the same river twice

2008/06/26

Singapore International Water Week - Powered by GlobalSign.In

Biofuel use 'increasing poverty'

BBC NEWS | Europe | Biofuel use 'increasing poverty': "Oxfam says so-called green policies in developed countries are contributing to the world's soaring food prices, which hit the poor hardest."

2008/06/10

Is best in the world enough to matter?

FT.com / In depth - Japan pledges big cut in emissions: "Japan will launch an experimental carbon trading scheme for industry this autumn, Yasuo Fukuda, prime minister, said on Monday as he announced a pledge to cut the country’s greenhouse gas emissions by 60-80 per cent by 2050."

2008/06/03

Lesotho gardens relieve food crisis

John wrote a paper on gardens employed to stave off malnutrition last fall. It didn't fare well with his profs, but look:

BBC NEWS | Africa | Lesotho gardens relieve food crisis:

"As delegates at the UN food summit in Rome tackle concerns over food production, the BBC's Peter Greste visits Lesotho, one of the countries most at risk from climate change and global food and fuel price rises."

2008/06/02

A $10 Mosquito Net Is Making Charity Cool

A $10 Mosquito Net Is Making Charity Cool - NYTimes.com:

"Donating $10 to buy a mosquito net to save an African child from malaria has become a hip way to show you care, especially for teenagers."

2008/05/31

malnutrition and the Lancet

Scanning the articles in press for the Lancet this week, I notice another series of articles emerging on malnutrition (Malnutrition kills directly, not indirectly). Is it related to or a continuation of this?

The Scientist : NewsBlog Print: Journal vs. docs: malnutrition spat:

"The editor of The Lancet has banned members of international aid group Doctors Without Borders (Medicins sans Frontieres or MSF in French) from publishing articles in the journal, according to a story in Science magazine today (Feb. 1). Did members of the aid organization break an embargo? Fail to disclose conflicts of interest? Fabricate data? Nope. They just posted a critique of some Lancet articles on their website [...] MSF criticized a series of articles on curbing malnutrition published in the Jan. 19th issue of The Lancet for, among other shortcomings, not including enough information about ready-made, high-protein therapeutic foods that MSF and other aid organizations distribute to combat acute cases of malnutrition."

2008/05/30

Will Investments in Agricultural Technology be enough?

The Global Food Crisis: Will Investments in Agricultural Technology be enough? | End Poverty in South Asia:

"...Our study found that access to large urban markets (as in Dhaka and Chittagong) is by far the most important determinant of high-return, non-farm activities: people are more likely to be employed in better paid wage employment and self employment in the non-farm sector if they are closer to urban centers. The impact of agricultural potential depends on how far the village is from the main urban centers: those who are further away from these centers are even less likely to be in well-paying non-farm jobs even if they are living in areas with greater agricultural potential."

2008/05/28

Moral Scales in the Senate

Michael Gerson - Moral Scales in the Senate - washingtonpost.com: "[...] For all of conservatism's evident virtues, it can have one furtive, seedy vice: A justified suspicion of government can degenerate into an anti-government ideology -- rigid, stingy and indifferent to human suffering. Conservative concerns on family planning and abstinence in the PEPFAR reauthorization are not imaginary, but they could be resolved through good-faith negotiations, as they were in the House of Representatives. A generalized hostility toward AIDS prevention, however, is destructive..."

2008/05/23

This Week in China

This Week in China | FP Passport:

NPR looks more at the “unprecedented” free media reporting environment in China surrounding the earthquake coverage including the increased professionalism of journalists.

The Carnegie Endowment’s China program director, Douglas H. Paal, talks to BBC about the political implications of the earthquake. On the tension between addressing public outcry and avoiding political fallout, Paal says “finding a balance point is going to be a very tough challenge for [the Chinese leadership] on such a highly emotional issue.”

Daniel Bell, a teacher of political theory at Tsinghua University, describes his experiences in the classroom after the earthquake in an op-ed for the New York Times.

2008/05/15

Vote for The Top 100 Public Intellectuals

Foreign Policy: The Top 100 Public Intellectuals: The Top 100 Public Intellectuals

They are some of the world’s most introspective philosophers and rabble-rousing clerics. A few write searing works of fiction and uncover the mysteries of the human mind. Others are at the forefront of modern finance, politics, and human rights. In the second Foreign Policy/Prospect list of top public intellectuals, we reveal the thinkers who are shaping the tenor of our time."

2008/05/14

How Bangladesh Is Preparing for Climate Change

Nomads of the Tides: How Bangladesh Is Preparing for Climate Change - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News: "In fact, hydrologically speaking the Netherlands is a country that shouldn't even exist. But skillful engineering has guaranteed the Dutch a successful existence. Polders, dikes and water-retaining structures protect its territory against the sea. According to Carvajal Monar, 'this is precisely what we could do in Bangladesh, but unfortunately we're moving forward far too slowly.'"

2008/04/25

Rural farmers turn malaria medics in Sierra Leone | Reuters

FEATURE-Rural farmers turn malaria medics in Sierra Leone | Reuters: "Under a pilot scheme run by aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), Jongo has been given a tester kit and trained to care for the most vulnerable in her village, a collection of mud huts 200 km (124 miles) southeast of the capital Freetown.

Instead of resorting to traditional medicine and 'pehpeh doctors' who deal in out-of-date or fake medication, pregnant women and young children too weak to travel to far-off health centres can turn to Jongo for effective drugs and care.

If the tester kit shows they have malaria, Jongo administers a 3-day course of drugs she keeps locked in a special box."

2008/04/16

Pedro Sanchez on the Brian Lehrer Show

WNYC - The Brian Lehrer Show: Rice Riots (April 10, 2008)

Hans Rosling: Five thoughts at the same time

Hans Rosling: Five thoughts at the same time:

"An evidence base world view requires five thoughts at the same time:
1. World is getting better and better,
2. but at the cost of climate change,
3. and billions still live miserable lives in poverty
4. and in the last decade life got worse for 100 of millions,
5. but as the world is stupidly managed, we have many opportunities to fix the world for the grandkids!"

2008/04/03

liveblogging Cheryl Palm

Main agricultural risks to land degradation and provision of ecosystem services include land conversation like deforestation. Largest change in forest, grassland, or whatever can go into a different state with management. Species introductions cause biodiversity losses can outcompete and become invasive species.

Disturbance of soil surfaces with tillage and fertilizer addition. Alterations of hydrological cycle. High volue irrigation, salinization, GHG admissions. Run-off of added water.

Shows USAID project that introduced a legume tree that took over the riverbanks. Is almost impossible to get rid of and wiped out native vegetation on riverbanks. Mismanagement of land. Continual burning.

Rehabilitation of the environment and ecosystem services. goals are to rehabilitate those soils so that they provide ecosystem services. Microbes and earth worms can help biological rehab. Physical and chemical rehab also increase nitrogen or other minerals in soil.

If you don't get the whole community to buy into this, you may help ecology of a small part but not the whole part of the biome. Great examples in Ethiopa where community rehabilitated soil for 3 years and now see native species reemerging. Fire management is also important. In some cases people aren't using fire enough. Pastoral areas where stopped using fire are sometimes harmed. Fire can be very helpful, but needs a management strategy. Sols at farm or plot scale need to be managed very differently.

Millennium Villages environmental baselines: spatially stratified ground sampleing, high res remotse sensing, diffuse reflectance spectroscoy (can be in lab or in field), chemical analysis creates models. At ground level uisng soil surveys can look at ground cover, measure biomass, invasive species, soil condition--not just nutrients like carbon, but also infiltration capacity for water. Water quality and safety is also included.

Remote sensing derivatives. Woody vegetation cover: tree cover in Sauri is example shown. Can count the trees from satellite image. Using these you can plan your rehabilitation strategies. In almost all cases you need to put trees in these systems to recover biomass. Aforestation plans work with communities to figure out which kinds of trees are best and how to organize communal or private land.

Agriculture and Nutrition
An obvious, but neglected linkage. Nutritionalists and agriculturalists don't traditionally work together but do now at EI. Food, ecology, and nutrition program at EI shows what you can produce and how it affects productivity of the people. Rosalind Rennon is leading the charge. Jessica Tanza, nutritionist.

First two years of a child's life are irreversible for nutrition. Target lactating and pregnant women and their children under 2. Or else next generation falls to same problem.

Agrobiodiversity and nutrition. How many species make a complete meal for the day? This is the hidden hunger: enough calories but not enough nutrients. Add an orange or carrot for vit a or c. Try to work with a community to reach a complete RDA. Rosalind's task is to put this info together and then get people to grow them.

One problem is there has been a real increasing simplicity in diets. Indigenous foods need to be put back in people's diet. Cheapest food is energy rich but nutrient poor. Cereal crops rather than staple crops. How can we supplement the cheap food?

Nutritional value of African leafy vegetables. Many now eat cabbage when before indigenous vegetables were more nutritious.

Dietary Diversity and Child Growth. Height for age terciles show diverse diet makes more height for age. Increase each other and decrease malnutrition. One of first good examples that diversity in micronutrients decreases malnutrition. This is some of the first data that shown that. Arimond and Ruel 2004.

Agribiodiversity has many benefits. Is future wave of success in ecosystem services. Increase diversity of crops also tends to decrease pests and diseases. Millennium Village sites can provide the data to prove this. Help convince people this is how you decrease malnutrition in children.

Microdams capture rainwater harvesting at the local scale. Try to capture rainwater and distribute it more efficiently. Ceramic pots in India planted next to trees slowly let the water out.

MDG budgets don't include infrastructure for irrigation. Water for ag in this rainfed continent are a need for private funders.

Blue water is water you can see like ditch runoff. Green water is stored in soil and is green in sense that it will be used by the plant in the transpiration streeam. Most of water calculations are based on blue water but green water actually accounts for 75% of total so we have only looked so far at 25% of avail water.

Gates Foundation focus on the digital soil mapping was to ensure the information could reach extension agents and farmers. Finding best practices for different agroeconomic zones and embed them into the digital soil map.

Digital soil maps are planned to be integrated with Google Maps for accessibility. One goal is to make sure women have access b/c in much of African ag, women can't plant or cut trees. Most of the sites so far have gender specialists/facilitators.

The social dimensions are great for villages. Post-doc anthropologist is trying to document the changes good or bad. 10 countries, different ethic groups, Muslim, Christian, and mixed. Matrilineal societies in Ghana and Malawi where land passes through women's line but is run by the uncles. In Ethiopia the land belongs to the state. What are the incentives to improve the land if your children will not inherit the land? working on long term leases.

Labels: cheryl palm, earth institue, tropical agriculture

liveblogging Pedro Sanchez lecture

African Green Revolutio: progress and potential problems
FOA Index of Net Food Output per capita shows sub-saharan Africa is the only part of the world where food production is lagging relative to population growth. That’s why epicenter for hunger, poverty, and disease .

Successes in preventing widescale starvation in India are due to policies and innovations. Fertilizers helped percentage yield increase.
Overarching biophysical problem in Africa rather than policy or population. Untamed water: too much or too little. Spring fed water ag system like US, but makes life harder. Soils in Africa in general aren’t bad but farmers have taken nutrients out in harvest, also erosion and weather based erosion. Main biophysical problem why Africa has not had its green revolution.

Kofi Annan called for Green Revolution in Africa. For agriculture, child and maternal nutrition. Strong interactions with health. Get the poor into markets. Hunger hotspots are in areas with no markets. Making markets work for the poor is an important policy problem. Soils, water, improved seeds.

80 Millennium Villages. There have been tremendous increases in ag production and health. Have learned it takes about $77 in fertilizers and improved seeds to grow an extra ton of food. If you are going to bring that food as food aid from US it costs ten times more. Is like the Chinese proverb to empower people to fish so they can eat for a lifetime at a tenth of the price. High prices all over the world right now are bad for many reasons, but are good for stimulating increased production in Africa.

Important to cobine mineral and effective organic fertilizers. N fixing trees and cover crops.
Bottom line is enterprise diversification. Can help some get out of agriculture totally. Transformation away from subsistence. Business is helping here. World Economic Forum.

That’s the grassroots level. Take it up to the country scale. The EI outreach focus is to influence policies so we can influence the world for the better.
Malawi. Is an unlikely candidate for being the first African Green Revolution success.

When new president was elected, he asked EI advice. EI went to donors to help subsidize agricuture base there. The donors said no. Ag here is subsidized, but no one wanted to support that there. But President was interested so they helped him design a subsidization program. Were able to procure fertilizers throughout the country. Gave vouchers for 75% reduction in cost. Also distributed maize seeds.

National production doubled in maize, yields doubled, and food requirements measured by national percentage of nutritional needs met went from 57 to 153. Forecast cost is 3 million dollars. Food security map of Malawi is now green, was before red. Weather was also good, to help results.

Impact cost of the subsidy was 58 million. Value of incremental production was $72-96 million. Has increased national food security. There were 5 million food insecure people before and now are half a million. Better health and higher education were also results. Lesson is leadership grounded in strong science makes a huge difference. Is the comparative advantage of the Earth Institute.

Knowledge already exists to increase food security everywhere in Africa. Subsidies make economic sense and are affordable. Donors are now on board.

Scaling up is the issue addressed at Oslo Conference Sept 2007. Idea was sparked there to launch a Global Fund for the African Green Revolution. Based on success of Global Fund for AIDS, TB, and Malaria. Met with CEO of world bank, ADB, Gates, Rockefeller, and others. Now formal proposal for $5-10 billion a year need to succeed. We know what to do. We need the resources to do it.

New threats now. In last 6 months whole world agriculture markets are tumbled around. Grain prices of basic grains 50% more in US since last year. Food riots now in Asia with rice b/c rice is becoming a scarce commodity. Grain reserves in world have been wiped out b/c these prices. Lot is due to China and US importing food like crazy. And, rice for biofuels are picking up 15% of corn acerage in this country. Is a terrible thing for the consumer, but is a great thing for the farmers to have high prices. His advice to African ministers is that this is the time to really produce b/c everything will be bought and at a good price.

High prices have also trickled down to basic comodities like fertilizer. Getting reports from African villages that fertilizers have increased in price 300%. WIll be difficult to afford that even with the high price. Is largely from high price of oil and high demand for phosphate for other uses. Russians are cornering the market on fertilizer and may use this as a political weapon.

This isn't time to cut down the subsidies. Climate change is continuing to exacerbate water extremes in Africa. Rise of biofuels in last couple of years continues to threaten food production here. Corn ethanol is one of the least efficient wys to make fuel. Hype by food lobby is harming environment. If you want to produce biofuels, though, go to the tropics. High temps the year 'round are more effective.

Another problem is ruminant animals. When you feed grains to ruminant animals that should be eating grass they get fat and give those who eat them artergy disease. As poor countries get richer they move to this higher meat and fat diet.

US farm situation. makingmoney, but need to diversify and instaed are specilizing in cereal crops. They see specilization within things like corn. Farmers are going to be much more specialized.

Yesterday was a meeting iwth a 23 $bil company. Agreed not to have plantations in virgin forests. Get out of peet bogs and other sensitive areas. Will make it more sustainable in development in Malaysia. These guys are no philanthropists, are tough businessmen.

Pushing now fora digital soil map of the world. Need it for the African Green Revolution. Aims of soil surveillance are to provide spatially explicit diagnostic info on soil elath and degradation. Mean annual precipitation can show a map against something lie carbon density. Can use land sats to reveal soil organic carbon. Combine maps with local know-how and cost-benefits to create soil recommendations. Is a global-to-local technology.

Labels: earth institute, pedro sanchez, tropical agriculture

2008/03/30

Palestinians march to call for healthy generation of refugees

The Daily Star - Lebanon News - Palestinians march to call for healthy generation of refugees: "...These camp inhabitants, mostly women and children, were calling for a healthy generation of Palestinians who might one day return to their country.

'Land needs healthy people, both physically and mentally, to look after it,' explained Olfat Mahmoud, director of the Palestinian Women's Humanitarian Organization (PWHO), a local women's non-governmental organization launched in 1993 with the goal of empowering Palestinian women and children. Their mandate has since expanded to include working with entire communities, as well as other refugee populations in Lebanon.

'We wanted to commemorate Land Day, along with Women's, Children's, Mother's, and Teacher's Days - all in March - with a positive message, in the form of a health festival,' Mahmoud added [...]"

About SOP 08: feedback time

We were left still hungry, to say the least.

In the post-conference survey, in response to what didn't you like about the conference, I said it wasn't TED. Everything great the speakers said was already said in their books (on sale! we were minded a thousand times) in the lobby. It didn't feel innovative, participatory, or exciting. I was let down. There were sadly few presentations with even the simplest slides to accompany. The conference made me feel like the Earth Institute is losing its edge, which raises all sorts of questions about whether I want to do a post doc here or some place closer to the frontier in this sector. Conferences should do the opposite. They should reinspire, reinvigorate the attendees to go back out and save that world, damnit. This is Jeff Sachs, after all. He's the one who said we could do it in the first place.

Here was John's feedback:

The sessions on energy and the arctic did not seem to be vital topics for a two-day conference held every two years.
Why was there so little involvement from the attendees? It becomes a little like the same eminent figures preaching to the same choir that attended two years ago.
Why can't this be more like a professional conference where there are peer-reviewed submissions from the attendees?

Alice Dautry should have had her own panel on health-- all the speakers recognized health as one of the keys to reducing poverty, so why only give the topic 45 mins?
Also, the audience participation process is straight out of the 1970's! Why not use some of the tools of web 2.0? It would be easy to allow audience members to wirelessly submit questions/comments and have these provided to the panel. There are even better tools that allow real-time collaboration on ideas that visually display on the big screen. Idea mapping, such as Compendium software, is also useful for this.
Breaking into smaller working sessions might be effective. Otherwise, lengthen the conference so the broad range of important topics in development can be addressed simulataneously. Missing/under-represented topics include: agriculture, health, credit/microfinance, sustainable technology, capacity-building approaches, infrastructure, etc.

At a minimum, all speakers and panelists should be _strongly_ encouraged to submit original, engaging presentations with at least some new material. Otherwise, it quickly turns into a book promotion event. Allowing outside, uninvited peer-reviewed submissions would be one way to reach a wider audience who might possibly have new or more challenging ideas.

Labels: SOP 08, state of the planet

2008/03/28

Bangladesh is speaking up on global warming

Bangladesh is speaking up on global warming | Environment | The Guardian

Ericsson signs GPON contract with Grameen CyberNet in Bangladesh

This is interesting after listening to the Ericsson CEO yesterday at the conference.

Ericsson signs GPON contract with Grameen CyberNet in Bangladesh: "Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) and Grameen CyberNet Limited, a leading internet service provider in Bangladesh, have signed a contract for a fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) network based on Ericsson's GPON (Gigabit Passive Optical Network) solution. The move will allow Grameen CyberNet to provide advanced broadband services, such as games and video-on-demand services, to its customers.

Under the agreement, Ericsson will deliver central office optical equipment and devices for the home based on its EDA 1500 solution, plus infrastructure such as fiber systems and cables."

: Name: Annie Feighery; Location: New York, New York, United States

I am a doctoral fellow at Columbia University, researching environmental and maternal health in global development. I recently completed an MPA in Environmental Science and Policy at Columbia-SIPA. My spouse, John, is also a doctoral fellow in Earth and Environmental Engineering. Together we have three children: Aidan, Eleanor, and Vivien.

View my complete profile