Title: Situation in Somalia still desperate

source:nourishing the planet

Excerpt: Six months after famine struck the Horn of Africa, leaving 12 million people at risk of starvation, the situation in Somalia is still dire. Although the designation of famine in some areas of the country has been lifted, the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC), a collaboration of 14 leading U.K. aid agencies, says that there are four million people still in urgent need of aid in a drought that has already killed tens of thousands.

Excerpt: Security is an added issue in the region. Militants known as al Shabab have taken over major cities and interfered with the delivery of emergency food and aid supplies. Government and African Union forces are fighting to rid the Shabab from the region, to finally achieve peace and stability in a time of great distress.

Excerpt: Because the situation in Somalia is given little attention from the media and international community, millions of people remain victim to immense suffering. The famine is far from over, and those affected need help and support now more than ever.

Title: 10 adventurous journeys made in eco friendly vehicles

source:green diary

Excerpt: With the 'Green' revolution making its 'rounds' across the world, many designers and fabricators have got busy making travel plans in Eco-friendly vehicles to show the practicality and usefulness of being green. Some of the journeys are on land while some others are on water, but all of them are filled with adventure and courage. Here are ten such adventurous journeys undertaken in Eco-friendly vehicles.

Title: 10 most amazing DIY electric cars

source:green diary

Excerpt: Although the first electric car was designed in the last decade of the 19th century, by the turn of the century, vehicles powered by fossil fuel became the sole mode of transportation. However, mounting pollution and rising fuel price have prompted automobile manufacturers to search for sustainable energy sources. Here are ten cars that had been converted into electric vehicles.

Title: High hopes for hemp

source:iafrica.com

Excerpt: South Africa's building industry has taken another step forward. High up on a hill overlooking the sea in Noordhoek, Western Cape, stands the House that Hemp Built.

The first of its kind in South Africa, the building was constructed almost entirely of materials that could be grown on a few hectares of land within months.

Excerpt: Apart from its wooden frame, the House that Hemp Built is constructed mostly from the renewable plant. As far as possible, the panels’ inside posts are made of reclaimed wood. Inside the panels are two layers of hemp insulation and, in addition to this, the walls are strengthened with hempcrete. This is a mixture of lime, water and hemp stalks; a by-product of the textile industry.

Excerpt: If the hemp project proves successful and large-scale cultivation goes ahead, it could change the lives of millions of South Africans. Thousands of jobs will be created in all sectors of the industry, from cultivation to beneficiation, and nutritious hemp seeds could provide poor people with essential omega oils mostly found in fish.

Title: Tony Hawk and Ziggy Marley address eco-impact of smoking in new video

Excerpt: Tony Hawk and Ziggy Marley draw attention to the environmental issues of discarded cigarette butts in a new video released to coincide with Earth Day on April 22.

The video, produced by American Public health organization Legacy, features professional skateboarder Tony Hawk, musician and son of Bob Marley, Ziggy Marley, and a host of other celebrities.

Excerpt: Discarded cigarette ends have been shown to have toxic effects on natural ecosystems. Research conducted by Legacy and released April 19, found that in 2010 around two million cigarette ends were collected as part of the event International Coast Clean Up and that cigarette butts are the number one littered item in the United States.

Excerpt: The full video, released April 22, is available to watch and share via Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150221525048973 .

Title: In the Wheat Fields of Kenya, a Budding Epidemic

Excerpt: GREAT RIFT VALLEY, Kenya -- A virulent new version of a deadly fungus is ravaging wheat in Kenya's most fertile fields and spreading beyond Africa to threaten one of the world's principal food crops, according to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization.

Excerpt: Stem rust, a killer that farmers thought they had defeated 50 years ago, surfaced here in 1999, jumped the Red Sea to Yemen in 2006 and turned up in Iran last year. Crop scientists say they are powerless to stop its spread and increasingly frustrated in their efforts to find resistant plants.

Excerpt: Borlaug is among the big-name crop scientists who came. Known as the father of the Green Revolution, he is credited with breeding the rust-resistant wheat that saved millions from hunger. In 2005, the Kenyans took him to nearby Narok, where farmers from the Maasai tribe were losing crops to stem rust.

"I was scared by what I saw because I knew it could spread to big regions," Borlaug, 94, said in a telephone interview from his home in Dallas.

Because there hasn't been a major epidemic in 50 years, only a few living scientists have seen the destructive power of stem rust.

But Borlaug needed no history lesson. He recruited scientists from wheat-producing countries and raised funds to underwrite their work. Foundations in the United States and Japan pitched in, as did the governments of Canada, India and the United States, Singh said. Last year, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation gave $26.8 million to a project led by Cornell University scientists.