Some 40 years ago, the Club of Rome published a study with what at the time was a relatively provocative title, “The Limits to Growth.” The book appeared at a time of rising environmental consciousness and growing uneasiness with respect to the state of the planet. Throughout the advanced...
The recent issuance of Latin America’s first blue bond could be a major milestone. The region stands to benefit from this nascent financial mechanism aimed at protecting water sources and creating opportunities for populations living near them. Announced during the UN climate summit in...
There is an astonishing statistic in a Pew research study released in 2020 on perceptions of how different countries handled COVID-19. Only 15% of people in a dozen countries around the world thought the United States was doing a good job of addressing the pandemic. That sharply contrasted with...
On November 6, Brianna Fruean and other Pacific Islands representatives marched in Glasgow as all eyes are on the United Kingdom for the COP26 climate change summit happening this month. The chilly streets of Scotland and its winter are so far removed from the reality of the Pacific that we, in...
Senior editor David Knowles has been covering the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, for Yahoo News. He appears to be on a mission to celebrate the commitment of the US to lead the world in the noble goal of solving the climate crisis. His chief weapon is tossing softball questions to...
COP26! That is how many times the UN has assembled world leaders for the Conference of the Parties summit to try to tackle the climate crisis. But at the same time, the United States is producing more oil and natural gas than ever. The amount of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the atmosphere and global...
In a column published by The Guardian concurrently with the Conference of the Parties (COP26) summit in Glasgow, the president of Malawi, Lazarus Chakwera, is left wondering what it means when people who speak with a voice of moral authority stand up to call for urgent action by others. In the...
The international order is in deep trouble, and not only since the onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is not how things were supposed to turn out. The collapse of the “evil empire,” the end of the Cold War and the integration of Central and Eastern Europe into the EU were supposed to...
For the vast majority of our very brief time on Earth, humans have lived in harmony with nature, following its laws and its rhythms, taking little more than we needed and leaving almost no footprint of our existence. Not so the new man, who gives his name to the Anthropocene Epoch we are...
Our agriculture system as we know it needs to change. We see an enormous amount of waste in current practices through using too much water, too many pesticides that hurt the neighboring environment, and the waste of produce through imperfection or being pest-ridden. Addressing Climate...
It was supposed to be the greatest transition of modern times. Practically overnight, a dirty, inefficient and unjust system that encompassed 11 time zones was to undergo an extreme makeover. Billions of dollars were available to speed the process. A new crew of transition experts came up with the...
