The news continues to worsen in the Horn of Africa, as the United Nations has declared famine in two regions in southern Somalia. What was regarded just recently as a severe humanitarian crisis has now crossed the threshold to famine, defined by the BBC as: More than 30% of children must be suffering from acute […]
The UN Security Council met this week to consider whether or not climate change constituted a threat to international peace and security and, if so, what to do about it. As Deutsche Welle puts it here, “What might appear self-evident to many took days of complicated discussions and negotiations…” If droughts, heat waves, fires, ever-intensifying […]
Hilary Clinton is in India right now. Not coincidentally, after a four-year survey of a site in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, the government of India has announced that the Tumalapalli mine there could hold up to 150,000 tons of recoverable uranium. Srikumar Banerjee, secretary of the Department of Atomic Energy, told the […]
Global food prices have been reaching new highs as fluctuations in global food markets have continued since late 2007. To help make sense of these trends, the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) offers a Food Price Volatility Portal, providing links to websites that monitor food markets, as well as reports and resources that […]
A humanitarian crisis in the Horn of Africa region is threatening over 10 million people, with women and children being the most vulnerable. A startling amalgam of factors have converged to create a deadly situation, particularly drought, malnutrition, region-wide conflicts, poor governance and limited access by aid organizations. While we keep an eye on how […]
On June 22nd and 23rd, agricultural ministers from the top 20 economies in the world met in Paris under the auspices of the G20, to address problems in the world’s increasingly connected food production and distribution system. The G20 meeting was spearheaded by France, who currently holds the rotating presidency of the G20. In his […]
In the aftermath of the Fukushima meltdown, it seems that the Japanese government is seriously entertaining the idea of going nuclear-free. “In the future, we should aim to have a society that does not rely on nuclear power,” Prime Minister Naoto Kan said, according to a Nikkei business daily report. “When we consider the risk […]
The Guardian and Nick Davies deserve the prize for breaking open the biggest story of the decade: the extraordinary extent and maliciousness of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation violating not only British law but also the most basic elements of decency. On July 4th, the Guardian fanned the nearly cold embers of what should have long-since […]
The Australians have come a long way since 2007 when climate change was a big factor in the change of government from Tory to Labor. A few years later, in part because the new Labor PM, Kevin Rudd, wasn’t effecting legislation fast enough to put a price on carbon, he was replaced in his party […]
Last year, the world investment in renewable energy rose to $211 billion according to the UN Environment Program, an increase of 32% over 2009. Using 2004 as a baseline, that is more than a five-fold increase. Not counting hydroelectric dams, renewable energy supplied 5% of global electricity, 30% of new electrical capacity overall. Thanks largely […]
The Big Apple should not have to wait any longer: It’s time to become a center of renewable energy. We’re not talking about big solar and wind arrays as we’re going to see in the Sahara – although that’s a good thing too – but rather about distributed generation: making power where you live and […]
The challenges faced by Kenyan aid workers is the subject of a short piece by Sara Corbett in the recent The New York Times Magazine. The profile of Dorothy Gakii, a Kenyan who works with Refugepoint to distribute food for the swelling numbers of refugees from the Horn of Africa; particularly countries like Ethiopia, Sudan […]
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