The Sun Also Braises

Renewable Energy Advocates Offer Invention That Can Harness and Ease Global Warming.

Here’s a Zen riddle: How can the greenhouse effect help reduce the
greenhouse effect?

The answer, according to a growing number of people, is “solar cookers.” And to prove the point, people in such diverse settings as the foothills of Nepal, refugee camps in Kenya, and the American Southwest are turning to the sun to boil rice, bake potatoes and even pasteurize camel’s milk.

The greenhouse effect is the phenomenon underlying concerns about global warming. Put simply, as industrial pollution adds carbon dioxide to the atmosphere — and as deforestation decimates the Earth’s trees, which normally consume excess carbon dioxide — a thickening blanket of the gas builds up, holding the sun’s heat and slowly cooking the entire planet.