EcocentricUncategorized
Among the various natural disasters and man-made catastrophes that unfolded during 2010, it’s nice to take a moment to consider the happier crumbs of environmental news that came out of the year. The UN’s International Year of Biodiversity yielded the discovery and naming of hundreds of new species, many of which can be credited to the …
EcocentricWater
Experts cited by CNN say Yemen could be the first nation to completely run out of water in a few years, a prospect that does not bode well for its young population of 24 million that is expected to double in 20 years, or anyone worried about the rising influence (and ability to get bombs on planes) of an al Qaeda branch in one of the …
EcocentricUncategorized
The Hong Kong Journalists Association is on the defensive this week after several reporters from the SAR were assaulted in a Beijing suburb on Friday, the same day the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded in Oslo to jailed human rights activist Liu Xiaobao. The Hong Kong reporters were waiting outside the housing complex of another detained …
EcocentricHealth
A new survey released yesterday by Hong Kong’s Civic Exchange found that one in four residents are considering leaving Hong Kong because of the city’s chronic air pollution problems. Over half the people surveyed with post-graduate educations are considering leaving — up 12% from 2008 — along with 37% of university graduates. …
EcocentricRegulation
If you’re a bit of a slob like me, you are wearing jeans to work today, and if, like me, you’re a bit of a slob who doesn’t manage hedge funds, your jeans are fairly run of the mill. My H&M specials today were made in Pakistan. But most of my other jeans are made across Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbor in southern China, and may very …
EcocentricUncategorized
The mesmerizing events of 33 miners’ survival and epic rescue from the San José mine outside Copiapó, Chile, was an incredible thing to behold. And my first reaction to the tremendous attention that the saga commanded was that it could help raise the profile of the workers across the world who put their lives at risk in mines …
EcocentricUncategorized
Remember the Pakistan floods? The floods that killed nearly 2000 people this summer, left over seven million people —roughly the population of the greater San Francisco area—homeless, and destroyed nearly five million acres of agricultural land? The story has inevitably receded from the international spotlight, as natural disaster …
EcocentricWildlife
The beleaguered bluefin was dealt another blow this week when the European Union, under pressure from France, Spain, Italy and Malta, all of which have a stake in the lucrative tuna fishery, backed down from lobbying for slashing quotas of the eastern Atlantic bluefin tuna at talks this week in Paris.
The EU fisheries commissioner …
EcocentricHealth
Family planning, an important but often overlooked idea in the expanding arsenal of policy needed to address global warming, is the subject of a new report released by the Worldwatch Institute this week. It’s not a new concept — the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change considers population growth to be one of …
EcocentricWater
Anybody who has been visiting coral reefs for the past 20 years or so will tell you that the scene underwater pales – quite literally – in comparison to what it used to be.
New research published in PLoS ONE yesterday shows that coral bleaching in the Atlantic and the Caribbean in 2005 was the worst bleaching event ever …
