National Water Quality Month on August, 2024: Average of trees cut in one month?

August, 2024 is National Water Quality Month 2024.

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about 4 football fields an hour

and this is part of it ,but it is much more taking into account expanding parming and urbanisation

They are intending to replace most of the indigenous Forrest's in the world ,with mono cultures for the production of Ethanol,

Non sustainable, chemically grown ,heavily irrigated (with water needed for communities)one specie Forrest's,that have only plagues of insects as fauna which are controlled with pesticides.

Killing all bio diversity,in both flora and fauna ,adding to the destruction and extinction of species ,like nothing we have ever seen before.

All in the quest for alternative energy and to save the Environment ,

The irony here is that the growing eagerness to slow climate change by using biofuels and planting millions of trees for carbon credits has resulted in new major causes of deforestation, say activists. And that is making climate change worse because deforestation puts far more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than the entire world's fleet of cars, trucks, planes, trains and ships combined.

"Biofuels are rapidly becoming the main cause of deforestation in countries like Indonesia, Malaysia and Brazil," said Simone Lovera, managing coordinator of the Global Forest Coalition, an environmental NGO based in Asunción, Paraguay. "We call it 'deforestation diesel'," Lovera told IPS.

Oil from African palm trees is considered to be one of the best and cheapest sources of biodiesel and energy companies are investing billions into acquiring or developing oil-palm plantations in developing countries. Vast tracts of forest in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and many other countries have been cleared to grow oil palms. Oil palm has become the world's number one fruit crop, well ahead of bananas.

Biodiesel offers many environmental benefits over diesel from petroleum, including reductions in air pollutants, but the enormous global thirst means millions more hectares could be converted into monocultures of oil palm. Getting accurate numbers on how much forest is being lost is very difficult.

The FAO's State of the World's Forests 2007 released last week reports that globally, net forest loss is 20,000 hectares per day -- equivalent to an area twice the size of Paris. However, that number includes plantation forests, which masks the actual extent of tropical deforestation, about 40,000 hectares (ha) per day, says Matti Palo, a forest economics expert who is affiliated with the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE) in Costa Rica.

"The half a million ha per year deforestation of Mexico is covered by the increase of forests in the U.S., for example," Palo told IPS.

National governments provide all the statistics, and countries like Canada do not produce anything reliable, he said. Canada has claimed no net change in its forests for 15 years despite being the largest producer of pulp and paper. "Canada has a moral responsibility to tell the rest of the world what kind of changes have taken place there," he said.

Plantation forests are nothing like natural or native forests. More akin to a field of maize, plantation forests are hostile environments to nearly every animal, bird and even insects. Such forests have been shown to have a negative impact on the water cycle because non-native, fast-growing trees use high volumes of water. Pesticides are also commonly used to suppress competing growth from other plants and to prevent disease outbreaks, also impacting water quality.

Plantation forests also offer very few employment opportunities, resulting in a net loss of jobs. "Plantation forests are a tremendous disaster for biodiversity and local people," Lovera said. Even if farmland or savanna are only used for oil palm or other plantations, it often forces the local people off the land and into nearby forests, including national parks, which they clear to grow crops, pasture animals and collect firewood. That has been the pattern with pulp and timber plantation forests in much of the world, says Lovera.

Ethanol is other major biofuel, which is made from maize, sugar cane or other crops. As prices for biofuels climb, more land is cleared to grow the crops. U.S. farmers are switching from soy to maize to meet the ethanol demand. That is having a knock on effect of pushing up soy prices, which is driving the conversion of the Amazon rainforest into soy, she says. Meanwhile rich countries are starting to plant trees to offset their emissions of carbon dioxide, called carbon sequestration. Most of this planting is taking place in the South in the form of plantations, which are just the latest threat to existing forests. "Europe's carbon credit market could be disastrous," Lovera said.

The multi-billion-euro European carbon market does not permit the use of reforestation projects for carbon credits. But there has been a tremendous surge in private companies offering such credits for tree planting projects. Very little of this money goes to small land holders, she says. Plantation forests also contain much less carbon, notes Palo, citing a recent study that showed carbon content of plantation forests in some Asian tropical countries was only 45 percent of that in the respective natural forests. Nor has the world community been able to properly account for the value of the enormous volumes of carbon stored in existing forests.

One recent estimate found that the northern Boreal forest provided 250 billion dollars a year in ecosystem services such as absorbing carbon emissions from the atmosphere and cleaning water. The good news is that deforestation, even in remote areas, is easily stopped. All it takes is access to some low-cost satellite imagery and governments that actually want to slow or halt deforestation. Costa Rica has nearly eliminated deforestation by making it illegal to convert forest into farmland, says Lovera.

Paraguay enacted similar laws in 2004, and then regularly checked satellite images of its forests, sending forestry officials and police to enforce the law where it was being violated. "Deforestation has been reduced by 85 percent in less than two years in the eastern part of the country," Lovera noted. The other part of the solution is to give control over forests to the local people. This community or model forest concept has proved to be sustainable in many parts of the world. India recently passed a bill returning the bulk of its forests back to local communities for management, she said.

However, economic interests pushing deforestation in countries like Brazil and Indonesia are so powerful, there may eventually be little natural forest left. "Governments are beginning to realize that their natural forests have enormous value left standing," Lovera said. "A moratorium or ban on deforestation is the only way to stop this."

This story is part of a series of features on sustainable development by IPS and IFEJ - International Federation of Environmental Journalists.

© 2007 IPS - Inter Press Service

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I drink tons of water, lose a couple pounds, then gain it all back after drinking more water?

I don't understand your question. Do you really expect that if you drink "tons" of water you won't eliminate it? Have you never noticed that the more you drink, the more you urinate?

If you think drinking water is going to help you lose weight, you need to learn about your body and physiology. Drinking lots of water won't help you lose weight or burn fat. It will just make you pee more.

If you're trying to lose fat, you'll have to consume fewer calories than you burn. Water has almost nothing to do with that. Check out these fitness facts.

• If you consume fewer calories than you burn, you have to lose fat eventually. There are no exceptions to this fact.

• There are only two nonsurgical things you can do to sculpt your body and they are (1) add or lose fat and (2) add or lose muscle. Muscle can only be lost naturally through atrophy.

• A pound of fat will yield about 3500 calories (Kcal) of energy.

• An average person must run or walk about 5 miles (8 km) every day to burn one pound of fat per week BUT THEIR DIET MUST ALLOW IT.

• An average person must run or walk about 350 miles (563 km) to burn 10 pounds BUT THEIR DIET MUST ALLOW IT. If they walk 350 miles (13.4 marathons) at 3mph it will take them 117 hours or about three full 40 hour work weeks to burn 10 pounds of fat.

• If an average person consumes 500 calories per day less than they burn, they will lose about a pound a week with no extra time or physical effort required.

•Running does not burn any more fat than walking as long as the distance remains the same.

• It does not matter if a person runs or walks a given distance…they will burn the same number of calories. Calories are energy and energy expenditure is not time dependent. How fast a person runs has nothing to do with how many calories they burn. Only the distance determines the calories burned.

• There is no exercise which will remove fat from a particular place on the body. Your body (genetics) determines where you lose fat, not you nor your diet nor your exercise. Spot fat removal by diet or exercise is a myth which is why people spend so much money on liposuction.

• It is not necessary to do "cardio" to burn fat. Cardio is aerobic exercise while maintaining a heart rate of 80% of max or more which is used to maintain cardio-vascular fitness. You can burn fat in your sleep.

• Most of the calories you consume will be spent just keeping your body temperature at 98.6F.

• It doesn’t matter how hard or how long you exercise, you will not lose any fat if you eat too much. You can always eat more calories than you can burn. When it comes to burning fat, diet always trumps exercise.

• There are no supplements which will make your body burn fat. Only you can do that with diet control.

• An average natural bodybuilder who is just starting to train may gain as much as 4-8 ounces of muscle in a month. An average dieter who is burning fat will lose about a pound a week. Anyone can gain a pound in a few minutes just be drinking a pint of water.

Here's how to burn fat. Forget all the fad diets, myths and misinformation, and just plain bad advice you've learned in the past. Here's the only fat loss plan you need and it's approved the US National Institute of Health.

Eat a diet of varied, wholesome, and high quality foods such that your daily caloric intake is about 500 calories less than your daily caloric burn while keeping your macronutrient ratios at about 55/25/20 (%calories from carbs/fats/protein). And, don't do anything to defeat the foregoing plan such as taking supplements, drinking alcohol, abusing drugs, using cleanses or emetics, etc. That's it. It's that simple.

Here's the only two websites you need to do that.

1. This site has a wide range of information about foods, fat, diets, and exercise with calculators, diet tips, food facts, etc. --->

2. This website is a great way to track calories, macronutrients, water, and exercise. It also does all the math for you and makes it super easy to look up foods to enter into your online food intake diary. There's a discussion forum where you can exchange info with thousands of other dieters. --->

Here's my food intake diary as an example --->

Good luck and good health!!

♠

Mexico's Health Care? Dirty Water?

Almost everyone in Mexico uses bottled water for cooking, drinking, ice cubes. Water in the pipes is not safe as many municipalities do not have modern purification systems, pipes are old and leaky. Health care systems...there are 2 kinds of health care. You can go to private doctors and private hospitals and pay your own bill. Hospital costs are about 1/10th of what they are in the U.S. There are very good doctors and very modern hospitals. I just had an appointment with a specialist this morning in a brand new hospital as gorgeous as any in the U.S. The cost for the app't was about $50.00...would have been about $300.00 in the U.S. Then there are the government programs...National Healthcare. For very poor people, there is a program called Seguro Popular. There are no fees. They may use the government hospitals called Hospital Civil and have routine appointments in the clinics there. There is no charge for clinic appointments or medicine. If they need to be in the hospital, the bill is very low, and if they cannot pay it, the hospital just forgives it...no pressure. For middle class people, the program is called Seguro Social and there is a fee of about $200 to $300 a year to join...depending on your age. There are special clinics and hospitals for this program. There is no charge for any care...office appointments, medicine, x-rays, CT scans, any kind of tests or lab work. There is no charge to be in the Hospital. Everyone can get medical care and no one is ever turned away. Sometimes if you need to see a specialist you have to wait 2 or 3 months, so some people choose to use a private doctor. Most people use a combination of the clinic and private doctors. Hospitals have their own water purification system. I am an American living in Mexico and do volunteer work helping children with medical and dental needs. I had a little boy who needed surgery on both eyes. the gov't hospital did not have the proper equipment to use. I found an excellent surgeon who volunteered her services free, so we just had to raise money to pay the private hospital. The total bill was just over $1000 . it would have been at least $20,000 in the U.S. His brother was badly burned when an electric wire from a power pole fell on him. He was taken to Hospital Civil and received excellent care. There was a bill of a few hundred dollars, but his mother did not have the money, so the hospital cancelled the bill. Hospitals and doctors here do not have a billing department, they do not send bills. You pay cash at time of service, or you don't pay...one or the other. Children get all their vaccinations at the Hospital Civil clinics. Many Americans are starting to come to mexico for surgery or medical care. they have learned that you can get high quality care for much lower cost than in the U.S. One big problem is dental care. The gov't only provides extractions if needed...the clinic does not do fillings or other care. Many people cannot afford to go to a private dentist, so have problems. My job here is to help as many kids from poor families as possible to get dental care. we have excellent dentists ( including a pediatric specialist) who give us greatly discounted prices and love the kids. Dental care her cost about 1/10th what it costs in the U.S. One reason medical and dental care costs less here is that the doctors have a receptionist only...they usually do not have a bunch of other people working in the office to take your temperature, or give the shots, or whatever. the doctor does it all. Most dentists do not have other helpers either, they do all their own work.