Wednesday-Night

No one should miss Alex Shoumatoff’s piece on the Arctic Oil Rush
In addition to a wealth of information about the Russian expedition and the attitudes of interested nations towards UNCLOS and other treaties (”(Basically, the U.S. doesn’t ratify anything that cramps its style. It has still not ratified the Kyoto Protocol, which Russia has, […]

Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet

Sachs appeal
April 16
Charlie Rose: A conversation with Jeffrey Sachs
Mar 27th 2008
The Economist print edition
IF GILBERT AND SULLIVAN were looking for the very model of a modern intellectual, they would surely pick Jeffrey Sachs. He is so “right on” that when Time magazine featured him in its global […]

World Bank IMF
IMF’s Global economic prospects for 2009 (.pdf)
April 11
Climate Change Rises On World Bank Agenda
(Reuters Planet Ark) WASHINGTON - Climate change is now one of the World Bank’s top concerns because of its expected impact on health and economic growth in developing countries, the bank’s lead environmental economist said.
Latin […]

This Wednesday, it is a somewhat random-access agenda. Despite (or perhaps because of) our careful monitoring of topics of interest, we find that many are in the category of “been there, done that” too recently and there is little obvious progress in the files. However, there are others that have been somewhat neglected in […]

Rising temperatures will damage even strong economies and pose a global threat to security, top officials say.
Extreme climate conditions provoked by global warming could lead to “unprecedented” international security threats, with “serious security risks” even if climate change is contained within the European Union’s target of a temperature rise of 2°C above pre-industrial levels, […]

 
 How the blurring of the seasons is a harbinger of climate calamity

By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor
Thursday, 20 March 2008
(The Independent) Spring, which officially starts today, is starting to dissolve as a distinct season as climate change takes hold.
According to documented observations throughout 2007 and 2008, events in the natural world that […]

Flooding in eastern Bolivia.Credit:Franz Chávez/IPS
(IPS) SANTIAGO, Mar 13 (Tierramérica) - It is still difficult to predict the local impacts of the cyclic climate phenomenon known as La Niña, which has been responsible for catastrophic floods in Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru and Argentina, and — on the other extreme — severe drought in Chile.
The death toll […]

Fibs, Frauds and Whoppers

How the debate over global warming ever became an angry partisan affair, I will never know. Somehow it has become a hard right talking point that global warming is […]

March 07, 2008
Bad as it is today, the future looks worse in environmental study
Charles Mandel, Canwest News Service
In a major forthcoming report on Canada’s changing climate, scientists warn of everything from increased severe storm activity in Atlantic Canada to hotter summers and poorer air quality in urban Ontario.
British Columbia may face retreating glaciers and […]

How will economic and social developments drive environmental change to 2030? What policies are needed to address the main environmental challenges? How can OECD and non-OECD countries best work together to tackle these challenges?
The OECD Environmental Outlook to 2030 provides analyses of economic and environmental trends to 2030, and simulations of policy actions […]