Financial Innovations and Carbon Markets
A Modest Extension of the Kyoto Protocol Can End the Impasse Between Industrial and Developing Nations
Beyond Carbon Markets
The headlines generated by the carbon trading mechanisms at the heart of the Kyoto Protocol, most notably the Clean Development Mechanism, tell a story of a scheme in trouble. But why has it caused such controversy?
Africa – A Future for Itself
How does Africa intend to deal with climate change and how can it help shape a better future for itself in the face of the coming environmental catastrophe? As concerns grow, the continent will for the first time negotiate under one umbrella in Copenhagen.
A Hypothesis of Hope for the Developing World
About 99 per cent of climate change casualties take place in the developing world. While economic growth and development are priorities in all countries, the needs in developing and least developed countries are on a different scale altogether. Developing countries are constrained by their particular vulnerability to the impacts of fickle weather and climate. The poor in these countries are at a higher risk to future climate change, given their heavy dependence on agriculture, strong reliance on ecosystem services, rapid growth and concentration of population and relatively poor health services.
The True Costs of Conventional Energy
Renewable energy is expensive -- we cannot afford it. I have heard this argument many times over. But those who bring it up are wrong. The costs of renewable energy are not higher than those for conventional energy. Instead people confuse costs with prices and need to be better aware that the market price of conventional energy does not tell the truth.
Biotechnology – A Solution to Hunger?
World hunger and food insecurity is a recurring problem in most parts of the developing world. Among the many potential biotechnologies that are available, and the different ways in which they can be applied, genetic modification (GM) of crops demands particular attention. Genetically modified crops possessing genes from different species, could possibly relieve global food shortages.
Human Security, Climate Change and Women
The Impact of climate change on women and men is not the same. Women are increasingly more vulnerable, mainly because they represent the majority of the world's poor and are proportionally more dependent on threatened natural resources.
The Chronicle Library Shelf: Towards a Nuclear Weapon Free World
In politics, timing is everything. The same might be said for book publishing. The appearance of Towards a Nuclear Weapon Free World at this new moment of rich potential for nuclear disarmament is a stroke of fortune.
The Chronicle Library Shelf: Women's Global Health and Human Rights
Women's Global Health and Human Rights, Murthy et al. fills a deep void in scholarship and provides practical insight on the challenges facing women's health advocates worldwide. Readers will be taken by the work's encyclopedic breadth and conceptual depth. Divided into seven sections and 42 chapters, major themes include the impact of globalization, economics and development, chronic diseases, human rights, and cultural practices. Together, the work is at once inspiring and sobering -- informative in describing current trends and identifying avenues to remedy existent problems, yet daunting in its appraisal of pervasive social impediments that cause innumerous harms and preclude women from realizing their human right to health. Women's health advocates will find in its pages a clarion call to redouble their efforts.
Next Steps to Universal Nuclear Disarmament
It is almost 65 years since the development of the first nuclear bomb, and yet we have had only two cases of use of nuclear weapons in war, namely Hiroshima and Nagasaki. So we have been spared the horror of a large nuclear war during this period when more than 130,000 nuclear weapons were built. This is a very unusual event in the history of mankind: so many weapons built, never to be used. Why has this happened? First, the leadership of the two nuclear superpowers and of the smaller nuclear States behaved as rational decision makers, as far as the control of nuclear weapons and the decision not to initiate their use were concerned.
Breastfeeding, the Mother in Charge
We have reached a tipping point. In less than a century, breastfeeding has become the exception rather than the rule -- a devastating trend to the health and well-being of large segments of the world population. Increasing the rates and duration of breastfeeding could save the lives of 1.4 million babies. It could also help national and local governments, in both developing and developed countries, to achieve the health-related United Nations Millennium Development Goals by 2015.
The Chronicle Library Shelf: The New Motherly Art of Conscious Breastfeeding
Women today lead very different lives from their ancestors and are very influenced by the prevailing culture when it comes to breastfeeding. For many, breastfeeding seems to be a matter of opinion rather than a necessity for their child. Success or failure at breastfeeding will vary based on their preconceived notions.
As a Maternal-Child health nurse, and a full-time lactation consultant for over two decades, Máire Clements embraces an holistic and objective understanding of the process of breastfeeding. She calls it Conscious Breastfeeding. She shares this simple, but powerful approach to breastfeeding success in a new multi-media ebook The New Motherly Art of Conscious Breastfeeding.