In New England, spring is arriving earlier, snowpack is melting faster, and rivers are flowing at peak levels sooner than ecologists have seen before. Climate change has extended the growing season of New England forests 10 more days per year than foresters observed before 1970. That may sound like good news for the region's foresters, but New Englanders are quickly realizing that a more humid climate may threaten seasonal activities and their overall culture as native species are forced to migrate north for their survival, reports Worldwatch Fellow John Mulrow from the New England Society of American Foresters' winter meeting. Click here for the full article on Worldwatch's Dateline: Copenhagen blog.

For the past five years, Worldwatch has explored the history, production method, and environmental and social impacts of everyday products - from chopsticks to pencils - in the Life-Cycle Studies section of its bi-monthly magazine, World Watch. This print-exclusive content is now available for free to Eye on Earth readers. Look for a new study every Friday! Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Overview Enkidu, a man raised by wild animals in the classic Sumerian poem Epic of Gilgamesh, knew nothing of beer until a prostitute guided him to a shepherd's camp. Upon finishing seven full cups, "his soul became free and cheerful, his heart rejoiced, his face glowed.... He became human." Beer was so popular throughout ancient Mesopotamia that some historians argue it inspired the earliest farmers to domesticate grain. Rich in carbohydrates, protein, and, of course, alcohol, beer became a dietary staple for many cultures throughout history. In Elizabethan England, mothers safeguarded their adolescents from foul water by serving them "beer stew" - stale bread mixed with beer and spices. Beer is the third most popular drink in the world, after water and tea. Per-capita annual consumption is highest in the Czech Republic, at 157 liters per person, followed by Ireland (131) and Germany (116). World beer consumption has risen almost every year for the past two decades. The world average in 2005 was 23 liters per person. Production Conventional beer is made with malted grains (often barley or wheat), hops, yeast, and water. The hops act as preservatives and add to some beers' characteristic bitter flavor. Yeast is added after the grains are cooked from a few days to several months. The yeast combines with the mashed grains' sugary compounds to form alcohol. The brew is then fermented again, filtered, and cooled. One liter of beer traditionally requires between four and six liters of water and four or five kilograms of grain. Energy consumption - mostly from refrigeration and transportation - is also significant. But the greatest environmental impact is created by beer containers, overwhelmingly single-serving glass bottles or aluminum cans. One ton of glass embodies as much energy as is contained in 135 liters of oil and creates 845 kilograms of mining waste. Closing the Loop Some breweries, such as Coors in the United States and Fourex in Australia, have begun to reduce their water footprint through wastewater recycling methods, such as steam recapture. In 2007, Fourex reduced its water consumption to 2.2 liters for each liter of beer. Other innova?tive practices include capturing the brewery's carbon dioxide emissions, reusing the gas during the carbonation process, and using more efficient heating and cooling systems to save energy. U.S. breweries, large and small, often sell leftover grain, still highly nutritious, to farmers and food companies as agricultural feed and processed food additives. Beers brewed and bottled in one country and shipped to another for consumption are costly both to consumers and to the environment. "Imported" beers brewed locally under license according to a parent company's recipe, and other locally and regionally brewed beers, eliminate the need for long-distance transpor?tation. Truly concerned connoisseurs can use their own regional or organic ingredients with home beermaking kits and reusable containers. Choosing beer on tap and in kegs reduces the solid waste and energy use from bottles and cans. And while recycling can keep beer bottles out of landfills, returning bottles to the manufacturers for refilling and reuse is more efficient by 75 percent. In the United States, Michigan, California, and New York place a surcharge on each bottle's price, which the states refund to those who deposit bottles at collection points. In Denmark and Estonia, container deposit laws have led to a 98-percent return rate for glass bottles. In many Latin American countries, the high price of glass has encouraged high recycling rates and the social norm of leaving all glass bottles at the bar. Jane Zhou and Ben Gonin are interns with the Worldwatch Institute. For permission to republish this article, please contact Juli Diamond at jdiamond@worldwatch.org.

st1\:* { BEHAVIOR: url(#ieooui) } There was a time, not long ago, when the idea of a national low-carbon growth strategy for India would have been hard to imagine. "Low carbon" was seen to be at loggerheads with India's ambitious economic development agenda and was too controversial a concept to find voice in domestic politics. Yet in January 2010, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh constituted a 26-member expert group to help develop a low-carbon growth strategy for India. The group, which hosts a formidable array of government, industry, academia, and civil society members, is being chaired by Dr. Kirit Parikh, former member of India's Planning Commission. Worldwatch Fellow Anna da Costa interviewed Dr. Parikh about the group's plans for the coming year, and how India's efforts at home to address climate change are moving forward. What led to the Low Carbon Expert Group being constituted? I think it's quite clear that India realized it is vulnerable. It is in its great interest to have an international agreement to reduce carbon emissions, and from our own energy security point of view, there are many things we should do to move to low carbon growth. [We are interested in] whatever measures we can take that can stimulate and nudge the global community into a global agreement, are also in our interests. This leads us to examine the options, the costs, the alternatives, and the multiple benefits of moving to a low-carbon development pathway. What types of recommendations can we expect to emerge from the group, and how will this work differ from or connect to India's National Action Plan on Climate Change? The National Action Plan outlines the long-term measures that we should take. It doesn't have the required specificity in terms of what needs to be done, and we hope the low-carbon strategy will provide more detailed guidelines as to what measures can be taken. India has committed to meet a reduction in national energy intensity of 25 percent by 2020. We need to work out a strategy and the various specific measures that will enable us to meet this. This seems like a major task. Is all of the analysis being conducted by the Expert Group or are you outsourcing certain elements? The expert group, which has 26 members, has a very wide-ranging set of expertise. It is a wide group of stakeholders, many of whom have been working on this subject for a long time. We will pool the knowledge that exists [in the group] and put together a menu of what is possible. Time is very short, so we cannot do any further new research as such. We are very open to get any outside help, or contributions. We will put these recommendations out in an open, transparent manner, put them on the website, seek comments, and so on, and might even hold a public consultation on them at some stage. Do you think the 25-percent energy intensity target you mention, that was announced by India before the Copenhagen climate conference, can be met with the current National Action Plan strategy? You know, there are many things we are doing already. India's energy intensity has been coming down in any case. Business-as-usual projections should provide a fairly large part of the reduction we want to achieve. A little more effort should bring [energy intensity] down to the 25-percent [target]. I don't think there should be that much of a challenge or difficulty in doing that. Is the aim of the low-carbon expert group to reduce India's emissions beyond what would likely occur on a business-as-usual trajectory? It's to make sure we meet the 25-percent reduction in carbon intensity, to see if we can even do more and what kind of support we will need to reach that target. What can we do? What is win-win? What policies do we need? Are there barriers? Do we need finance? These are the kinds of questions that we need to answer. A few years ago, it seems as though using the words "low-carbon development" as an element of India's political vocabulary would have been politically untenable. What has enabled this change, and does it signify a fundamental shift in thinking on the issue of climate change and development in India? This is difficult to answer. I think you could give a lot of credit to the Prime Minister, who felt that although the rigid stand we had been taking in the past was morally and ethically correct, we need to get the logjam moving and should take some initiative. That is why at the Gleneagles conference [of the G8 in 2005, which India, China, Brazil, Mexico, and South Africa attended], he promised that we are determined to have our per-capita emissions never exceed those of industrialized countries. The Western world didn't think that was any commitment, but if you think about it, that... itself was a major commitment. Why? Because if we want to reach [greenhouse gas concentrations of ] 450 parts per million by 2050, the average of industrialized countries will come to 2.5 to 3 tons per capita, and India will have to restrict itself to 3 tons per capita, which is a huge commitment.... So we are very willing to get the process moving. We are interested in getting a global agreement. That is part of the strategy. Let's get the process moving. How likely is it that the recommendations of the Low Carbon Expert Group be implemented? What factors will need to be in place to see this happen? I've chaired enough committees to know that not all recommendations get implemented. There are always political considerations. There are always stakeholders who have vested interests of various kinds. How things play out is a very different thing. So I would not say that I expect all of our recommendations will be implemented. What is important about these expert committees and groups is that they create a consensus and awareness amongst people, so that in due course things change and pick up. Do you have a sense of how much India's low-carbon strategy is estimated to cost? To what degree is the government self-funding these initiatives, and how much is it hoped that finance will also come from the private sector and international public funds? My feeling is that there are lots of things we can do that pay for themselves and don't involve any additional costs but have multiple benefits. Energy efficiency, for example, pays for itself. I think there are many [options] like that, but of course finance is required upfront, too. Without such finance we know that many economically attractive actions are not taken up by industry and individuals. But I cannot answer this question until we have done our work. In your long experience working on India's economic development, you must have seen many kinds of sustainable development solutions. What are some of the most transformative solutions that you believe exist for India? I think there are three solutions that show [particular] potential for the goal of sustainable development. One is definitely solar technology, and making its cost competitive with coal as soon as possible. That could bring a hugely transformative change. Second would be a major program of rainwater harvesting and watershed development. This could transform the whole water and agricultural scenario and is clearly of importance. Thirdly, if one were to speak in terms of the future, maybe the development of cellulosic ethanol that could make India truly energy independent in a real sense. This is looking [at the question] from the energy sustainability perspective. But there are many, many things that have contributed to India's inclusive development. Inclusion is critical for sustainability. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, which began in Maharashtra and is now across the country. You could say the Gram Swarojgar Yojana [a rural micro enterprise initiative] is also transformative. You might say that if you can get 100-percent literacy and school attendance for all children up to 14 years, that could be transformative. There are many things that we could do that really could make a tremendous difference to the economy. Of course, support for public transport in major metro areas can also be transformative. Global negotiations tend to focus on what India needs to absorb from other parts of the world, particularly in terms of finance and technology. But do you feel there are areas where India has a lot to share with other countries in terms of global efforts to combat climate change and shift toward sustainability? It is very clear that India is not just an absorber of technologies; it can really be a generator, inventor, and developer. Again, I support Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's suggestion at Gleneagles that we should set up a network of collaborative institutions at the international level like the Agricultural Research Institutes under the [Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, CGIAR].... If we can have that kind of institutional set-up for low-carbon or renewable technology and have the IPRs [intellectual property rights] shared globally as global public goods, that could be very important.... India can also contribute to the development of the technologies. So in some sense we may have an actual interest in IPR protection, but on the other hand from the global point of view, we think some of these should be made globally available as global public goods. Anna da Costa is a Worldwatch Institute research fellow based in New Delhi, India. This article is a product of Eye on Earth, the Worldwatch Institute's online news service. For permission to republish Eye on Earth content, please contact Juli Diamond at jdiamond@worldwatch.org.

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} When government extension agents first came to Juan Bautista's Yucatan village of Chun-Yah, a tiny pueblo in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo, they told him he should start growing pitaya, also known as dragonfruit. Originating in Meso-America, this cactus is now cultivated in parts of Asia, Australia, and Israel. The fruit is tasty, the plant is easily propagated, and it thrives in places with long dry seasons like the Yucatan. Bautista and other farmers in Chun-Yah followed the agronomists' instructions, clear-cutting nearby forests and building elaborate trellis systems made of concrete and wire to support the vine-like pitaya. Soon after the project began, the funding to maintain those trellises disappeared. The agronomists were at a loss as to how pitaya could be grown otherwise, and they left Chun-Yah. That was 15 years ago. Rather than give up on pitaya, which by now was their main cash crop, the farmers of Chun-Yah decided to grow it in their milpas, the traditional Mayan field. Bautista's milpa is no longer an ordinary farm field - it is an intensively managed forest garden, a food-producing ecosystem built in nature's image. In traditional Mayan agriculture, maize has been the milpa's main crop. But numerous sister crops also provide balance to both the farmer's diet and the milpa ecosystem itself: beans, squash, melons, chiles, medicinal plants, pineapple, trees for fruit and lumber, plus the myriad fauna that call the milpa their home. So what did Juan Bautista and the farmers of Chun-Yah do differently once the agronomists left? They essentially exchanged concrete trellises for living ones. Pitaya is an epiphyte, meaning that it pulls moisture and nutrients from the air, rain, and debris that collects on the host plant, on which it depends for structural support. Instead of clear-cutting forest to plant pitaya, the farmers cut trees selectively, leaving Mexican Cedar and other lumber-producing tree crops for later harvest. They then select the host trees on which pitaya will grow, cutting them at head height to allow for easy harvesting of the dragonfruit. The host trees remain alive, their roots holding soil in place while bringing up nutrients from the sub-soil. Regular pruning of the trees provides mulch for other crops. The farmers plant pitaya and other food crops into this living forest system - a well-planned, well-managed agro-ecological system. There is no irrigation in Chun-Yah. Other than a little fertilizer for the host trees, the only input is the knowledge and labor of farmers who have created this forest ecosystem. Growing pitaya on the concrete trellises was fine, but the only crop produced was the pitaya. Growing pitaya in the polyculture of the milpa means that Juan Bautista gets his cash crop plus all the benefits the milpa brings, with little drop in yield. There are three main pitaya harvests between June and October. Through the Chun-Yah cooperative, Bautista sells his fruit locally in Quintana Roo. On his three hectares he harvests around 12 tons of dragonfruit per year. At $1/kilo, he's earning $12,000 annually, almost double Mexico's median annual household income of $7,297. And all that food coming from his milpa means a lower grocery bill than most city dwellers. Thanks to their ingenuity, the farmers of Chun-Yah haven't had to leave their farms to work in el norte, and they are able to live comfortably on several hectares each. And those agronomists who left 15 years ago? They have returned to learn how to grow pitaya from the farmers of Chun-Yah. Which is proof that these Mayan villages and their ancient agricultural arts are not just vestiges of a lost way of life; they are crucial models that could teach us "moderns" how to farm in ways that work with, not in spite of, our surrounding ecosystems. Fred Bahnson is a Kellogg Food & Society fellow at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. His writing has appeared in Orion, The Sun, and Best American Spiritual Writing 2007 (Mariner). He lives with his wife and two sons on a farm in Transylvania County, North Carolina. This article originally appeared on the Worldwatch Institute blog Nourishing the Planet. For permission to republish this report, please contact Juli Diamond at jdiamond@worldwatch.org.