In 2007, the IPCC warned that "as global average temperature increase exceeds about 3.5°C [relative to 1980 to 1999], model projections suggest significant extinctions (40-70% of species assessed) around the globe."  On our current emissions path, we will warm far more than that this century, which suggests we risk the high end of species loss.

A new Science study (subs. req'd) confirms this risk.  It examines "the pace of diversity loss leading to the Triassic-Jurassic boundary (TJB)."  It finds "the sudden diversity drop ... coincided with a mere ~100 to ~350 ppmv rise in CO2 concentration," and "CO2-induced global warming was likely an important contributory factor to plant species turnover at the TJB."

The study notes "The abrupt plant diversity loss ... is consistent with expected plant responses to a catastrophically rapid rather than gradual environmental change," such as might be caused from a massive release of methane. Good thing homo "sapiens" sapiens isn't doing anything that might bring about catastrophically rapid climate change, like say 5°C warming in one century or a massive release of methane (see NOAA stunner: "Methane levels rose in 2008 for the second consecutive year after a 10-year lull").

Worse, the study concludes:

An alternative explanation for the abrupt diversity loss is that it represents a threshold response of LT vegetation to relatively minor increases in CO2 concentration and/or global temperature.

Again, we are quite literally playing with fire here, risking massive species loss this century if we don't sharply reverse greenhouse gas emissions trends soon.

And, of course, "When CO2 levels in the atmosphere reach about 500 parts per million, you put calcification out of business in the oceans." There aren't many studies of what happens to the oceans as we get toward 800 to 1000 ppm, but it appears likely that much of the world's oceans, especially in the southern hemisphere, become inhospitable to many forms of marine life. A 2005 Nature study concluded these "detrimental" conditions "could develop within decades, not centuries as suggested previously."

A 2009 study in Nature Geoscience warned that global warming may create "dead zones" in the ocean that would be devoid of fish and seafood and endure for up to two millennia (see Ocean dead zones to expand, "remain for thousands of years").

Let me end with a long excerpt from a Physorg.com article on the new Science study, "Extinction risk to plant biodiversity may occur at lower levels of atmospheric CO2 than previously considered," for those without a subscription:

According to the findings published in the leading journal Science, the current estimated levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide which are thought to lead to sudden biodiversity loss may have to be revised downwards.

However, the scientists from University College Dublin, The Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC and Oxford University, have cautioned that their study findings may not have accounted for additional atmospheric gases such as sulphur dioxide which may have emerged from extensive volcanic emissions at the time to also play a role in driving the rise in the Earth's temperature.

"Examining the 200 million year old fossil leaves from East Greenland, we discovered that the ancient biodiversity crash happened at atmospheric greenhouse gas levels of approximately 900 parts per million," said Dr Jenny McElwain from the UCD School of Biology and Environmental Science at University College Dublin, Ireland, the lead researcher on the project.

"If we continue with the current intensive use of fossil fuel energy, some estimates calculate that carbon dioxide levels in the earth's atmosphere will reach 900 parts per million by the year 2100. This is exactly the same levels at which our study identified the mass biodiversity collapse in ancient Greenland." But according to Dr McElwain, this is a worst case scenario.

"Clearly, our study on ancient ecosystems shows that we must take heed of the early warning signs of deterioration within modern ecosystems, as we have seen from the past that very high levels of species extinctions - as high as 80% - can take place very suddenly although preceded by long intervals of ecological change," she explains.

The time to act is now (see U.S. media largely ignores latest warning from climate scientists: "Recent observations confirm ... the worst-case IPCC scenario trajectories (or even worse) are being realised" - 1000 ppm).

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One of the little-known ingredients of the deal that allowed the American Clean Energy and Security Act, H.R. 2454, to pass the Energy and Commerce committee was a breakthrough on protections for the world's vanishing tropical forests. The bill's authors, Representatives Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Ed Markey (D-MA), used this agreement to achieve the bill's environmental aims while keeping it affordable enough to maintain the political support it needed to pass. As such, the bill's tropical forest provisions are essential not only to strong climate policy, but also to overall hopes for climate legislation as it works its way through Congress.

Destruction of these carbon-rich, biodiverse forests causes about 20 percent of global climate pollution -- more than the emissions from all the cars, trucks, planes and ships in the world combined. The bill's supporters recognized that you can't solve the climate crisis unless you solve the deforestation crisis.

Tropical forest conservation is one of the most affordable and fastest ways to achieve large pollution reductions. These forests are so biologically rich that every acre stores an average of about 200 tons of carbon dioxide, but because there are currently no systems to value tropical forest carbon, they're being destroyed for ranchland and soy plantations. Indeed, the consulting firm McKinsey & Co.'s recent greenhouse gas abatement cost curve analysis found that tropical forest conservation has the potential to reduce carbon pollution at just a fraction of the cost of other essential strategies, like installing clean energy or improving agricultural practices.

The challenge has been that, despite the importance of saving tropical forests and the relative ease of doing it, intractable debate about exactly how to end deforestation has persisted for years. As a result, tropical forests were entirely excluded from the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, resulting in 300 million acres of forests getting wiped off the map since then.

Since then, a consensus has emerged that this "colossal blunder" cannot be repeated -- but exactly how to protect the forests has continued to be disputed, with some groups favoring a pure government funding approach and others backing an approach that would give emitters pollution credits for investing in successful forest conservation.

To resolve this question, leading environmental groups and major U.S. corporations (including some of the biggest greenhouse gas emitters) like American Electric Power and Duke Energy convened a negotiating process through Avoided Deforestation Partners, while the Waxman-Markey legislation was being drafted.

These groups had a major realization: instead of choosing a government or private investment approach, we could do both. Indeed, it became clear that doing both was essential -- private investment was the only real hope for attracting the scale of financing needed to end deforestation, while government funding was necessary to build the scientific and policy infrastructure and developing country capacity necessary for a robust private investment system -- and to accomplish conservation goals to which private investment was less well suited.

In addition to endorsing this dual approach, the coalition also agreed to set very strict standards for any private conservation efforts. First and foremost, they agreed that emitters could only get credit for conservation activities once they had already occurred -- not just for having a plan. They also agreed that all forest conservation activities in major emitting countries like Indonesia and Brazil must be done in association with a national plan that ensures that the project is contributing to a national decline in deforestation, not just a local one.

In order to reduce deforestation immediately, however, the agreement doesn't require that all forest conservation wait for the establishment of national plans and baselines, a process expected to take some years, especially in the least developed countries that lack the resources to quickly evaluate deforestation levels and carbon stocks.

Instead, in the first years after the adoption of climate legislation, emitters will also be able to get credit for conservation activities that are part of state or province efforts to reduce deforestation in cases where those states or provinces themselves are major sources of carbon pollution. Companies can also receive credit for conservation projects in the least-developed, relatively low-emitting countries while they prepare their national plans. These provisions help ensure that the next few years don't result in a deforestation race to the bottom before conservation protections are established.

Finally, and crucially, no conservation project at any time will be able to receive credit unless it promotes biodiversity, and indigenous and forest-dependent people benefit from it.

With groups ranging from the Sierra Club to Starbucks and Pacific Gas and Electric Company endorsing these principles, the agreement had the political and policy support it needed. As I outlined in a recent brief paper for The Center for American Progress, the Waxman-Markey legislation includes almost all of these principles - though some technical differences between the agreement and the legislation remain.

That's great news for tropical forests. Based on figures from the EPA, the tropical forest provisions of the bill would reduce pollution by one billion tons annually by 2015 -- equivalent to eliminating all of Germany's pollution. And one third of those reductions -- those generated by auctioning off five percent of the bill's allowances and dedicating those funds to establishing a conservation infrastructure, among other purposes -- come in addition to the bill's pollution cap. That provides a big carbon saving bonus not accounted for in most estimates of the bill's impact.

These provisions also provide major cost savings. EPA has estimated that without international offsets (most of which will be forest-based), the bill would have been 96 percent more expensive. In the words of a recent New York Times editorial, "the economics make sense."

Despite the benefits, the bill has a long way to go before it becomes law -- and there are threats at every turn. The House leadership can ensure that the bill's forest provisions stay intact by not allowing hostile amendments to risk the entire agreement underlying the bill - and the realization of the bill's environmental goals.

The Waxman-Markey bill's forest provisions provide a model for action by other countries. If the bill passes and other industrialized countries adopt similar tropical forest conservation measures, deforestation could be ended or even reversed -- a huge global achievement that, until Waxman-Markey, seemed tragically out of reach.

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Declarations of sovereignty and independence are not uncommon as rites of passage both for countries and teenagers. But what we typically see and what we experience is altogether different, both at home and in the world. Dependency and interdependency are the norm, whether we look at human relations, commerce, or biology. As the conservationist John Muir put it, everything is "hitched to everything else in the universe." And perhaps this is as it must and should be. We dabble with danger when we act as if we are self-reliant and can "go it alone", when in fact we are not and cannot. Our hubris tempts us to behave as if we are unhitched.

When it comes to the world's food supply, dependency has five faces. Let's look at them.

Foods

Most countries and cultures rely predominantly on foods from other regions and countries. The most important food crop in southern Africa is maize, a crop domesticated in the Americas. An FAO study quantified this degree of dependency on non-indigenous crops and found, for example, that Ghana and Italy were equal in their dietary reliance on crops originating elsewhere. Imagine Italian cuisine without pasta (made from wheat, first domesticated in the Near East) or pasta sauce (with tomatoes from Central America). Think of the impact on food security if Ghana no longer produced its top two food crops: cassava and maize (from South and Central America).

Genebanks
We sometimes think of developing countries as "gene rich" and developed countries as "gene poor." This was certainly the case in the Neolithic Age, but that was 10,000 years ago. And incidentally, there were no countries then. If one considers the diversity held in genebanks - the diversity accessible for plant breeding - everyone looks poor, individually. Climate change will present growing conditions different from those ever experienced in country after country. Would any nation, rich or poor, developed or developing want to claim "independence" with so small a share of the global total of stored samples, as illustrated in Table 1?
Moreover, most countries lack genebanks capable of providing long-term storage of crop diversity. An even closer look reveals that they can't or don't supply the bulk of breeding materials used in their own national crop improvement efforts, meaning that many countries are effectively dependent on a handful of genebanks globally that conserve crop diversity adequately and service plant breeders everywhere.

Crop varieties
Look into President Obama's pedigree and you will famously see ancestors from Africa, America, and Europe. Look into the pedigree of a modern crop variety and you will see something similar. Most new varieties, whether released and grown in Canada or Cambodia, will have drawn upon other varieties from multiple countries for various traits. Virtually no new crop variety anywhere has a pedigree drawn from a single country. Call that interdependency at the ground level.

The two maps show the source countries of breeding materials that went into the creation of the famous "Veery" wheat variety, and then countries in which it was released to farmers. What can we learn from the maps? That many countries contributed and many countries benefitted and continue to benefit. Over and over again, this is what one finds when examining the use of crop diversity in agricultural systems.

Trade and Food Prices
The 3000-mile Caesar salad is a feature of the modern world, at least for the time being. Food travels. Food systems and diets depend not only on local produce, but also on the success of farming systems on other continents. A country does not have to produce these crops, it only has to import and consume them, in order to be dependent on the breeders and genebanks that keep such crops afloat. This is why we should care about the genetic diversity of bananas, even if the crop isn't grown in our country. We eat bananas, and somewhere someone is producing them for us, and relying on them as an income source for themselves.

When supply and demand become severely imbalanced, prices rise and we term the result a "food crisis." One way of avoiding this is to ensure the stability of production, not just in one country but in all countries. This cannot be done without deploying genetic diversity in breeding programs and in the field. Viable collections of crop diversity are a prerequisite.

Environment

Finally, successful and sustainable agricultural systems are environment-friendly. Poor and unproductive agricultural systems encourage--indeed, require--people to expand cropland, cut down trees, and plough marginal lands to produce more food. How much of the world's deforestation and subsequent loss of biodiversity is really due to unproductive farming systems and crop varieties?

The forests of Latin America depend on the productivity of crops from Asia such as soybean, and access to genetic resources to make those crops productive. The forests of Africa depend on the productivity of crops from Asia (rice) and Latin America (maize) and access to the genetic diversity of such staples. As Table 1 indicates, that diversity is not to be sourced "locally" in any one country. It must be pieced together from multiple countries and seedbanks and used to make agriculture more productive and sustainable. Again, we return to dependency and interdependency.

Our Common Future
Current food supplies and future food security, as well as our fragile environment are all dependent on crop diversity.

Take a good look at any country: the comparatively small amount of diversity held in its national genebank or its farmers' fields is clearly inadequate by itself to ensure agricultural productivity, much less the adaptation of its agricultural system to dramatically new climates. Assertions of independence, however passionate, cannot alter this simple biological fact.

It is self-evident that our common future depends not on our particular country's "national" collection, but on our collective success in fashioning a viable global system for conserving crop diversity for use by plant breeders everywhere.

We come full circle. Sovereignty and independence play well in certain political circles and amongst many teenagers, but are out of place in the biological sciences. In the real world of agriculture and crop diversity, we are hitched. "We are," in the words of Martin Luther King Jr., "caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny."

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It's sometimes easy for nature to get lost during the international climate change negotiations here in Bonn. Terms like "technology diffusion," "financial mechanisms" and "mitigation commitments" often dominate the talks.

But what does nature have to do with climate change and how does nature play into these negotiations?

A group of some of the world's top scientific experts released findings [PDF] in Bonn this week to help give negotiators those answers.

During a side event [PDF] at the Bonn talks on Tuesday, the expert group - officially called the Ad Hoc Technical Expert Group on Biodiversity and Climate Change and convened by the Convention on Biological Diversity - said nature has a "vital role to play" in helping communities adapt to and overcome the impacts of climate change.

While there is ongoing discussion here to develop a consistent term to describe this ecosystem-based approach to adaptation, it comes down to one basic principle everyone seems to agree on: ensuring that the world's natural resources are healthy and strong enough to survive the impact of climate change and can continue to provide the food, water, shelter and income we all rely upon for survival. People in developing countries in particular, whose livelihoods depend directly on nature, are the most vulnerable to climate change.

While there may be times when hard infrastructure is necessary, the expert group said that ecosystem-based adaptation is often more cost effective and more accessible to rural and poor communities than man-made infrastructure and engineering.

Unlike sea walls and levees, the experts said, using natural resources to combat climate impacts has the added benefits of supporting economies, promoting biodiversity, maintaining food and water supplies and providing other services such as eco-tourism and productive fisheries that contribute to sustainable livelihoods.

Ecosystem-based adaptation harnesses the power of nature to help human communities adapt to climate change. Strategies can include such things as protecting mangroves to shield communities and infrastructure against storm surges, ensuring forest systems stay healthy to provide clean drinking water or connecting fragmented lands to allow plants and animals to migrate away from areas impacted by climate change. These services provided free by nature would be extremely costly to replace, even if it were possible to do so.

The experts added that the value of ecosystem services must be taken into account in adaptation strategies.

In the first few days in Bonn, a range of developing countries voiced support for ecosystem-based adaptation to be part of the final climate change agreement that will be reached in Copenhagen this December.

"For island nations like ours - where we are truly on the front lines of climate change - ecosystem-based adaptation is essential to keeping our communities, economies and cultures alive," Deborah Barker-Manase, a member of the Marshall Islands Delegation and Deputy Director of her government's Office of Environmental Planning and Policy Coordination, said during a side event Wednesday. "We have traditional knowledge and practices that we have used for generations to keep our natural resources healthy and productive. We now need the help of the global community to ensure our resources can survive the impacts of climate change."

In their policy recommendations submitted in preparation for the Bonn talks, Brazil, Colombia, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Dominican Republic, Uruguay and Costa Rica all called for natural resource protection to be used as a tool to confront and adapt to climate change. The US submission also explicitly recognized the "value of promoting ecosystem-based adaptation strategies and approaches."

But while there seems to be a growing support to ensure that nature is part of the climate change solution, the question remains of whether countries will ultimately provide the political will - and financial backing - to make it happen.

The scientific expert group, The Nature Conservancy, IUCN and many developing countries have been working to demonstrate how ecosystem-based adaptation works on the ground and how it can be incorporated into the negotiations.

Without this type of guidance within a Copenhagen agreement, there is a concern that countries may inadvertently use adaptation strategies that provide short-term benefits but cause long-term environmental damage that will simply exacerbate climate impacts.

Following some very slow opening days here in, negotiators this week and next will now move into closed door negotiations where the fate of how the world decides to combat climate change - and whether ecosystem-based adaptation will be one of the tools adopted - will be debated. It is these meetings -- and the coming months leading to Copenhagen - that will determine if governments will take the steps needed to protect nature against climate change and let nature protect us.

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Global boiling declares war on Thanksgiving

CHICAGO—The stores of seeds in a “doomsday” vault in the Norwegian Arctic are growing as researchers rush to preserve 100,000 crop varieties from potential extinction.

The imperiled seeds are going to be critical for protecting the global food supply against devastating crop losses as a result of climate change, said Cary Fowler,  executive director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust.

“These resources stand between us and catastrophic starvation,” Fowler said.  “You can’t imagine a solution to climate change without crop diversity.”

That’s because the crops currently being used by farmers will not be able to evolve quickly enough on their own to adjust to predicted drought, rising temperatures and new pests and diseases, he said.

One recent study found that corn yields in Africa will fall by 30 percent by 2030 unless heat-resistant varieties are developed, Fowler noted.

“Evolution is in our control,” he said in an interview. “It’s in our seed bank.  You take traits form different varieties and make new ones.”

That process currently takes about 10 years. But Fowler said his organization is hoping to speed up the development of new varieties by cataloguing the genetic traits of the seeds that it stores.

Their gene bank —dug into a mountainside near Longyearbyen, in the Svalbard islands in the far north of Norway—will be made public to help spur research, which Fowler says is woefully inadequate.

“Six people in the world are breeding bananas. Ditto for yams, a major crop in Africa,” Fowler said ahead of a presentation Sunday to the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Fowler said the Global Crop Diversity Trust has agreements with 49 institutes in 46 countries to rescue some 53,000 of the 100,000 crop samples identified as endangered.

Agreements for preserving the remaining varieties are expected to be completed soon.

They include rare varieties of barley, wheat, rice, banana, plantain, potato, cassava,  chickpea, maize, lentil, bean, sorghum, millet, coconut, breadfruit, cowpea, and yam.

The varieties most at risk are being stored in poorly funded seed banks in Africa and Asia where varieties are being lost due to inadequate refrigeration and the destruction of the facilities as a result of civil strife and natural disasters.

Researchers do not know how many varieties of crops have already been lost.

But the industrialization of farming has had a major impact on crop diversity.

In 1903, U.S.  farmers planted 578 varieties of beans. By 1983 just 32 varieties remained in seedbanks.

“When you lose one of these samples you’re losing something you can’t find in a farmer’s field,” Fowler said.

“We can’t afford to lose this diversity when it’s so easy and cheap to conserve it.”

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Dear Umbra,

Sustainably grown bamboo is a very good choice for fabrics. But how does the consumer know it is harvested sustainably? After all, some bamboo is clear cut from old-growth stands. Even in cultivated bamboo there are some very unsustainable practices (for instance, harvesting too young). How can you know if the bamboo fabric you are buying is harvested sustainably?

Gar L.
Olympia, Wash.

Dearest Gar,

Telepathy is the only way. Close your eyes, put your hand on the fabric, and let a vision of a Giant Panda come in to your mind. If the panda is frolicking, all is well.

Dude, that's a lot of grass.

Bamboo is hot hot hot, for flooring, fabric, and myriad other stripy items. It is an inexpensive material, and the plants grow quickly and can do so without many fertilizers or pesticides. The mysteries of the exploding bamboo industry include the questions you mentioned above, and others such as how are the workers treated, are commercial pressures leading to the removal of other vegetation and the planting of bamboo in its place, are farmers adding chemical fertilizer to increase production, and what toxic chemicals are added in order to make products such as flooring and fabrics?

We'll get to that last question in a moment. The answer to the rest is: no one really knows for sure. I spoke with Jackie Heinricher, a bamboo expert and entrepreneur here in Washington, who says bamboo is both blessed and cursed: It's a truly green plant, but there's no accountability in the current industry.

There is no sustainable-harvest certification to look for, in part because, says Jackie, bamboo grows so quickly that no one imagined it would ever have overharvest issues. I did find that the Forest Stewardship Council has a certified bamboo flooring producer. I also tracked down one organic bamboo fabric producer, certified by OCIA International and the USDA, whose products are sold by Bamboosa and perhaps others. (The organic certification process for bamboo fabric would be similar to that for other fibers such as cotton, and is governed by crop and livestock production standards.) Another certification often touted for fabrics is Oeko-tek 100, however this only guarantees minimal residue on the fibers and tells us nothing about raw material production methods.

Outside of these eco-certifications, I think there is no surety for sustainably produced bamboo fabric. Given the general positives about bamboo -- its speedy regrowth, its low fertilizer needs, its high carbon-sequestration abilities -- we could hold out some reasonable hope that a bamboo plant's life was fairly low-impact. But here's the catch: It's the bamboo fiber production that leaves quite a bit to be desired.

It's just difficult to make a hard grass into a shirt, and so we use chemicals to soften the fibers. Here's what I've read: there are two ways to mash a bamboo plant in to fibers appropriate for fabric. One is mechanically, via crushing and enzymes. Mechanical processing results in a linen type of fabric, and is expensive and unusual. Most bamboo is processed in a bath of lye and carbon disulfide, along with something referred to as "multi-phase bleaching." It is akin to the method for making rayon out of cellulose, and it can be quite toxic to workers and nearby nature.

So is bamboo worse than other fabrics? Probably not. It may in fact be a little better. There aren't good "chain of custody" certifications, but that doesn't mean that the wool is pulled over our eyes and bamboo is never ecologically preferred. A possibly promising development comes from Jackie and others, who are finding ways to cultivate bamboo domestically and responsibly. Meantime, we're just stuck with our same old clothing rules: buy few, buy organic, buy used, dry on the line.

Pandaly,
Umbra

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These images are from a series of drawings titled “Unnaturalism” by artist Don Simon. His work examines the impact of industrialization and sprawl on ecosystems. From his artist statement:

“Throughout history, particularly since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, mankind has been less than kind to our cohabitants on the planet. We build, produce, and consume with little or no regard to the impact it has on the environment. It is the nature of nature to adapt and evolve in order to survive, and we are forcing other species to deal with compromised, damaged, or destroyed ecosystems.

“This series of triptychs depicts scenes resulting from our tragic indifference. They are rendered in a beautiful and natural way, highlighting the idea that we find this acceptable. We are numb to the damage—and so, the unnatural becomes natural to us. This may be the saddest commentary of all.”

Simon, who walked away from a career in advertising to pursue art full-time five years ago, has shown his work in galleries and museums across the U.S. and in Europe. He lives and works in Medford, N.J., just outside of Philadelphia.

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You may not be surprised to hear that U.S. paper consumption is the highest in the world, eating up some 12,430 square miles of forest each year -- most of it in ecologically important areas. But did you know that pulp and paper manufacturing is one of the most polluting industries in North America and the third greatest emitter of CO2? Talk about a blow to the planet.

As any sensitive nose knows, the quest for facial tissues that are gentle on you -- and the earth -- is nothing to sneeze at. Is it possible to find a strong, soft schnoz-swiper that doesn't strip the forest?

First, a suggestion (and we don't mean to sound snotty): It should be plain as the nose on your face that the answer is a hankie. That's right, the reusable, foldable square of cloth your grandpappy has carried around for decades. It may need a good washing every now and then, but you won't be producing a mountain of trash every time you have a cold.

Grist's Pick

If you've absolutely got a hankering for a paper-based blower, look for products made with recycled content -- especially post-consumer content. Many facial tissues are bleached to make them white and purdy, but as with many beauty products, this process involves the use of harmful chemicals that you really don't want ending up in your air or water -- let alone rubbed on your face. So look for products labeled totally chlorine-free (TCF) or processed chlorine-free (PCF). Here's a handy wallet-sized guide [PDF].

After nosing around for recycled tissue options, I found offerings from Marcal, Seventh Generation, Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, and Kleenex. Below, I assess each for its strength and softness -- and whether it'll require you to, ahem, pay through the nose.

Marcal Fluff Out
Eco-claims: 100 percent total recycled content, 30 percent minimum post-consumer content, made without chlorine bleach, packaged in recycled paperboard
Price: $1.13/100 2-ply tissues

Although they have a fun name, the Fluff Out tissues lack both strength and softness. Before getting fully out of the (bland, beige) box, the 2-ply tissues tend to separate into individual, almost see-through 1-ply sheets that fall apart at the slightest tug and do little to contain a runny nose.

Marcal has just launched a new green product line called Small Steps, which includes a 100 percent recycled facial tissue. It's just starting to appear in stores in the Northeast.

Seventh Generation
Eco-claims: 100 percent recycled paper, 80 percent minimum post-consumer, hypo-allergenic, whitened without chlorine bleach, unscented/no dyes, box made from 100 percent recycled paper (35 percent minimum post-consumer)
Price: $2.29/85 2-ply tissues

These tissues are definitely stronger than Marcal's Fluff Out offering. They also have a slightly smoother texture, but are prone to separate into their thin 1-ply counterparts. The boxes come in colorful, modern designs, but at 2.7 cents per tissue, they are the most expensive of the bunch.

Whole Foods Market's 365 Everyday Value
Eco-claims: 100 percent recycled paper, 80 percent post-consumer content, whitened without chlorine bleach, hypo-allergenic, fragrance free, "virtually no lint"
Price: $1.49/80 2-ply tissues

The 365 Everyday Value box has a bright flowery image, but inside, the ripped edges on these 2-ply tissues do not bode well for the nose in need. Aside from the "unfinished" look, they foreshadow the tissue's weakness for ripping to pieces. Add to that the harsh roughness, and the attractive box does little to keep a nose from running ... far, far away.

Trader Joe's Pocket Pack
Eco-claims: 100 percent recycled paper, 25 percent minimum post-consumer content, recycled without chlorine bleach
Price: $1.29/100 3-ply tissues

Trader Joe's offers the only 3-ply recycled tissue I found, and it is held together with a decorative perforation pattern along all four sides. It'd look just like a fancy paper napkin if it weren't for the small size. But the fanciness has a function -- and performs it well, keeping the tissues strong and a bit softer. The unfortunate bit about these guys is that they come packaged in plastic wrapping in 10-tissue pocket packs. Useful for purse-carrying, but no good waste-wise.

Kleenex Naturals
Eco-claims: 20 percent recycled fiber that is 100 percent post-consumer content, box made from 100 percent recycled paper
Price: $3.19/184 2-ply tissues

Kleenex brand tissues are made by the Kimberly-Clark company, enemy No. 1 of Greenpeace's Kleercut campaign to save ancient forests. And it's quite possible that 80 percent of these tissues' content came from old-growth woods -- but because they contain 20 percent recycled fiber (all of which is post-consumer), I included them as a comparison.

The company calls this fiber "SoftBlend," and it does seem to be softer than the other tissues -- although not as luxuriously soft as some Kleenex tissues. Despite being only 2-ply, they also seemed to be the strongest of the bunch, even when wet. Like the Trader Joe's brand, the layers in these are held together fairly well. All in all, a pleasant tissue experience, though their origin makes me want to cry into them.

The Bottom Line: Your best bet all around is a cloth handkerchief. It will be cheaper over time, softer, and much stronger than anything tested here. The fact that it's reusable means it doesn't get tossed, and all of the harmful production-related stuff (manufacturing, packaging, transporting) happens only once, rather than every time you have a good cry.

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Dear Umbra,

This year for Christmas, I want to buy hectares of rainforest for some of my in-laws instead of the usual gift items that may end up in someone's closet and forgotten, if not regifted. How do organizations that protect rainforests in this way operate, and how do I know a high percentage of my investment isn't going toward administrative costs? Can you recommend a worthwhile program of this nature?

Nancy
Holden, Mass.

Dearest Nancy,

Clever -- a gift so large it won't fit in the closet. It may be forgotten, though, since no one is going to accidentally come across their hectare of rainforest while searching for a lost wingtip.

This year, make someone hoppy.

It would be unfair and irresponsible of me to recommend a rainforest adoption program, to start at the end of your question. Several large nonprofits operate adoption programs, and there must be a canopy full of small groups out there raising money for land preservation. I can't play favorites, but I can give you some sense of how the groups work, and some ideas for finding one with which you feel comfortable.

Basically, there are at least two models that U.S. nonprofits pursuing this work use: The first is to purchase land outright; the second is to give the money to local partner organizations, who then purchase the land. I spoke with a staffer at one program who emphasized that land purchase is only one component of forest preservation. Stewardship, including protection against poaching or other illegal activities, is an ongoing aspect of rainforest conservation. Although methods for rainforest rescue vary amongst nonprofits, all reputable groups should have strong, ongoing relationships with local organizations and local communities, and participate in post-purchase land care.

One type of "adoption" uses raised funds for land purchase and the costs associated with land ownership and preservation, such as hiring rangers, maintaining ranger buildings, area economic development, and environmental education. I think this style of support is common, and the organization with which I spoke operates this way, raising funds and sending them twice yearly to their local partners. I found another organization that operates differently, funding indigenous groups through a system of small-scale grants.

A reputable organization should be aware of donors' concerns about where the money goes and address them on their website and in paper propaganda. They should anticipate your questions, in other words, because they are established and experienced. As I mentioned in last year's column on charitable giving, Charity Navigator is a third-party place to look into an organization's budget and compare overhead costs with program costs (though it doesn't rate private charities). Don't hesitate to call the organization and ask your specific question about how much of your donation will fund the rainforest projects. If they can't answer, move on to someone else.

I haven't touched on why one would donate funds to a rainforest protection program. Suffice to say rainforests are amazing, they are being rapidly destroyed, and the implications are terrifying.

Buoyantly,
Umbra

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