April 2024 Welcome to our new online newsletter! Our goal is to create a warm and inviting space where you can stay connected with us, delve into our history filled archives, and join us in our ongoing mission of making a positive impact in the world. Warm Heart Children Graduations 2024 This is What it…
March 2024 Welcome to our new online newsletter! Our goal is to create a warm and inviting space where you can stay connected with us, delve into our history filled archives, and join us in our ongoing mission of making a positive impact in the world. Warm Heart Children School Year Winding Up, Big Plans…
Welcome to our new online newsletter! Our goal is to create a warm and inviting space where you can stay connected with us, delve into our history filled archives, and join us in our ongoing mission of making a positive impact in the world. Warm Heart Children Celebrating Children’s Day in Thailand: A Joyous Affair…
January 2024 Welcome to our new online newsletter! Our goal is to create a warm and inviting space where you can stay connected with us, delve into our history filled archives, and join us in our ongoing mission of making a positive impact in the world. Warm Heart Children Sailing into 2024: Our Students Shine…
January 2024 Welcome to our new online newsletter! Our goal is to create a warm and inviting space where you can stay connected with us, delve into our history filled archives, and join us in our ongoing mission of making a positive impact in the world. Warm Heart Children Sailing into 2024: Our Students Shine…
Assessing Methane’s Potency and Long-Term Effects on the Environment by Kat Sarmiento When talking about climate change and/or global warming, the greenhouse effect is inevitably brought to the table. The greenhouse effect is a natural phenomenon that happens in order to sustain life on Earth. However, a notable increase in the concentration of greenhouse gasses…
As the Earth’s climate continues to change, its impact on various aspects of our lives becomes increasingly evident. One area significantly affected by these changes is agriculture, with shifting weather patterns posing challenges to farmers and threatening our global food supply. However, amidst these challenges, a sustainable solution called biochar offers a glimmer of hope….
by Kat Sarmiento It’s becoming increasingly important for all companies to take responsibility for their impact on the environment and strive for a more sustainable future. One way we can achieve this is through embracing the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). By following its framework, companies can make informed decisions…
We began our Environmental Progress News as a way to share positive steps that were being done to address climate change. Our focus has always been biochar. Biochar Growing as a Frontrunner Solution What is biochar? Arti‘s video gives a clear overview of what it is, how it is made, and why it is so…
Guest Post Edited by: Andrew Dunn Written by: Amy Galloway By adopting a more eco-friendly lifestyle, homeowners can make a big difference in the battle to help protect the planet. But what does eco-friendly actually mean? To put it simply, being eco-friendly means causing no harm to the planet. For a homeowner, it means thoughtfully selecting and…
Big Results in 2022! Our Biochar Project has grown by leaps and bounds this past year. Below is a recap from our Vice President Jason Highberger. He wrote “It’s kind of funny now but at the start of the year we were hoping that we could achieve 100 t CO2eq by the end of 2022…needless to…
By Michael Shafer We suffer two scourges: haze and social inequality. Are they connected? Yes. Must they be? No. Both the haze and social inequality that afflict the North can be dealt with in a single largely costless – indeed, profitable – way: empower the North’s millions of marginal smallholders to make biochar and sell…
Fire season – fueled by Global Warming? Have you noticed the increase in forest fires over the years? It is not your imagination, it is just another sign of the impact global warming is having on our environment. Over the past 5 years fire seasons have begun earlier, lasted longer, with more intense heat. We…
Warm Heart was invited to participate in a Social and Community Support Project in Chiang Mai at a local public park. Shangri-La donated biochar to the local municipality for improving their landscaping, in particular a patch of dirt that will be planted with community gardens. The morning was spent in final clean-up of the park,…
Bringing it down! In March of this year, we announced Biochar Life successfully completed the European Biochar Certification (“EBC”) standard for Artisan Farmer accreditation audit with the Ithaka Institute. Biochar Life is among the first organizations in the world to receive the new EBC “tropical farmer” accreditation. “Smallholder farmers in the developing world have the…
Sustainable Transportation is Our Future Reducing our Dependency on Fossil Fuels There are so many contributing factors to climate change, and each problem area needs to be clearly identified and solutions applied if we are going to succeed in reducing/reversing climate change. Warm Heart’s focus is on agricultural waste, we have identified the problem, and…
Harnessing the Power of the Sun August is the hottest month of the year. Temperatures continue to rise, reaching new highs, bringing extreme heat waves, increased fire activity, and drought as the soil bakes and dries out. Thousands and thousands of people have died this year across the globe from the extreme heat. The increase…
Global Warming – A blessing in disguise? Rather than view it as a disaster about to strike, how about we look at it as a wake up call that we can do better? When you think about it, the things we have done to create an imbalance in nature that has brought on climate change…
What is Carbon? Too much carbon is being blamed for causing global warming. What exactly is carbon? Watch this video “Keeping Up With Carbon” to get a better grasp of what carbon is and where the problem is. Decarbonization: What It Is and Why It Matters? by Jasmine Gordon In the growing discourse about climate…
How Affluent is Your Lifestyle? by Carol Culver De Leo Each and every one of us has our own unique carbon footprint based on our lifestyle choices. The way we choose to live our lives has an impact on our environment and on each other. For some of us our footprint is smaller due to…
Carbon Overload Think of it this way. You are filling your bathtub for a nice relaxing soak. Let’s say your cell phone rings, you step outside to answer the call and get distracted. Your tub continues to fill and begins to overflow. Before you know it, your house is totally flooded, your children are floating…
Marking a Milestone The Big News! Biochar Life, PBC, (“Biochar Life”) an impact venture of Warm Heart Worldwide (“Warm Heart”) is pleased to announce the completion of their European Biochar Certification (“EBC”) standard for tropical farmer accreditation audit with the Ithaka Institute. Biochar Life is among the first organizations in the world to receive the…
Release date: 7 March 2022 Breaking news: Biochar Life’s new accreditation sets the groundwork for pioneering collaboration with smallholder farmers in the battle against climate change. Biochar Life, PBC, (“Biochar Life”) an impact venture of Warm Heart Worldwide (“Warm Heart”) is pleased to announce the completion of their European Biochar Certification (“EBC”) standard for tropical…
How can we improve this world we all share? Our world needs to change. How we live. How we treat one another. How we balance human needs with the environment and all the life we share our earth with. Unfortunately, we have neglected to pay attention to the damage that was being done to our…
New Year Resolutions Many see the beginning of the New Year as a time to make a commitment to improving their lives through New Year’s Resolutions. Quit smoking, lose weight, get more exercise, read more, reduce my carbon footprint, the list goes on. For some unfortunately the resolutions are broken within a few days of…
December is a time for family and friends to gather together. People celebrate in many ways over the holiday season, depending on their cultural or religious beliefs. But everyone shares the spirit of the season. It is a time for gratitude, giving and sharing, joy, peace on earth, and spreading good cheer to your neighbors….
We want to share with you a most magical time here in Phrao for our children at Warm Heart! Sandee, who is an 8th grade student at Verso, an innovative International School in Bangkok, volunteers her time helping the children with their English via the internet. She recognized that all her friends, including our kids…
Our newsletter format is still in a metamorphosis stage! This month’s issue provides a simplified overview of climate change and how it affects all of us. It is important to first understand what changes are occurring and why, and what we can do to bring a balance back to our environment. Impacts of a Changing…
Global crop waste burning – micro-biochar; how a small community development organization learned experientially to address a huge problem one tiny field at a time “The world’s 2.5 billion poorest people – small farmers living at the far fringe of the developing world – and their billion or so slightly better off neighbors burn 10.5…
A Few of Our Favorites We are working on big changes to our Environmental Newsletter which we will reveal in our November issue. Stay tuned! This month we are highlighting our favorite articles and features from 2021. We hope you enjoy this stroll down memory lane and maybe check out some of the issues you…
October 31 – November 12 world leaders will meet at the COP26 UN Climate Summit for the purpose of “Uniting the world to tackle climate change“. We are running out of time and more than “talking” needs to be done if we are going to make a significant difference in reducing the greenhouse gases that…
Tackling Climate Change Head On Carbon sinks are one of the most productive solutions for tackling climate change. This month’s articles explore: Why “Keep Carbon” in the Soil? How Do We Convince Farmers to Stop Burning? Africa: Turning a Major Problem into a Grand Solution Why Smallholder Farmers are Important Players How to Reduce Your…
September 20, 2021 A giant step in solving the smoke problem Our goal has always been to stop the smoke that comes from the agricultural burning of crop waste. Here in Thailand, we have worked with farmers teaching them how to make biochar instead of smoke. In Africa, our program is spreading far and wide….
Stories of Inspiration When we first started our Environmental Progress Newsletter our focus was on shining a beacon of hope by sharing stories of progress in finding and enacting solutions to global warming. Our area of activity is in biochar and reforestation, demonstrating how it can be done and is a big part of the…
Get Thrifting! By Petra Nordal, Age 16 One of the most trendy and accessible ways to be sustainable is thrifting. The fashion industry is 10% of the entire population’s carbon emissions. Transportation of clothes, manufacturing, throwing them away all contribute to the fashion industry’s carbon footprint.The fashion industry uses 93 billion cubic meters of water…
Carbon Removal One Drop Too Many When I was a child, i loved frogs. I was so happy the day I finally caught one! I took him home with me to keep him as a pet. I had no place to keep him, so I made him a home in the basement of our house….
July 4th marks the beginning of our 13th year of building sustainable community development in Phrao and our local surrounding area. We had such a successful 12th year in spite of all the pandemic impacts we have all felt. We want to share our successes with you to hopefully put a smile on your face….
Agroforestry Project Update It’s time to start adding biochar in the soil. We put biochar around the newly planted trees to keep water, moisture, and nutrients for trees. Learn more about our Agroforestry Project.
Strong Communities Make a Better World Every community has an opportunity to address local issues that are contributing to climate change. The challenge is identifying the problem and then applying a solution. When members of a community come together great progress can be made to make changes to alleviate global warming. It all starts at…
It is wonderful how people have responded to awareness of how bad plastic is for our environment. One of the biggest achievements has been the reduction in the use of plastic bags, and other one-time use plastic products that are being replaced with natural materials better for the environment. This is especially true when it…
Celebrating Earth Day 2021: Restoring Our Earth Why do we need to restore our earth? Our universal abuse of natural resources has created an imbalance in nature, contributing to the beginning of extinction. Over the last 100 years over 500 species have already gone extinct. If we do not act now many more animals face…
Stop the Smoke 2021 Once again we are headed into smoky season in Northern Thailand, India, and China, as farmers harvest their crops and burn the crop waste in open fields. Warm Heart’s Stop the Smoke campaign focuses on removing the source of the smoke before it becomes a problem. Our solution has been to…
Smoky Season is Around the Corner According to the UN report, “the share of small-scale food producers in terms of all food producers in countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America ranges from 40 to 85 per cent”. If you live in a farming area you are probably inundated with smoke polluting your skies as…
2020 – Looking Back – And Forward! Everyone has experienced the impacts of the pandemic that swept across our world in 2020. For some the effects were disastrous, while for others it may have just been an inconvenience. Science is moving quickly, faster than ever before, to develop a vaccination to fight off COVID-19. Success…
We can not even begin to describe our deepest gratitude for your support with the purchase of our school bus! All we can say is Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! We can now transport all of of children safely to school in 1 trip!!! Next we need to paint our bus with handprints and…
Small farmers around the globe produce a significant amount of gases that add to the problem of global warming. It is an important problem in the complexity of factors that feed climate change. The good news is this problem has a clear solution. The answer is simple. Show the small farmers a way to turn…
Effects of Global Warming on Land and Sea When you hear the term “Global Warming” you may mistakenly assume that local temperatures will rise. What you need to understand is that global warming does not refer directly to your local weather. The impact of global warming affects our global climate, which then affects local weather….
[columns] [span8] Pokpong is a Lahu boy from the village of Mae Sae Koaw. His parents work as general farm laborers. He is one of eight children with two brothers and five sisters. Pokpong is crazy about sports, which is good when you are the seventh of eight kids in a really poor house where…
[columns] [span8] [/span8][span4] Age: 10 Grade: 4th Recent Report Card C is growing rapidly and is full of energy – ready to help on the farm or other projects, but flies off on one of our bicycles whenever he has a chance. He is no longer the youngest boy and has taken the new boys,…
[columns] [span8] Naan came to us from our partner school when she graduated from 6th grade. Coming to Warm Heart was a really big deal for her, her family and her whole village. She is the first person in the entire village to go past 6th grade in school! She is going to go far…
[columns] [span8] [space_40] [/span8][span4] Age: 18 Grade: 12th Op is attending Phrao Wittiyakom High School. She’s in the languages tract and is studying English, French and Mandarin Chinese. She signed up for the Thai Army’s equivalent of ROTC. This will give her a chance for higher education scholarships better access to government jobs after she…
[columns] [span4] [kad_youtube url=”https://youtu.be/GYPIHVDuN9E” ] [/span4][span8] Age: 11 Grade: 5th Recent Report Card B is finally starting to keep up with his brothers’ growth spurt. He started out as a picky eater, but now thrives on nutritious meals, including vegetable he helped to grow. He completed 4th grade with a strong 3.08 average and started…
Age: 17 Grade: 9th Recent Report Card Attitaya is now in 9th grade. She finished 8th grade with a strong GPA of 3.45, and with 7 “A” ’s in total. She is doing well in all her core subjects – Thai, Math, Science and English. The new school year started late, July 1 and she…
[columns] [span8] [/span8][span4] Age 12 Grade 6th [/span4][/columns] [columns] [span8] Recent Report Card 2019-2020 School Year Term 2 A is in a growth spurt and is rapidly becoming a young man. He completed 5th grade with a strong report card – a 3.16 average at the end of March. He started 6th grade when…
We Are Not the First Sapiens to Experience the Impact of Climate Change Just the first with the capacity to respond to it! The climate change that we face today is not the first that has fundamentally altered life on earth. In fact, over the eons, the earth has grown hotter and colder several times…
When we started Warm Heart in 2008, we were unsure about a lot of things, but one thing we knew with certainty was that children deserve all the love, kindness, and opportunities that this world has to offer. That belief and conviction is what allowed us to start working 12 years back, and it is…
We would love to buy a brand-new school bus to tote our 45 kids back and forth to school! But our plans are more realistic. December 1st is Giving Tuesday. We are launching our School Bus fundraising campaign on this day to leverage the bonus money Global Giving provides in matching funds. Please help us…
Malthus’ Revenge or Human Creativity to the Rescue? By Dr. D. Michael Shafer, Co-Founder of Warm Heart Worldwide Massive fires are burning out of control in the American West. The Greenland ice cap is beyond repair. With one exception, world leaders are wringing their hands. Can we save civilization as we know it from climate…
We were absolutely delighted when City Life Magazine published an article about our Peace Now art contest! We feel the benefits of this activity for the children are multilevel. Fun exposure to Art Creative outlet Encouragement to explore and improve Excitement over the prize money When people take the time to look, and vote, it…
This year has brought unprecedented challenges, demonstrations of extraordinary strength, moments of jarring failures, a realization of the things we take for granted, and – perhaps most importantly – a showing of the resilience of the human spirit. As people across the board are questioning what matters and what doesn’t, we are convinced that the…
Aftermath of COVID-19 The pandemic has had a huge impact on how we interact with one another. Our world has become more reliant on internet communication than ever before. This month we are going to take a lighter look at some of the impacts, and what repercussions and benefits we may expect from a growing…
Age: 13 Grade: 5th The school year ended mid-March, just as the COVID 19 lockdown started. Pim went to her mountain village to stay with her family and came back in June for a July 1 school opening. The students are wearing masks and have a hybrid schedule the reduces the number of students in a…
Current World Crisis vs Growing Future Crisis: Climate Change Covid-19 – Not the First, Nor the Last Throughout history, disease outbreaks have ravaged humanity, sometimes changing the course of history and, at times, ending entire civilizations. Dating back as far as 5,000 years ago an epidemic wiped out the entire population of a prehistoric village…
“Inherit, retain, and continue to create sustainable highhill land” On July 22, 2020 the Shangri-la/Warm Heart biochar project donated 10 tons of biochar to the Recover Forest Project in Mae Wak. In attendance at this climate action activity was the Chiang Mai Governor, Mae Na Chone sub-district department, Highland Research and Development Institute, Hug Mae…
It is alway heart warming when people reach out from around the world and share how they are using the technological information we provide. Each life we are able to touch and change makes every effort worthwhile! After viewing our video on how to make styrofoam bricks (what is called “thermocol” in India) Bharani reached…
Lockdown does not mean shutdown! We said, “Do something to Stop the Smoke!” Shangri-La Did! Keeping up with Gabriele Lombardo, General Manager of the Shangri-La Hotel in Chiang Mai, Thailand, is hard. The wiry Sicilian never stops and never stops doing and doing and doing…. Warm Heart sat down with Mr. Lombardo in October 2019…
It already feels so wonderful to be loved by your neighbors. But here at Warm Heart we get a truly special kind of love. I think the best place to start describing that love has to be the random gifts. From time to time I will find a table or fridge full of new food…
I’ve made a friend here. We have so much in common. We can both go from very outgoing to shy in seconds. Just about the only time we come out from our hiding places is to eat. And you know it’s us from a mile away. I’ve had a lot of alone time out here…
Age 14 Grade 9 Recent Report Card He is maintaining his GPA at 1.62 but needs to spend more time on homework and reading. Hobbies: Playing games Interests: Games, studying Wishes: A secret thing Dream: Game Caster Worries: About studying Slogan: Where there’s a will, there’s away! Sarawoot is an interesting young man who is…
Today I went to the Old City for the first time since February. What I saw there shook me beyond comprehension. This whole time my life at WarmHeart has not changed at all. The days are still filled with work and the kids’ laughter. But when I went to the Old City I knew that…
In my old life, a power outage was a once a year occurrence. But out here it’s a weekly (and sometimes daily) happening. The reason why they are so regular is due to a single suspect; the one power line. There is only one power line between Chiang Mai and Phrao, so if ANYTHING happens…
Is there a silver lining? The Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted our normal lives, to put it mildly. Is there any silver lining to this dark cloud? We think so. We think that the pandemic’s silver lining is the life raft Covid has thrown the world by stopping those normal lives long enough for the environment…
Exercise has been a part of my entire life. Being around the kids has given me a chance to see how I exercised when I was their age. I am so happy to say that kids around the world truly do love a good time. They have bikes from Warm Heart which they love riding…
Normally that’s not a real stumper. When you’re locked down in Covid-Quarantine, however, even such an everyday question can be problematic. Sure, like at home the first thing we do is review the pantry, but it’s not as if we can just pop out for a quick shop if we are missing something. Shopping is…
