Africa
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Bicycling to Mecca
"You get an opportunity that traveling by plane or car you don't get. And you learn much more, you discover much more about yourself. It was an existential experience."
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Turning energy savings in London into solar for Africa
What if turning off the lights in your home or office could help people in Africa turn theirs on?
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Our biofuel future: The bitter taste of land grabs and hunger
Stanford professor Roz Naylor lays out how a global ramp-up of ethanol and biodiesel production means land speculation and rising food prices for the world's poor. Can the world stomach such a fuel-ish transition?
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The Climate Post: Is Americans' climate ignorance a tragedy or an opportunity?
Half of Americans polled by researchers at Yale University are woefully ill-informed about climate change, including the 43 percent that believe, "If we stopped punching holes in the ozone layer with rockets, it would reduce global warming." Plus, China dominates an important clean tech export and new climate change impacts would be perfect for a remake of Day After Tomorrow.
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Purdue’s Gebisa Ejeta on the vexing task of feeding a growing population
Over the next several weeks, I'll be attending the University of Washington's food and environment lecture series and harvesting knowledge from a diverse array of food-system luminaries. Plant breeding expert Gebisa Ejeta of Purdue University opened the series -- and a pot of worms -- by talking up a new petrochemical-dependent "Green Revolution" in Africa and talking down the potential of organic farming in feeding the masses.
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Let's move beyond the “population vs. consumption” debate
Can't we please give all women in the world the information and family-planning services they need to prevent unwanted and unintended pregnancies?
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Of course population is still a problem
There are already 6.8 billion of us …Photo courtesy James Cridland via FlickrFred Pearce keeps on saying that population growth is no longer a problem. He said it again yesterday as part of his World Population Day message. In Fred’s view, it’s very simple. Fertility rates have come down sharply over the past half century. […]
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Gates Foundation ignores reality, hypes latest GMO ‘vaporware’ instead
Another day, another misguided announcement from the Bill Gates Foundation. This time, it’s hyping a new GMO press release project from DuPont’s biotechnology arm, Pioneer Hi-Bred (via the Des Moines Register): Pioneer Hi-Bred is joining with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to help scientists in Africa develop genetically engineered corn varieties that would allow […]
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Desmond Tutu (with a little help from the scientific community) explains Africa's position
There’s been so much bad journalism written from Copenhagen that it boggles the mind. The problem has been particularlly acute with respect to the developing world’s refusal to quietly accept the wealthy world’s many and various moves to evade its obligations. In fact, the Africans have good reasons for their uncompromising positioning. To see why, […]