A hand full of information for you:
Sources/Links:
https://emergency.copernicus.eu/mapping/#zoom=2&lat=17.44093&lon=29.71939&layers=0BT00
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24/01/2023
23/01/2023
Did you know that?
2023 – UN International Year of Millets
The United Nations (UN) has declared 2023 the International Year of
Millets to raise awareness of the crop's climate-resilience and nutritional
benefits.
What Are Millets?
Millets are a group of grasses grown as grain crops, such as finger
millet (eleusine coracana) and pearl millet (pennisetum glaucum). Millets are
grown in more than 130 countries, mainly in Asia and Africa; the main producers
are India, Nigeria, and China.
Easy Growing, Cheap, and Effective
Millets need less water than other grains and grow without regular
irrigation, even in droughts. They grow in poor soils with little to no
additional work. This makes millets cheap and easy to plant, grow, and
harvest—especially in dry areas where people traditionally struggle to grow
crops.
Excellent Gluten-Free Nutrition
Easy and widespread growing is not the only reason why millets are a
“super crop:” They also contain more protein, fiber, vitamins, and minerals
than wheat and rice. Additionally, millets are rich in calcium and magnesium.
They can feed people without creating a nutritional deficiency and can
also help fight health challenges such as obesity and diabetes, as they are
gluten-free and have less effect on blood glucose levels.
Self-Sufficiency In a Changing Climate
The UN International Year of Millets (IYM) is an opportunity to “raise
awareness of and direct policy attention to the nutritional and health benefits
of millets and their suitability for cultivation under adverse and changing
climatic conditions,” according to the UN. The UN also aims to promote “the
sustainable production of millets while highlighting their potential to provide
new sustainable market opportunities for producers and consumers.”
Millets are grown in more than 130 countries, mainly in Asia and Africa;
the main producers are India, Nigeria, and China.
The Government of India sponsored the proposal for International Year of
Millets (IYM) 2023 which was accepted by the United Nations General Assembly
(UNGA)
Millets
Millet is a common term for categorising small-seeded grasses that are
often called Nutri-cereals. Some of them are sorghum (jowar), pearl millet
(bajra), finger millet (ragi), little millet (kutki), foxtail millet (kakun),
proso millet (cheena), barnyard millet (sawa), and kodo millet (kodon). An
essential staple cereal crop for millions of smallholder dryland farmers across
Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, millets offer nutrition, resilience, income and
livelihood for farmers, and have multiple uses such as food, feed, fodder,
biofuels and brewing.
Significance and benefits of millets
Millets are nutritionally superior to wheat and rice owing to their
higher protein levels and a more balanced amino acid profile. Millets also
contain various phytochemicals which exert therapeutic properties owing to
their anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidative properties. Further, besides being
climate resilient, millet grains are rich sources of nutrients like
carbohydrates, protein, dietary fibre, and good quality fat; minerals like
calcium, potassium, magnesium, iron, manganese, zinc and B complex vitamins.
Most importantly, millet production is not dependent on the use of chemical
fertilizers.
Published On January 2nd, 2023
Sources/Links:
https://currentaffairs.adda247.com/international-year-of-millets-2023/
https://www.timeanddate.com/year/2023/millets.html
https://vaqueirinhorepublic.blogspot.com/2022/10/ancient-grain.html
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22/01/2023
Let's talk about Light Pollution
For further reading on this subject:
please visit our page:
Sources/Links:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2627884/
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20/01/2023
no way
este ano os portugueses elegeram o Eucalipto
de Contige, levando a UNAC a questionar se “existe uma nova geração na opinião
pública para a qual o eucalipto é encarado em pé de igualdade com as restantes
árvores, sendo a sua beleza e porte alvo de atenção, justificando que há espaço
para todos”. “A inclusão também chegou à floresta”, remata a entidade que
promove a iniciativa. levando a UNAC a questionar se “existe uma nova geração
na opinião pública para a qual o eucalipto é encarado em pé de igualdade com as
restantes árvores, sendo a sua beleza e porte alvo de atenção, justificando que
há espaço para todos”. “A inclusão também chegou à floresta”, remata a entidade
que promove a iniciativa.
this year the Portuguese elected the Eucalyptus of
Contige, leading UNAC to question whether "there is a new generation in
public opinion for which eucalyptus is faced on an equal footing with the other
trees, being its beauty and size the target of attention, justifying that there
is room for all". "Inclusion has also reached the forest,"
concludes the entity that promotes the initiative. leading UNAC to question
whether "there is a new generation in public opinion for which eucalyptus
is faced on an equal footing with the other trees, being its beauty and size
the target of attention, justifying that there is room for all".
"Inclusion has also reached the forest," concludes the entity that
promotes the initiative.
Sources/Links:
https://www.gazetarural.com/navigator-felicita-eucalipto-de-contige-vencedor-da-arvore-do-ano/
https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contige
18/01/2023
FISE - Forest Information System for Europe
FISE - Forest Information System for Europe is a forest knowledge base
in support of the EU Forest Strategy.
Forest tree cover is basic for sustainability assessments.
Measuring forest tree cover helps tracking changes, both gain and losses
and supports policies related to reforestation, afforestation and ecosystem
restoration.
Follow the Link bellow and you will find the information available regarding:
▶ FOREST TREE COVER MAKES UP
37.13%
3 387 625 ha of the total country area
▶ FOREST PER CAPITA
0.33
ha per capita
▶ FOREST COVER CHANGE
▶ LAND COVER STATISTICS
▶ GROWING STOCK
▶ ROUNDWOOD REMOVALS
▶ FOREST PATCH DISTRIBUTION
Sources/Links:
https://forest.eea.europa.eu/countries/portugal/portugal-basic-data
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16/01/2023
The Sixth Mass Extinction Event
Sixth Mass Extinction of Wildlife Accelerating - Study
According to a recent analysis, the sixth mass extinction of wildlife on
Earth is accelerating. More than 500 species of land animals are on the brink
of extinction and are likely to be lost within 20 years; the same number were
lost over the whole of the last century. The scientists say that without the
human destruction of nature, this rate of loss would have taken thousands of
years and they warn that this may be a tipping point for the collapse of
civilisation.
The analysis, published in the journal Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences, looked at data on 29,000 land vertebrate species
compiled by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red
List of Threatened Species and BirdLife International. The scientists
identified 515 species with populations below 1,000 and about half of these had
fewer than 250 individuals remaining.
What is a Mass Extinction Event?
A mass extinction is usually defined as a loss of about three quarters
of all species in existence across the entire Earth over a “short” geological
period of time. Given the vast amount of time since life first evolved on the
planet, “short” is defined as anything less than 2.8 million years.
Previous Mass Extinction Events
(…)
The Analysis
(…)
Causes
(…)
Consequences of the Sixth Mass Extinction
(…)
You Might Also Like:
Vertebrates on the brink as indicators of biological
annihilation and the sixth mass extinction
Sources/Links:
https://earth.org/sixth-mass-extinction-of-wildlife-accelerating/
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1922686117
https://earth.org/conservation/
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08/01/2023
Calls to implement Basic Climate Law
The environmental association Zero has warned of the need for rapid implementation and regulation of the Basic Climate Law.
In a statement, Zero mentions measures that it considers urgent to
implement, such as the planned availability to the public of a digital tool,
the Climate Action Portal, which will allow citizens to participate in climate
action and access information on emissions and targets, progress in achieving
them, or climate finance. “Public participation occupies a central place in the
law (…), however, it is not clear how this participation will be framed”.
A year after the publication of the law, figures are missing for carbon
budgets for the period 2023-2025, says Zero, adding that by February the
initial climate impact assessment report should be presented, in which
potential government diplomas are identified.
Sources/Links:
https://www.theportugalnews.com/news/2023-01-01/calls-to-implement-basic-climate-law/73444
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31/12/2022
21/12/2022
Winter solstice in 2022
When is the winter solstice in 2022?
The winter solstice is on Wednesday 21 December 2022. It marks
the first day of astronomical winter, and the precise time of the solstice will
be at 9:47pm GMT. This differs from meteorological winter, which always
begins on 1 December, every year.
There are two solstices every year, one in December and one in June.
What is the winter solstice?
The winter solstice is when the Sun reaches its lowest point in the sky,
and here in the northern hemisphere, that results in the shortest day of the
year. It’s not something that you can see, like a meteor shower or planet in
opposition, but rather an event that occurs.
During the winter solstice, the northern hemisphere is tilted furthest
away from the Sun, causing it to reach its lowest point visually in the sky.
For us here on Earth, this means it takes the least amount of time to cross the
sky, and so we get the shortest day (and longest night) of the year. After the
winter solstice, the days begin to get longer and the nights shorter.
What does the word ‘solstice’ mean?
The word ‘solstice’ is the scientific term for this astronomical event
that happens twice a year. The word solstice is derived from the Latin sol
(sun) and sistere (to stand still). Both at the December solstice and the June
solstice, the Sun reverses its apparent annual north-south motion and appears
to stand still.
How the December solstice affects the poles
The Arctic and Antarctic circles are located at 66.5 degrees north and
66.5 degrees south, respectively. The latitude of the Arctic circle is
essentially the line, above which the Sun never rises on the December solstice,
resulting in 24 hours of darkness.
As you move closer towards the north pole, you’re moving closer towards
the point on the Earth that is tilted furthest away from the Sun. The winter
solstice is the darkest time of the year for the north pole, and during these
winter months, the Sun doesn’t rise from mid-November to late January, buffered
by a period of twilight on either side.
Sources/Links:
https://www.sciencefocus.com/planet-earth/winter-solstice-shortest-day-year/
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20/12/2022
A Massive Global Reforestation Project Is How We Fix Climate Change
This guy has a way with arithmetic’s...
We can conclusively solve our climate change problem with a massive
global reforestation campaign. This piece is a quick 2-minute summary
Here is how:
First, the basic unit of CO2 is a “ton.” A billion tons is a gigaton.
Each year, the world emits about 45 billion tons, or 45 gigatons of CO2.
We know that forests absorb CO2. How much? An acre of forest absorbs
about 15 tons of CO2 in a year. Other tree species absorb somewhat more or
less, some of them a lot more.
This means we need 3 billion acres of forest to offset our entire
worldwide CO2 emissions each year.
Does the world have this much land for new forest?
Yes, but we will need to regreen deserts. There are about 4.7 billion
acres of desert available, and we’ll only need about 3 billion of that.
People have been successfully regreening deserts for decades, e.g. in China,
Jordan, UAE, and Israel.
The limiting factor to regreening a desert is irrigation. We have to
irrigate the trees for about 20 years until the vegetation changes the climate
and induces its own rainfall.
We cannot rely on existing freshwater supplies, as they are all spoken
for (food, agriculture, etc), so the only other source is desalination of
seawater. This is energy-intensive, so our energy sources need to be low or
zero-carbon —solar, for instance.
On a per-acre basis, the cost to build a solar array sufficient to power
the desalination needed to irrigate that acre of forest for 20 years is about $1000/year
per acre.
Thus, to reforest 3 billion acres at current prices will cost the world
an investment of $3 trillion/year for 20 years.
That sounds like a lot, but the world GDP of 2017 was $80 trillion.
Therefore, this plan would require an investment of a little less
than 4% of world GDP every year for 20 years. Combined with even moderate
and gradual reduction in fuel emissions, we would effectively offset all CO2
emissions within 20 years once the forests reach maturity.
If we were to reforest the remaining 1.7 billion acres, the excess
sequestration capacity would remove all of the CO2 remaining in the
atmosphere that we have emitted since 1750 (beginning of the Industrial
Revolution) in under 35 years.
Sources/Links:
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Solstício de Inverno
Fontes/Links: https://g1.globo.com/mundo/noticia/2024/12/21/milhares-de-pessoas-celebram-o-solsticio-de-inverno-em-stonehenge.ghtml ΦΦΦ
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