Africa: Vital in the fight against global warming!

A new study has found that undisturbed tropical forests are absorbing nearly one-fifth of the carbon dioxide created as a result of burning fossil fuels. The scientific report published in Nature magazine suggest that the world's remaining tropical forests remove 4.8 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions from the atmosphere each year.

The study was based on data from research involving African tropical forests over the past 40 years and has shown that for at least the past few decades, each hectare of intact African forest has trapped an extra 0.6 tons of carbon per year. Dr. Simon Lewis from the University of Leeds, in England, offered a press statement: “Tropical forest trees are absorbing about 18 percent of the CO2 added to the atmosphere each year from burning fossil fuels, substantially buffering the rate of climate change.”

The study also found that trees of comparable age are growing substantially larger, though the reasons are unclear. A 20-year-old tree, for example, is on average bigger than a 20-year-old tree measured a decade ago. A leading suspect is the extra carbon dioxide the atmosphere, which may be acting as a fertilizer.

“To get an idea of the value of the forests,” one scientist explained, “the removal of nearly 5 billion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by intact tropical forests, based on realistic prices for a ton of carbon, should be valued at around $18.5 billion per year. This is a compelling argument for conserving tropical forests.”

Perhaps the U.S. and other large polluters should start paying African nations to preserve their forests. Imagine the possibilities!

No News is Good News?

The United Nations’ special representative for Somalia, Mr. Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, has compared the role of Somalia's media with the infamous radio station that was used to incite participation in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. A day after Mr. Ould-Abdallah’s remarks, Islamist gunmen shot and killed Said Tahlil Ahmed, the director of independent HornAfrik Radio in Mogadishu, in broad daylight in the Somali capital. Last week, Human Rights Watch called on Ould-Abdallah to immediately retract his statement.

"What happened is to divert attention from what is going on here and, as usual, to use the media to repeat 'Radio Mille Collines' (The Rwandan Radio Station), to repeat the genocide in Rwanda," the U.N. Represntative said. Somalia journalists have called the comparison “insulting, ignorant and dangerous.”

Amidst an escalating war of words, Somalia’s radio stations have agreed not to air live sermons by Muslim clerics or live news conferences or interviews by insurgent groups in an effort to avoid promoting their political agendas -- which to date have been blamed for contributing to Somalia’s violence.

Throughout all of this, one cannot help but consider what seems to be unbridled power that exists in the hands of those few un-elected individuals who possess the ability to influence the actions of so many. Even in the U.S., there are those who profess that the media has gained too much power . . . playing an unprecedented role in last fall’s Presidential election. There are those who say the media -- both liberal as well as conservative -- selected their U.S. Presidential Candidate and then worked to “sell” that candidate to the electorate. A friend of mine even recently suggested that those working in the media be re-labled. “No longer can it be said these people are reporters,” my friend said. “Instead, they are ‘sales people’ . . . men and women who are trying to sell to the public something which is in the better interest of the news corporation."

Hope for Zimbabwe?

After months of squabbling about the results of elections earlier last year, opposition party leader Morgan Tsvangirai has been sworn in as prime minister of Zimbabwe. The new “unity government” that involves power-sharing between Tsvangirai and President Robert Mugabe is giving Zimbabweans hope that an end is in sight to the political, economic and health crises that have plagued the nation for months.

To date, a cholera epidemic has claimed nearly 4,000 lives and infected about 65,000 people in Zimbabwe since August. The lack of water treatment chemicals and a problem with waste disposal in much of the country has contributed to many cases of infection. In addition, the United Nations is reporting that more than 5 million people in Zimbabwe are in need of food assistance. There are also shortages of fuel and electricity. The shortages combined with the other issues have contributed to the worst inflation of any country in the world -- at 231 million percent.

If Mr. Tsvangirai is unsuccessful in his attempts to bring about positive change in Zimbabwe, one must wonder how much longer the world will sit by and watch the nation continue to decay.

“Denial is not a river in Egypt.”

One of my friends who works as a therapist once explained to me that “denial” -- either of events or of a painful situation -- is experienced by those who have turned away from something for one of two reasons: it was either too painful for them to experience for themselves or because it was too painful to see it happening to others. “In either case,” my friend would say, it must be dealt with ... denial is not a river in Egypt.”

These past few months, news reports have been full of cases of “denial.” In Europe, there is a furor over a bishop who is denying certain aspects of the Holocaust. In East Africa, there are national leaders who are denying that AIDS is a health concern. In Asia, there are political leaders who are denying that the citizens of their country are starving to death. And in America, there are those denying the destructive power of greenhouse gases or even that the U.S. economy is in serious trouble.

Perhaps, as my therapist-friend was suggesting, those in denial are just too close to the forest to see the trees. Whether it is in Europe, or Africa ... Asia or America -- maybe those who are in denial cannot bring themselves to see the truth of reality -- and the reality of the pain that is so much a part of people's lives. For too many reasons, just as pain and suffering are a part of the human condition, so is denial.

After all, it is much easier to spend a day at the river -- even if it is in Egypt.