TRINet Newsletter January 2012
Fitting The Pieces - RIO+20
Stockholm, Sweden forty years ago. The UN Conference on Human Environment. It pushed ‘environment’ into the international agenda when it declared that there was ‘a need for a common outlook and for common principles to inspire and guide the peoples of the world in the preservation and enhancement of the human environment’. Right at the beginning, the statement refers to man’s power to transform his environment on an unprecedented scale. The statement also talks about globalization and the growing number of problems that affect the common international resources. more
News and Analysis:
Hiatus, controversies, collapses
It is that time of the year when reviews, reflections, and evaluations of the different trajectories that the world has offered are an integral part of broadcast time and printed matter. With some hesitation, I will join the bandwagon, to stand witness to the manner in which environmental regulation has played itself out in India in the year that has fast gone past us.
crisis by the sea
India opposes imposition of blanket green targets on developing nations
NEW DELHI: India has opposed any attempt to impose universal green targets on developing countries in the name of sustainable development goals.
They may be branded as villains by the environmental lobby, but personal cars consume a paltry 0.6% of the diesel consumed in the country, an internal Planning Commission note said.
Kashmiri farmers left high and dry
Sammad Sheikh of Tangchekh village in north Kashmir cannot understand why the rice fields that his family cultivated for generations are drying up.
NFF meet moots 11 point resolution
The national conference of the National Fish workers Forum (NFF), concluded here the other day mooted an 11-point resolution including the decision to oppose Free Trade Agreements and Foreign Direct Investment in retail trade in the fisheries sector.
UN chief: 'with 7 billion people we've run out of new forests and rivers'
Achim Steiner says population growth makes sustainability essential, as he prepares for green economy talks at Rio+20
Disaster Management:
In the wee hours of December 9, Kolkata and the nation woke up to see the worst ever hospital disaster of the country. In a devastating fire at centrally-air-conditioned seven-storey annexe building of AMRI- a premier private hospital- 94 people, mostly patients of ICCU, ICU, Intensive Therapy Unit and Critical Care units and orthopaedic department were asphyxiated to death.
The number of people exposed to natural disasters is expected to more than double to 1.5 billion by 2050, with 200 million of them in India, because of rapid urbanization and the extreme weather stemming from climate change, according to the World Bank.
Book Review:
We're already in a bad place. As Cribb notes, in the Soviet grain emergency of 1972-5, world food prices rose by 78%, while between 2005 and 2008, they rose on average by 80%. In the intervening period, it is very clear, global governments and NGOs took their eye off the ball. They thought food was fixed, sorted, and would keep on getting cheaper. And it is set to get a lot worse:
TED/YouTube:
A vegetable garden can do more than save you money -- it can save the world. At TEDxDirigo Roger Doiron shows how gardens can re-localize our food and feed our growing population.
TRINet DeBunk:
Every morning we wake up and regain consciousness -- that is a marvelous fact -- but what exactly is it that we regain? Neuroscientist Antonio Damasio uses this simple question to give us a glimpse into how our brains create our sense of self.
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