifically, Mt. Pleasant notes that it is 'agronomically sound.' The three sisters cropping system embodies all the things needed to make crops grow in the Northeast, she says." 11-03 Organic Foods Facts (Organic Trade Association) Provides facts about organic foods and other environmental friendly issues. 5-02 Program Partners Aspiring Farmers with Aging Pros (MSNBC News) "He quit his job and drove his wife and their four young daughters across country, a 21st-century pioneer lured to these faraway farm fields by the promise of a life-changing deal with an older stranger." 08-09 Saving Soil and Trees While Fighting Hunger (Washington Post) "Dr. Pedro Sanchez loves dirt. The prize-winning soil scientist says that poor quality soil is the cause of many of the evils that plague poor countries, from hunger and poverty to environmental devastation caused by slash-and-burn farming." "...Sanchez has helped teach 150,000 small-scale African farmers how to boost grain production by bettering their dirt — that is, by replenishing soil nutrients with nitrogen from native vegetation and phosphates from rocks." "As a result, those farmers can feed their families without having to burn more forests to get fertile land." 8-02 Shiva, Vandana (AsiaWeek.com - Reyes) Profiles a leader in the field of sustainable agriculture and ecology. She is the director of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology. 1-02 Shiva, Vandana (PDCForum) Profiles a leader in the field of sustainable agriculture and ecology. She is the director of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology. 1-02 Strategies for Sustainable Agriculture (University of California) Presents core issues related to sustainable agriculture, as well as strategies. "Sustainable agriculture integrates three main goals--environmental health, economic profitability, and social and economic equity." "Sustainability rests on the principle that we must meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." 1-02 Sustainable Business Practices - Agriculture (BSR.org) Provides methods a model business uses for environmental sustainability. 5-02 Sustainable Development Conference in Johannesburg (MSNBC) "Formally titled 'the World Summit for Sustainable Development,' the gathering is billed as the largest United Nations meeting in history — with more than 100 world leaders and 65,000 delegates expected to convene in venues throughout sprawling Johannesburg." "At Rio, President George H.W. Bush ignited a diplomatic furor by rejecting accords to protect biodiversity and reduce greenhouse gas emissions." "Little has changed since. The United States has angered both its European allies and developing nations by stifling many global environmental accords inspired by Rio, citing economic concerns." "Since Rio, U.S. consumption of energy has jumped 21 percent and greenhouse gas emissions are up 13 percent, according to figures gathered by the United Nations and others." 8-02 The Toxic Consequences of the Green Revolution (U.S. News) "Four decades after the so-called Green Revolution enabled this vast nation to feed itself, some farmers are turning their backs on modern agricultural methods—the use of modified seeds, fertilizer, and pesticides—in favor of organic farming." 07-08

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