New satellite photographs show that the destruction of Brazil's fragile Amazon rainforest has exploded this year, fueling fears that the government's efforts to stop deforestation have been fruitless.
Brazil's DETER real-time monitoring system found that more than 430 square miles of forest, an area a bit smaller than the city of Los Angeles, vanished in the month of April, while about 2,300 square miles, larger than the state of Delaware, were destroyed between last August and April.
Chairman and CEO of Virgin Group Richard Branson pledged an estimated $3 billion to combat global warming. Branson, who made the announcement during the Clinton Global Initiative in New York City, said that over the next 10 years he will invest 100 percent of all profits from Virgin's transportation businesses toward tackling this international problem.
Researchers at Brazil's National Space Research Institute (INPE) have created a system to capture the accumulated methane in the reservoirs of hydroelectric plants and utilize it to generate more electrical power. The system would not only cut greenhouse gas emissions from dams, but also increase Brazil's electrical generating capacity at a time when it is urgently seeking new power sources. It might, suggests INPE researchers, reduce the pressure to build new dams in Amazonia.
