Sustainable development

Scary report from United Nations and World Bank

To the New York Times : “Annual monetary losses for natural disasters are expected to rise to $185 billion worldwide by the end of the century, even without factoring in the anticipated negative impacts of climate change.” ” With climate change included, the global annual losses could increase by anywhere from $28 billion to $68 […]

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EU biofuels plans to increase climate change

I previously noted that biofuels are more a problem than a solution. It seems I was right as to the Institute for European Environmental Policy, the European Union biofuel expansion plans are worse than burning fossil fuels. As TreeHugger notes: “ Over the next decade the extra biofuels used in the EU will be on

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UNEP’s 30 ways in 30 days

From today, a month out from the start of the UN Climate Convention meeting in Cancun, Mexico, UNEP will release online case studies to show that solutions to climate change are available and can be copied and scaled up around the world. UNEP’s aim is to show that across the world, in myriad ways, from

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Worth an article – my October 2010 tweets

I have been committed since January 2007 to bring you each month a selection of the latest headlines and best researches on sustainable development, climate change and the world energy sector. However, I don’t blog as much as I would like to and generally write around 25 posts per month. But many more news are worth

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Could aquaculture be a sustainable solution ?

As the New York Times notes aquaculture might be a good solution to avoid the depletion of fish stocks and thus be a sustainable way to feed the billion of people that will be born this century. However fish farming poses several problems such as diseases, water pollution, heavy antibiotics use and also may harm

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India will invest 2.3 trillion in low carbon tech

A while ago TreeHugger wrote a compelling article on how India is committed to low carbon growth and energy sources. The local environment Minister, Mr. Jairam Ramesh stated in an interview given to Reuters : “We will unilaterally, voluntarily, move on a low-carbon growth path. We can’t have 8-9% GDP growth and high-carbon growth. It

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Another awesome reflection on sustainability

Triple Pundit published a great reflection on why we – as a global society – need to become more sustainable. Particularly targeted at average people who haven’t environmental issues in mind, it does an awesome job. Enunciating compelling arguments on population, education, natural capital, energy dependence and economy, I believe this is the kind of

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For many, the sky isn’t dark anymore

I already wrote a few articles on dark skies and light pollution. It seems the phenomenon is even worse as one can see with the image on left (courtesy of Stellarium, a great astronomy freeware) This also has an important impact on greenhouse gases emissions. In Australia alone, public lightning is responsible for 1.15 million

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The tremendous cost of vanishing forests

I know it since I read Collapse, Jared Diamond’s fantastic book about how various societies disappeared : trees matter ! Between soil erosion prevention and climate change mitigation, there are many reasons for keeping forests alive. Now comes a British study noting that the annual cost of deforestation is five trillion dollar. This research is

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A single solution for three problems

Yesterday took place around the world 7,700 gatherings in over 180 countries to urge governments to embrace 350 : lowering the amount of carbon dioxide to 350 ppm (today’s levels are at 388). I already stated that we are facing a triple crisis with massive unemployment, climate change and decreasing energy supplies (peak oil and

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