A pair of climate change experts have discovered two less costly carbon-reducing options to alternative fuels, carbon storage, and forest conservation. $1 million on a combination family planning and girls education results in 250,000 tons of CO2 abatement. Of the other alternatives the best was reducing slash and burn of forests where $1 million spent results in a savings of 66,667 tons of CO2. Not considered in the list are cap and trade or taxes on carbon emissions.
For the lead, thanks go to Chris Blattman where there are more links.
In message prepared for the January 1, 2010 for World Peace Day, Pope Benedict spoke of stewardship of the environment for future humans:
A greater sense of intergenerational solidarity is urgently needed. Future generations cannot be saddled with the cost of our use of common environmental resources. “We have inherited from past generations, and we have benefited from the work of our contemporaries; for this reason we have obligations towards all, and we cannot refuse to interest ourselves in those who will come after us, to enlarge the human family. Universal solidarity represents a benefit as well as a duty. This is a responsibility that present generations have towards those of the future, a responsibility that also concerns individual States and the international community”. Natural resources should be used in such a way that immediate benefits do not have a negative impact on living creatures, human and not, present and future; that the protection of private property does not conflict with the universal destination of goods; that human activity does not compromise the fruitfulness of the earth, for the benefit of people now and in the future. …