Charities and citizen advocacy groups are having a tough time these days in some large developing countries.
Under the guidance of President Ólafur Grímsson, Iceland has strived to position itself as a new geopolitical center for the Arctic. While only a tiny portion of the country, the island of Grimsey, sits above the Arctic Circle, that hasn’t stopped it from claiming Arctic coastal statehood. With lots of shipping activity, plans to build […]
You have to be mad to oppose Putin. At least that is what a Moscow court ruled on Tuesday when it sentenced Mikhail Kosenko to be committed to a psychiatric hospital for his part in the anti-government protest. “The court has ruled to release Kosenko Mikhail Alexandrovich from criminal responsibility for insanely conducting actions forbidden […]
Just last year, protestors in Nunavut spoke out against the high cost of milk and other basic foodstuffs. But few international media outlets paid attention to these protests, even though they touched upon an issue just as central to the Arctic as the environment: human development and well-being. In comparison, the scaling of The Shard, […]
During the Arctic Council Ministerial Meeting in Kiruna, Sweden last Wednesday, the body’s Secretariat released the “Vision for the Arctic” (PDF). The Secretariat is composed of the eight Arctic States together with the six permanent participants, the Arctic Indigenous Peoples’ Organizations. The vision has seven sections, which I analyze below. The document’s introduction describes how […]
The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) recently released the latest figures for Arctic sea ice extent. According to the Center, the average sea ice extent for the month of August 2011 reached the second lowest level since satellite-based observations began in 1979. Mean ice extent for August was 5.52 million square kilometers, about […]
There’s an event next Wednesday, April 6th, in NYC that you might like to attend. It’s being cosponsored by NYU’s Center for Global Affairs (where I teach) and the government of Québec. Our public programming at CGA is, as a rule, pretty interesting and engaging. This program, Going North: Economic Development and Sustainable Livelihoods, “…will […]
The events of the past several days in Japan are in many ways beyond the scope of the mind to comprehend. Thousands of lives were swept away in an instant. I walked around the World Trade Center on September 12, 2001 and had a very hard time then being able to grasp the enormity of […]
Greenpeace wants Facebook to power its data centers with renewables. Greenpeace is using all the power of cyberspace – including a Facebook page – for this initiative. Katie Fehrenbacher at GigaOm puts it all in context here. The video is too cute to pass up. My nine-year-old is going to love it.
When I was at the Urban Green Expo last fall, the Energy Maha Guru Amory Lovins gave a riveting talk. He said: “The Renewable Revolution has been won. Sorry, if you missed it.” I let out a yell. Well, as I’ve been noting here, this is not mere hyperbole. Here’s more evidence. In Europe, they’re […]
Yesterday I mentioned a number of big-ticket reasons to think that nuclear power is a very bad bet indeed: It bleeds money from smarter, cheaper and much more climate-friendly options; it’s dangerous; it’s radically inefficient; it’s not, at the end of the day – that is to say, through the whole life cycle – a […]
… to know which way the wind blows.”* There’s a pretty compelling story in the Old Gray Lady today: Among Weathercasters, Doubt on Warming. TV weather people, it turns out, seem to be having a hard time with the science of climate change. The article cites a study just out from George Mason University’s Center […]
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