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Obama in Asia
November 10, 2010 2 min. read

Among the many significant aspects of President Obama’s trip to Asia this week are the agreements and programs that are being announced relative to climate and energy.  In India, the headline news was his endorsing India’s quest for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.  But with India being one of the fastest growing […]

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WFP Outlines a 10 Point Strategy for Ending Hunger
November 6, 2010 3 min. read

The Executive Director of the World Food Programme Josette Sheeran recently outlined a 10 point strategy for ending hunger.  According to a WFP press release, the “world is making headway on fighting hunger – the first Millennium Goal — but not as fast as is needed. The proportion of hungry people in the world has […]

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Women’s Empowerment Fund
November 6, 2010 2 min. read

The Word Food Programme has started the Women’s Empowerment Fund, a new initiative which recognizes the importance of women in the global fight against hunger. The Fund envisions helping women in four areas.  One is in business leadership, since, as the press report writes: “women in Africa re-invest about 90 percent of their income back […]

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Infectious Diseases – Exacerbated by Climate Change?
November 5, 2010 3 min. read

I went to an interesting talk last night by Dr. Anthony Fauci.  He is the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.  The Foreign Policy Association initiated a new series with his talk:  the Dame Jillian Sackler Distinguished Lecture.  (She was married to Arthur Sackler, the research psychiatrist and art patron.) Dr. […]

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California Does the Right Thing(s)
November 3, 2010 2 min. read

Further to my post immediately below, Californians yesterday showed the world that they, living in the most-populous US state, and the eighth largest economy in the world, care enough about their public health, environment, jobs and the state of the world’s climate system to categorically reject the attempt to roll back their GHG regulations. With […]

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Election Day for the Climate
November 2, 2010 1 min. read

I’ve been sitting in yesterday afternoon and this morning on some fascinating discussions on the state of play of GHG regulation, how US politics is influencing our work on climate and energy, and what the world is going to look like tomorrow after the mid-term elections here.  (More on that later.) For the moment, the […]

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Task force on hunger in Asia
November 2, 2010 1 min. read

With over two-thirds of the world’s hungry found in Asia, the Asia Society and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) formed a task force to examine food security issues in Asia and develop public policy approaches for overcoming hunger. The initial findings of the task force were released last month in a report titled, “Never […]

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Ambitious bill to fight hunger in India
October 31, 2010 2 min. read

An ambitious new Food Security Bill is being drafted in India by the National Advisory Council (NAC).  According to NDTV and The Hindu, about 79,000 crore rupees (just under $17 billion) per year would be spent under the bill to guarantee 75 percent of the Indian population with foodgrains at subsidized prices.  This is up […]

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Food aid to Pakistanis affected by floods is running out
October 31, 2010 1 min. read

Six million Pakistanis relying on international food aid after being displaced by summer monsoons are facing the additional danger of running out of food aid.  According to a report by the BBC, the United Nations coordinator for humanitarian aid in Pakistan, Martin Mogwanja,  recently warned of malnutrition already setting in, and only growing by December, […]

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Steep rise in diabetes in U.S. predicted by 2050
October 30, 2010 1 min. read

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) predicts that by 2050, as many as one-third of Americans may suffer from Type-2 diabetes.   Businessweek recently reported that, “An aging population, an increase in minority groups at higher risk for diabetes, and the fact that diabetes patients are living longer are among the reasons for the steep projected […]

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Local Conditions, Planetary Problems
October 28, 2010 3 min. read

There is a very nice essay on climate change in the NYT this morning in a somewhat unlikely spot:  the “Our Towns” column about what’s going on in various locations around the region outside the big city.  Peter Applebome’s excellent stories are usually focused on local political, social and cultural highlights.  Ignoring the Planet Won’t […]

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Big New Renewable Energy Initiatives
October 26, 2010 2 min. read

There is yet more headline news on the renewable energy front.  On offshore wind, I’ve been noting some of the positive developments in several of the last posts.  Go-ahead for wind to generate 70,000 jobs in Britain is the word from the FT.  General Electric, Gamesa and Siemens all announced plans to build big new […]

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