Green Options

Researchers in California believe they have hit the jackpot in modern medical breakthroughs. The cure for AIDS.

The researchers have published a study in the journal Science, demonstrating two powerful new antibodies which could hold the key to achieving a viable AIDS vaccine. It has been well known for several years that a very small percentage of people are immune to the HIV virus, but it was never discovered quite how. Now, researchers were able to isolate the antibodies that neutralize a high percentage of the virus’s different forms currently in circulation worldwide.

By Lester R. Brown

In recent years there has been a growing concern over thresholds or tipping points in nature. In my latest book Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, I state that scientists worry about when the shrinking population of an endangered species will fall to a point from which it cannot recover. Marine biologists are concerned about the point where overfishing will trigger the collapse of a fishery.

We know there were social tipping points in earlier civilizations, points at which they were overwhelmed by the forces threatening them. For instance, at some point the irrigation-related salt buildup in their soil overwhelmed the capacity of the Sumerians to deal with it. With the Mayans, there came a time when the effects of cutting too many trees and the associated loss of topsoil were simply more than they could manage.

The social tipping points that lead to decline and collapse when societies are overwhelmed by a single threat or by simultaneous multiple threats are not always easily anticipated. As a general matter, more economically advanced countries can deal with new threats more effectively than developing countries can. For example, while governments of industrial countries have been able to hold HIV infection rates among adults under 1 percent, many developing-country governments have failed to do so and are now struggling with much higher infection rates. This is most evident in some southern African countries, where up to 20 percent or more of adults are infected.

A similar situation exists with population growth. While populations in nearly all industrial countries except the United States have stopped growing, rapid growth continues in nearly all the countries of Africa, the Middle East, and the Indian subcontinent. Nearly all of the 80 million people being added to world population each year are born in countries where natural support systems are already deteriorating in the face of excessive population pressure, in the countries least able to support them. In these countries, the risk of state failure is growing.

Scientists out of the University of Utah have created a new substance, heralded as a molecular condom, which blocks HIV from entering the vaginal tissue. HIV infection is a huge problem in Africa, and other impoverished areas, mostly because of a taboo or unavailability of condoms. The gel is meant to give woman a way to protect themselves from infection without any approval of their partner.

“This is important – particularly in resource-poor areas of the world like sub-Sahara Africa and south Asia where, in some age groups, as many as 60 percent of women already are infected with HIV. In these places, women often are not empowered to force their partners to wear a condom.” - Patrick Kiser, an associate professor of bioengineering at the University of Utah

For many years, scientists agreed that chimpanzees (and other animals) could not get anything like AIDS. New Research from Dr. Beatrice Hahn at the University of Alabama changes all of that.

Dr. Hahn and others released a report last week showing that chimpanzees can get an AIDS-like illness.

Project H has completed a Learning Landscape design, putting reclaimed tires to uses of exponential value: educating youth at the Kutamba School for AIDS Orphans in southern Uganda.

The tires are used in various math lessons, teaching the kids addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. When the sandbox grid of tires is not being used for math games, wooden benches are placed atop the precisely spaced tires, serving as [...]

Approximately 15,000 species of plants used in traditional medicine are at risk of dying out because of pollution, habitat depletion and over-harvesting. Millions of people may lose their medicine for a host of dangerous and even deadly diseases.

Plants like these are the primary source of health care for the majority of the world, being used to treat everything from fevers to symptoms of AIDS. Their depletion is leading to a loss in traditional knowledge as well as the essential plants themselves. Some doctors believe that traditional medicine may the key to helping us find breakthroughs in fighting diseases such as cancer.

Today is World AIDS Day. A day that is commemorated every December 1 to remind the citizens of the world that while great progress has been made in this epidemic, there is still a long way to go.

Art and craft has played a big role in both bringing awareness about the disease and how to cope. One of the most prominent displays of craft is the AIDS quilt.

Made up of individual “squares” that memorialize those who have been lost to the disease, the AIDS quilt is the largest on going community arts project in the world. It holds more than 44,000 individual panels made by friends, family and loved ones. And the 91,000 plus names displayed on the quilt, represent only 17.5 % of U.S. AIDS deaths.

In spite of the sweltering heat, smallholder farmers in this border district of Zimbabwe can cheer about the black-eyed beans. The beans – a new crop in the area - are small, creamy white, with a black mark at the sprouting point, making them easy to recognize.

From the way they cook to the way they sell, black-eyed beans have proved a big hit among the small farmers in this district, traditionally known for growing maize, groundnuts, cotton and sunflowers.

In 2002, USAID’s Linkages for the Economic Advancement of the Disadvantaged (LEAD Program) sub-contracted VeCO, a non-governmental organization, to provide 1,250 farmers with the necessary extension support services, skills and resources to produce both black-eyed beans and Macia sorghum, crops which are drought tolerant. The overall objective was to reduce food insecurity, improve food intake with a new edible crop, and provide a new source of income for poor smallholders in drought prone regions.

Nyarai Njenge, 35, one of the beneficiary farmers, did not know anything about black-eyed beans prior to 2002. But, now, as most of the beneficiary farmers, she knowledgeably recounts the nutritional, income and food security benefits of the crop.

Most Zimbabweans -  about 70 per cent of the population - live in rural areas and are engaged in smallholder agriculture. These smallholder farmers, particularly in the country’s low rainfall areas, are extremely food insecure and have little or no access to new technology.

They suffer from low incomes and a generally low standard of living, poor health and nutrition, poor housing and an inability to send children to school. Soil degradation and outdated farming methods have kept rural families trapped in poverty.

Inadequate and unreliable rainfall and the recurrent threat of drought also restrict the potential of rain-fed agriculture, on which the livelihoods of most smallholder farmers depend. In a word, access to water for irrigation is one of the most critical constraints that small farmers face.

Editor’s note: We’re pleased to welcome Max Gladwell, of MaxGladwell.com, as a regular guest writer on sustainablog. Max Gladwell covers the nexus of social media and green living. We feel that these two trends and technological developments hold tremendous promise for improving quality of life for everyone on the planet.

If you’re reading this blog, then you’re on board with social media. There’s a good chance you belong to social networks like Facebook or MySpace. It’s likely that you Digg stories and even possible that you Twitter. These technologies and services, together with a growing number of others, make up the social web. It’s much like the regular web, but more interactive. More…social. It invites and even demands active participation from everyone. It has a global reach with viral capacity, and yet it’s bringing local communities closer together. It enables people to connect, organize, and make a difference as never before. Indeed, social media is a powerful force, one that the world’s CEOs are starting to acknowledge and take seriously.

Many entrepreneurs, activists, and marketers are leveraging the social web for positive change. In the process and by its very nature, they are giving each of us the tools to change the world and make it a better place. There are thousands of examples, which is precisely why Max Gladwell exists. Here are 10 worth exploring.

Cida University is the first virtually free university in South Africa. Located in downtown Johannesburg, it serves young people from previously disadvantage backgrounds, but who are academically deserving. It offers a Bachelor of Business Administration and students can learn skills like bio-intensive farming.

This university has a special program, called the Nelson Mandela extranet. In this program, Students go back to their communities and teach them about HIV/AIDS , bio-intensive farming, and money management. Remembering your ancestors and going back to the community to raise the consciousness level of the society is a fundamental principle of ethical leadership.