Demand for water has never been as great as it is today, and it will only increase due to population growth and mobility, rising living standards, changes in food consumption, and increased energy production, especially biofuels. Access to basic water-related services (safe drinking water, sanitation and food production) remains inadequate in much of the developing [...]
Coast Guard Floats Rule on Invasive Species
The U.S. Coast Guard has proposed regulation to prevent invasive species from entering U.S. waters. The rule would require ships to treat ballast water, which is pumped into tanks when leaving port and typically dumped at the incoming port, to kill microorganisms and larvae that come along for the [...]
Global population numbers are on track to reach 7 billion in 2011, just 12 years after reaching 6 billion in 1999. Virtually all of the growth is in developing countries. And the growth of the world’s youth population (ages 15 to 24) is shifting into the poorest of those countries.
The Population Reference Bureau’s 2009 World [...]
Some people who are serious about wanting to reduce their “carbon footprint” on the Earth have one choice available to them that may yield a large, long-term benefit: Â have one less child.
A study by statisticians at Oregon State University concluded that in the United States, the carbon legacy and greenhouse gas impact of an [...]
Delivering food security to an additional one billion people in Africa will become ever more challenging over the next four decades unless more intelligent management of natural resources and emerging opportunities are brought to bear.
In addressing this and other similar crises, the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development provided some new and sobering costs on how [...]
Converting Ocean Waves, Tides and Currents to Electricity
“Today in San Francisco, we’re not just talking about ocean power, we are advancing its actual implementation. We have submitted an application to the federal government to develop an underwater wave project off San Francisco’s Ocean Beach that could generate between 30MW and 100MW of power. And we [...]
The potential human costs of climate change have been underestimated, according to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) 2007-2008 Human Development Report. Calling global climate change the defining development challenge of the 21st century, UNDP stresses that it could leave hundreds of millions of the poorest citizens in the poorest countries malnourished and lacking adequate supplies of safe [...]
Globally there will be enough food for a growing world population by the year 2030, but hundreds of millions of people in developing countries will remain hungry and many of the environmental problems caused by agriculture will remain serious, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Population growth is projected to slow down [...]
Globally there will be enough food for a growing world population by the year 2030, but hundreds of millions of people in developing countries will remain hungry and many of the environmental problems caused by agriculture will remain serious, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Population growth is projected to slow down [...]
Weather patterns in the future will be characterized by intensity and extremes, and the effects will be felt in a wide range of sectors from agriculture and water resource management to health and infrastructure, according to South Asian scientists assembled by the Ministry of Environment and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Pakistan. [...]
The rapidly warming global climate is likely to seriously alter crop yields in the tropics and subtropics by 2100, leaving half the world’s population facing serious food shortages, according to new research released this week.
To compound matters, the population of this equatorial belt – from about 35 degrees north latitude to 35 degrees south latitude – [...]
Climate change and rising food prices are some of the factors leading to the rise in global displacement to 11.4 million refugees worldwide-up from 9.9 million last year, according to a recent report of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The International Federation of Red Cross says climate change disasters are currently a bigger cause [...]
