Global

Towers Of Vegetables Go Up As Singapore Builds First Vertical Farm

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Peter Murray
Sky Green hopes to see the prices of their vegetables go down as more vertical farms go up.
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Short on arable land? One solution would be to plant…up. Singapore, a small country that imports most of its food, has now begun selling vegetables from its first vertical farm. And even while they’re more expensive the vegetables are already selling faster than they can be grown.

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Ban Ki-moon: World on course to run out of water

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John Parnell
UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon said business as usual will mean demand for freshwater outstripping supply (Source: UN/Mark Garten)
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Speaking on the UN’s International Day of Biological Diversity, Ban said there was a “mutually reinforcing” relationship between biodiversity and water that should be harnessed.

“We live in an increasingly water insecure world where demand often outstrips supply and where water quality often fails to meet minimum standards. Under current trends, future demands for water will not be met,” Ban said.

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Why food riots are likely to become the new normal

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Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed
Riot police guard a supermarket attacked by food rioters in San Fernando, Buenos Aires. Photograph: Juan Mabromata/AFP/Getty Images JUAN MABROMATA/AFP/Getty Images
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Just over two years since Egypt's dictator President Hosni Mubarak resigned , little has changed. Cairo's infamous Tahrir Square has remained a continual site of clashes between demonstrators and security forces, despite a newly elected president.

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No end to poverty without better governance

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Sri Mulyani Indrawati
Noor Jahan, 5, sleeps on chalk drawings she made as her mother begs for alms at a railway station in Mumbai, on Dec. 7, 2012. REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui
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In April the World Bank governors endorsed two historic goals: to end extreme poverty by 2030 and to ensure that prosperity is shared. It will take a lot to end poverty: strong growth, more infrastructure investments, increased agricultural productivity, better business environments, jobs, good education, and quality health care. We have to do more of this in tough places, particularly those that are fragile and conflict-affected.

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We can end poverty, but the methods might surprise you

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John Podesta, Casey Dunning
South Africa has written food, water and health care protections into its constitution. Photograph: Clive Mason/Getty Images
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"Ending extreme poverty in all its forms" is no longer a platitude or a dream for development experts – it's the guiding vision of the United Nations High Level Panel, as well as an achievement that's closer to being realized than ever before, thanks to the millennium development goals.

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Chinese fishing fleet in African waters reports 9% of catch to UN

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John Vidal
The alleged gross misrepresentation of the official Chinese catch suggests that many countries are being systematically cheated, leaving them unable to devise effective management plans to conserve stocks. Photograph: Kim Ho-Cheon/AP
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Just 9% of the millions of tonnes of fish caught by China's giant fishing fleet in African and other international waters is officially reported to the UN, say researchers using a new way to estimate the size and value of catches.

Fisheries experts have long considered that the catches reported by China to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (UNFAO) are low but the scale of the possible deception shocked the authors.

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Warmest Decade on Record Brings Record Temperatures and Weather Extremes

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Janet Larsen
Average Global Temperature, 1880-2012. Source: NASA GISS
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In recent years weather events have whiplashed between the extremes of heat and cold, flooding and drought. Carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases—largely from the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas—have loaded up in the atmosphere, heating the planet and pushing humanity onto a climatic seesaw of weather irregularities. High-temperature records in many places are already being broken with startling frequency, and hotter temperatures are in store.

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The Energy Game is Rigged: Fossil Fuel Subsidies Topped $620 Billion in 2011

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Emily E. Adams
World Fossil Fuel Consumption Subsidies, 2011
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The energy game is rigged in favor of fossil fuels because we omit the environmental and health costs of burning coal, oil, and natural gas from their prices. Subsidies manipulate the game even further. According to conservative estimates from the Global Subsidies Initiative and the International Energy Agency (IEA), governments around the world spent more than $620 billion to subsidize fossil fuel energy in 2011: some $100 billion for production and $523 billion for consumption. This was 20 percent higher than in 2010, largely because of higher world oil prices.

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Where Has All the Ice Gone?

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Emily E. Adams
Where has all the ice gone?
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As the earth warms, glaciers and ice sheets are melting and seas are rising. Over the last century, the global average sea level rose by 17 centimeters (7 inches). This century, as waters warm and ice continues to melt, seas are projected to rise nearly 2 meters (6 feet), inundating coastal cities worldwide, such as New York, London, and Cairo. Melting sea ice, ice sheets, and mountain glaciers are a clear sign of our changing climate.

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