Wednesday 05 August 2009 12:31:40 am

I. Deforestation

First, let us all look at this well-known but still very interesting flowchart about "World Greenhouse Emissions by sector", used by the IPCC among others:

http://www.wri.org/chart/world-greenhouse-gas-emissions-2000

All sectors are quite absorbing, but I find most captivating the green one called "Land Use Change". We can see that deforestation has a 18% contribution, roughly.

18%. What does it mean?

It means that if we had not cut off those forests, they would have cleaned 18% of the GHG produced by mankind. We all know forests feed on CO2.

Good. Now, how much forest are we talking about? The UN says that the net forest loss is about 13 million ha each year for the last two decades or so.

Now we start to think! What if we could replace that forest? How much forest would we need in order to get back to the balanced state this planet enjoyed until not so long ago?

Doing a little bit of arithmetic, we find out that if we replanted approx. 70 million ha (700,000 sq. km, the size of France plus Ireland), that new forest would absorb all anthropogenic GHG emissions.

Hint: The hot topic for the environment is DEFORESTATION.

II. Cultivated land

So far so good, but where can we replant so much forest? Well, in the same places it used to be until we humans cut if off to make room for us. Room for cities, roads and cultivated land. We need the cities and the roads, but do we really need all the cultivated land? If we could find a way to reforest it ....

Anyway, how much cultivated land do we currently use? The answer is 1/8 of the planet's total land surface, i.e. aprox. 18 million sq. km., that is 1,800 million ha.

Summing up, we need to give up 70 million ha out of 1,800 million ha of cultivated land, that is 4%.

4% may be the difference between scary climate change and blissful climatic equilibrium. Extremely interesting!

Having excluded all other land uses, we conclude that cultivated land must shrink by 4%. How can we do it?

Of course, we could eat less, but also we could ...

please have a quick look at the following very interesting article:

http://www.outofrange.net/2009/07/20/food-waste-it%E2%80%99s-killing-us/

We just found out how to free some cultivated land! Eliminating FOOD WASTE!

How much food could we save if we could manage it perfectly at home? An astonishing 20%!!!!

20% less food means we need 20% less cultivated land.

But nothing is perfect, 20% is an unreachable roof, but 4% .... I think you all follow me now.

III. The Good Entrepreneur Contest: An idea to change the world

Now, I have to mention with all modesty my own pitch:

http://www.goodentrepreneur.com/T...itiative-to-curb-domestic-food-waste

and discuss its virtues keeping in mind this contest's criteria:

a) environmental impact: maximum GHG reduction potential: 500% of present levels, easily reachable target: 100% (balanced emissions, that means carbon neutrality for all mankind)

Wow, this really is a world changer! Challenge this, if you can!

b) originality / uniqueness: we discovered uncharted territory and, obviously, it is the only pitch addressing the subject.

There are other entries dealing with the deforestation problem, but none attacks the problem so frontally.

Please, feel free to question my approach, I will gladly try to answer any questions.

Thank you all for reading.

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