World Issues

UN Establishes a Committee on Global Geospatial Information

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Matt Ball
UN Establishes a Committee on Global Geospatial Information
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The United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) voted to establish a committee on global geospatial information management in order to enhance international dialogue and cooperation on spatial data infrastructures. The UN recognizes the benefits of geospatial information for application to humanitarian, peace and security, environmental and development challenges as well as to responses to climate change, natural disasters, pandemics, famines, population displacement, and food and economic crises.

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Stockpiling seeds today saves plants for the future: A quarter of the world's plant species may be headed toward extinction. Seed banks aim to prevent that.

Stockpiling seeds today saves plants for the future
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According to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, a quarter of the world’s known plant species – some 60,000 to 100,000 species – are threatened with extinction.

And even though plants may not receive as much attention as endangered animals, like polar bears or tigers, they’re extremely important. Plants are a vital source of food, they can help stabilize the climate, and they also provide shelter, medicines, and fuel.

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Pathways to Sustainabaility WBCSD

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Vision 2050:  The new agenda for business

Under the WBCSD's Vsion 2050 Project, twenty-nice WBCDSD member companies developed a vision of a world well on the way to sustainablility by 2050 and the pathways leading to that world.

This mural is a basis for visualizing the possible pathways.  The mural is meant to provide a tool for strategic planning, prioritizing, and monitoring progeress to help countires, businesses, NGOs , international organization and individuals assess the degree to which we are on track to accomplishing the vision.

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The Global Food Crisis, Mapped

Author: 

JUSTIN GILLIS
The Global Food Crisis, Mapped
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Oxfam, the antihunger group, has been running a campaign to call attention to the global food crisis, its consequences and its potential solutions. The Times outlined the challenge of future food security on a warming planet in this article several weeks ago, and this week my colleague Jeffrey Gettleman described the appalling famine unfolding in Somalia.

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Europe’s financial contagion

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Greece sneezed, and now most of Europe has a cold. The European debt crisis has already spread like a virus from Greece to Ireland and Portugal, and other countries are now at risk: Spain, and Italy are probable candidates for financial problems.

Contagion also has much to do with actual economic links among countries. Researchers have identified financial ties in particular as responsible for the “fast and furious” spread of crisis from one country to another. Trading activity between countries, however, can propagate economic sickness more slowly.

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Delayed action on climate to result in irreversible change and high costs

Delayed action on climate to result in irreversible change and high costs
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The physics of Earth’s natural systems show that a delay—of even a decade—in reducing CO2 emissions will lock in large-scale, irreversible changes. If carbon dioxide emissions do not begin to trend down this decade, it will be nearly impossible to stabilize the climate at any acceptable level.

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Weather disasters seen costly sign of things to come

Author: 

Molly O'Toole
Weather disasters seen costly sign of things to come
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States is on a pace in 2011 to set a record for the cost of weather-related disasters and the trend is expected to worsen as climate change continues, officials and scientists said on Thursday.

"The economic impact of severe weather events is only projected to grow," Senator Dick Durbin said at a hearing of the Senate Subcommittee on Financial Services and Government, which he chairs. "We are not prepared. Our weather events are getting worse, catastrophic in fact."

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Wally's World -- Thirty-five years ago this week, Wallace Broecker predicted decades of dangerous climate change caused by humans. Unfortunately, he was all too prescient.

Author: 

BRAD JOHNSON
Wally's World
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On Aug. 8, 1975, geoscientist Wallace Smith Broecker published "Are We on the Brink of a Pronounced Global Warming?" in the journal Science, the first time the iconic phrase "global warming" was used in a scientific paper.

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2010 Global Recap: A Year of Continued Growth

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Renewable Energy World Editors
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PARIS -- Renewable energy continued its global surge in 2010, accounting for about half of the 194 gigawatts of new installed capacity, according to the REN21 Renewables 2011 Global Status Report.

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