The results of a four-year research study on the impact of progressive Amazon deforestation show that a threshold exists at which abrupt changes in climate caused by land-clearing occur, harming the biome’s vegetation. The study also finds that a “tipping point” exists at which some rainforest regions lose their capacity to regenerate. The study, done by researchers at Brazil’s state-run National Institute for Space Research (INPE) and presented at an Amazon conference in the western city of Manaus in November, used models to project future changes in climate and vegetation in the Amazon. Underlying the forecasts were data gathered since the early 1990s on Amazon-region deforestation rates and road construction, which has been a key precursor to land clearing. An estimated...
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Beginning Dec. 31, 2010, the sale of incandescent light bulbs will be illegal in Argentina. The prohibition, proposed last March by Argentine President Cristina Kirchner, cleared its last legislative hurdle when the Senate approved it on Dec. 17 by unanimous vote. The Senate left intact a change that the lower house of Congress, the Chamber of Deputies, made to the proposal last June. While Kirchner’s proposal prohibited production of incandescent bulbs in Argentina, the modified version that is now law only bans their importation and sale. This means incandescent bulbs could continue to be manufactured in Argentina as long as they are exported. The new law empowers the government to eliminate import taxes on energy-efficient florescent bulbs and on the parts and equipment needed...
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A new World Bank report on Latin America and the Caribbean warns that the region must not let the global financial crisis derail its efforts against climate change. Latin America has made significant advances in fighting global warming through the use of new technologies in renewable energy, biofuels and transport, and could lead developing nations in such efforts, the report says. But with such climate-related problems such as natural disasters and declining agricultural productivity looming, the report contends, the region must not let economic pressures undermine clean-energy investment. Instead, it says, the region should take advantage of opportunities afforded by the crisis. Massive public investment in clean energy can be a “win-win” policy that also stimulates economic recovery, the World Bank argues...
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Amyris, a California-based biotechnology firm, and Crystalsev, a Brazilian ethanol distributor, recently formed a joint venture to commercially produce a cleaner, renewable form of diesel fuel from sugarcane, the first such venture of its kind anywhere. Sugarcane diesel has substantially the same chemical structure as fossil-fuel diesel, except that the former has one type of hydrocarbon molecule and the latter contains a range of them. The main difference in the two diesels’ physical properties is that sugarcane diesel contains no sulfur and when burned emits no nitrogen oxide, making it that much more eco-friendly. And the fuel is not related to biodiesel, which is made by blending vegetable oil and ethanol, usually made from sugarcane or corn, with standard diesel. The California...
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