Heal Earth Now

News reports over the years have brought to light the plight that many albinos in African have experienced at the hands of the superstitious and witch doctors. They have been killed and dismembered so that parts of their bodies can be used in rituals. One man in Mali said that he was almost kidnapped twice and that is why he escaped to Spain to get asylum. According to the article on the BBC News web site, the process of gaining asylum usually take 2 years , but his was done in 2 years. The man also says that he would like to one day bring his albino brothers to Spain so that they can be safe.

Some homes in Western Kansas will be soon be powered by the biofuel produced by cow manure. Many different areas in Europe, including the Netherlands, are already using cow manure to produce biofuel.

In a few months, the city of Ulysses will get a new machine called a gasifier. It will be used to turn cow manure into electricity. Each unit is small enough to fit on a semi-truck, but is capable of producing enough energy to power 1,500 homes.

“Each cow produces about 8 pounds of manure per day,” says Gene Pflughoft, Grant County Economic Development Director. “They can take that dry manure, gasify it, turn it into a gas, and then run that into a generator and generate electricity.”

Source:Kake.com

Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued the following statement tonight on the United Nations Climate Conference. Speaker Pelosi is currently leading a bipartisan Congressional delegation to Copenhagen.

“The agreement reached tonight in Copenhagen is a breakthrough in the global effort to combat the climate crisis and could not have been reached without President Obama’s active involvement and leadership. The President has secured a critical agreement that includes an achievable mitigation target, transparency measures and a financing mechanism – the three key fundamentals outlined in the President’s speech today and embodied in the House-passed Waxman-Markey bill.

“In our discussions in Copenhagen, we have been gratified by the enthusiasm of American business leaders and our colleagues in the European Parliament for the House passed clean energy bill. Our legislation will create millions of clean energy jobs for Americans, strengthen our national security and ensure the competitiveness of U.S. businesses in the emerging marketplace for energy efficiency and renewable fuels. Business leaders from around the world have it clear: addressing the climate crisis is not only sound science and a moral imperative, but good business.

“Our bipartisan delegation, which includes 21 Members of the House, has held two days of highly productive meetings and discussions during our visit to the Copenhagen climate meeting. This morning, our delegation discussed responses to the climate crisis with representatives of many of the leading American companies including such innovators as Google, Honeywell and Whirlpool. These business leaders informed us that their businesses are thriving in the fields of energy efficiency and green technologies. They stressed that the funding provided by the Congress through our Recovery Package has been crucial to their making the investments that are producing jobs for Americans and new products that promote energy efficiency, specifically smart grid technology.

“On Thursday, Members of the delegation participated in a roundtable with other women leaders by the Global Gender and Climate Alliance; held bilateral talks with Indian Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh; and met with leading Danish government officials, including the President of the Folketinget Thor Pedersen.

“The delegation also met with leading representatives of the European Council of Ministers, who explained that their various countries have not only complied with carbon reduction mandates, but have simultaneously achieved economic growth and job creation through new clean energy technologies.

“While there were differences between Members of the delegation, as Congressman Joe Barton said, we all believed this was an historic meeting.”

Source: Office of the Speaker of the House

According to an article from the Associated Press, we are in the warmest decade (2000-2009).

The last few decades are the warmest period in at least 400 years and probably 1,000 years, based on evidence from tree rings, retreating glaciers and other scientific methods to track climate before record-keeping, according to a 2006 report by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

Although temperatures have fluctuated, the causes were natural. The difference now is that they are being driven up by human activity, that modern civilization has many more coastal cities and needs to feed far more people, and that scientists believe humans can head off such dangerous warming.

Many parts of the world are already feeling the effects of global warming. Melting polar ice caps are causing sea levels to rise in some places, as result people in many countries losing their homes and businesses close to the coastline. Since what one country does affects the whole world, developing countries are paying for the waste and huge carbon emissions that other countries have released into the air.

Although we are seeing the warmer decades, that does not mean that all is over. We can work to reduce our carbon emissions. Most people and cities are trying to go green and hopefully going green continues to be cool and be just what we need to slow down global warming.

We know that carbon emissions are affecting climate change. A change in our environment is bound to affect the plants, animals and humans. Researchers are putting a number of live saved if we can reduce the amount of carbon emissions.

The calculations of lives saved were based on computer models that looked at pollution-caused illnesses in certain cities. The figures are also based on the world making dramatic changes in daily life that may at first seem too hard and costly to do, researchers conceded.

Some possible benefits seemed highly speculative, the researchers conceded, based on people driving less and walking and cycling more. Other proposals studied were more concrete and achievable, such as eliminating cook stoves that burn dung, charcoal and other polluting fuels in the developing world.

And cutting carbon dioxide emissions also makes the air cleaner, reducing lung damage for millions of people, doctors said.

“Here are ways you can attack major health problems at the same time as dealing with climate change,” said lead author Dr. Paul Wilkinson, an environmental epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

The calculations are based on proposals that would cut global greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent by 2050. To accomplish that, industrialized countries have to cut emissions by 83 percent. Obama’s proposal, also unveiled Wednesday with his Copenhagen announcement, is in sync with that.

Source: Associated Press

The Dalai Lama on Wednesday appealed to China to take action to stop Tibet’s glaciers melting, saying the environmental crisis was more urgent than a political solution over Tibet’s future.

Attending a U.N. summit on global hunger in Rome, the exiled Buddhist leader warned rivers from Tibet’s glaciers and snow-covered mountains may dry up in 15 to 20 years and asked China to study the problem together with Tibetan experts.

There have been several talk be between the Dalai Lama and Chinese officials about the melting glaciers. No word on what steps, if any, will be taken to remedy the problem.

Source: Rueters

Biogas produced from cow manure is warming many homes in the Netherlands. Biogas is produced by the fermentation of cow manure and other biological material. Biogas is a biofuel that can be used as power. The Netherlands and many other European countries have been using biogas as a power source for some homes.

A new plant opened in the Netherlands this past Friday.

Manure from cows at a nearby dairy farm will be fermented along with grass and food industry residues, and the biogas released during the process will be used as fuel for the thermal plant’s gas turbines.

The heat generated will be distributed to around 1,100 homes in the area around Leeuwarden in the north of the Netherlands, the plant’s operator Essent said in a statement.

Source: Reuters.com

The Kyoto Protocol is an international environmental treaty with the goal of combating global warming due to greenhouse gases. The protocol gets its name from Kyoto, Japan where the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) convened on December 11, 1997. The plan is to stabilize greenhouse gas levels by reducing emissions, particularly by developed countries, and to create new techniques to manage the current damage on the environment.

The Kyoto Protocol’s goal is to reduce collective greenhouse emissions to 5% below the levels from 1990. The time frame is five years, from 2008 to 2012. Each country that ratifies the accord is primarily responsible for adjusting its emissions nationally by their own measures. These greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and sulfur dioxide as well as hydrofluorocarbons and perfluorocarbons. In order to accomplish the national goal, a country has additional options through flexible mechanisms. These include a credit system which allows countries to buy emission reduction credits from other countries, who have lower greenhouse emissions, or through emission reducing projects.

Many nations have signed and ratified the Kyoto protocol; for example, Russia ratified it in February of 2005. Each country has committed to its own specific emission reduction goal and must nominate a national authority. This official will oversee the regulation of greenhouse emissions, monitor the emissions with precise records, as well as keep track of trades and credits, and provide an annual report. The United States has not signed the Kyoto Accord, but individual cities in the USA have signed climate change agreements.

CNN wants you to go a vote for the 2009 Hero of the Year. It is a difficult choice because all these individuals have made significant contributions to world around them. Each person has sacrificed time, and money to help improve the lives of others. You can read all their stories on cnn.com. One woman, Betty Makoni, started an organization in Zimbabwe to help women and girls that have been victims of sexual abuse. Another man is a veteran that provides help to other veterans that are homeless and battling addiction. You can vote for the 2009 hero at cnn.com. On Thanksgiving night CNN will air a special from the Kodak Theater in Hollywood to honor the top 10 heroes of the year.

ABC news ran a story which documented cases of albino people in the United States and as far as the continent of Africa. People with albinism in America are sometimes made fun of and taunted. People in Africa are suffering even greater harm. In Africa, superstitions and witchcraft has led the killing and mutilation of albino children and adults. Superstition in Tanzania and other countries believe that albinos have specials powers and using their body parts in their witchcraft will cause increase wealth.

As the government works to crackdown on the killing of albinos, albinos are looking for safe havens that will keep them protected. ABC has listed 2 different groups that are working to help albinos in Africa. Under the Same Sun is a Canadian organization that works to help to bring awareness about the killings and support a school in Africa that has become a safehaven for albino children.