The high-level conference at Rome was called to find a way out of the global food crisis. A series of consultations with experts preceded this important event that went to show that the UN had all good intentions. The good intentions unfortunately did not translate into good policy decisions that could slow, stop and reverse the food shortage. <font class="UCASE"><b>savvy soumya misra</b></font> reports from Rome on an opportunity squandered <br>
The current food crisis is nature's way of cocking a snook at man's pompousness. With all the tall claims of progress in science, we are yet to find a permanent solution for the most basic of needs i.e., food. Food riots have been reported from a number of countries including Bangladesh, Egypt, Haiti and the Philippines. Elsewhere the prices of edible commodities are hitting the roof.
India and China are in talks to monitor the melting of glaciers in the Himalayas, a border region crucial to both countries' water supplies, Minister for Environment Jairam Ramesh has said. "We are talking to the Chinese about monitoring the Himalayan glaciers," Ramesh told the Financial Times.
The report "The impact of good practice policies on regional and global greenhouse gas emissions" by NewClimate Institute, PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency and the International Institute
The report by the governmental Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) identifies modern agricultural practices, pollution of rivers and lakes, mechanised peat extraction, urban development and road
Hokkaido Gov Harumi Takahashi issued an environmental appeal Monday ahead of July's Group of Eight summit at the Lake Toya hot spa resort, calling on each of Hokkaido's 5.6 million residents to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from homes by 10%, or 1.1 kilograms a day, from current levels. The targeted figure is bigger than the 1-kg-a-day proposal by the Environment Ministry.
Bolivian President Evo Morales on Monday criticized "some South American presidents" for supporting the use of biofuels, which he said are responsible for high food prices and global hunger. Visiting the United Nations while fighting autonomy referendums called by the opposition at home, the Bolivian president said the increased use of farmland for fuel crops was causing a "tremendous increase" in the price of food -- especially of wheat, which has made bread more expensive.
Rajiv Tikoo New Delhi: Whether it's steelmaker ArcelorMittal, biscuit major Parle Products or global bank HSBC, big businesses across sectors are increasingly partnering with millions of schoolchildren on green corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives and strengthening their brands. The world's largest steelmaker, ArcelorMittal, is supporting probably the biggest campaign worldwide
Former Beatle Paul McCartney is urging the world to go vegetarian in a bid to fight global warming and is surprised more green groups don't promote it. In an interview with the animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), McCartney said the global meat industry was a major contributor to global warming. A transcript of the PETA interview was given to Reuters.
The Chandigarh administration has prohibited throwing of any kind of waste material, including puja material, into sukhna lake in Chandigarh to protect its flora and fauna. An official spokeman
<p> The Himalayan state of Sikkim (7096 sqkm) has large concentration of snowfields and glaciers. Mapping and monitoring of seasonal snow cover and glaciers using field methods are very difficult
Proposed amendments to phase down hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) under the Montreal Protocol received support from a diverse group of developing and developed countries during the Thirty-first meeting of the
All large dams and natural lakes in the boreal and tropical regions studied in an investigation by the World Commission on Dams (WCD) gave off greenhouse gases, some even more than the thermal energy
free style: The Chinook salmon swam from the Pacific Ocean to the South Atlantic Ocean where they don't naturally occur, says a study. The study projected that the silvery predators with a "healthy
The collapse of Australia's rice production is one of several factors contributing to a doubling of rice prices in the last three months - increases that have led the world's largest exporters to restrict exports severely, spurred panicked hoarding in Hong Kong and the Philippines, and set off protests in countries including Cameroon, Egypt, Ethiopia, Haiti, Indonesia, Italy, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, the Philippines, Thailand, Uzbekistan and Yemen, the New York Times reported yesterday.
The government is going to float a budgetary fund from the next fiscal year for mitigating the effects of natural calamities, the finance and planning adviser, AB Mirza Azizul Islam, informed a pre-budget consultation meeting on Wednesday. The disclosure of such a contingency fund was made following a call from the Bangladesh Economic Association for launching the fund, amounting to Tk 1,000 crore, with local resources. The Ministry of Finance is already working on how to float the fund, and its size in the initial year [2008-09] may be small, said the secretary to the ministry.
NASA has selected a science team for the Space Interferometry Mission (SIM), an innovative space system that will hunt for Earth sized planets around other stars and provide new insights into the
Kullon village in Sweden shows how to use it as a fertiliser source
a large part of northern India, including capital Delhi, went powerless due to tripping of transmission lines of the Northern Grid. It first happened on March 8 and then on March 10, resulting in
Donald Rumsfeld, the former US Secretary of Defense, liked to distinguish between "known unknowns" and "unknown unknowns", and for this he was widely ridiculed. But Rumsfeld had a point. We all know, for instance, that global warming is harming cold-adapted species on mountain tops, even if we can't predict the ultimate magnitude of the damage. Yet the really alarming changes are those that come completely out of the blue - the unknown unknowns that we never even imagined.
