Eat a squirrel, help save species

The International Herald Tribune reports on the new British culinary trend of squirrel meat.

Squirrels are abundant, so eating them helps to keep their population in check.

Also the native red squirrel is being pushed out by the non-native and more aggressive North American gray.

Enter the "Save Our Squirrels" campaign begun in 2006 to rescue Britain's red squirrels by piquing the nation's appetite for their marauding North American cousins. With a rallying motto of "Save a red, eat a gray!" the campaign created a market for culled squirrel meat.

British bon vivants suddenly couldn't get enough squirrel. Television chefs were preparing it, cookbooks were extolling it, farmers' markets were selling out of it and restaurants in many places were offering it on the menu.

Read the full story: Saving a squirrel by eating one

Vatican to be carbon neutral

Although the Vatican started a new airline recently, it is interesting to see a report in the International Herald Tribune about the Catholic nation's carbon offsetting program. A "denuded" forest in Hungary was donated to the Vatican by the Klimafa company, who will plant enough trees that they claim will absorb all the carbon emitted from the nation-state's "various activities."

"In so doing, the Vatican announced, it would become the world's first carbon-neutral state. 'As the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, recently stated, the international community needs to respect and encourage a "green culture," ' said Cardinal Paul Poupard, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture.

Planting forests is only "a partial solution, and a temporary one. [It] will only compensate for a small fraction of emissions, even if you cover all of Hungary in young trees," said Laszlo Galhidy, forestry officer for the environmental group WWF Hungary, although he praised the [Vatican] project as a useful step."

Read the full report: Vatican agress to a carbon offset scheme