International Conservation & Development

The development and deployment of cleaner energy technologies have become globalized phenomena. Yet despite the fact that energy-related goods account for more than ten percent of international trade, policy makers, academics, and the business community perceive barriers to the global diffusion of these emerging technologies. Experts point to problems including intellectual property concerns, trade barriers, and developing countries' limited access to technology and funding.

Democrats blame record drought. Republicans blame Obama. But one thing both parties agree on is that food prices are going up. In his acceptance speech at last week's GOP convention, Mitt Romney openly mocked tackling climate change as the opposite of helping working families, yet pointed to food prices in his long list of ongoing concerns: "Food prices are higher. Utility bills are higher, and gasoline prices, they've doubled," he claimed.

The most recent round of UN climate negotiations ended last month in Warsaw, and the outcome was familiarly inconclusive: Nations agreed to keep negotiating and making voluntary efforts to reduce emissionsof greenhouse gases. After nineteen years of negotiations little has changed. Or has it?

The Technion has inaugurated a brand new visualization laboratory, the first of its kind in Israel, in the Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning. The new visualization lab is a research and learning facility, which allows one to “enter” a three-dimensional digital simulation (model) of buildings, cities and landscapes, whether they physically exist yet or are in only in the planning stages.

While a farmer can control the inputs on to his land, ensuring that fertilizer and pest management and other products meet organic standards, that level of control isn’t really available in a natural body of water, says Lisa Bunin, CFS’s organic policy coordinator. For example, pollutants move freely through water, making it almost impossible to ensure a fish raised organically is not exposed. Further, some fish, such as salmon, are migratory, and stopping that migration would be adverse to the spirit of organic, Bunin adds.

Andrea Johnson is now working in Turrialba, Costa Rica, at the Center for Training and Education in Agriculture and Forestry (CATIE, for the Spanish acronym), a well-known regional institution in Latin America. She is overseeing the monitoring, evaluation and planning for a project focused on supporting sustainable forest management, community forestry and wood product value chains throughout Central America. They have partners and activities in Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Visit Andrea's LinkedIn profile

“No Hay Desechos, solo recursos” reads the Sistema BioBolsa logo, there is no waste, only resources, and that is the heart and sole of Sistema Biobolsa, an organization working in 22 Mexican States, and 15 other countries to bring sustainable resources to agricultural communities. Here is the low down, a highly innovative membrane digester that processes animal waste (especially cow) into a useable methane rich bio gas, and an organic rich fertilizer called Biol.

Coal contributes to 43 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, making it a major driver of climate change. In fact, a new statement released by leading scientists suggests that nearly three-quarters of fossil fuel reserves—especially coal—must remain unused if the world is to limit temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius.

Ayana Johnson was interviewed live on Antigua's Observer Radio morning show. Hosted by Daren Matthew-Ward, and with questions from listeners, the discussion focused on the Barbuda Blue Halo Initiative, sustainable fishing, and climate change. Listen to the interview