Improved Cooking Stoves, Labour-Intensive Job Creation, Roof Tile Makers, Treadle Pumps, Fence Makers, Rubble/Rock Crushers. Combining science, responsibility and humanitarian service. If you can read this web page you are probably someone who occasionally travels by air.
 
If you have been following the debate over the Kyoto Protocol you will be aware that an international carbon trading system has been developed where it is possible to mitigate the effects of burning fossil and other fuels by paying for the construction or placement of energy efficient devices or renewable energy technologies in other localities.
 
In this way a polluter can buy back the effect of some or all of their contribution of carbon dioxide (CO2) to the global atmosphere through an offset program. Air travel is a significant contributor to atmospheric CO2 and it is possible to calculate the amount generated per passenger-mile. There is a lot of work being done to determine the impact of CO2 on the global ecosystem. In fact a great deal of the focus is placed upon this one gas and not very much work has been done on other possible sources of heating of the atmosphere. Recently, scientists have shown that the effect of smoke, black and dark particulates from poor combustion also have important impacts on the climate.
 
The warming effects of uncounted trillions of small dark airborne particles being heated by the sun are not as large as those of CO2, but they are still significant. There is no program in place for the financing of black particulate mitigation efforts and technologies. In practice this means that if you want to do something as an individual to undo the effects of the CO2 and black particulate emissions you have made by travelling (or any other contribution) there isn't much you can so about it unless you are involved in one of the Clean Development Mechanism projects. CDM falls under GEF- the Global Environment Forum, and that in turn is part of the Kyoto Protocol. It involves complex activities beyond the capacity of an individual and thus is basically an inaccessible project.
 
If you want to reduce your environmental footprint there isn't much you can do to get in on CDM activities other than perhaps visiting We at New Dawn Engineering have an appropriate technology solution which you can voluntarily use. We have set up a program that allows you to purchase black particle and CO2 offsets. The mechanism for achieving this involves working out how much you want to offset and then placing fuel efficient biomass cooking and heating stoves in the homes of people who will use them, where that stove will save a known amount of fuel and reduce the household's total atmospheric contamination. There are obvious social benefits flowing from this as well. With a biomass stove this is accomplished by having a measurable reduction in the consumption of fuel so most fuel burning is avoided. Trees remain un-cut, wood remains unburned, fuel supplies are stretched. We will assist you in calculating your contribution to the emissions and work out how many Vesto fuel efficient biomass stoves we would have to place in a suitable homes to offset it.
 
At the present time we have chosen to place Vesto stoves in child-headed households in Swaziland, mostly AIDS orphans. AIDS and HIV infection are decimating the Swazi population. About 7% of the population are orphaned at present. It is expected to rise to 12% in the next 6 years. Child headed households are extremely vulnerable. Orphans and Vulnerable Children (called OVC's) are left to fend for themselves with erratic or no support from family and a community reeling from the effects of an HIV infection rate that reaches to 40% of some population segments. At this time we are relying on the voluntary efforts of the good people at the Moya Child Care Centre in Malkerns, Swaziland, the Malkerns Valley Rotary Club and the local Women's Institute to identify homes headed by children who are is such undeniably desperate circumstances that the provision of a fuel efficient stove will make a significant impact. At this time we have more children in need than stoves to give them. These criteria assure you, the possible supporter of this atmospheric effects mitigation program, that your money is achieving not only the desired effect of reducing the consequences of your atmospheric footprint, but that it is doing so in a manner that is of clear and certain benefit to the truly needy. It is our intention at this time to try to take a picture of each recipient household receiving a Vesto, in the same manner that the Wheelchair Foundation takes a picture of each recipient to eliminate fraud and duplication. As long as this is sustainable we will continue with it. Example of a Mitigation Effort: The atmospheric impact (particulates and CO2) of a return flight from Seattle to Johannesburg via New York as well as a return flight from Seattle to Chicago can be offset b