Environment

OP-ED: Weird, and Getting Weirder

By Stephen Leahy
Weird is the only way to describe January temperatures whipsawing between record warm and arctic cold over a span of a few days. Experts say that is what climate change looks like: weird, record-shattering weather.

Tribal Farmers Fall Back on Ancient Wisdom

By Manipadma Jena
While tens of thousands of Indian farmers succumb to the pressures of debt, hunger and poverty by taking their own lives, members of the Bhumia tribe are simply falling back on a 3,000-year-old agricultural system to ensure a steady supply of healthy food.

Buenos Aires Mayor Slammed for Slow Pace on “Zero Waste” Targets

By Sebastián Lacunza
The garbage strewn across many streets and sidewalks in the Argentine capital reflects the inefficiency of a waste collection and treatment system that, paradoxically, has become increasingly costly for the city’s residents, say civil society groups and opposition parties.
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Better than Organic

By Gunter Pauli
When my children were born it was a clear commitment: all clothing would have to carry the “organic” seal. It was an expression of a lifestyle, a commitment to the Earth.

Turning on Taps a Risky Business in Zimbabwe

By Stanley Kwenda
For three weeks Tavonga Kwidini and his wife Maria had no tap water in their home in Glen View, one of the many dry suburbs in Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare.

Dubious Awards Presented at Davos

By Ray Smith
Only a stone's throw from the Davos World Economic Forum meeting, a group of non-governmental organisations presented the annual Public Eye Awards this week to Goldman Sachs and Royal Dutch Shell.

Controversy Brews Over Climate Change Adaptation Project

By Helda Martínez
An ambitious programme of infrastructure works to overcome the risks of climate change in Cartagena de Indias, a city on the Caribbean coast in northern Colombia, has generated controversy, with authorities predicting benefits while parts of the affected population voice criticisms.

Expanding Coal Exports Test Obama’s Inaugural Climate Pledges

By Carey L. Biron
Following surprisingly forceful statements on the threat of global climate change by President Barack Obama during his second inaugural address on Monday, campaigners here are expressing cautious optimism that a second Obama administration will be able to see through some of the substantive actions on carbon reduction that largely eluded the president’s first term.

Dominica Sees Geothermal as Key to Carbon-Negative Economy

By Peter Richards
What a difference a trip makes. Before visiting the French island of Guadeloupe, Alfred Rolle had vocally expressed fears about the possible health effects of a decision to drill geothermal wells in the village of Laduat on the outskirts of Dominica's capital.
Uruguayan diplomat Fernando Lugris chairing the Minamata Convention on Mercury negotiations. Credit: Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de Uruguay

Q&A: New Binding Treaty on Mercury Emissions is “Ambitious”

By Gustavo Capdevila
The international community has adopted a binding treaty for reducing emissions of mercury, a poisonous heavy metal that harms human health and the ecosystems on which life depends.

Are the Masdarians the new Jetsons?

By Zofeen Ebrahim
Back in 2006, when the government of Abu Dhabi — a Middle Eastern emirate that controls eight percent of the world's oil reserves — announced that it would build "the world's first zero-carbon city," skeptics took it with a pinch of salt. Few believed it would be possible.

‘Green’ Approaches to Water Gaining Ground Around World

By Stephen Leahy
After Hurricane Sandy swept through the northeast of the United States late October 2012, millions of New Yorkers were left for days without electricity.  But they still had access to drinking water, thanks to New York City's reliance on protected watershed areas for potable water.

Vote, Violence and Weather Top 2012 U.S. TV News

By Jim Lobe
The presidential election topped news coverage in 2012 from the three major U.S. television networks, closely followed by violence in the United States and Middle East, and extreme weather events in the United States, according to the latest annual review by the authoritative Tyndall Report.

Investments Go Green in Peru

By Milagros Salazar
Peru’s economic growth is largely dependent on its wealth of natural resources, which provide over 50 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) and 80 percent of exports. In view of this fact, the government is developing a project for the valuation and protection of this natural bounty.

Peering into the Energy Crystal Ball

By A. D. McKenzie
Trying to predict the future of the energy sector is like trying to predict the weather in London in an era of global warming. But delegates had a go at it during the three-day World Future Energy Summit that ended in Abu Dhabi on Jan. 17.

Rural Water Projects Depend on Women

By Amantha Perera
During the dry season, when dirt roads are cracked from the relentless heat, the sight of women walking miles, balancing pots of water on their heads, is common in rural Sri Lanka.

OP-ED: Organic Farming Movement Marginal but Growing Worldwide

By Laura Reynolds
Despite the growing worldwide demand for organic food, clothing and other products, the area of land certified as organic still makes up just 0.9 percent of global agricultural land, with 37 million hectares being farmed organically.

Solar-Powered Water Pumps Struggle to See the Light

By Manipadma Jena
When twenty-nine-year-old Kartik Wahi graduated from the Kellogg School of Management in Chicago, Illinois in 2010, he wasted no time in returning to India to self-finance a start-up company to market solar-powered irrigation pumps.

Digging for Water, But Striking Oil

By Thalif Deen
The volatile politics of the Middle East have long been dominated by the fluctuating fortunes of a single commodity: oil.

National Legislation Key to Combating Climate Change

By Stephen Leahy
A majority of major economies have made significant progress in addressing climate change, with countries like South Korea and China taking aggressive action so they can benefit from energy- and resource-efficient economies, a new report released Monday found.

Mideast Energy Crisis Looks For Light at the End of the Tunnel

By Thalif Deen
When Jordan's Queen Rania Al Abdullah took the podium to address world political and business leaders at a back-to-back energy and water summit here, she said she was representing a country that relies on imports for over 90 percent of its energy needs.
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