rainforests
-
Kids Books and Rainforest Destruction
Imagine your horror if you picked up a copy of a book on rainforests to read to your kids, intending to teach them good environmental values, and discovered that the book about rainforests was printed on dead rainforests. Unfortunately, in many American bedrooms tonight, that horror is likely to be reality. A report released today […]
-
![]()
![]()
Nestle to save orangutans, tropical forests, and our climate
Photo courtesy Frank Peters via FlickrFinally … some good news! Today, Nestle, the world’s biggest food and drinks company, announced that it will cease using products that drive the tropical rainforest destruction. This is great news for our environment in what has otherwise been a bleak few weeks. President Obama continues to dig in (or […]
-
![]()
![]()
What’s in your food that’s destroying orangutans?
Photo: Wikimedia Commons.Have you bought soap in the past week? How about lipstick? Cheerios? Soy milk? Today, a new report reveals that the nation’s largest private agribusiness company — Minneapolis-based Cargill — is a major culprit behind rainforest destruction. It turns out that Cargill, who both owns their own palm oil plantations and buys and […]
-
![]()
![]()
Raiding rainforest funds in climate legislation will turn cost projections into fantasy
An endangered unicorn protected by one of the imaginary offsets created if Kerry-Graham-Lieberman raids funds for tropical rainforests.In the ongoing negotiations over the Kerry-Graham-Lieberman bill, different polluters are clamoring for cash to compensate them for not fouling the atmosphere quite so much. One of their targets: the legislation’s set-aside funds for reducing tropical deforestation, which […]
-
![]()
![]()
The trouble with Brazil’s much-celebrated ethanol ‘miracle’
Not as sweet as advertised: industrial-scale sugarcane production in Brazil.This is a post about Brazil’s sugarcane-ethanol “miracle,” but I can’t resist starting off with a look askance at our own corn-derived ethanol phenomenon. Has there ever been a “green” technology more ecologically discredited than corn-based ethanol? It may yield slightly more energy than it consumes […]
-
Forests and agriculture essential to success of climate legislation
Within the next few days, Senators John Kerry, Lindsey Graham, and Joe Lieberman are going to unveil energy and climate legislation. If this legislation is to have any chance at either environmental, economic, or political success, they must avoid the "energy-only" approach that would entirely exclude forests and farms from participation in a solution -- but that has recently gained some traction.
-
![]()
![]()
Cocaine addicts are snorting their way to a warmer world
Passetti via Flickr You may snort at the news, but it’s the real snuff: Cocaine is hard on your sinuses, but it’s not crazy fun for the planet either. Celebs’ favorite nose candy is knocking down rainforest in party favor of coca plants, thus speeding up climate change. In fact, “for every few lines of […]
-
Year of the Tiger Brings in Fewer Tigers than Ever
According to the Chinese lunar calendar, February 14, Sunday, begins the Year of the Tiger. The largest of all cats, the tiger is one of the most charismatic and evocative species on earth. It’s also one of the most threatened. WWF estimates that there could be as few as 3,200 wild tigers left in the […]
-
![]()
![]()
Grist exclusive: A fiery battle over land in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest
On the Arapiuns River, barges of illegally taken timber smolder after being set aflame to protest logging in Gleba Nova Olinda, Amazon Rainforest. All photos: Brenda Baletti While world leaders were meeting in Copenhagen to address the challenge of climate change last month, indigenous and traditional Brazilians in the Amazon region were gathering to defend […]
