Jatropha is considered as a carbon reduction plant as it recycles 100% of the carbon dioxide emissions produced by burning the biodiesel made from it. Jatropha oil is renewable and biodegradable. Burning Jatropha oil is cleaner than burning fossil fuels as it produces a fraction of carbon dioxide — the main greenhouse gas responsible for climate change. Jatropha forests can act as carbon sinks, converting large volumes of carbon dioxide to oxygen through photosynthesis. Jatropha trees also remove carbon from the atmosphere; they store it in the woody tissues and assist in the build-up of soil carbon. According to studies, each additional hectare of Jatropha plants can absorb 40 tonnes of carbon dioxide. Also, for every 1% increase of forest coverage in China, 0.6-0.7 billion tonnes of carbon can be absorbed from the atmosphere.

9.4

Global Warming Around Us

What seems extreme now will be tomorrow’s norm if we continue to ignore that extreme weather patterns are harbingers of climate change. These patterns have real human consequences. Here are a few examples why we have to reduce carbon dioxide and let us also look back at 2010.

If Moscow were in the United States, it would be located somewhere just south of Anchorage, Alaska. Yet at the end of July 2010, Muscovites endured at least 5 days that had been hotter than the previous record of 37°C (99°F), set back in the 1920s. Prior to that summer, Moscow had never seen a day with triple-digit temperatures. Now, it has seen several.

The extreme heat — the worst weather to occur in Russia in 1000 years — and the resulting acute air pollution caused the death rate in Moscow to double. Almost 15 000 people died during the summer heat wave of 2010. Wildfires were burning rampantly, releasing more carbon dioxide into the air.

More devastating was the effect the heat had on Russia’s grain harvest. The loss was felt globally and grain prices moved up further. In 2010, Russia’s grain harvest was nearly halved from 22 to 12 million tonnes and Prime Minister Putin imposed an export ban. Millions of hectares were badly affected by the drought and the wheat crop perished to a great extent.

Climate change disruption is having a serious effect on our food supply. July 2012 was the hottest month on record in the history of the United States with an average temperature of 77.6 degrees (25° Celcius) — 3.3 degrees above the average 20th-century norm. In the summer of 2012 the USA suffers from the worst drought in half a century and corn prices are at a record high of $8,— a bushel.

As grain prices rise around the world and extreme weather patterns become the norm, starvation and malnutrition, already overwhelming problems, will become more persistent and further reaching. The scope of climate change goes far beyond

simple environmentalism — it is a fundamental question of how we power our grid, our economy, and ourselves.

We can keep our heads stuck in the sand and pretend what is happening will go away. Or we can disabuse ourselves of any responsibility, just to say "I told you so.”

Or we can, for once, look at what is happening now, and do what is necessary to mitigate and adapt to the forces of our changing planet.

9.5