Last year, as United Nations scientists were warning of the perils of man-made climate change, this small country of fjords and factories reacted with an extraordinary pledge: by 2050 Norway would be "carbon neutral,' generating no net greenhouse gases into the air. Times Topics: Global WarmingNorway's bold promise raised the …
* Seventy percent of the world's surface is covered by water but 97.5 percent of that is salt water. Of the remaining 2.5 percent that is freshwater, 68.7 percent is frozen in ice caps and glaciers. Less than one percent is available for human use. * More than 1.2 billion …
Late last month the Svalbard Global Seed Vault opened in Longyearbyen, on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen. The facility is nothing less than a Noah's ark of plants for the 21st century, aiming to preserve the world's crop biodiversity while we still have a fighting chance.
A controversial nuclear club is taking shape. The UK has signed up to the Bush administration's Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) just a few months after it was rubbished as unworkable by the US National Academy of Sciences. The UK joins several other recent recruits, including Canada, Senegal and South …
Carbon neutrality has never been more highly prized. Half of New Zealand's greenhouse gas emissions come from the guts of sheep and cows; Norway spews ever more gases from its North Sea oil platforms; Iceland has soaring emissions thanks to its aluminium smelters. But all have promised to cut their …
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault opened today on a remote island in the Arctic Circle, receiving inaugural shipments of 100 million seeds that originated in over 100 countries. With the deposits ranging from unique varieties of major African and Asian food staples such as maize, rice, wheat, cowpea, and sorghum …
Halfway between the northern coast of Norway and the North Pole in an archipelago called Svalbard, three enormous caverns have been blasted 130 m into the permafrost. Called the doomsday vault, it will be a Noah's Ark of food in the event of a global catastrophe. Among the world's 45,000 …
The Arctic reflects what ails a world gripped by global warming. As the ice melts and nations vie for rich mineral resources once hidden under the snow, the writing on the wall is often ignored, says Fatima Chowdhury Thousands of miles away in the Arctic region, fate stands delicately balanced …
