Feature Articles
The United Nations’ first global assessment of the planet’s land resources makes for grim reading when it comes to agriculture. It warns that a quarter of all farmland is already highly degraded at a time when the world’s population is growing exponentially. The UN estimates that farmers need to produce 70 percent more food by 2050, including an additional one billion tons of cereals to meet...
On November 20, 2006, Premier Wen Jiabao of China invited six education leaders in higher and basic education to the state council for a special meeting. In his usual straightforward and humble manner, Wen told them of a visit with Qian Xuesen, a well-known rocket scientist who had studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, received his PhD from the California Institute of...
Noteworthy
Eric Schwarz had an idea: to harness the experience and knowledge of trained professionals and bring it to the classroom. After graduating from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, he launched his...
After Mozambique’s decade-long war for independence (1964–1974) and the civil war that ended in 1992, a network of landmines remained buried in all ten of the country’s provinces. Anti-vehicle mines...
In 2000 an Afghan family paid a trafficker to take them over the border into Pakistan and then on to Denmark or Sweden. But when the trafficker arrived, there was only one spot in the van. The family...
When a natural disaster strikes in the West, farmers can turn to their insurance companies for aid. In the developing world, where the dangers are often more acute, and risk of failure grim, there is...
When Denmark announced it was implementing the world’s first fat tax on fast food, the question became, Will other countries adopt the same measure and will it strike a blow against obesity? The fat...
Rebecca Onie describes her mission as “bringing Google to life” for low-income people in need of services. Her Boston-based organization Health Leads recruits thousands of college students to assist...
A clever, albeit brutal, goat eradication program on the Galápagos Islands is credited for successfully saving a rare population of giant tortoises from extinction.
More than 1,500 giant...
In an effort to fill the gaps left by our financial institutions, many are searching for local alternatives to national currencies. Time banks are one option that promotes community self-reliance while...
More than almost any other recent technology, the mobile phone has penetrated the developing world and sparked innovation. And in Kenya, where more than three-quarters of the population owns a mobile...
In Andavadoaka, a Vezo village on the western coast of Madagascar, marine ecosystems are a precious resource. Over 71 percent of Vezo people rely on fishing as their sole source of income. But local...
At a time when we need visionary leaders more than ever, the loss of Ray Anderson last August was a body blow. Awakened years ago by an epiphany about the damage his carpet industry was doing to the...
Green capitalism is thriving in India and nowhere more so than in the renewable-energy sector. Take the entrepreneurs behind the homegrown company Husk Power Systems. Seeing an opportunity to both do...
More than almost any other nation, Bangladesh is on the front lines of climate change. It’s one of the world’s poorest and most densely populated countries, and most of its lands are less than 30 feet...
Germany has committed to shutting down all of its nuclear reactors by 2022, making it the biggest industrial power to go nuclear-free. Prompted by the nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan, the German...
In an effort to legitimize Liberia’s timber industry, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is putting barcodes on her nation’s trees. The barcodes will be instrumental to a deal signed in May with the...
Perspectives
There are many historical case studies of past societies that show how they waxed and waned in the face of climate, technology, war, and disease. Classic examples include the collapse of the Mayan civilization due to land stress, warfare, and...
In September 2010 I joined a team of latter-day explorers in the Netherlands on a quest to discover what American communities can learn from the Dutch about transforming bicycling in the United States from a largely recreational pastime to an...
In the summer of 2009, we were treated to a bicoastal spectacle of conflicts over water in the western and southeastern United States. Farmers in California were on television, complaining about a “congressionally induced” drought; the mayor of...
The set of the reality TV show Fekr Wa Talosh (Dream and Achieve, roughly) is mounted with a few overhead lights and draped with a velvet background, maroon on one half and black on the other. Paper signs are taped up in the...
Interview
On the Ground
Coquille Forest,
United States
Editorial
Featured Media Review
Blog
Wild boar, Burmese pythons, common carp, lionfish—rather than defend these species, environmentalists are encouraging the American public to eat them. As many of them as possible.
A new...
Be the First to Know
Groups
657
Exploring solutions presented in our special July/August issue on Appalachia
1,042
Bowdoin College's Phil Camill offers a fresh perspective to the issues surrounding environmental change.
762
This is the University of Vermont Solutions Group. We are based in and around Burlington, VT.
The author has a good point
It's all about "right relationship to reality"
Germany getting rid of
Well-being and the modern world
- 1 of 37
- ››
more
