BBC Earth Science — Earthwatch says it is vital for leaders attending a key UN summit in December to find a way to halt deforestation. Deforestation accounts for about 20% of the greenhouse gas emissions resulting from human activities, UN data shows.

The environmental charity will outline its concerns during a public lecture in central London on Thursday evening. “This year is the crunch time for forests and climate change,” Earthwatch’s head of climate change research Dan Bebber told BBC News. “We are hoping for big things from the Copenhagen climate summit at the end of 2009,” he added, referring to a much anticipated UN gathering. “Unless we tackle the question of forests as a mitigation method for climate change, then we will really have lost the battle to keep greenhouse gas concentrations below levels that many people would consider to be dangerous.”

Despite the measures introduced by the UN’s Kyoto Protocol on climate change, global emissions of CO2 have continued to rise as a result of increasing energy consumption and the loss of forest cover.

The reason why deforestation accounts for about 20% of CO2 emissions from human activities is primarily a result of old growth tropical forests being felled or burned in order to convert the fertile land into farmland. The issue is one of the key topics on the agenda at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen, which will consider how the global climate strategy will look when Kyoto expires in 2012.

“This year is going to be critical and we feel we need to raise public awareness about this issue as much as possible,” Dr Bebber said. “There have been some very strong pressures to use forests in an unsustainable way, particularly in the tropics. You could probably make a thousand times more money by converting tropical forests to agricultural land to grow, for example, soya beans than you could managing it in a sustainable way. It is this imbalance that needs to be addressed at a global level.” (03/27/09)
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BBC Technology — A British engineer from Hampshire has broken the world land speed record for a wind-powered vehicle. Richard Jenkins reached 126.1mph (202.9km/h) in his Greenbird car on the dry plains of Ivanpah Lake in Nevada. Mr Jenkins told the BBC that it had taken him 10 years of “hard work” to break the record and that, on the day, “things couldn’t have been better”.

American Bob Schumacher set the previous record of 116 mph in 1999, driving his Iron Duck vehicle.

“It’s great, it’s one of those things that you spend so long trying to do and when it actually happens, it’s almost too easy,” Mr Jenkins told the BBC. The Greenbird is a carbon fibre composite vehicle that uses wind (and nothing else) for power. The only metalwork used is for the wing bearings and the wheel unit. The designers describe it as a “very high performance sailboat” but one that uses a solid wing, rather than a sail, to generate movement.

Mr Jenkins, from Lymington, spent 10 years designing the vehicle, with Greenbird the fifth vehicle he has built to try to break the record.

Due to the shape of the craft, especially at such high speeds, the wings also provide lift; a useful trait for an aircraft, but very hazardous for a car. To compensate for this, the designers have added small wings to “stick” the car to the ground, in the same way Formula 1 cars do. “Greenbird weighs 600kg when it’s standing still,” said Mr Jenkins. “But at speed, the effect of the wings make her weigh just over a tonne.”

Richard Jenkins spent much of his childhood sailing on the South Coast of England and from the age of 10 was designing what he calls “radical contraptions”. (03/27/09)
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