An oil pipeline to Canada's untapped Tar Sands deposits would create short-term construction jobs, but its effects on the climate could permanently destroy jobs elsewhere. Photo: rickz (Flickr)

Proponents of the proposed pipeline from Canada’s Athabasca Tar Sands to the Gulf of Mexico claim that its construction would create jobs. But while the long-term employment prospects are debatable at best, the resulting long-term economic devastation is far more certain.

The recent decision by the Obama administration to deny a permit for the construction of the pipeline has received much press and been touted as a victory for environmentalists. But as climate activist Bill McKibben and his organization point out, stopping the extraction of the tar sands would be a victory for those far removed from the American environmental movement as well.

McKibben said in an interview with Green Prophet that “Any place that is already living close to the margins is in the greatest danger” when facing climate change.

This means the world’s poorest, already suffering from food shortages and decreased agricultural production, would be hardest hit by this carbon bomb. And scientific consensus backs up McKibben’s view.

Country Ranks, Estimated Percentage of Agricultural Productivity Loss by 2080: Potential Carbon Emissions from Canadian Oil Sands. Photo: Center for Global Development

David Wheeler, senior fellow emeritus of the Center for Global Development, compiled a recent study specifically tying the exploitation of the Canadian oil sands to increased agricultural losses.

Wheeler concluded that “full exploitation of Canada’s oil sands deposit would impose significant agricultural productivity losses on over 3 billion people in the developing world, and particularly in sub-Saharan Africa.” He calculates that “combustion of the Alberta deposit would increase the atmospheric concentration of CO2 by 99 ppm, or 21.3 percent of the increase already projected to occur by 2100.”

Or, as reputed climate scientist Jim Hansen of NASA put it, tapping the tar sands would be “essentially game over for the climate."

Wheeler's findings show a "game over" scenario in poor rural regions, in particular, predicting agricultural productivity losses of up to nearly 13 percent in Africa and 9 percent in Asia. Wheeler, who also created a ‘Climate Vulnerability Index’ by country, sums up his findings powerfully and succinctly, stating "Put simply, the potential destructive power in Canada’s oil sands exceeds anything modern civilization has witnessed to date."

“This new report puts into stark relief exactly what ‘game over’ looks like: Millions upon millions of starving people across the planet," says 350.org co-founder Jamie Henn.

On the ground, countries projected by Wheeler to see further damaging impacts are already struggling with agricultural losses. Another 350.org co-founder, Phil Aroneanu, told Global Envision that “we have a plethora of anecdotal and story-based thoughts from our organizers around the world” of agricultural devastation and food shortages linked to changing climate patterns.

Drought-stricken countries in the Horn of Africa, including Ethiopia and Sudan, among others, provide some of the most poignant images of climate-related suffering. An Oxfam International report points out that 85 percent of Ethiopians depend directly on agriculture. And as a local farmer told Oxfam, “The rain doesn’t come on time anymore. After we plant, the rain stops just as our crops start to grow. And it begins to rain after the crops have already been ruined.”

And with the projections from scientists like Hansen and Wheeler, Africa’s farmers and communities appear unlikely to recover soon.

While McKibben writes that “Blocking one pipeline was never going to stop global warming,” and Obama’s denial of the Keystone permit may well not kill the project in the long run, the scientific and anecdotal evidence is clear: Vulnerable populations are suffering at the hands of carbon kings already, and tapping the tar sands will exacerbate their problems.

So the Keystone proposal may or may not be dead. But the political discourse around potential job-killing has mostly left out an important aspect: the killing of crops and livelihoods elsewhere in the world.

McKibben has said that extracting Canada’s tar sands would mean lighting the “fuse to the biggest carbon bomb on the planet.” For now, at least, that fuse remains unlit.

Within a few years, cheap sorghum-based beer might be the newest gift of the Nile to drinkers and farmers alike. Photo: Tattooed JJ (Flickr)

With barley beer priced out of reach and homebrewed banana beer sending people to the hospital, SABMiller is testing a new ingredient for its African alcohol: sorghum.

The giant global beermaker and its subsidiary, Nile Breweries, see an opportunity to expand their business while potentially halving the price of mainstream beer. Thanks to their tweaked recipes and Africa's abundant natural sorghum resource, prices are already falling fast.

A CNN Money article explains that the average American consumes 77 liters of beer annually. In Africa, not including South Africa, the average person only consumes about 7 liters. Because of this, SABMiller sees cheap sorghum beer as an opportunity to "crack a virgin market." Although sorghum is usually used for syrup and cattle feed in countries like Uganda, Tanzania and Zambia, SABMiller's Nile Breweries developed a beer recipe in 2002. CNN explains that by building high-tech microbreweries and micro supply chains sourcing local ingredients, SABMiller stabilizes the price of beer by reducing dependence on international imports, creating a more self-sustained and cheaper market for Africa. The new product is priced 20 percent less than imported barley beer.

This inexpensive yet high-quality beer is becoming popular very fast—nearly 35 percent of all beer in Uganda is now Nile's Eagle sorghum beer, which CNN reported is also sold in Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Swaziland. In 2008, Heineken and Diageo followed suit with a sorghum recipe for Ghana, Sierra Leone and Cameroon. Multinationals are racing into an untouched market.

Not only does the recreated sorghum recipe help boost profit for major beer companies, it sustains Africa's economy. According to a study by French business school INSEAD, Nile Breweries added about $92 million to the Ugandan economy and supported roughly 44,000 Ugandans through agricultural, manufacturing, retailing or distribution jobs in 2007. SABMiller is sending a share of this revenue to subsistence farmers at the bottom of its value chain.

"Our affordability model is attractive because it focuses on local crops and creates additional income for farmers and a new profit pool for us without cannibalizing our core product," says Andy Wales, head of Sustainable Development at SABMiller.

As CNN explains, SABMiller's idea of using local ingredients to tap new markets follows that of Coke and Danone. Africa will contain seven of the world's 10 fastest-growing economies by 2015, CNN says, and roughly 200 million Africans will enter the consumer goods market by 2016. Multinationals, such as Coke, Danone and now SABMiller, see vast opportunities in the very near future.

Not everyone thinks SABMiller's tactics will make a mark in Africa's economy. "Africa is still mom-and-pop," said Don Elefson, a fund manager for the Harding Loevner Frontier Emerging Markets Fund, explaining that multinationals will still remain "on the sidelines." But with SABMiller's next steps of using cassava-based beer in Mozambique and Southern Sudan, seeding a Tanzanian barley industry and creating better processors to preserve products while distributing, the company may be on a fast track to meet its long-term goal of halving the price of beer in Africa and tapping a huge new market.

New organization Solar Sister is empowering women in rural Africa to star their own solar lamp businesses. Photo: IvanClow (flickr)

A new organization seeks to light up the night in rural Africa by putting a twist on an all-American idea: the Avon lady.

Night in rural Africa is a night much darker than that to which the developed world is accustomed, as many communities lack electricity. In rural Uganda, the number is as high as 95 percent, as Katherine Lucey told Dowser.org. Without electric light, people must rely upon kerosene lamps, which are expensive and belch toxic fumes.

These create a bevy of problems, especially for women. Girls are often expected to help with chores when they return home from school and don’t have time to do homework until after dark. Either they sit inhaling fumes and burning up cash with the family’s kerosene lamp, or in many cases, they simply don’t study at all. Solar lamps solve this problem by extending the work day.

For years, Africans have had a big problem with solar power: it breaks. In an interview with Dowser.org, Solar Sister founder, Katherine Lucey, said that in her previous work with a nonprofit, the solar systems they installed in rural areas had a 50 percent rate of failure after just one year. Traditional solar power can be a hard sell for poor communities — it saves money in the long run, but it's pricey at first, and many solar panels often fall apart over time due to improper maintenance. The new lamps that Solar Sister uses are small, portable, and don’t require technological know-how to use — you simply place the lamp outside during the day, it absorbs the sun’s rays, and when night falls you turn it on.

Solar Sister uses a microconsignment model, meaning that its entrepreneurs don’t pay for their lamps until they actually sell them. If they can’t sell the lamps or decide they don’t want to, they can return them to the organization without loosing any money. It’s a low-risk endeavor that has so far empowered 107 women in Uganda, Ghana, and Sudan. Normally, these women wouldn’t have had enough money to create a business.

The lamps range from $15 to $50 at first, a large investment for most families. But, an average family spends about $2 a week on kerosene, so a family could save up to $85 a year just by buying a lamp, says TriplePundit. Solar Sister estimates that its entrepreneurs can actually double their households’ incomes while decreasing their household expenses by 30 percent. Some of the lamps can even act as cell-phone chargers. Not only can women with these lamps charge their own family’s phones; they often bring in extra money by charging neighbors’ phones. Otherwise, they’re left to travel to nearby cities whenever a phone goes dead.

The women who participate in Solar Sister can seem pretty ecstatic about their new businesses, as you can see in this clip below of Viola, one of the women selling solar lamps in eastern Uganda.

Solar Sister currently operates in Uganda, Rwanda, and South Sudan, and hopes to shine a light on other parts of Africa soon.

Students in South Africa learn how to use smartphones. Photo: DI GameWorks (flickr)

The internet revolution in Africa will not be televised, but it will most likely be tweeted from a mobile device.

In fact, more young people in developing countries access the internet via mobile devices than in developed ones, explain Opera Software developers in a World News Heard Now article.

About 5.81 percent of total web browsing in Africa is done on mobile devices, compared to 4.7 percent in North America, according to figures cited by The Independent. And depending on the country, the percentage can be much higher. The Independent cites the example of Chad, where about 29 percent of all web browsing is sourced to mobile devices.

Telcom experts are expecting enormous growth in continent-wide internet access.
CEO Brian Herlihy of the African broadband company SEACOM told the Christian Science Monitor that total internet access in Africa tops out at about 15 percent -- a figure he expects to grow by 50 percent each year. And he expects IT spending to go up -- tripling to $150 billion by some estimates -- as telecoms, phonemakers and service operators wage price wars.

Whether its being texted or tweeted, the revolution has begun.

Golden nugget. Photo: craig.hamnett (flickr)

Imagine this: Finding a piece of gold worth enough to change your life. Now think of what you could do with that money. You could buy that car you've always wanted, maybe open your own business, or travel the world. This is what is fueling a boom in gold prospecting in Northern Sudan. According to the Los Angeles Times, people from all over Sudan and surrounding areas are flocking to this region in order to dig for gold, hoping that they will be the one to strike it rich.

But it’s not only glitz, glamour, and fantasies which bring people here. Sometimes it’s a matter of survival. The L.A. Times suggests that many of these prospectors -- even college graduates -- have experienced extreme difficulties finding jobs in a country where nearly half the population lives in poverty. So they come to the desert, tools in tow, and begin the long and often unrewarding search for gold.

But the conditions are harsh. In the last year and a half, 40 people have died from malnutrition, thirst or injuries sustained from fighting with other gold diggers.

So why do people stay even after they find gold? Babiker Adam, a farmer who has joined the prospecting contagion, explains the draw to the L.A. Times.

"When you find the gold, it attracts you to stay longer. You will never say, 'I've got enough gold.' Never. I am staying here for two months. My children ask me to come home. But the gold is asking me to stay so I can have more. This is a chance in a lifetime."

"Petro-authoritarianism." Now that's a mouthful.

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman used the term to refer to oil-rich regimes in the developing world that funnel profits into the pockets of the powerful — and turn a blind eye to the needs of the poor.

Friedman puts Venezuela, Kazakhstan, Sudan and others in this category — countries where large oil and natural gas reserves lead to corruption, wasteful spending, military adventurism and instability.

U.S. Senator Richard Lugar (R-Indiana) includes Nigeria, the world's eighth-largest oil exporter, on that list. "Despite half a trillion dollars in revenues since the 1960s, poverty has increased, corruption is rife, and violence roils the oil-rich Niger Delta," he writes in the Christian Science Monitor.

"The Petroleum and Poverty Paradox," a report from Lugar's U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, calls for improved financial transparency from governments and oil companies. It also requests international assistance to help resource-rich countries better manage their revenue.

Lugar argues it's up to the U.S. to set the standard by demonstrating its own accountability. The first step, he says, is to join the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), a voluntary program that audits each participating country's oil and gas royalties.

With oil prices guaranteed to eventually spike as rapidly as they've dropped, Lugar writes, "Reversing the [resource] curse is in everyone's interest."

Photo: Henry McInnis for Mercy Corps

Along the banks of the Nile River in Sudan is some of the most fertile land in Africa. In fact, “Sudan could be self-sufficient, it does have the potential to be the breadbasket of Africa,” notes Kenro Oshidari, director of the UN World Food Program in Sudan.

Despite a harsh humanitarian situation in Darfur, and being the recipient of the most food aid, Sudan is actually a major exporter of sorghum, wheat, beans, peanuts, and tomatoes, among other crops. Just last year the U.S. shipped 283,000 tons of sorghum to Darfur — almost the exact same amount of sorghum exported by Sudan, UN officials told the New York Times.

Jeffrey Gettleman of The New York Times explores the complexity of food aid in Sudan in his revealing article; "The Food Chain: Darfur Withers as Sudan Sells Food."

April 22 marks the 38th celebration of Earth Day. In honor of the day, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) is presenting its Champions of Earth award. In 2004, the UNEP established the international environment award to celebrate the contributions of "individuals from every region of the world that have shown extraordinary leadership on environmental issues."

The UNEP is recognizing Dr. Balgis Osman-Elasha, a leading climate change researcher from Sudan. Dr. Balgis Osman-Elasha is considered to be at the forefront of climate change research and is a leading author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Dr. Osman-Elasha is seen by many as a role model for African women. She uses her knowledge and leadership skills to advance understanding of climate change and educate university students in Sudan about the impact and implications of climate change. She is changing the world, and starting at home.

Photo: unity.project

Photo: Cassandra Nelson/Mercy Corps

South Sudan is so far away and so deep in the shadow of the crisis in Darfur that few would give the region a second thought. It borders one of continental Africa’s largest oil reserves but is one of the poorest regions in the world as a result of the two decades’ long civil war, waged between North and South Sudan. The war ended in 2005 with the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), but Sudan’s President Omar Al-Bashir, who is from the North, is slowly pulling out of that agreement. His armies, without reason or provocation, have begun creating conflicts in the south. New York Times journalist Nicholas Kristof recently visited the region, where he examined signs of Khartoum's renewed interest in controlling the area through violence if necessary.

We think about Darfur as almost synonymous with Sudan these days, forgetting other parts of the country, where the conflict has left communities destitute and vulnerable. The limited media coverage tends to only focus on Darfur and the hope for successful execution of the CPA to resolve the crisis.

What we don't hear is that what is brewing in South Sudan might easily lead to the reawakening of a deep conflict that haunted the country for decades.

Kristof writes;

"Although people speak of renewed 'war,' the violence is more likely to resemble what happens in a stockyard. If it is like the last time, government-sponsored Arab militias will slaughter civilians so as to terrorize local populations and drive them far away from oil wells."

With such strong words, I expected to find coverage of this issue with ease – and was surprise to note that, except for a briefing published in March by International Crisis Group, [a few weeks after my original post], the growing violence in South Sudan is not being reported. I almost want to believe that Mr. Kristof has made a mistake – except he was there, not me.