The current trends in the international security environments are very dynamic and constantly changing and shifting. Tension in major parts of the world are in best cases persistent, if not growing e.g. Europe. New and serious tensions are to emerge more and more, e.g. the MENA region and Africa. All these tensions either existing or emetging are caused by transnational criminality or by old ethic, religious, territorial or separatist disputes to contest existing borders.
Honeybee loss can induce global threats for food production as it is estimated that one third of the entire world’s food supply comes from pollination. Pesticides are a key suspect for honeybee loss and there is something that we can all do to counteract their use.
Colony collapse disorder (CCD) is a global phenomenon in which worker bees from European and North American hineybee colonies abruptly disappear. Colony collapse disorder is significant economically because many agricultural crops worldwide are being pollinated honey bees (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_collapse_disorder).
The negative effects of the honeybee shortage were predicted years ago and there are several theorized causes of colony collapse disorder, from disease, to mites, to pesticides. However, in recent studies, e.g. U.C. Davis, where large sample of hives was examined, as much as 150 different chemical residues were found on the bees.
http://www.realfarmacy.com/effects-of-colony-collapse-disorder-now-manifesting-in-california/
If you can not measure it, it does not exist and if you can measure it properly you would not be able to control it.
What is sustainability and how can we measure it, below are some information. To know more follow, share and contribute in: http://sustain-earth.com to know more
Water management is becoming IMPERATIVE with the increasing concern about the effects and impacts of global warming. Many ancient civilizations, if not all, evolved and sustained around water resources by using intensive water-demanding irrigation techniques.
The MENA region which helped birth of earliest agricultural civilizations is now signaling one of the strongest warnings of its mortality. It lost huge amount of its water resources mostly because the groundwater pumped up and out of the region’s fragile aquifers for irrigation. Groundwater is/was being over-pumped, some massively so, at rates much higher than ability to recharge. Ongoing global warming poses further threats for additiknal severe decline in groundwater resources unless counter measures and mitigation actions can be done.
http://ensia.com/features/groundwater-wake-up/
Be part of a new future and join the ongoing changes in one of the most dynamic regions in the world where all challenges, but yet diverse and new possibilities, for socio-economic developments, co-exist.
Hear what global investors tell about investing in Egypt. The call is still opened for any to join and respond to people’s call for major changes. Yes, you can contribute in creating sustainsble societies.
Among the new plans for the socio-economic developments of Egypt a new capital “New Cairo” is planned to be established in region of the Red Sea so the pressure on the existing capital can be mitigated. Interesting enough the Red Sea region and Sinai, including the Suez Canal are becoming among the major changes and reforms in “Egypt the Future”. https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=941998875850439
To know more visit also, http://m.bbc.com/news/business-31874886
Flooding is among major threats in many countries around the world. Global warming is a modern man-made driver of negative feedback impacts on the global water cycle.
World Vision Australia is a member of the Australian Council for International Development (ACFID) and adheres to the ACFID Code of Conduct which defines minimum standards of governance, management and accountability of development for non-government organisations (NGOs). http://worldvision.com.au/home/defaultverD.aspx?lpos=top_drop_0_Home
To know more about flooding visit: http://montagepages.fuselabs.com/public/Benji-kun/Floods/3cc1dea9-0708-4b2a-a127-389832eea821.htm
Morocco has been chosen as the first location for a project to build a vast network of solar and wind farms in North Africa and the Middle East. This is planned to provide 15% of Europe’s electricity supply by 2050.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/nov/02/morocco-solar-farm-renewables
Clean and crime free environment to all living creatures on our earth is a mission humanity. This mission is not only limited to science and politics. Active contributions of all of us, our awareness of existing realities and our continuous support for scientific and political efforts are IMPERATIVE for achieving sustainable socio-economic developments worldwide. We are sharing one planet for living and our lives are dependent on sharing clean air, water and food. To have clean and crime free environment, not only for us but also for the future generations, we need to have all the necessary instruments, actions and efforts for conservation and protection of our common natural resources on earth.
http://missioncleanenvironment.com.au
It is not new that science and politics don’t mix, and there are increasing gaps in many societies between facts and values because of the different paths of historical evolution, limited exchanges in micro-cultures and also between major civilizations. Steven Pinker, professor of psychology at Harvard University, recently wrote an essay for the New Republic in defense of science. As is the case everywhere around the world, science is under attack for its arrogance, vulgarity and narrowness of vision. But is this true? If not why? What are the limits of science and politics? Who has the right to decide this? Above all what are the consequences if science and politics run in conflict? When, how and where this takes place? These are important, if not essential, questions but the answers are not simple or straightforward and the debate will go on for generations.
Why is this happening? Pinker asks. Because, he says, science is intruding on the humanities, disciplines lacking in vitality or any real purpose of their own, and the intrusion is resented. Far from deriding science as a campaign to diminish and oversimplify — to reduce beauty to brain chemistry, say, or ethics to natural selection — the humanities should welcome science as a source of new inspiration: “Surely our conceptions of politics, culture, and morality have much to learn from our best understanding of the physical universe and of our makeup as a species.”
Science is judged by quality and has its own limits. However, it is always expecting respect, as is the case for values. Quality has “scientific” instruments for assessment but the limits of science are described by the distinction between facts and values. Values have other “cultural” frames to be judged upon and assessed, even economic and environmental issues are finding their way into values. Here, comes a continuous dilemma and paradox, science is practiced and done by “minorities” though its content “facts” is still shaped by the needs of the society, at least in societies that recognize the importance of science. It is, also, true that politics seek help from science whenever is necessary. This isn’t to deny that science “facts” can shed light on “values”, make moral values intelligible in physical terms, it can explain how certain moral instincts might confer an evolutionary advantage, or why they might persist. It can show that the supposed empirical basis for some moral values is simply false. Values, on the other hand, are practiced by majorities in societies, if not by everyone, and they have their own “codes of conduct” which get support by political parties and have more legitimate status through elections and political systems. Values have, therefore, enormous momentum in many societies especially where science is week with has little support.
“Though the scientific facts do not by themselves dictate values,” Pinker goes on, “they certainly hem in the possibilities.” He’s right about this — but the second point, though interesting, is much less important than the first. Science can’t dictate values. That’s what matters. And because it can’t dictate values, it can’t dictate courses of action.
Science is always seeking respect especially when it acts beyond the limits set by politics. Climate science for example, as viewed by non-experts is a far-flung family of loosely related disciplines, which resulted in a set of costly and controversial policy proposals. This is not strange because of the extent and dimensions of the threats and as many climate scientists require urgent measures to cut greenhouse-gas emissions. Still there is criticism that The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which will release its fifth assessment report on global warming next year, is an advocacy organization rather than a neutral compiler of scientific evidence. But who would invent appropriate solutions without having the knowledge and how-how to decide how, why, where and when? What to do about climate change is indeed not only a political question and if so where were the politicians? What do they want? What are their arguments? Who would take the responsibility when things go wrong? “Business as usual” still is requiring science to be cautious and do not mix with politics.
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2013-08-20/why-science-and-politics-don-t-mix
Amazing conclusions from continuous and comprehensive global research that are based on all developments in science as a whole “big science”. They involve, also, integrated global observations on several scales and enormous human thinking and intelligence of the whole past century. It is how climate change shaped and formed global creativity (http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2014/nov/05/climate-change-theatre-2071-katie-mitchell-duncan-macmillan) to bring politics and science for a better future. A future we want to create and for generations to come. Climate change is not just about science – it’s about creating the future (http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/nov/22/-sp-climate-change-special-report).
Saving is essential not only in economic terms but is also for the very sake of lasting survival, not only our survival but the protection and preservation of life on the planet. It took us so much time to arrive to the conclusion that “production and consumption” of natural resources, in particular fossil fuel, at the existing rapid speed is not more than destruction and annihilation of our life. It is a hard conclusion and inconvenient reality that much of the fossil fuel of the planet must stay buried and not to be burned. For the coming decades, until 2050 and beyond, the emission of carbon dioxide has to be cut down to zero which essentially mean much of the fossil fuel on the planet has not to be burned.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jan/07/much-worlds-fossil-fuel-reserve-must-stay-buried-prevent-climate-change-study-says
Climate change creativity
The accelerating urbanization in the world is bringing an increasing degradation in air quality (http://www.scgh.com/green-news/the-cleanest-and-the-most-polluted-cities/). While this is not reflected in life expectancy (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy) yet, it is definitely causing emerging new health threats to the world population, as 70% will be living in cities by 2050. The life expectancy of humans on the Earth is likely to gradually decrease because of such threats and can very well show up in future statistics of the coming decades. What regards consumption of natural resources there are no definite answer on What is Enough? or How enough is enough? (http://www.mnn.com/leaderboard/stories/meet-the-woman-who-elevated-conservation-photography-to-a-whole-new-level). Facts on the role of urbanization on air quality, i.e. sources/types of pollution, are given in a document by United Nations Environment Program (http://www.unep.org/urban_environment/PDFs/handbook.pdf).
What is interesting and many of us may not know is that the world cleanest air is indeed mostly available in the Southern Hemi-sphere because of three reasons: (1) most of the land in the Northern Hemi-sphere is very much populated; (2) major parts of emission of atmospheric pollution is produced in the Northern Hemi-sphere; and (3) the atmospheric mixing of air between the northern and southern hemi-spheres is quite limited. The cleanest areas in the Northern Hemi-sphere are either above the troposphere, i.e. at elevated altitudes, or far away from emission areas, i.e. quite near in the Arctic region and/or quite near to the Arctic.
http://www.travelandleisure.com/slideshows/the-worlds-cleanest-air
The Millennium Development Goals promised to reduce poverty by half by 2015. Why are Africa and India so far behind in reaching this target? Follow the Big Debate about “Why Poverty?” with panel of top world politicians, ministers, writers and policy-makers from UK, Nigeria, India and South Africa as well as participants from business leaders, academics, activists and students: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JD7nB8tRc4&app=desktop.
Mining is one of the big industries in Africa that is supposed to contribute in erasing its poverty. However, though the enormous mineral resources in Africa, the question still remains “Does Mining Benefit Africa?”. Follow the Big Debate on this topic with focus on where the income and wealth of Africa’s minerals ends up? Is the benefit is still for the investors and not for the population? Would Africa be able to develop education, health, sanitation and transport infrastructures from such wealth? Are the taxation systems correct, accountable and transparent? Whether or not Africa is heading to an overall privatization, how would public services be developed? All in all would poverty is still remain when all the mineral resources in Africa are consumed? Many facts and information are uncovered from top politicians, government and finance bodies, mining industries, World Bank, policy-makers and activists from Africa as well as representatives from international companies and others bodies of relevance to the topic.
Would we still hear the same story, again and again, a worker in the mining industry after 22 years of loyalty in a company reporting billions in profit still has no electricity, no sanitation and continue to live in poverty!
Food is a daily concern not only for us but also to grow up whatever we need to eat as well! How much do we know about food production, in particular animal and meat production? How much water and energy are needed for such production, also what are the impacts of such production on our environment and health? An interesting issue is the production of chicken and eggs, by being by far most popular food items in the market. Here is a good example of high-quality production and preparation of eggs for the market and consumers (https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10203243637959486&id=1465162541).
The ever-increasing world population is requiring more and more chicken and eggs but how can humans cope with the increasing pressures on chicken? Yet the world has not yet reached peak chicken (http://m.motherjones.com/environment/2013/08/peak-chicken). What about “organic or eco” production; what are the diverse culture and ethics in chicken production and processing? With increasing pressures on water-energy resources how would we sustain farming and production in terms of feeding? Could insects feed animals of tomorrow’s meat industry? If so, what are the challenges posed from convoluted legislation and possible health risks? Indeed, The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization released a report (pdf) last year promoting the introduction of insects into both our diets and animal feed. Scientists and researchers, also claim that “other protein sources for livestock and aquaculture are urgently needed” which in real life terms can be understandable. However, some scientists and researchers even suggest that insects are ideal in this context as they can be “sustainably reared” on vegetable and domestic waste as well as byproducts from slaughterhouses. But startups recognize that for consumers, the thought of directly eating insects is often hard to stomach.
http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2014/dec/08/insects-feed-animals-meat-industry-startup-food
What makes Scandinavia expensive and beautiful is the costs associated with safety, security and quality of life on all levels. But there are things you need to know if you are planning a long stay, e.g. in Sweden (https://sweden.se/society/20-things-to-know-before-moving-to-sweden/).
It not only about tourism and long stays in Scandinavia and the Nordic countries but in general it is how the culture, social life and economy are being entangled and intertwined with nature and the environment. What you see as a tourist, or experience during a stay, has long history of socio-economic evolution, continuity in space and time and deep involvement of generations (http://www.academia.edu/7640463/Entangled_Environments_Historians_and_Nature_in_the_Nordic_Countries). The article explores questions of definition, disciplinary knowledge and the need for interdisciplinarity, and the problem of national, spatial, and temporal boundaries in environmental history. It concludes with a look to the future of Nordic environmental history.
The industrial revolution (http://sv.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industriella_revolutionen), the advance of science and technology during past centuries (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/20th_century) , and the associated accelerating “production-consumption” because of population pressures are taking us to new global tectonic shifts. The scream of nature and life on earth is forcing a new world order to bring about zero-carbon technologies for major cleanup of the atmosphere from all un-necessary emissions of carbon dioxide. Indeed, we should shape these shifts to a much more wider and inclusive cleanup from all toxic pollution and waste that are causing enormous and accelerating degradation of the atmosphere, the hydrosphere and the land. http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=10
For many decades and even centuries there have been an accelerating divergence of the socio-economic twin “eco-nomy and eco-logy” with enormous feedback impacts on the functioning and metabolism of all life processes and qualities on earth. The convergence of the gap between eco-nomy and eco-logy is IMPERATIVE for achieving sustainable socio-economic developments around the world. Just some few examples from two most big economies in world the USA (http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=10) and the emerging China (http://www.mining.com/china-the-worlds-biggest-energy-consumer-and-producer-72513/).
http://blogs.worldbank.org/climatechange/
We can dream to get a world which we can enjoy together in combinations of natural colors with positive impacts from worlds greatest music.
The emerging global shift from light oil to heavy oil will bring with it new chain of environmental threats in terms of increasing emissions of carbon dioxide, severe degradation of surface water and ground-water qualities as well as damage to aquatic life and bio-diversity.
The so-called Tar Sand (http://sv.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oljesand) has severe negative impacts on climate, natural water quality and aquatic life if protection and conservation strategies are not properly implemented in association with mining and processing.
http://www.livescience.com/49004-environmentalists-fear-tar-sands-lake-toxicity-lobbyist-video.html
BBC for SCIENCE & ENVIRONMENT, 4 December 2014, tells that African soil crisis threatens food security because of substantial soil degradation where 65% of arable land, 30% of grazing land and 20% of forests are already damaged. This serious land degradation accounts for about a quarter of land area of sub-Saharan Africa, which is indeed a vast area. The study has been published ahead of the 2015 international year of soils.
According to Montpellier Panel, made up of agricultural, trade and ecology experts from Europe and Africa, the problem needed a higher priority by aid donors as land degradation reduced soil fertility, leading to lower crop yields and increased greenhouse gas emissions. Soil degradation was also hampering economic development, costing the continent’s farmers billions of dollars in lost income.
The Montpellier Panel said that this issue must be given ‘Global priority’ as Africa is facing a combination of severe difficulties of land degradation, poor yields and a growing population. Panel chairman Sir Prof Gordon Conway, from Imperial College London, described the issue as a “crisis of land degradation and soil management”, adding: “We have got to do something about it”. “There are about 180 million people who are living on land that is in some way or another degraded. It is really very severe.” Neglecting the health of Africa’s soil will lock the continent into a cycle of food insecurity for generations to come, a report has warned.
Other factors are likely to add further threats for accelerating soil degradation, e.g. global warming, hydro-electric power industries (http://www.internationalrivers.org/resources/big-dams-bringing-poverty-not-power-to-africa-2006) and peak phosphorus by the end of this century (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_phosphorus).
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-30277514
Living conditions on earth are highly dependent on climate and weather conditions that are primarily controlled by natural conditions on the earth and its position in the solar system. This is except the negative man-made impacts on the environment and climate that started with the expansion of world population and after the industrial revolution with observable effects on life during the past century.
So far, the major achievements of humans on earth have been dramatic. In addition to ancient civilizations, the past centuries have witnessed major global transformations that are brought about by enormous scientific and technical advances and innovation. Such developments and the associated fast urbanization, after the first and second world wars, have caused gradual marginalization, or even isolation, of some or even major populations in many regions around the world which is indeed the essence of increasing poverty, at least in relative terms. With the initial stages of the digital revolution such gaps have also increased though in the long run they would rather shrink because of increasing access to knowledge and the associated benefits from the “transfer-of-knowledge” and “exchange-of-knowledge”.
With the increasing globalization there are growing needs not only to understand and to know the life under “normal” conditions, i.e. less natural extremes in weather, but also to know more about how “normal” is “normal” under climate conditions that are drifting from the natural functioning of the earth’s system. In particular we need to widen our knowledge on the more extremes in harsh environments (http://www.therichest.com/rich-list/here-are-5-of-the-harshest-environments-on-earth/). Such understanding on the global level allows promoting and extending the applicability of science and technology. However, climate and weather conditions set severe limitations on the applications that can be based on scientific and technical advances and innovations. Remote cities (http://www.buzzfeed.com/adamdavis/the-most-remote-and-extreme-cities-around-the-world) and places at the end of the earth (Palmerston: The island at the end of the earth http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-25430383) are few examples. Also, the living conditions of rural populations in particular “uncontacted people” or the so-called “isolated peoples or lost tribes”, i.e. who live, or have lived, either by choice or by circumstance, without significant contact with the more globalized world (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncontacted_peoples). The increasing mobility and movement of people is bringing with it new needs for globalization of “cultures and traditions” rather than, and not only limited to or forced by, globalization of science and technology. Coupling science and technology to cultures and traditions is among difficult challenges in many places around the world.
In spite of the fact that our planet is undergoing a population explosion there are regions with declining populations because of increasing isolation. In the website below we will take you to places, e.g. the isolated areas of Arctic, Antarctic, canyons, deserts, Saharas, ……, where it would be even hard to find a companion. It can even be much harder to survive in these places with the “affordable” technologies we have in populated urbanized regions. With this insight you will probably have a new appreciation for the people in your life, or you may probably prefer to stay where you are and do much better to preserve and protect your environment. Anyway enjoy these 25 most remote places in the world:
http://list25.com/the-25-most-remote-places-in-the-world/
