Exciting news about progress in alternative energy!!!
Please see www.terrahumanafoundation.org today!!!
Showing posts with label clean energy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label clean energy. Show all posts
Friday, September 11, 2009
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Alternatives To Hydroelectricity
"Boom in hydropower pits fish against climate
The renewable energy could ease global warming, but the dams and turbines could result in mass killings..
By Kim Murphy
July 27, 2009 http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-hydro-power27-2009jul27,0,2321552.story
Reporting from Wenatchee, Wash. -- The Rocky Reach Dam has straddled the wide, slow Columbia River since the 1950s. It generates enough electricity to supply homes and industries across Washington and Oregon.
But the dam in recent years hasn't produced as much power as it might: Its massive turbines act as deadly blender blades to young salmon, and engineers often have had to let the river flow over the spillway to halt the slaughter, wasting the water's energy potential.
The ability of the nation's aging hydroelectric dams to produce energy free of the curse of greenhouse gas emissions and Middle Eastern politics has suddenly made them financially attractive -- thanks to the new economics of climate change. Armed with the possibility of powerful new cap-and-trade financial bonuses, the National Hydropower Assn. has set a goal of doubling the nation's hydropower capacity by 2025. . . ."
We can have all the electricity we need without emissions and without hurting wildlife. For more information, please see www.terrahumanafoundation.org.
The renewable energy could ease global warming, but the dams and turbines could result in mass killings..
By Kim Murphy
July 27, 2009 http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-hydro-power27-2009jul27,0,2321552.story
Reporting from Wenatchee, Wash. -- The Rocky Reach Dam has straddled the wide, slow Columbia River since the 1950s. It generates enough electricity to supply homes and industries across Washington and Oregon.
But the dam in recent years hasn't produced as much power as it might: Its massive turbines act as deadly blender blades to young salmon, and engineers often have had to let the river flow over the spillway to halt the slaughter, wasting the water's energy potential.
The ability of the nation's aging hydroelectric dams to produce energy free of the curse of greenhouse gas emissions and Middle Eastern politics has suddenly made them financially attractive -- thanks to the new economics of climate change. Armed with the possibility of powerful new cap-and-trade financial bonuses, the National Hydropower Assn. has set a goal of doubling the nation's hydropower capacity by 2025. . . ."
We can have all the electricity we need without emissions and without hurting wildlife. For more information, please see www.terrahumanafoundation.org.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Congress Approved Research For Natural Gas Vehicles
Research approval for natural gas vehicles is all very well, but there is a better way: totally clean, emissions-free energy. For more information, please see www.terrahumanafoundation.org.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
If Things Don't Change
If things don't change:
"Report: CO2 Levels to Rise 40% by 2030
By AP / H. JOSEF HEBERT Wednesday, May. 27, http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1901222,00.html
(WASHINGTON) — The amount of heat-trapping carbon dioxide seeping into the atmosphere will increase by nearly 40 percent worldwide by 2030 if ways are not found to require mandatory emission reductions, a government report said Wednesday."
But things can change. Please see www.campaignforgreen.com.
"Report: CO2 Levels to Rise 40% by 2030
By AP / H. JOSEF HEBERT Wednesday, May. 27, http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1901222,00.html
(WASHINGTON) — The amount of heat-trapping carbon dioxide seeping into the atmosphere will increase by nearly 40 percent worldwide by 2030 if ways are not found to require mandatory emission reductions, a government report said Wednesday."
But things can change. Please see www.campaignforgreen.com.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
We Can Do More
“http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Obama-hails-efforts-on-clean-apf-15270418.html: Weeks of negotiations have led to the introduction in the House of an energy proposal that, for the first time, would mandate reductions in the heat-trapping gases blamed for global warming and shift the country toward cleaner sources of energy.”
We can do more. See www.campaignforgreen.com.
We can do more. See www.campaignforgreen.com.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Pollution and Health
"http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/may/12/emissions-pollution-premature-deaths
Search: guardian.co.uk Environment Web
Adam Vaughan
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 12 May 2009 12.33 BST
Cleaner air from reduced emissions could save millions of lives, says reportResearchers predict that 100 million early deaths could be prevented by cutting global emissions by 50% by 2050.
Tackling climate change by cutting greenhouse gas emissions could save millions of lives because of the cleaner air that would result, according to a recent study.
Researchers predict that, by 2050, about 100 million premature deaths caused by respiratory health problems linked to air pollution could be avoided through measures such as low emission cars. *****
The key air pollutants that can harm human health include nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide, volatile organic compounds, ammonia and particulate matter and are produced by burning fossil fuels in power plants and vehicles. Children and the elderly, plus people with respiratory conditions such as asthma, are particularly at risk."
We've got to do something. We can take care of each other. For more information, please see www.campaignforgreen.
Search: guardian.co.uk Environment Web
Adam Vaughan
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 12 May 2009 12.33 BST
Cleaner air from reduced emissions could save millions of lives, says reportResearchers predict that 100 million early deaths could be prevented by cutting global emissions by 50% by 2050.
Tackling climate change by cutting greenhouse gas emissions could save millions of lives because of the cleaner air that would result, according to a recent study.
Researchers predict that, by 2050, about 100 million premature deaths caused by respiratory health problems linked to air pollution could be avoided through measures such as low emission cars. *****
The key air pollutants that can harm human health include nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide, volatile organic compounds, ammonia and particulate matter and are produced by burning fossil fuels in power plants and vehicles. Children and the elderly, plus people with respiratory conditions such as asthma, are particularly at risk."
We've got to do something. We can take care of each other. For more information, please see www.campaignforgreen.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Friday, April 24, 2009
The Time Is Now
With the administration and lots of other people wanting energy independence, an economic jumpstart, and solutions to high gas prices and global warming, the time is now to look to totally green, totally clean, totally independent alternative energy. For more information, please see www.campaignforgreen.com. We can take care of this, together.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
US Pragmatic on Climate Change
US to be 'pragmatic on climate' By Roger Harrabin BBC environment analyst, Bonn
The US must balance science with what is politically and technologically achievable on climate change, America's lead negotiator has said.
Speaking at UN talks in Bonn, Jonathan Pershing said the US must not offer more than it could deliver by 2020.
Poor countries said the latest science showed rich states should cut emissions by 40% on 1990 levels by 2020.
President Barack Obama's plan merely to stabilise greenhouse gases at 1990 levels by 2020 is much less ambitious.
Mr Pershing, the US delegation head, previously spent many years promoting clean energy for the International Energy Agency and at the Washington think-tank WRI - World Resources Institute.
'Pragmatic' approach
He told the BBC he was very worried the Earth might already be committed to dangerous climate change.
But he said the US should not make promises for 2020 that it could not keep: "It is not the point in time in 2020 that matters - it is a long-term trajectory against which the science measures cumulative emissions.
"The president has also announced his intent to pursue an 80% reduction by 2050.
"It is clear that the less we do in the near-term, the more we have to do in the long-term. But if we set a target that is un-meetable technically, or we can't pass it politically, then we're in the same position we are in now… where the world looks to us and we are out of the regime.
"We want to be in (the regime), we want to be pragmatic, we want to look at the science. There is a small window of where they overlap. We hope to find it." (Story from BBC NEWS:http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/7980441.stmPublished: 2009/04/03 00:22:29 GMT)
This can happen before 2020. For more information, please see www.campaignforgreen.com.
The US must balance science with what is politically and technologically achievable on climate change, America's lead negotiator has said.
Speaking at UN talks in Bonn, Jonathan Pershing said the US must not offer more than it could deliver by 2020.
Poor countries said the latest science showed rich states should cut emissions by 40% on 1990 levels by 2020.
President Barack Obama's plan merely to stabilise greenhouse gases at 1990 levels by 2020 is much less ambitious.
Mr Pershing, the US delegation head, previously spent many years promoting clean energy for the International Energy Agency and at the Washington think-tank WRI - World Resources Institute.
'Pragmatic' approach
He told the BBC he was very worried the Earth might already be committed to dangerous climate change.
But he said the US should not make promises for 2020 that it could not keep: "It is not the point in time in 2020 that matters - it is a long-term trajectory against which the science measures cumulative emissions.
"The president has also announced his intent to pursue an 80% reduction by 2050.
"It is clear that the less we do in the near-term, the more we have to do in the long-term. But if we set a target that is un-meetable technically, or we can't pass it politically, then we're in the same position we are in now… where the world looks to us and we are out of the regime.
"We want to be in (the regime), we want to be pragmatic, we want to look at the science. There is a small window of where they overlap. We hope to find it." (Story from BBC NEWS:http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/7980441.stmPublished: 2009/04/03 00:22:29 GMT)
This can happen before 2020. For more information, please see www.campaignforgreen.com.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Global Conferences on the Environment and Climate Change
"http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/richardblack/
Slow road to green reformRichard Black 26 Feb 09, 10:20 GMT
It's been nine years since a gathering of environment ministers in the Swedish city of Malmo declared that the world urgently needed to reform the way it governed itself environmentally.
Change was needed, they said, including a "greatly strengthened institutional structure for international environmental governance... that has the capacity to effectively address wide-ranging environmental threats in a globalising world".
*****
The ensuing years have seen various initiatives that would either reform the system or tear it up and start again. But even though many governments cite global environmental decline as a present and future disaster, there's been little progress on reforming the international bodies intended to lead the global response.
So you might think that as the issue raised its head again last week at UNEP's governing council meeting in Nairobi, the overwhelming emotion would be frustration.
And clearly there was frustration that despite nine years of talks and some constructive ideas, virtually nothing has changed.
But there was optimism too. And having spoken to some of the people at last week's meeting, much of it appears to have stemmed from just one word: Obama.
The single biggest event of the meeting was the agreement to regulate global emissions of mercury, a heavy metal pollutant with toxicities that include damaging people's nervous systems.
*****
So what happens now? Well, the UNEP meeting set up a consultation process intended to produce some kind of reform package by 2012.
*****
If the UN climate talks do produce a treaty as complex as many envisage, encompassing emission targets, clean technology transfer, funds for forest preservation with the rights of indigenous peoples assured, money to help poor countries adapt to climate impacts, and so on, it could make decisions on issues that logically ought to feature heavily in the overall environmental governance discussions.
*****
Can it work? If it can, will the outcome be tinkering, or wholesale reform? If it is reform, will a new body include rules and sanctions, as does the World Trade Organization? How will it link environmental issues to human development?
These are all key questions, and much wrangling lies ahead before any answers emerge; but the mercury deal is being seen in some quarters as an indication that the glacial progress in many environmental issues is about to accelerate."
It's good that governments are working cooperatively on this problem. There is a solution: totally clean energy, with no emissions, and less expense than existing energies, and no need for biofuels that take up land that could be used for food. Everyone would benefit and governments could concentrate on other issues. For more information, please see www.campaignforgreen.com.
Slow road to green reformRichard Black 26 Feb 09, 10:20 GMT
It's been nine years since a gathering of environment ministers in the Swedish city of Malmo declared that the world urgently needed to reform the way it governed itself environmentally.
Change was needed, they said, including a "greatly strengthened institutional structure for international environmental governance... that has the capacity to effectively address wide-ranging environmental threats in a globalising world".
*****
The ensuing years have seen various initiatives that would either reform the system or tear it up and start again. But even though many governments cite global environmental decline as a present and future disaster, there's been little progress on reforming the international bodies intended to lead the global response.
So you might think that as the issue raised its head again last week at UNEP's governing council meeting in Nairobi, the overwhelming emotion would be frustration.
And clearly there was frustration that despite nine years of talks and some constructive ideas, virtually nothing has changed.
But there was optimism too. And having spoken to some of the people at last week's meeting, much of it appears to have stemmed from just one word: Obama.
The single biggest event of the meeting was the agreement to regulate global emissions of mercury, a heavy metal pollutant with toxicities that include damaging people's nervous systems.
*****
So what happens now? Well, the UNEP meeting set up a consultation process intended to produce some kind of reform package by 2012.
*****
If the UN climate talks do produce a treaty as complex as many envisage, encompassing emission targets, clean technology transfer, funds for forest preservation with the rights of indigenous peoples assured, money to help poor countries adapt to climate impacts, and so on, it could make decisions on issues that logically ought to feature heavily in the overall environmental governance discussions.
*****
Can it work? If it can, will the outcome be tinkering, or wholesale reform? If it is reform, will a new body include rules and sanctions, as does the World Trade Organization? How will it link environmental issues to human development?
These are all key questions, and much wrangling lies ahead before any answers emerge; but the mercury deal is being seen in some quarters as an indication that the glacial progress in many environmental issues is about to accelerate."
It's good that governments are working cooperatively on this problem. There is a solution: totally clean energy, with no emissions, and less expense than existing energies, and no need for biofuels that take up land that could be used for food. Everyone would benefit and governments could concentrate on other issues. For more information, please see www.campaignforgreen.com.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Response to the National Clean Energy Project: Building the New Economy
Response to the National Clean Energy Project: Building the New Economy
The members of the panel at the National Clean Energy Project: Building the New Economy, discussed energy and environmentalism, economics, geopolitics, and engineering. Something has to be done about global warming, climate change, pollution, and health. In the process of doing something, the economy will create jobs and that will help everyone. We also need to be freed from the problems inherent in depending on other countries for fuel. There also has to be a way to get the electricity produced by alternative fuel to everyone, no matter where they live.
There is a solution. This solution is emissions free—our environment and our health won’t be plagued by pollution. This solution is also economically efficient: jobs will be created and energy will be less expensive. This solution is also domestic: we will not be dependent on any country for our energy source. Everyone will benefit, no matter where they live.
For more information, please see www.campaignforgreen.com.
The members of the panel at the National Clean Energy Project: Building the New Economy, discussed energy and environmentalism, economics, geopolitics, and engineering. Something has to be done about global warming, climate change, pollution, and health. In the process of doing something, the economy will create jobs and that will help everyone. We also need to be freed from the problems inherent in depending on other countries for fuel. There also has to be a way to get the electricity produced by alternative fuel to everyone, no matter where they live.
There is a solution. This solution is emissions free—our environment and our health won’t be plagued by pollution. This solution is also economically efficient: jobs will be created and energy will be less expensive. This solution is also domestic: we will not be dependent on any country for our energy source. Everyone will benefit, no matter where they live.
For more information, please see www.campaignforgreen.com.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Water Conservation and Energy
We use up water in clothes, food, and energy production, and have a water footprint just like a carbon footprint (Alter, Alexandra, Yet Another 'Footprint' to Worry About: Water Taking a Cue From Carbon Tracking, Companies and Conservationists Tally Hidden Sources of Consumption” FEBRUARY 17, 2009 The Wall Street Journal, page A11). This is just as important as carbon consumption concerns because of the danger of water shortages from depletion and pollution of groundwater reserves, shrinking of glaciers that provide fresh water, and growing energy and food demand all over the world (Alter, page A11). There are also droughts; Argentina has been suffering under a drought that has dried up rivers and hurt agriculture, particularly the cattle industry so much that for the past two years, ranchers are being forced to sell cattle that are too thin to reproduce and thus replenish the herds (Piette, Candace, “Drought sucks life from Argentina's farms, BBC News, Buenos Aires http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/7905357.stm, Published: 2009/02/23 12:47:33 GMT, © BBC MMIX).
If water wasn't necessary for manufacturing or energy production in general, there would be more water to help people who live in drought-plagued areas. And that's just one way to help when people need water--we could use clean energy to pipe water to people who need it all the time, not just when there's a drought. For more information, please see www.campaignforgreen.com.
If water wasn't necessary for manufacturing or energy production in general, there would be more water to help people who live in drought-plagued areas. And that's just one way to help when people need water--we could use clean energy to pipe water to people who need it all the time, not just when there's a drought. For more information, please see www.campaignforgreen.com.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Why The Complications? Why Carbon Emissions At All?
"EU urges US climate commitment
By Roger Harrabin Environment analyst, BBC News
The EU is calling on President Barack Obama to cap US carbon emissions and sign up to a global system of carbon trading between rich nations.
The European Commission said the US needed to join a carbon market if it was going to raise the huge sums needed for combating climate change.
Rich nations had to raise 175bn euros (£162bn; $321bn) by 2020 for clean technologies, the commission added.
More than half of that cash would go to developing countries, it stated.
A further 23-54bn euros would be need to help poor nations to adapt to climate change that was likely to happen.
Without that inducement to poor countries there would be no new global climate agreement at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen in December. " *****
Story from BBC NEWS:http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/7856120.stmPublished: 2009/01/28 17:11:58 GMT
We need to help each other help the earth. But why carbon permits??? Even regulated carbon emissions are still making things worse. There's another way, an alternative that does not require carbon trading and which would benefit everyone in every country. For more information, please see www.campaignforgreen.com.
By Roger Harrabin Environment analyst, BBC News
The EU is calling on President Barack Obama to cap US carbon emissions and sign up to a global system of carbon trading between rich nations.
The European Commission said the US needed to join a carbon market if it was going to raise the huge sums needed for combating climate change.
Rich nations had to raise 175bn euros (£162bn; $321bn) by 2020 for clean technologies, the commission added.
More than half of that cash would go to developing countries, it stated.
A further 23-54bn euros would be need to help poor nations to adapt to climate change that was likely to happen.
Without that inducement to poor countries there would be no new global climate agreement at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen in December. " *****
Story from BBC NEWS:http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/7856120.stmPublished: 2009/01/28 17:11:58 GMT
We need to help each other help the earth. But why carbon permits??? Even regulated carbon emissions are still making things worse. There's another way, an alternative that does not require carbon trading and which would benefit everyone in every country. For more information, please see www.campaignforgreen.com.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Pollution, Biodiversity, Health, and Clean Energy
Diverse roots of human disease
Richard Black 23 Jan 09, 17:17 GMT Does loss of biodiversity affect human health?
"The United Nations Environment Programme believes it does - the notion was one of the top lines in the last edition of its massive five-yearly Global Environmental Outlook, which came out in 2007.
The nuts and bolts of the link, though, can come across as a bit tenuous - loss of species may affect the discovery of new drugs; biodiversity can impact water quality; and so on. They're not necessarily the most convincing arguments to those who pride themselves on having hard heads.
This week, I came across something a bit more concrete - and what makes it more interesting is that it relates to one of the really poor cousins of the medical research field, schistosomiasis.
Also known as bilharzia, this is a disease which receives so little attention and money that malaria is a rich prince by comparison. Yet it affects about 200m people and is said to be the second most devastating parasitic disease in the world - malaria being the first.
The parasites - flatworms of the genus Schistosoma - spend part of their lives in water-borne snails, and people - usually children - contract the infection from the water when the parasites swim free.
There's no vaccine, and there are really only two modes of attack - either giving regular doses of drugs such as praziquantel, or trying to eradicate the snails that carry the parasite, with chemicals such as copper sulphate.
Some people have looked at introducing crayfish to eat the snails - I hope something of an alarm bell rang there given the problems that invasive species have caused in some places around the world - or by introducing certain plants.
So Pieter Johnson, a researcher at the University of Colorado, asked a simple question; could the diversity of the snail population affect the number of parasites?
His team rigged up a series of experimental chambers in their lab. All had the same number of Planorbidae snails that carry the parasites, but he put in different numbers of other snail families that can't carry it.
As he reported in the Royal Society's journal Proceedings B this week, there was a definite impact. The number of Planorbidae infected fell by between a quarter and half when other types of snail were around.
The reason is probably what parasitologists call the "decoy effect". Some parasites will attempt to enter the wrong kinds of host - they can't, they die, and so there are fewer parasites around to infect the real hosts.
Now, this is a laboratory experiment - but if the results do hold true in the wild, here would be both a striking demonstration of the principle that biodiversity can beat disease, and something practical that the millions of people affected by schistosomiasis could use to protect themselves to some extent.
Simply keeping their ponds and streams in a state that preserves the range of native snails might reduce the number of people infected.
Implementing that remedy, however, might not be so straightforward given other environmental trends.
Agriculture is changing in many of the countries affected by schistosomiasis, even in its African heartlands.
Excess fertiliser running off farmland into water stimulates the growth of algae; and this appears to be an advantage to the disease-bearing snails, who can thrive on the green stuff, whereas other types die off.
(It's the same thing in microcosm that's happening to coral reefs; too much nutrition for algae brings the death of important native species - in this case, the coral polyps.)
You could argue, of course, that simply wiping out the wrong kind of snail would be more effective. But it's been tried, it has side effects, and it's a procedure that needs doing time and time again.
And wiping out the hosts wouldn't be an option for another condition where the link from biodiversity to human health has been demonstrated - Lyme disease.
Richard Ostfeld and his collaborators have shown that a diverse ecology reduces the number of white-footed mice, an important carrier of the ticks that transmit the disease.
Lyme disease is frequently in the news in North America, and I'm not surprised, having met a conservationist in Canada a few years ago who was still suffering the effects more than a decade after infection.
Schistosomiasis is rarely in the news anywhere. But it should be; it is one of the factors holding back the health and education of children in the poorest countries, and if simply keeping the right mix of snails alive would indeed help keep the parasite down, why not?
In the meantime, it's not my job to do the UN's publicity; but if they're looking for concrete evidence to show why biodiversity matters to the human race, perhaps the snail-ridden waters of Africa and Asia are places worth looking."
Pollution affects biodiversity. Biodiversity affects health. If there were no carbon emissions, there would be no pollution. For more information, please see www.campaignforgreen.com.
Richard Black 23 Jan 09, 17:17 GMT Does loss of biodiversity affect human health?
"The United Nations Environment Programme believes it does - the notion was one of the top lines in the last edition of its massive five-yearly Global Environmental Outlook, which came out in 2007.
The nuts and bolts of the link, though, can come across as a bit tenuous - loss of species may affect the discovery of new drugs; biodiversity can impact water quality; and so on. They're not necessarily the most convincing arguments to those who pride themselves on having hard heads.
This week, I came across something a bit more concrete - and what makes it more interesting is that it relates to one of the really poor cousins of the medical research field, schistosomiasis.
Also known as bilharzia, this is a disease which receives so little attention and money that malaria is a rich prince by comparison. Yet it affects about 200m people and is said to be the second most devastating parasitic disease in the world - malaria being the first.
The parasites - flatworms of the genus Schistosoma - spend part of their lives in water-borne snails, and people - usually children - contract the infection from the water when the parasites swim free.
There's no vaccine, and there are really only two modes of attack - either giving regular doses of drugs such as praziquantel, or trying to eradicate the snails that carry the parasite, with chemicals such as copper sulphate.
Some people have looked at introducing crayfish to eat the snails - I hope something of an alarm bell rang there given the problems that invasive species have caused in some places around the world - or by introducing certain plants.
So Pieter Johnson, a researcher at the University of Colorado, asked a simple question; could the diversity of the snail population affect the number of parasites?
His team rigged up a series of experimental chambers in their lab. All had the same number of Planorbidae snails that carry the parasites, but he put in different numbers of other snail families that can't carry it.
As he reported in the Royal Society's journal Proceedings B this week, there was a definite impact. The number of Planorbidae infected fell by between a quarter and half when other types of snail were around.
The reason is probably what parasitologists call the "decoy effect". Some parasites will attempt to enter the wrong kinds of host - they can't, they die, and so there are fewer parasites around to infect the real hosts.
Now, this is a laboratory experiment - but if the results do hold true in the wild, here would be both a striking demonstration of the principle that biodiversity can beat disease, and something practical that the millions of people affected by schistosomiasis could use to protect themselves to some extent.
Simply keeping their ponds and streams in a state that preserves the range of native snails might reduce the number of people infected.
Implementing that remedy, however, might not be so straightforward given other environmental trends.
Agriculture is changing in many of the countries affected by schistosomiasis, even in its African heartlands.
Excess fertiliser running off farmland into water stimulates the growth of algae; and this appears to be an advantage to the disease-bearing snails, who can thrive on the green stuff, whereas other types die off.
(It's the same thing in microcosm that's happening to coral reefs; too much nutrition for algae brings the death of important native species - in this case, the coral polyps.)
You could argue, of course, that simply wiping out the wrong kind of snail would be more effective. But it's been tried, it has side effects, and it's a procedure that needs doing time and time again.
And wiping out the hosts wouldn't be an option for another condition where the link from biodiversity to human health has been demonstrated - Lyme disease.
Richard Ostfeld and his collaborators have shown that a diverse ecology reduces the number of white-footed mice, an important carrier of the ticks that transmit the disease.
Lyme disease is frequently in the news in North America, and I'm not surprised, having met a conservationist in Canada a few years ago who was still suffering the effects more than a decade after infection.
Schistosomiasis is rarely in the news anywhere. But it should be; it is one of the factors holding back the health and education of children in the poorest countries, and if simply keeping the right mix of snails alive would indeed help keep the parasite down, why not?
In the meantime, it's not my job to do the UN's publicity; but if they're looking for concrete evidence to show why biodiversity matters to the human race, perhaps the snail-ridden waters of Africa and Asia are places worth looking."
Pollution affects biodiversity. Biodiversity affects health. If there were no carbon emissions, there would be no pollution. For more information, please see www.campaignforgreen.com.
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