Major findings of The Nature Conservancy/University of Minnesota study on land clearing and the biofuel “carbon debt” include:Climate Change - The True Cost of Biofuels: Science Snapshot
- Converting rainforests, peatlands, savannas, or grasslands to produce biofuels in Brazil, Southeast Asia, and the United States creates a ‘biofuel carbon debt’ by releasing 17 to 420 times more carbon dioxide than the fossil fuels they replace.
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Leading members of the corporate community have come together in a first-of-its-kind effort to help the environment, unleashing dozens of innovative, environmentally responsible patents to the public domain.Availability of these patents will encourage researchers, entrepreneurs and companies of all sizes in any industry to create, apply, and further develop their consumer or industrial products, processes, and services in a way that will help to protect and respect the environment.
The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) and IBM (NYSE: IBM) -- named today by IFI Claims as the leading earner of United States patents for the 15th consecutive year -- are initiating this effort in partnership with Nokia, Pitney Bowes, and Sony. The pledged portfolio, dubbed the "Eco-Patent Commons," is available on a dedicated, public Web site hosted by the WBCSD (http://www.wbcsd.org/web/epc).
Patents pledged to the Eco-Patent Commons -- originally proposed at IBM's Global Innovation Outlook conference -- feature innovations focused on environmental matters and innovations in manufacturing or business processes where the solution provides an environmental benefit. For example, a company may pledge a patent for a manufacturing process that reduces hazardous waste generation, or energy or water consumption. A pledged patent covering a procurement or logistics solution may reduce fuel consumption.
Examples of the environmental benefits expected for pledged patents include:
-- Energy conservation or improved energy or fuel efficiency
-- Pollution prevention (source reduction, waste reduction)
-- Use of environmentally preferable materials or substances
-- Water or materials use reduction
-- Increased recycling opportunity
A few years ago, Todd Palmer, an ecologist at the University of Florida, was walking past a fenced-off research site in Kenya when he noticed something curious: instead of thriving, acacia trees that were protected from leaf-eating elephants and giraffes were withering and dying.The acacias and a species of ant that colonize them live together in an arrangement called mutualism. The ants nest in the trees’ thorns and sip on their nectar; in return, they swarm out ferociously, ready to bite, when a tree is disturbed by an elephant, a giraffe or other grazing animal.
But somehow, Dr. Palmer said, the trees seem to sense when no one is munching on their leaves and, after a year or so, seemingly decide, “We are going to reduce our investment in ants” by not producing so many roomy thorns or so much tasty nectar. The ants’ responses — lassitude is one — eventually encourage wood-boring beetles to invade the trees. Soon their tunnels leave the trees sickly, dying or dead.
The finding shows that what looks like two-species mutualism may involve other species. And they offer new proof of the fragility of the web of life, a phenomenon observed, for example, when wolves vanish from mountain landscapes or sharks and other top marine predators are fished out of the marine food chain.
Without wolf predation, elk are freer to roam and eat more plants. Result: aspen begin to vanish. Similarly, the overfishing of sharks and similar large fish leave smaller, algae-eating fish free to graze unhindered on algae growing on (and feeding) coral. Result: dead coral.
