eached to the point of infertility. Massive dust storms pick up the loose soil and carry it as far as Tokyo and Taipei. During sunset, fumes from factories block out the sun well before it can be observed sinking below the horizon.
But all this may be finally changing.
In 2005, the Chinese government, in cooperation with the World Bank, completed the world’s largest watershed restoration on the upper banks of the Yellow River. Woefully under-publicized, the $500 million enterprise transformed an area of 35,000 square kilometers on the Loess Plateau — roughly the area of Belgium — from dusty wasteland to a verdant agricultural center.
The result of careful terracing, replanting of native vegetation and restrictions on grazing, the rejuvenated land now supports a thriving local agricultural economy. Even better, the new vegetation reduces flooding and dust storms by anchoring the region’s soil and is becoming a large carbon sink.
As the Copenhagen meeting on climate change begins, the restoration project may finally get the attention it deserves. A new film directed and written by John Liu, the founder of the Environmental Education Media Project and a veteran eco-film director, will tell the story of the Loess Plateau. The documentary, “Hope in a Changing Climate,” takes the story of the Loess Plateau as its lead, but quickly moves to Rwanda and Ethiopia where similar successes have come from a process known as forest landscape restoration.
Copenhagen is the first time forest landscape restoration will be on the agenda at a major international climate conference. Under what is known as Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation Plus (REDD+), Copenhagen negotiators hope to establish a regulatory regime to fight deforestation and manage forested areas. Proponents of forest landscape restoration are hoping this could include recognition and support for projects across the globe.
That could be a major step forward in popularizing landscape restoration. The process suffers from being literally as exciting as watching grass grow. It can take decades for vegetation to fully return, and strict attention must be paid to mundane matters like grazing and over-planting. Mr. Liu’s documentary overcomes this stumbling block with jaw-dropping fades from muddy denuded landscapes to lush fields.
It is becoming harder to deny the importance of forest landscape restoration in combating climate change. A new study by the World Resources Institute shows that about 1 billion hectares of land could be restored across the globe. Rough estimates indicate that carbon sequestration through this process could eliminate 50 percent more carbon from the atmosphere than a proactive cessation of deforestation could.
Still, forest landscape restoration is decidedly complex. Because ecosystems vary based on geography, and lasting success depends on the support of local residents, the process is pesteringly cross-disciplinary. Any forest landscape restoration project requires the know-how of engineers, ecologists and soil scientists, plus an understanding of local economics and politics.
In the Loess Plateau locals built and must maintain the terraces that have brought about their ecosystem’s incredible recovery.
Much hangs in the balance of the Copenhagen talks, and although forest landscape restoration is a shining light in what has over the past few months become a darkening debate, it is no panacea. It must be implemented in combination with carbon cuts and sound anti-deforestation policies.…
lished around HTTP/S as a direct result of APPLE & NEXT providing Tim Berners Lee with the IDEAL toolkit, and that his latest INRUPT development of a SOLID based solution for WEB 3.0 can [NOW] be regarded in the context of addressing how Solid Pods May End Up Becoming the Building Blocks of the Metaverse.
…
fully, you will notice that it is drawn in one single line without a beginning or an end, suggesting a continuous movement of time.
The Celts also believed that all important things came in three phases such as birth, death and rebirth; or mind, body, and spirit.
This symbol gives me an idea of our existence and the truth of our nature of being. We often try to perceive present occurrence from one point of view. Nevertheless, the present is a “hair’s breadth” of a moment, which was the future a moment ago and is already becoming the past. In this world, we are all connected, interact and inter-depend on each other; no phenomenon can exist by itself. Our life exists within the cycle of cause and effect. The important thing is to see things as a whole and to be present in each moment.
Then we can find harmony in our relationships in this world.…
around HTTP/S as a direct result of APPLE & NEXT providing Tim Berners Lee with the IDEAL toolkit, and that his latest INRUPT development of a SOLID based solution for WEB 3.0 can [NOW] be regarded in the context of addressing how Solid Pods May End Up Becoming the Building Blocks of the Metaverse.…
cular case of Leonardo da Vinci, born as a left-handed, dyslexic bastard, rejected by [y]our father, to a world of the City States of the land that was eventually to become Italy; whose collective....
predominately patriarchal mindset, at that TIME, was based on the religious beliefs of ROME and the Gregorian Calendar; when even the barbarian hoards of northern Europe and Scandinavia had by this time accepted the 'dowsing in water' of baptism, as a requirement of subscribing to the...
"new then" ORDER of DENIAL of our species very connessione with NATURE.
…
ic reactions can make people calmer and potentially kinder. Most of the promoters of mindfulness are nice, and having personally met many of them, including the leaders of the movement, I have no doubt that their hearts are in the right place. But that isn’t the issue here. The problem is the product they’re selling, and how it’s been packaged. Mindfulness is nothing more than basic concentration training. Although derived from Buddhism, it’s been stripped of the teachings on ethics that accompanied it, as well as the liberating aim of dissolving attachment to a false sense of self while enacting compassion for all other beings.
What remains is a tool of self-discipline, disguised as self-help. Instead of setting practitioners free, it helps them adjust to the very conditions that caused their problems. A truly revolutionary movement would seek to overturn this dysfunctional system, but mindfulness only serves to reinforce its destructive logic. The neoliberal order has imposed itself by stealth in the past few decades, widening inequality in pursuit of corporate wealth. People are expected to adapt to what this model demands of them. Stress has been pathologised and privatised, and the burden of managing it outsourced to individuals. Hence the pedlars of mindfulness step in to save the day. Ronald Purser - The Guardian
…