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.

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.

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.

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.