Articles tagged with: South America
Posted in Energy, Environment, Green, Wind on 1 September 2008
It is nice to see that more South American nations are actively taking to production of alternate energy and with the immense natural resources the continent possesses; it will not be long before they start producing clean energy in a large way. South America is endowed with natural resources that are varied and unique and the continent is only now realizing its true potential. With vast open desert and plenty of Sunshine, Peru seems to be ideal to harness power from alternate sources.
Iberoperuana Inversiones plans to invest $240 million in a wind farm, which is projected to provide clean electricity for an estimated 80,000 families in Peru’s southern desert region of Paracas. The wind energy park will be located near the city of Ica and will be known as the “Parque Eólico San Andrés”. Iberoperuana Inversiones hopes that the park would already be generating 22 megawatts of energy by the end of this year.
This new venture is the first major investment in Peru in regards to the production of alternate energy and the country hopes that this will encourage further investments in both wind and solar energy. This is not just a wonderful new venture that will benefit Peru and other South American nations around it but will also help the planet to cool down that tad bit further.
Via Ecoworldly
Posted in Earth, Environment on 21 July 2008
Scientists and environmentalists from world over have expressed their concerns over the far-reaching devastating effects of rapid destruction and drying of wetlands.
Gathered at the 8th INTECOL International Wetlands Conference (Cuiaba, Brazil), some 700 experts from 28 nations believe that quickly drying up wetlands invariably lead to climate change via global warming.
Wetlands store a vast amount of carbon (in form of CO2). Their complete destruction will lead to massive release of this stored up CO2 into atmosphere, thereby heating it up. Besides, carbon dioxide other greenhouse gases like methane (more potent than the former) will also be released which will further strain our Earth’s atmosphere.
It is interesting to note that, wetlands (including peat bogs, swamps, river deltas, marshes, mangroves, tundra, lagoons and river floodplains cover only 6% of Earth’s land surface. But, they store upto 20% of its terrestrial carbon! According to an estimate these waterlogged areas contain nearly 771 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases (this is equivalent to present-day carbon levels found in atmosphere).
To understand the graveness of the concerns voiced by these scientists it is very important that we all should know how wetlands play an important part in maintaining ecological balance on our planet. The peat bogs of Siberia, North America and Scandinavia contain a third of all carbon in the world’s soils.
Besides soaking up carbon,
• Wetlands slow the decay of organic material trapped and locked away over the ages in low oxygen conditions.
• They support biodiversity in form of unique water ecosystems.
• Wetlands act as reservoirs of water supply.
• They can soak-up flood water.
• Wetlands filter nitrate and phosphate runoff from surrounding land.
Studies reveal that 60% of wetlands worldwide and up to 90% in Europe have been destroyed in the past 100 years by human activities like drainage for agriculture, construction of dams& canals, groundwater pumping, urban development, peat extraction and other activities that are polluting by nature.
At this international gathering of scientist, this grave situation will be dealt with in terms of solution-generation that can be suitably adapted by the governing bodies of the world in order to stabilize the condition of wetland decay. Wetland preservation and their rehabilitation represent viable measures, which should be immediately applied to check the rampant destruction and drying up of world’s swamps.
Source: sciencedaily