I've been able to get to within about 10 miles of Kirkuk -- able to see the oil capital of the north: a burning flare, a harmless flare, burning off gases from one of the major oil fields on the outskirts of Kirkuk.

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As well as destroying such native ecosystems, deforestation also diminishes so-called "carbon sinks" -- thereby reducing the Earth's capacity to absorb and re-process atmospheric carbon dioxide -- while also adding to air pollution through the burning of land to clear it for cultivation (sugarcane fields are traditionally fired prior to harvest to remove leaves and drive away snakes).

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It recommends they use rice and wheat straw for mulch instead of burning it, rotate their crops, use a range of different seeds, manure their fields, and so on.

ECONOMIST: Punjabis are poisoning themselves

The idea is to capture the carbon dioxide emissions from burning the coal for power, then piping the CO2 around to be injected into old oil fields to coax out more stubborn crude.

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