By Bhavani Prakash If you imagine Planet Earth having a routine health check, the Living Planet (LPR) report would be its biennial diagnostic report. The study is a science based analysis of the state of the planet – the health of our forests, rivers and oceans, as well as the impact of humans. Dr [...]
By Bhavani Prakash One of the so-called “successes” of the COP16 Climate Summit at Cancun, Mexico last year was the proposed $30 billion annual payment from developed countries to developing one from 2010 to 2012 which will be upped to US $100 billion annually by 2020 – a flow that is meant for mitigation and [...]
At Eco WALK the Talk, the question “Can Organic Farming Feed the World? is a recurring one which we’ve tried to answer in the affirmative through our blogs and various facebook posts. Our Guest writer Karthik Kumar specifically answered this in his post ” Organic Farming – Can It Feed the World?” quoting an extensive [...]
by Bhavani Prakash Several decades have lapsed since the “Green Revolution” promoting large scale agriculture and intensive use of pesticides, yet nearly a billion people on the planet continue to starve. With growing realisation about the toxic effects of fossil-fuel based inputs on top soil, water, workers’ health as well as the increasing opposition to [...]
by Bhavani Prakash An Update on 9th September, 2010 Greenpeace India have now launched Version 2 of the Safe Food Guide to highlight the companies which guarantee that they do not use genetically modified content, and those who don’t give such guarantee. A pocket guide has also been issued by them which show the brands in India [...]
By Bhavani Prakash A new report in the US that highlights the link between environmental factors and cancer is of particular relevance to the rest of the world. What are these environmental factors? What actions can individuals take? What are the cancer rates in Asia and should such a study be done here? The ”President’s Cancer Panel” specially [...]
by Bhavani Prakash There’s a native American proverb that says, “No river can return to its source, yet all rivers must have a beginning.” Even the wise indigenous peoples of America could not have foreseen the kind of rapid changes in climate and developmental pressures that have altered the scenarios. The Third Pole is thus [...]
by Ria Tan The report card on global biodiversity is out. And the results are not good. But there is still hope. What is the Global Biodiversity Outlook? It is a report based on scientific assessments, national reports submitted by governments and a study on future scenarios for biodiversity. It is produced by the Convention [...]
One of the most significant studies in “Evaluating the Relative Environmental Impact of Countries” has been released by the University of Adelaide’s Environment Institute in conjuction with the National University of Singapore and Princeton University. Do we need yet another indicator or study, one may ask, considering there are many alternative indices already: the City Development Index(CDI), Ecological Footprint(EF), [...]
On a planet where less than 1% of the water is fresh drinking water, the way we use water to dump different wastes speaks of large scale mismanagement of this precious resource. The term “waste water” or “sick water” refers to water in which all kinds of waste, both dissolved and suspended have been thrown in : domestic effluents (black and grey water), effluents [...]
