By Brad Wieners 25 November 2014 (Bloomberg Businessweek) – […] As they say, it’s not paranoia if they really are out to delay, rewrite, or kill off a meaningful effort to reduce the build-up of carbon in the Earth’s atmosphere. A Powerpoint (MSFT) deck now being circulated by climate activists—a copy of which was sent […]
17 November 2014 (Washington Post) – São Paulo’s drought: Five major reservoirs that serve water to the São Paulo metropolitan area are critically below their normal operating levels, 17 November 2014. Jaguari is at 10.8 percent of normal operating level, Jacareí is at 10.8 percent, Cachoeira is at 9.2 percent, Atibainha is at 4.4 percent, […]
By CORAL DAVENPORT30 November 2014 WASHINGTON (The New York Times) – After more than two decades trying but failing to forge a global pact to halt climate change, United Nations negotiators gathering in South America this week are expressing a new optimism that they may finally achieve the elusive deal. But underlying that optimism is […]
September 2014 (Harvard Business School) – Figure 11 shows that America faces similar challenges in problem-solving and numeracy skills. What were once American advantages in human capital have turned into disadvantages. Relative performance matters in global competition, where American workers must out-produce and out-innovate the world’s best. Vertical axis = % of U.S. adults in […]
By Ross Koningstein & David Fork 18 November 2014 (IEEE Spectrum) – Google cofounder Larry Page is fond of saying that if you choose a harder problem to tackle, you’ll have less competition. This business philosophy has clearly worked out well for the company and led to some remarkably successful “moon shot” projects: a translation […]
By James Urton, special to mongabay.com 24 November 2014 (mongabay.com) – Images from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster endure, from the collapsing platform to oil-fouled coastline. But beneath the surface is a story photographers cannot as easily capture. Two days after the April 20, 2010 explosion that killed 11 and injured 16, the Deepwater Horizon […]
By Natalia Ramos26 November 2014 (AFP News) – He cast his rod happily here for 30 years — but where a river once teemed with fish, Brazilian fisherman Ernane da Silva these days stares out over a valley of weeds and bone dry, sun-parched land. The southeastern state of São Paulo is suffering its worst […]
By Marty Schladen17 November 2014 KILMORE, VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA (El Paso Times) – The “ranges” north of Melbourne can be deceptive in springtime, which starts in September here in the Southern Hemisphere. The hills, which curve gently like the bullnose verandas on older Australian homes, are a lush green. So are the gum trees from which […]
By Matthew Heberger, Senior Research Associate18 November 2014 (Pacific Institute) – New monthly water use data for California water utilities shows that residential water use varies widely around the state, and that the response to the drought has been uneven. Moreover, in some areas, residential use averages more than 500 gallons per person per day, […]
By Jeremy Hance24 November 2014 (mongabay.com) – South Africa has surpassed last year’s grisly record for slaughtered rhinos—1,004—more than a month before the year ends. In an announcement on November 20th, the South African Department of Environmental Affairs said that 1,020 rhinos had been killed to date. Rhinos are butchered for their horns, which are […]