Ecology and Environment

Last month experts published a series of studies indicating that, contrary to previous conclusions, the animal populations are decreasing in the exclusion zone which surrounds the site where the former Soviet nuclear plant functioned, and that the effects of the radioactive contamination following the explosion have been “overwhelming”.

The United Nations says the number of people suffering from the massive floods in Pakistan has now exceeded 13 million which is more than the combined total of people affected by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the 2005 Kashmir earthquake and the 2010 Haiti earthquake combined, though the death toll in Pakistan is far lower.

Muscovites have brought airports to a standstill with attempts to leave the Russian capital where the air has become unbreathable and visibility enormously reduced due to the dense smoke clouds from fires which in the last hours have been growing, due mainly to the very high temperatures of this summer; the highest registered in decades.

The proposal to legalize whale killing went down in flames in recent Morocco meeting.
In a few short weeks, the biggest whale-saving petition in history, signed by an extraordinary number of 1.2 million of worldwide people, will be delivered directly to the key delegates at the International Whaling Commission meeting.

Alice Slater from the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation reacts to 38 million dollars of US funding for new nuclear research projects. “It’s just so 20th century!… It’s time to invest in a clean energy future that will create millions of jobs and enable the US to earn an honest dollar by developing desirable new technology to offer to the world.”

The Non-proliferation Treaty Review Conference is in its fourth and final week. Parallel to the official meetings with delegates of states parties to the NPT, active members of NGOs are in New York to represent the interests of civil society. Diane Perlman of Psychologists for Social Responsibility puts the case for a change of consciousness regarding nuclear power.

In this article renewable energy activist, Alice Slater, points out the dangers of the world advancing in the proliferation of nuclear energy and calls on all countries to join the International Renewable Energy Agency as a way to make redundant article IV of the Non-proliferation Treaty “inalienable right” to nuclear energy.

Here in this small Andean nation of 10 million people, the glaciers are melting, threatening the water supply of the largest urban area in the country, El Alto and La Paz, with 3.5 million people living at altitudes over 10,000 feet. I flew from El Alto International, the world’s highest commercial airport, to the city of Cochabamba.

Agriculture, rural development, reforestation key to greener, more productive future.
A significant increase in national food production, rural employment and reforestation are the keys to a greener, more productive Haiti, said FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf during a four-day visit to the country to launch with the government the critical spring planting season.