Wangari Maathai was the first African woman to win a Nobel Prize. In Kenya, Wangari Maathai held several distinctions including serving as Deputy Minister in the Ministry of Environment, Natural Resources and Wildlife. She founded the Green Belt movement in Kenya. She is definitely an environmental hero. She says: “It's the little things citizens do. That's what will make the difference. My little thing is planting trees.
a) What has planting trees to do with climate change?
b) Do you know someone who is taking action to fight climate change? What is the motivation of this person?
a) If there are any creatures on this planet which can reuse carbon, in the form of carbon
di oxide, an important green house gas, they are PLANTS,particularly trees. So if we plant trees, we would be directly involved in increasing the number of these 'carbon sinks' on the planet, which inturn would reduce carbon concentrations in air.
Thus, planting trees has got to do a lot in controlling unpredicted climate change!
b) We have this person called Mr. N.Sai Bhaskar Reddy who has invented a stove called 'Good Stove' which is extremely efficient.It uses less fuel (NOT FOSSIL FUEL), produces more heat and produces no smoke. For the fuel, he has made briquettes made out of waste paper and dry biomass such as twigs, leaves etc.And for making these briquettes, he has invented a briquette maker, which squeezes the bio-waste pulp and gives it a shape. In fact Bhaskar Reddy sir has conducted a session for us and taught us how to make briquette and even the good stove.He is using these stoves extensively in rural areas of our state.He strongly believes in open source technology, and his knowledge is shared by him in the web. We can see the video clippings of his inventons, latest and previous, by visiting his blogs. All you need to do is to type 'nakka sai bhaskar reddy', or 'good stoves' or 'briquette maker' and allow your search engine to do the rest!