(World Bank) – The Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) project reports aggregate and individual governance indicators for 215 economies over the period 1996–2013, for six dimensions of governance: Voice and Accountability Political Stability and Absence of Violence Government Effectiveness Regulatory Quality Rule of Law Control of Corruption These aggregate indicators combine the views of a large […]
9 December 2014 (OECD) – The gap between rich and poor is at its highest level in most OECD countries in 30 years. Today, the richest 10% of the population in the OECD area earn 9.5 times more than the poorest 10%. By contrast, in the 1980s the ratio stood at 7:1. The average incomes […]
By Jonathan Amos18 December 2014 (BBC News) – NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO-2) has returned its first global maps of the greenhouse gas CO2. The satellite was sent up in July to help pinpoint the key locations on the Earth’s surface where carbon dioxide is being emitted and absorbed. This should help scientists better understand […]
(UNDP) – Over the past few decades the world has suffered deeper and more frequent financial crises that have spread rapidly to other economic sectors, creating uncertainty, affecting livelihoods and threatening social stability. In the most recent crisis global unemployment increased by nearly 30 million between 2007 and 2009, while current unemployment estimates remain far […]
By Oliver Milman10 December 2014 (The Guardian) – More than five trillion pieces of plastic, collectively weighing nearly 269,000 tonnes, are floating in the world’s oceans, causing damage throughout the food chain, new research has found. Data collected by scientists from the US, France, Chile, Australia and New Zealand suggests a minimum of 5.25tn plastic […]
[Greenspan and Deardorff also research how obesity affects the onset of puberty, e.g., “Onset of Breast Development in a Longitudinal Cohort”, 2013. –Des] 2 December 2014 (NPR) – Many girls are beginning puberty at an early age, developing breasts sooner than girls of previous generations. But the physical changes don’t mean the modern girls’ emotional […]
(FAO) – The latest estimates indicate that 805 million people – about one in nine of the world’s population – were chronically undernourished in 2012–14, with insufficient food for an active and healthy life. This number represents a decline of more than 100 million people over the last decade and of 209 million since 1990–92. […]
3 December 2014 (AFP) – The melt rate of glaciers in the fastest-melting part of Antarctica has tripled over the past decade, researchers said Tuesday in an analysis of the past 21 years. Glaciers in the Amundsen Sea in West Antarctica are losing ice faster than another part of Antarctica and are the biggest contributor […]
By Tom Randall5 December 2014 (Bloomberg) – Record rains fell in California this week. They’re not enough to change the course of what scientists are now calling the region’s worst drought in at least 1,200 years. Just how bad has California’s drought been? Modern measurements already showed it’s been drier than the 1930s dustbowl, worse […]
4 March 2014 (Alberta ESRD) – Why is this indicator important? Water wells are used to supply groundwater to domestic, agricultural, municipal, industrial and other users in the province. Water wells were first drilled in Alberta in the late 1800s; since then over 220,000 water wells have been drilled and reported. More than 90 per […]
