Paint a scenario with a human population of 6.4 billion—with nearly 854 million men, women and children chronically hungry—where, in all, over 2 billion people lack food security—we have a problem.
The Food and Agriculture Organization has released “The State of Food and Agriculture 2008”. The report “ . . [e]xplores
The National Academies’ Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy has released a prepublication draft of its report on presidential science and technology appointments. The report, “Science and Technology for America’s Progress: Ensuring the Best Presidential Appointments in the New Administration”, notes that,
The National Academies has noted that “[t]here is a growing sense of national urgency about the role of energy in long-term U.S. economic vitality, national security, and climate change. This urgency is the consequence of many factors, including the rising global demand for energy; the need for long-term security of energy supplies, especially oil; growing global concerns about carbon dioxide emissions; and many other factors affected to a great degree by government policies both here and abroad.
The United Nations Environment Programme has released “Atmospheric Brown Clouds: Regional Assessment Report with Focus on Asia”.
Ideas about needing non-growing economies for a non-growing planet have been excluded from the public discussion of our conflicts with the earth for many years. Not bringing it up until now, when it is actually too late for so many people and cultures can’t be undone. The ‘physics’ of that is that time is an accumulative process, exclusively, and nothing it the future departs from the past except by building on and diverging from it.
The Nature Publishing Group in collaboration with the Third World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) [the academy of sciences for the developing world] has released A World of Science in the Developing World —a special supplement to this week’s Nature. The Supplement publication coincides with the twenty-fifth anniversary of TWAS.
Rapporteurs Patricia Koshel and Kathleen Mcallister have gathered together the sense and findings of a National Academies/National Research Council workshop on “Transitioning to Sustainability Through Research and Development on Ecosystem Services and Biofuels“.
Elevating the importance of public understanding of science, the Coalition on the Public Understanding of Science (COPUS) is building the foundations of 2009 as The Year of Science.
Components of the National Academies have released a report advising the current presidential candidates on selection of high-level science and technology appointees (”Science and Technology for America’s Progress: Ensuring the Best Presidential Appointments in the New Administration“).
The North-South Center for Social Sciences (NRCS) at Ibn Zohr University in Agadir, Morocco, has issued a Call for Papers for an up-coming conference (”Integration of Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development in the Context of Climate Change, the Energy Crisis and Food Insecurity“).
The National Academies’ Division of Earth and Life Studies has compiled a free booklet “Drinking Water: Understanding the Science and Policy Behind a Critical Resource,” designed to give the public a comprehensive introduction to drinking water issues. It details the range of activities (from research to achievement of policy outcomes) necessary to protect the safety and reliability of the Nation’s potable water.
The National Council for Science and the Environment (NCSE) is hosting a video contest, “Voices and Visions from the Next Generation of Conservationists”, as part of NCSE’s Biodiversity in a Rapidly Changing World Conference.
The Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) announces the 2009 Thacher Scholars Award to be given to secondary school students (grades 9-12) demonstrating the best use of geospatial technologies or data to study Earth.
The Institute says that,
The Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) announces “. . . an art contest for grades 2-4 [that] challenges students to explore trees and their importance to the world.
Everyday you use or come in contact with a number of chemical substances. You may not have much information about these products, or their ingredients, manufacturers, and health effects. The National Institutes of Health maintains the Household Products Database with a wealth of information about these chemicals around you.
The National Research Council s Panel on Public Participation in Environmental Assessment and Decision Making have released—in prepublication, draft form—a report that looks at the conditions under which such participation can get ultimately to the desired outcomes expected from the impact assessment process. The report notes that
Here is a welcome tool that is an easily-accessible indicator of your local air quality. How does your air quality compare with that in Beijing?
Visit this post often as the map updates automatically with the latest air quality forecast information.
According to NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center, the combined average global land and ocean surface temperature for July 2008 tied with 2001 and 2003 as the fifth warmest July since worldwide records began in 1880.
The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council reports that “. . . [a]phids are emerging as sentinels of climate change . . . One of the UK’s most damaging aphids–the peach-potato aphid (Myzus persicae)–has been found to be flying two weeks earlier for every 1°C rise in mean temperature for January and February combined.
Yesterday, J. Clarence Davies introduced a new report that while recognizing how nanotechnology is likely to affect most things in our lives—from medicine to agriculture to industrial processes—notes that the next Federal administration must address current shortcomings in nanotechnology oversight.
The National Research Council has released what it calls an Expert Consensus Report from its Committee on Hydrologic Impacts of Forest Management. The report notes that “. . . [m]odifications to forests’ structure and composition
