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TechnoratiDeforestation Needs To Be In Next Climate Pact
JAKARTA - Cutting emissions from deforestation will be key to curbing climate change and should be agreed upon in December's climate talks in Bali, a leading Indonesian forestry researcher said on Monday.The conference on the resort island is expected to initiate talks on clinching a new deal by 2009 to fight global warming.
Under the Kyoto Protocol, developed nations can pay poor countries to cut emissions from activities such as the manufacture of refrigerants and fertilizers as well as capturing greenhouse gases from farm waste and rubbish dumps.
But greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation, nearly 20 percent of the world's total, are not yet eligible for trade because they were excluded from the Kyoto Protocol's first round, which runs out in 2012.
"It's huge because preserving and conserving the existing pool will then become very attractive," said Daniel Murdiyarso, senior scientist at the Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR).
"Whether by means of a market mechanism or not, including deforestation in the new deal is something Indonesia and every developing country should push for."
Murdiyarso, who is often consulted by the government on forestry and climate change issues, said the next climate deal should increase emission cut targets to halt rising temperatures.
"The Kyoto Protocol only targets a 5 percent emission cut. To stabilize levels the cut has to be much more than 5 percent," Murdiyarso said by telephone from his office on the outskirts of Jakarta.
Participants from 189 countries are expected to gather in Bali for December's U.N.-led summit, which will hear a report on Reduced Emissions from Deforestation to decide the fate of a new scheme to make emission cuts from forest areas eligible for global carbon trading.
Murdiyarso said Indonesia's vast peatlands, which are a huge store of carbon, will play a key role in shaping post-Kyoto plans on reducing global warming.
With annual carbon dioxide emissions of over 1,500 million tones, preserving Indonesia's peatlands could bring in billions of dollars, Murdiyarso said.
Experts estimate Indonesia has 20 million hectares (50 million acres) of dense, black tropical peat swamps, formed when trees, roots and leaves rot, that are natural carbon stores.
However, when burnt or drained to plant crops such as palm oil, peat releases large amounts of carbon dioxide.
Indonesia is home to 60 percent of the world's threatened tropical peatlands and among the world's top three carbon emitters when peat emissions are added in, said a report sponsored by the World Bank and Britain's development arm.
"In Germany, the cost of reducing 50 million tones is 10 billion euro, that's 200 euro per ton. If we take the same number for peatlands, we can expect some 900 billion euro," said Murdiyarso, also a peatlands expert.
"I don't think anyone would buy it at such a high price, but it would still mean millions of dollars for Indonesia."
© Reuters 2007
10 Comments so far
Show AllAs an ex-farmer, an MJ enthusiast, and a forest actisist, a word: the basics are simple: 1) we must stabillize population immediately, and begin a lowering trend. 2) we must absolutely secure all still-existant planetary biodiversity within huge protected areas,whether forest, savanna, or prairie, 3) we must promote so-called "organic" type agricultural methods, on ever smaller more locally-controlled farming units, 4) Meat use must be increasingly discouraged 5) truly sustainabile farming must be encouraged, which means tailoring every farm to local conditions and 6) farming must cease to be an industrial enterprise, obeying only market principles.
Unless these conditions are met, we will inevitably destroy most natural environments except those in non-agricultural areas, be powerless to stop the slow but sure devitalization of the ag lands,and eventually assure our own demise as modern "civilizations." Massive plantary forest preservation is an absolutely essential big step forward, if the moneyed classes are willing to listen to the evidence.
Cannabis sativa is a plant, plain and simple. Like any plant, if you try to grow large monocultures of the stuff, you will quickly run into serious problems. Hemp is demanding of soil fertility (prefers nitrogen-rich soils) and cannot be grown on an industrial scale without industrial agriculture and all the problems that brings about.
That said, the plant does produce rather good fibre, some food value and has important pharmaceutical applications. But those qualities do not add up to a miracle crop that will solve all our fibre needs. That is the point I am trying to make.
Douglas Barnes said:
"We don't want to create deserts by growing monocultures of hemp. Not a good idea. And the plant requires quite fertile soil conditions - met in industrial agriculture with the aid of copious quantities of fossil fuels."
This is false. MJ is a weed. It requires no chemical fertilizers, herbicides or pesticides to grow. These are only used when it is planted indoors under artificial conditions and when an MJ gardener wants to "push" his crop. Most good MJ is grown organically, which is a net plus for the planet. It requires no deforestation as it grows easily outdoors under trees or anywhere weeds can grow.
With unchecked poplation, the planet will not be habitable for Homo Sapiens in a few hundred years. Grade school biology students know this because they've all taken large glass jars with bateria and nutrients in them and sealed them off. At first the conlony thrives but after a while it causes complete death of everything in the jar. Punching air holes in the lid produces the same end result.
The common denominator in all of our troubles is religion. It has caused most of the suffering, wars, oppression and overpopulation that we see today.
Mutant Corporate Communism/Capitalism is the other twin evil. It's model is a constantly increasing market share at the expense of all else.
Progressives need to see that the worlds's enemies are really the religious cult of Skull and Bones (Yale) and the cult of ivy league business schools like Harvard. They're the ones who created these Frankinstien CEO's who have hijacked all public property, the government and the military in the name of world financial domination.
Boycott everything that the Fortune 500 makes if you can. Live simply. I've found it makes you happier and heathier.
pacplyer
We don't want to create deserts by growing monocultures of hemp. Not a good idea. And the plant requires quite fertile soil conditions - met in industrial agriculture with the aid of copious quantities of fossil fuels.
There is a quick and easy way to store the excess carbon and that is in the soil, namely by building soil fertility. Once in the soil, the carbon (27% in the form of glomalin) can remain stable (i.e. locked up) for up to 42 years. Building fertile soils (with the aid of a chisel plough such as a Yeoman's plough or a Wallace plough), encouraging mycelial growth, and the maintaining of healthy soil (by avoiding conventional agricultural techniques) can effectively lock away carbon. Were the Great Plains of North America restored to their original health, we could lock away all the excess carbon pumped into the atmosphere during the past century and a half. These methods are cheap and risk free. All that needs to happen is for it to happen (I'll be treating some acreage in this manner next year.).
Deforestation and Hemp: How to Stop Global Warming
http://www.chycho.com/?q=Deforestation_Hemp_Global_Warming
"Cannabis products span the consumer spectrum making it the only plant in the world that can help us curb global warming. It has "over 25,000 potential uses." It rejuvenates the soil, it can replace wood products saving our forests, it is medicinal, it can be used as a building material, textiles, paint & plastic, fuel, paper, food and body care...
To help stop what indigenous elders have called "Mother Earth is crying," we need to stop the war on Cannabis. Even though we were manipulated into accepting a war that has cost us billions of dollars and million of lives, it's time for us to grow up, accept responsibility, and make changes. To reduce our contribution to global warming we must begin the cultivation and consumption of hemp en masse globally."
Easily solved by growing marijuana as food, clothing, paper, composite construction material, medicine, fuel and of course as a safe, peaceful, recreational drug and creative tool. Why not?
1. It became illegal because it threatened Hearst's pulp wood empire.
2. It was used as an excuse to attack immigrants who provided cheap labor.
3. It is used to scare the public into voting for anti-drug politicians.
4. It is used as an excuse to bust down doors and make illegal searches of people's homes, cars and body cavities.
5. It supplies cheap jailhouse labor for corporations and a source of prisoners for the private, taxpayer financed prison industry.
6. It's psychoactive component makes you realize that "pot will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no pot". Therefore it makes people revolt against their corporate masters when they realize that there is more to life than being a wave slave and cog in the machine.
7. It turns greedy, thieving, murderous conservatives into liberal hippies like Jesus that rage against the war machine and the moneylenders in God's temple.
8. It competes with patented pharmaceutical industry chemicals and with the alcohol and tobacco corporations who are spending millions campaigning against it.
9. It gives our country an excuse to invade any other country.
10. It gives the oligarchy an excuse to invade our privacy, check our body fluids, jail and coerce us.
11. It gives police the ability to keep people's possessions and sell them at auction.
12. Since it is the only drug that is detectable in the blood, it is used as a way to paint all pot users with the same brush and punishment as hard drug users.
13. It is kept illegal to keep its prices high so bribes to cops, politicians and judges will get higher.
14. It is kept illegal so that religious figures in minority communities can get compensation for anti-drug demonstrations that keep the WOD raging and people killing and dying.
15. It is kept illegal so that police and spy agencies can ask and get bigger budgets for fighting the WOD.
Shame, shame, shame on all of us who contribute to over consumption!
PS: Patriarchy, organized patriarchal religons and capitalism are suicidal as far as our species and the planet are concerned.
"Manifest Destiny" and "Man's Dominion Over Nature" are suicidal concepts.
These methods have defeated common sense and human controls --
Americans need to challenge everything that we are told to believe and have been invested in, either intellectually or financially.
NEXT climate pact?
We don't have that kind of time --
Ignorance is our greatest enemy re Global Warming --
Pollution and Overpopulation, of course, are also compounding the destruction of humanity and the planet --
where are discussions of "overpopulation" -- ???
Popey is calling for Italian women to have more children!!!!
Where is the official outcry against his particular insanity????