By NATHANIAL GRONEWOLD of ClimateWire Published: November 11, 2010 UNITED NATIONS — Annual monetary losses for natural disasters are expected to rise to $185 billion worldwide by the end of the century, even without factoring in the anticipated negative impacts of climate change, a new joint U.N. and World Bank study concludes. With climate change included, the global annual losses could increase by anywhere from $28 billion to $68 billion. But governments can drastically reduce these losses and rising mortality rates by implementing preventive systems and infrastructure changes that are much cheaper and simpler than the post-disaster cleanup that has Continue reading
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VIDEO: India tackles energy poverty with solar panels
This BBC video report focuses on India’s public-private partnership to invest 55 million accelerate the deployment of solar panels for the country’s 450 million people who don’t have access to electricity. Continue reading
Lost Kittens for US Midterm Election Day
This issue of Lost Kittens brings a rich array of content drawn from the bounty of the internet. 1. Firing construction bricks can consume large quantities of woodfuel, especially if the kilns used are inefficiently designed. To address this problem, an architect working in Arabian Peninsula devised a brick-producing process that uses a chemical reactions instead of woodfuel to cure the bricks. The recipe for this bioengineered brick is well described in this article (Metropolis Magazine.) 2. There was much talk this past week about the landmark international agreement to protect global biodiversity. The highlight of the conference hosted in Continue reading
Insects £134bn, coral £109bn – UN puts a value on nature’s resources
Pioneering report equates biodiversity to cash in hope of encouraging conservation By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor, The Independent, London, UK Thursday, 21 October 2010 Nature and the services it provides are worth trillions of dollars annually to human society, and governments and businesses must formally recognise this to halt the continuing degradation of the natural world, a groundbreaking UN report said yesterday. The enormous economic value of forests, freshwater, soils and coral reefs, as well as the social and economic consequences of their loss, must be factored into political and economic policies in all countries, according to the new study Continue reading
Seven million poor to get cheap gas connections
from The Economic Times of India by Rajeev Jayaswal New Delhi (13 Oct. 2010) — THE finance ministry has approved an oil ministry’s proposal to provide cooking gas connections to over 7 million poor families in rural areas for just Rs635 per unit, a senior government official said. “A subsidy of Rs1,400 per connection will be provided to each households and the target will be achieved in two years ,” minister of state for petroleum & natural gas Jitin Prasada told ET. The proposal is expected to get the Cabinet’s nod later this month. The subsidy will be shared equally Continue reading