What
Around 2 billion people burn 1.5 billion tons of wood annually for cooking alone. Those who live close to a forest tend to use the most wood, averaging 1.5 tons per person per year, while those who live further away mix in bio-fuels such as crop residues and cow dung to reduce their wood use. The demand for wood as cooking fuel along with clear-cutting of forests to create cattle grazing land, results in the unsustainable levels of deforestation today, contributing 18% of all greenhouse gas emissions annually.
Our approach to this problem rests on the observation that most of these 2 billion people live in regions where solar energy is plentiful. However, they cannot afford to purchase solar cookers for their daily use, and in addition, cooking with solar energy requires a cultural shift for them. Thus, neither charity based schemes, nor direct sales can work to change the situation.
An incentive based scheme seems to have the greatest traction for the adoption of solar cookers in such communities. Our solution is to provide solar cookers with integrated charging stations, along with cell phones and LED lights at no cost to members of the community. The cell phones are configured to measure the
usage of the cookers as they get charged, and then rewards are issued in the form of cell phone talk time proportional to the usage. Health insurance for the stewards and community rewards commensurate with forest growth are being considered.
Technology is used extensively to ensure transparency of the whole process. Cell phones are used as the communications medium since their signals are ubiquitous even in remote regions of the world. Satellite imagery and independent certification is used to verify growth of the forest regions. The forest growth and the cooker usage will also be monitored by campus Climate Healers clubs associated with schools and universities. The technology underlying our operation is being developed in conjunction with IDEA in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India.
Climate Healers is funded by our patrons, who are typically individuals and organizations who are interested in solving the climate crisis in a grass roots approach that also uplifts the stewards who are nurturing the forest growth. Their contribution can also be viewed as a voluntary carbon offset mechanism, and soon should be tax deductible under the 501(c)3 tax-exemption regulations of the IRS for patrons in the United States.