GWG Vol. 7
This Week: rice & the rainforest. Also, a special announcement with a reader contest.
Dear Reader,
The CDC says no need for a mask outdoors if you are vaccinated. Big time news. I know you are all excited to see my pretty smile. The feeling is mutual.
Rice to meet you
The inspiration for this week started with one of the more interesting facts I’ve come across. According to the Sustainable Rice Platform, rice cultivation represents 30-40% of global freshwater usage. It also accounts for 10% of global methane emissions.
In the context of livestock, which accounts for an estimated 20-30% of global water usage and 44% of global methane emissions, it might not seem like much. And with rice feeding basically half of the world’s population it might not be so surprising.
Nonetheless, the impact from something so innocuous gave me pause. It is one of those things that makes the scale of the problem hit home. Even if everyone became vegan tomorrow, the food industry would still be nowhere near net-zero.
On the bright side, an Israeli company has developed a drip irrigation system for growing rice to replace flooded paddies. They claim their technology is able to cut the water requirement by half and drive methane emissions to zero.
The have completed a three-year pilot program across 1,000 hectares and are now trying to scale. The challenge is switching to this new type of rice cultivation requires an upfront investment in pipes, pumps and filters. With 144 million family farms growing rice around the world, and most living near the poverty line, I find it hard to believe this will be widely adopted anytime soon.
I think rice cultivation highlights some of the common themes that keep coming up -
The problem is almost always more complicated than widely understood, and the solution may have its own complications.
Innovation alone isn’t enough. We need innovation and ways to implement it.
Recognizing these themes forces me to think about what I read and learn a bit differently. I am challenged to think about the problem, solution and implications from more directions. I wanted to share this because at a high-level, that is also what the GWG is trying to do.
Amplify
It’s not every week that the rainforest actually gets saved. Thanks to a coalition of conservation groups led by the Nature Conservancy, 230,000 acres of rainforest in Belize has been protected. The (newly named) Belize Maya Forest has a lot of things going for it - it is home to jaguars, pumas, and ocelots as well as 200 tree species and more than 400 species of bird.
The Forest is part of a 38 million acre tropical forest - the Selva Maya - which spans Mexico, Belize and Guatemala and is adjacent to Rio Bravo Reserve, creating a continuously protected area totaling 9% of Belize.
Pretty great, hey?! Cheers all around.
Create Accountability
As a (former) real estate nerd, I couldn’t help but wonder what they paid for the land. I found a quote that said:
This project is an example of remarkable conservation action, with innovative financing, innovative partnerships, and unusual levels of collaboration.
Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t find much about what that innovative financing or partnerships looked like.
On breakingbelizenews.com (not phishing), it seems a Minister of the Public Service complained that the Government of Belize waived stamp duty and land tax for of 50 years. Probably more importantly:
[the government] permitted the trustee to retain, exercise, and transfer the carbon rights, and the exclusive rights to perfect, market and sell any and all verified carbon credits or offsets.
So the purchase was paid for on the promise of future carbon credits or offsets. Makes enough sense.
Now, I don’t want to be too greedy - protected rainforest is protected rainforest. I can’t help but feel though that the company who will eventually buy these offsets, and then call themselves net-zero, won’t really be net-zero. An airline buying an offset that funded the Forest won’t actually be reducing its emissions, it’s just funding some far-off climate positive outcome.
Maybe that is enough - we will explore carbon offsets in more detail another day - and for this one the ends justify the means. Still, I can’t help but wonder, why isn’t Bill Gates the largest private owner of rainforest in the world instead of the largest private owner of US farm land?
I guess I am a have my cake and eat it too kind of guy.
GWG Book & Film Club
Gotta say - it feels like GWGer’s aren’t taking to my content recommendations. If this is not true, I’d like to hear from you. Otherwise I think we will need to rethink this section.
If you want book club to stay, please indicate your interest by clicking here.
Potpourri
The latest diet craze may be for cows - a study found that seaweed in cattle feed could reduce methane emissions in beef cattle by 82%.
Tesla says it will power all Superchargers with renewable energy before the end of 2021.
That’s All Folks!
I will be in the desert reconnecting with nature and celebrating my engagement (!!!) to an incredibly talented and beautiful woman this week. Odds GWG Vol. 8 is late are probably 50/50.
If enough of you share this week's newsletter with a friend though, I will 100% deliver. If you share with enough people, you might even score an invite to the wedding.
It’s up to you!
Congrats on your engagement!