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Friday, August 21, 2026
News and Views from the Global South
Trees: Out of the Forest and Into the Oven
The boom in electricity production from biomass in the industrialized North is generating boom in demand for wood from natural forests or tree plantations - with environmental and social consequences.
ENERGY: To Fly Around the World – Without Fuel
A solar-powered aircraft will take flight next month from Switzerland with hopes ultimately to circle the Earth in 2012, without fuel, and stopping every five days only to change pilots.
To Fly Around the World – Without Fuel
In the era of climate change, the sun could be the future energy source for the aviation industry.CLIMATE CHANGE: Survival Means Anticipating and Adapting
Imagine being able to know months in advance when and where floods or droughts may occur. That is what over 150 countries participating in the third World Climate Conference, which concluded last Friday in Geneva, pledged to achieve through the creation of a Global Framework for Climate Services.
CLIMATE CHANGE: Earth’s Fridge Defrosting, With Dire Results
The rapidly warming Arctic region is destabilising Earth's climate in ways science is just beginning to comprehend.CLIMATE CHANGE: Early Warning Systems for the Coming Storm
Climate change is here. The challenge in Geneva this week is to find ways to help the world cope with a climate that will have more and worse extremes in terms of temperatures, floods, and storms.ENVIRONMENT: Ozone Treaty May Hold Key to Halting Climate Change
Will the world take the easy step to phase out "super" greenhouse gases – hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) - using the existing Montreal Protocol ozone treaty? Doing so would be equivalent to preventing the release of 118 to 224 billion metric tonnes of carbon dioxide by 2050, according to a report by the Environmental Investigation Agency.
BIODIVERSITY: Amateur Biologists Join Global Bid to Catalog Species
Save the living environment and the physical environment will automatically be saved, according to E.O. Wilson, the world's leading biologist and father of the online Encyclopedia of Life, which plans to create a web page for every known species - all 1.8-plus million.BIODIVERSITY: Tight Controls Could Save Global Fisheries
The global race to catch the last fish left in the oceans has been successfully halted in a few regions and fish stocks have rebounded, a new landmark study has found.ENERGY: "Nuclear Steals Billions from Other Technologies"
Why is nuclear energy back on the table?ENVIRONMENT: Lavish US Lobbying Pushes Nuclear Energy
Climate change and the resulting need for low-carbon energy sources is driving the current interest in nuclear energy despite the industry's near universal legacy of staggering cost-overruns, technical difficulties and dependence on enormous government subsidies.ENVIRONMENT: Monsanto, Dow Stacking the Deck, Critics Say
The most complex genetically engineered corn (maize) yet has been approved for use next year in Canada and the United States without its potential health and environmental risks being investigated, anti-biotech activists charged Wednesday.SCIENCE: G8 Failure to Launch on Climate
The G8's failure to make meaningful commitments on climate last week pushes the world ever closer to global climate catastrophe, experts warn. Without commitments to take action, there is little comfort in G8 countries' agreement to keep overall global warming below 2.0 degrees Celsius.
AGRICULTURE: A Stormy Time for Indigenous Wisdom
Indigenous peoples risk losing control over their traditional knowledge if the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) insists on strict standards for managing access to information.
A Stormy Time for Indigenous Wisdom
The World Intellectual Property Organization is making an effort to protect indigenous knowledge, but its criteria put it on a collision course with the indigenous concept of knowledge itself.CLIMATE CHANGE: 2020 Deadline Is the Crucial “Litmus Test”
"So who here thinks there will be a meaningful deal in Copenhagen?" Few of the more than 600 energy ministers, officials and experts from 80 countries attending the Vienna Energy Conference raised their hands in response to the conference moderator's question about the final round of climate negotiations this December in Copenhagen.DEVELOPMENT: Green Energy for All by 2030?
While industrialised countries struggle to switch from climate-damaging, carbon-based energy to greener energy sources, much of the world is desperately energy poor, with 1.6 billion people having no access to electricity and 2.4 billion relying on wood and dung for heat and cooking.CLIMATE CHANGE: Big Carbon Players Jockey for Advantage
Political and business leaders may agree in principle that climate change is a serious threat, but there is a startling lack of consensus and a 'you-go-first' attitude on taking action, even amongst a small group of high-level decision makers disconnected from their cell phones here in the Arctic.CLIMATE CHANGE: Science vs Politics at the Edge of the North Pole
Spectacular views of mountains and glaciers here in the world's most northerly permanent human settlement contrasted with business and political leaders' pessimism and concern about the enormous gap between the action on climate that science deems necessary and what politics considers realistic.
Q&A: "I Hope We Are Civilised When Climate Disaster Hits"
"When the first great climate disaster strikes, I hope we will all pull together just as if our nation were being invaded," says British scientist James Lovelock in this exclusive Tierramérica interview.
CLIMATE CHANGE: Twilight of the Fossil Fuel Era?
The world has turned a green corner toward a more sustainable future, with investments in clean energy outpacing fossil fuel power generation for the first time.« Previous Page — Next Page »
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Tracking global progress towards a sustainable world
Tracking global progress towards a sustainable world
