Environment

Bhopal Cloud Hovers Over Industrial Safety in India

By Neeta Lal
Three decades after 40 tons of deadly methyl isocyanate gas leaked from the Union Carbide India Limited plant in the central Indian city of Bhopal on Dec. 3, 1984 – killing an estimated 4,000 almost instantly and maiming and blinding hundreds of thousands of others – the world's worst industrial disaster remains a sharp lesson on the need for greater safety regulations in Asia’s third-largest economy.

OPINION: Global Citizenship, A Result of Emerging Global Consciousness

By Arsenio Rodriguez
Globalisation is an integral feature of modernity. It already has significantly advanced to transform local experiences into global ones, to unify the disparate villages of the world into a global community, and to integrate national economies into an international economy.

OPINION: No Nation Wants to Be Labeled “Least Developed”

By Ahmed Sareer
Since 1971, Maldives is one of only three countries that have graduated from the ranks of the world’s “least developed countries” (LDCs) – the other two being Botswana and Cape Verde.

U.N. Chief Leads the Way on the ‘Road to Dignity’

By Kanya D'Almeida
Addressing the 193 member states of the General Assembly on Thursday, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for sweeping changes that would set the world on the path of sustainable development.

Integrated Farming: The Only Way to Survive a Rising Sea

By Manipadma Jena
When the gentle clucking grows louder, 50-year-old Sukomal Mandal calls out to his wife, who is busy grinding ingredients for a fish curry. She gets up to thrust leafy green stalks through the netting of a coop and two-dozen shiny hens rush forward for lunch.

Family Farming Eases Food Shortages in Eastern Cuba

By Patricia Grogg
Meat and vegetables are never missing from the dinner table of Damaris González and Omar Navarro, since they get almost all of their food from their farm, La Revelación, on the outskirts of the city of Santiago de Cuba, 765 km east of the Cuban capital.

Organic Farming in India Points the Way to Sustainable Agriculture

By Jency Samuel
Standing amidst his lush green paddy fields in Nagapatnam, a coastal district in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, a farmer named Ramajayam remembers how a single wave changed his entire life.

Children Starving to Death in Pakistan’s Drought-Struck Tharparkar District

By Irfan Ahmed
The main entrance to the Civil Hospital in Mithi, headquarters of the Tharparkar district in Pakistan’s southern Sindh Province, is blocked by a couple of men clad in traditional dress and turbans. They are trying to console a woman who is sobbing so heavily she has to gasp for breath.

Oil Price Plunge Could Take a Bite from Arms Budgets

By Thalif Deen
In a satirical piece titled 'An Unserious Look at the Year Ahead' in the Wall Street Journal last week, Hugo Rifkind predicts the price of a barrel of oil will fall so low that people across the world would start buying oil for the barrel - and throw the oil out.

Sri Lanka Still in Search of a Comprehensive Disaster Management Plan

By Amantha Perera
About six months after a massive tsunami slammed the island nation of Sri Lanka on Dec. 26, 2004, large plumes of smoke could be frequently seen snaking skywards from the beach near the village of Sainathimaruthu, just east of Kalmunai town, about 300 km from the capital, Colombo.

OPINION: Understanding Education for Global Citizenship

By Kartikeya V. Sarabhai
Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) brings together concerns about the environment, economic development and social aspects. Since 1972, when the first U.N. Conference on the Human Environment was held in Stockholm, Sweden, there has been increasing awareness of the intricate link between conserving the environment and human development.

Climate Change Threatens Quechua and Their Crops in Peru’s Andes

By Fabíola Ortiz
In this town in Peru’s highlands over 3,000 metres above sea level, in the mountains surrounding the Sacred Valley of the Incas, the Quechua Indians who have lived here since time immemorial are worried about threats to their potato crops from alterations in rainfall patterns and temperatures.

Small Grants for Big Solutions in Northeast Argentina

By Fabiana Frayssinet
Summers in northeast Argentina are hot and humid. At siesta time, the people of this rural municipality like to drink “tereré” (cold yerba mate), which until now they had problems preparing because of lack of clean water or electricity. But sometimes small donations can make a big dent in inequality.

Poverty and Fear Still Rankle, Ten Years After the Tsunami

By Amantha Perera
It took just 30 minutes for the killer waves to leave 350,000 dead and half a million displaced. Less than one hour for 100,000 houses to be destroyed and 200,000 people to be stripped of their livelihoods.

Falling Oil Prices Threaten Fragile African Economies

By Thalif Deen
The sharp decline in world petroleum prices - hailed as a bonanza to millions of motorists in the United States - is threatening to undermine the fragile economies of several African countries dependent on oil for their sustained growth.

‘Cyclone College’ Raises Hopes, Dreams of India’s Vulnerable Fisherfolk

By Stella Paul
Ten years have now passed, but Raghu Raja, a 27-year-old fisherman from the coastal village of Nemmeli in southern India’s Kanchipuram district, still clearly remembers the day he escaped the tsunami.

What the U.S. Should Learn from Russia’s Collapse

By Miriam Pemberton
After months of whispered warnings, Russia’s economic troubles made global headlines when its currency collapsed halfway through December. Amid the tumbling price of oil, the ruble has fallen to record lows, bringing the country to its most serious economic crisis since the late 1990s.

GDP and the Unaccounted for 82 Percent of National Wealth

By Anantha Duraiappah
Virtually all countries use Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as their primary measurement of economic progress and overall societal progress. At the same time, countries express allegiance to the doctrine of sustainable development. This exposes an obvious disconnect.

The Soil, Silent Ally Against Hunger in Latin America

By Marianela Jarroud
Latin America and the Caribbean should use sustainable production techniques to ensure healthy soil, the basic element in agriculture, food production and the fight against hunger.

Changes to World Bank Safeguards Risk “Race to the Bottom”, U.N. Experts Warn

By Carey L. Biron
An unprecedented number of United Nations special rapporteurs and independent experts are raising pointed concerns over the World Bank’s ongoing review of its pioneering environmental and social safeguards, particularly around the role that human rights will play in these revamped policies.

REDD and the Green Economy Continue to Undermine Rights

By Jeff Conant
Dercy Teles de Carvalho Cunha is a rubber-tapper and union organiser from the state of Acre in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon, with a lifelong love of the forest from which she earns her livelihood – and she is deeply confounded by what her government and policymakers around the world call “the green economy.”
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