Thanks to Eric Rimmer for sending me the link to this video. To watch it (16 minutes), see http://e360.yale.edu/feature/when_the_water_ends_africas_climate_conflicts/2331/#video For thousands of years, nomadic herdsmen have roamed the harsh, semi-arid lowlands that stretch across 80 percent of Kenya and 60 percent of Ethiopia. Descendants of the oldest tribal societies in the world, they survive thanks [...]
Below is an article on PMC that ran in the November 30, 2010 edition of The Burlington Free Press. ————————- Vermont company’s soap operas promote change By Tim Johnson http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20101130/NEWS02/101129015/Vermont-company-s-soap-operas-promote-change Tihitena is in labor and in extreme pain. She pleads with the attending midwife to take her to the hospital, but her tradition-bound husband, Gashaw, [...]
Here’s an idea to garner some appreciation for the dire straits in which humanity finds mounting from the global biodiversity crisis. More importantly, I hope that ‘appreciation’ would translate into ‘action’ as a result. The idea came, as good ideas often tend to, around a table with some mates1,2 and several bottles of wine. [...]
Thanks to Jenny Goldie for this article. ———————- Lebanon, once considered to have an abundance of water, is threatened with acute shortages as the Arab world lurches toward severe water scarcity as early as 2015. For Lebanon, which has long neglected to take measures to conserve and manage its water resources, the crisis couldn’t come [...]
Turning Waste into a Valued Resource
Portland’s B-Line, a sustainable urban transportation service established in 2009, interrupts food destined for the landfill and delivers it to organizations who feed the needy. The “B-shares” program uses 600-pound capacity(!), electric-assisted cargo trikes to collects food from retailers and farmers’ markets and fills in the “last mile” of tricky [...]
So I was voting for Campus Progress, CAP’s youth arm, which has a chance to win $50,000 to train and support young journalists — by clicking here, which, by the way you can do every day through Tuesday.
And I came across another worthy group in the progressive slate vying for funds in [...]
Japan to help India build 24 green cities
Japan will contribute in terms of credit and technology in an ambitious and ground-breaking infrastructure project which will build 24 green cities in India’s western region. The project is part of the proposed $90 billion Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor mega-infrastructure project which aims at boosting the economic growth along [...]
Thanks to Lester Brown for this book byte. ———————- Improving Food Security by Strategically Reducing Grain Demand By Lester R. Brown Earth Policy Release Plan B 4.0 Book Byte November 9, 2010 After several decades of rapid rise in world grain yields, it is now becoming more difficult to raise land productivity fast enough to [...]
Many thanks to Peter Goodchild for sending an abridged copy of his new book, The Coming Chaos. You can download a copy here: https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B5F-idWfw7TeY2U4ZjE3ZmUtYjU5Ny00ZGQ5LTg4YTQtMGVmZjg5ZjQxZGI4&hl=en&authkey=CMDYyYcF
An international poll commissioned by King’s indicates that before nations can tackle several global challenges they first must understand and bridge the gap between their divergent opinions. The poll, conducted in September by Ipsos MORI, asked a total of 7,055 adults, ages 16 to 64, in eight countries two questions online – to identify ‘the [...]
Thanks to the Center for Biological Diversity for this article. ————————- In a recent survey commissioned by King’s College London, overpopulation came up as the fifth-scariest issue facing the globe. The first-ever “Global Index of Fear,” as some have called it, polled more than 7,000 people in eight nations: Australia, the United States, Britain, Brazil, [...]
To the Americans on this email list, I hope you have a Very Happy Thanksgiving. For all on this list, may you experience the four freedoms: Freedom of Speech Freedom of Worship Freedom from Want Freedom from Fear For your holiday reading, I send you Al Bartlett’s Reflections on Sustainability, Population Growth, and the Environment. [...]
Thanks to Steve Kurtz for this article. ——————— Pope Benedict XVI says that condom use is acceptable “in certain cases”, notably to reduce the risk of HIV infection, in a book due out Tuesday, apparently softening his once hardline stance. In a series of interviews published in his native German, the 83-year-old Benedict is asked [...]
A few months ago I made a general call for submissions to ConservationBytes.com. I’m happy to say that the first person answering that call has come through with the goods. Please welcome Julie Pollock of Environment Canada and her post on environmental testing. Thanks, Julie. – Environment Canada is often called upon to assess damage or the [...]
Another quick and informative introduction to the problems of over-population and agricultural intensification. Like the nice little video introduction to the importance of biodiversity, if you want to teach someone quickly about why we need to think about over-population, show them this quick video about the other, other global crisis – agriculture. Highlights: 40 % [...]
Coach/bus travel on the whole has a bit of a poor reputation: you may envision a miserable journey on a Megabus or National Express (or Greyhound or Trailways) with only the bleak view and only other tightly-packed passengers for company.
While this may be the case in the UK and US, travelling by coach across the [...]
A few years ago when I first wrote about Paul Ehrlich in our book, Tropical Conservation Biology, I quickly became impressed. His track record is, without any exaggeration, truly awe-inspiring. With over 1000 articles published and almost 50 books, the man has been a scientific writing machine for his entire career. He’s also highly influential [...]
Your evergreens may hold on to their color during the winter but they will have no trouble shedding a few pine needles. If your pond is pine tree adjacent you most likely have been dealing with the presence of pine needles in your water.
A few days ago, that printed mouthpiece of Murdoch’s News Corporation in Australia – The Australiani, attacked Paul Ehrlich with a spectacular piece of uninformed gibberish (‘Population bomb still a fizzer 40 years on‘) that we both feel compelled to contest. The Australian, well-known for its ‘War on Science’, refused to give us the opportunity [...]
Apologies for the silence over the last week – it’s been a whirlwind here with Paul Ehrlich visiting The University of Adelaide (amazing for a 78-year old man). In the meantime, Sharon Ede over at Post Growth wrote a great response to the LOLstralian‘s high-school effort to attack Paul a few days ago. Our response [...]
Your gamefish and frogs aren’t the only ones hiding from the cold winter weather. Even your emergent weeds have developed a defense mechanism to survive over the winter. Being perennial plants, they may appear to die when the weather cools down but they are really just...