New Research Says Plant-based Diet Best for Planet and People
By Carol Smith, OurWorld
As cities grow and incomes rise around the world, more and more people are leaving gardens and traditional diets behind and eating refined sugars, refined fats, oils and resource- and land-intense agricultural products like beef.
Recommended Reading for the UN International Year of Soils 2015
By Carol Smith, OurWorld
If you never thought 'dirt' could be interesting or ultra important, UNU's Robert Blasiak recommends a fascinating book demonstrating how soil management has impacted the rise and fall of civilizations.
Local Communities Playing Vital Role in Marine Conservation
By Carol Smith, OurWorld
...it’s good news that a first of its kind assessment of community-led marine conservation in the Western Indian Ocean adds to growing evidence that marine conservation works best when local communities are responsible for fisheries management.
Energy Investing: The Indigenous Rights Bubble
By Carol Smith, OurWorld 2.0
In case you haven’t been able to keep up with all the details and implications of ever-spiralling global energy use, the financial risks are increasingly varied.
Fukushima Nuclear Situation Still ‘Very Complex’ Despite Progress
By Carol Smith, OurWorld 2.0
The UN’s nuclear watchdog on Wednesday delivered a preliminary report on their review of Japan’s efforts to plan and implement the decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station that suffered a meltdown during the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami of 2011.
Climate change’s ‘evil twin’: Ocean acidification
By Carol Smith, OurWorld 2.0
A three-year assessment from a team of international scientists will detail how the phenomenon dubbed “climate change’s evil twin” is shaping up to be a global problem. The rapid acidification of the Arctic Ocean will have widespread impacts to be felt for “tens of thousands of years” even if we stop emissions now, say the scientists.
The considerable benefits of decarbonizing urban transport
By Carol Smith, OurWorld 2.0
Cities worldwide are increasingly becoming agents in the fight to mitigate climate change, while simultaneously aiming for other goals, such as improved accessibility and clean air. Indeed, one team of researchers assert that the kind of multi-criteria assessment of social costs and benefits that they employed in their recent study is a useful complement to cost–benefit analysis of climate change mitigation measures.
Transition Town Fujino goes for local energy independence
By Carol Smith, OurWorld 2.0
Working to build resilience in the face of climate change and peak oil, the Transition approach can be particularly instructive in demonstrating how to accomplish this shift using bottom-up rather than top-down methods (the top-down approach has been characteristic of most Japanese eco-towns).