The World in 2101?
- Topics:
- Biotechnology, Blog, Food Industry News & Trends, Food Policy & Politics, Hunger & Food Crisis, Organic Food & Farming
Thursday, February 26th, 2009, 2:13 PM
The WorldWatch Institute has published a new report which investigates an “imagined future:” State of the World 2009: Into a Warming World highlights the potential fate of the planet if scientists, consumers, producers, and politicians act quickly and effectively now, in 2009, to combat the energy and climate change crises.
According WorldWatch, “The questions addressed in the State of the World 2009 are many: how do we adapt- not just as communities and nations, but as a species-to the warming that is headed our way, no matter what we do now? How will the world deal with the fact that the climate burden will fall heaviest on countries whose contributions to climate change have been the most modest? And even as we struggle to adapt, how does society maintain focus on slashing emissions to a pale shadow of their current levels?”
The report selects specific challenges (land use, energy, emissions, etc.) and proposes innovative alternatives. Some of the Innovations highlighted in the Land Use section are:
>> In Parana, Brazil, farmers have developed organic management systems combined with no-till. No-till plots yielded a third more wheat and soybean than conventional plowed plots and reduced soil erosion by up to 90 percent. (p. 36)
>> In 2005, a Pennsylvania dairy farm invested $1.14 million in a project to process the manure from 800 cows, using a digester and a combined heat and power unit. Now the farm makes a profit using biogas to generate 120 kilowatt-hours of electricity to sell back to the local utility. (p. 41)
>> Both India and China have large national programs to revegetate millions of hectares of forest and grasslands-seen as investments to reduce poverty and protect watersheds. (p. 44)
>> In Morocco, 34 pastoral cooperatives with more than 8,000 members rehabilitated and manage some 450,000 hectares of grazing reserves. (p. 44)
>> In Rajasthan, India, community-led watershed restoration programs have reinstated more than 5,000 traditional johads (rainwater storage tanks) in over 1,000 villages. (p. 44)
>> Some countries are redirecting subsidy payments to agri-environmental payments for ecosystem services, some of which explicitly include carbon storage and emissions reduction. (p. 46)
If you’re interested in reading more, download chapters or purchase a copy of this critical report here.
– Deepa
