Mannkind Charity

Hi All,

I ran across an interesting article that explores an apparent link between global warming and the growth rates of trees in the Eastern United States.

Forest ecologist, Geoffrey Parker, from the Smithsonian Environmental Research Centre (who has been tracking woodland growth cycles for more than 20 years) & Sean McMahon, from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, have been diligently documenting the growth rates of trees, ranging from 5 to 225 years old, and have discovered that nearly 90% of the trees from all age groups grew two to four times faster than current models would have predicted.

Parker & McMahon decided to investigate the root of this perplexing phenomenon:

“We made a list of reasons these forests could be growing faster and then ruled half of them out, said Parker. The ones that remained included increased temperature, a longer growing season and increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide — all effects or causes of climate change.”

As their findings are still in the preliminary stages, both scientists are eagerly beginning to branch-out to other forest ecologists and encouraging them to begin taking a closer look at their respective tree-data to help flush out how widespread this accelerated growth pattern really is!

It is important to understand this arbor-anomaly, “because changes in tree growth rates can have significant ramifications on weather patterns, nutrient cycles, climate change and biodiversity…”

Now this is just off the top of my head, but given that the affects of global warming are being seen & documented around the world, there is a palpable probability that this accelerated growth could truly be a global phenomenon, and given the significant lose of forest coverage, especially in developing nations (see stats chart below) perhaps this accelerated growth rate could off-set some of the lost coverage & augment absorption of carbon dioxide…?

How do you think this accelerated growth pattern (if indeed it turns out to be a global reality) could influence global warming?

Andrew G

(Source for stats below)

Hi All,

Great news regarding our program to adopt an orphanage in India this year!

Our founder Dave Mann, and his son Ricky, have arrived safely in the sub-continent to begin the work of introducing our vision to community representatives and researching various orphanages with the intent of absorbing, improving and maintaining an existing program.

Dave & Ricky begin their journey in Calcutta where they will visit the Mother Teresa Orphanage; next they travel to Chennai along India’s East coast where they will volunteer at the Bala Gurukulam Orphanage.

From there they will continue along the coast towards Goa and on to Bhopal to volunteer at the Asha Nitya Sewak Orphanage.  Finally, they will travel to Delhi and from there fly back home to Canada.

Below is a message from Dave regarding his travels so far:

Hello Gang,

Ricky and I are in Calcutta right now. Yesterday we were at Mother Teresa’s place. Wow what a wonderful place of love, just pure unconditional love, love that has no reason for love but for the fact that we all are children of the same God.

Absolutely inspiring and freeing at the same time, I also felt a distinct feeling that although she is a Saint now, she was also so incredibly human at the same time.

I could sense her trepidation, yet her trust in God the first time she decided to venture into the slums and various shanty towns. She is a wonderful source of inspiration for me.

Previous day we visited the Head of communist party of West Bengal { the ruling party } Mr. Viman Bose, a short statured man, long winded and entirely dedicated to the people. I felt he kind of understood our aspirations better than most people here.

He thought it would be a good idea for us to look at a house that could used as an Orphanage and he assured us that the approval for the Orphanage from state and national governments could be easily arranged.

As life would have it that our hosts in this town Mr Kamal Sen and Dr. Kakuli Mukerji have a vacant house in Howrah with 7 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms, fully fenced and lovely verandas. We toured the house and Rick took lots of pictures so that you all could see. Howrah is considered poor in comparison to Calcutta.

Yesterday I was talking to a long term Caucasian volunteer at Mother Teresa’s, he told me there is a lot of need and yesterday somebody left a baby at the front door of the convent.

I am only providing all of you  a very short update. I believe we should hold off on making any decisions until we have seen a lot more and come back to Canada.

I do worry that when I come back to Canada I might lose some of the urgency I feel today. I trust the path and all shall be as it should be…

With love and deep regards,

Dave Mann