Here are some reports and opinion pieces that have appeared in recent weeks on important developments in the world environment:
1.  An important, perhaps critical, study published in Nature has estimated that the world will exceed total amount of greenhouse gas emissions beyond which dangerous climate change occurs by 2020.  This contracts still further projections that [...]

I’ve spoken before about what appears to be an outbreak of split brain among the leaders of the world; that is, their apparently effortless ability to carry on with business as usual, while expressing concern about climate change effects that make business as usual untenable.

The defence White Paper released this week by the Australian [...]

Dr Vicky Pope, head of the climate change office at the Hadley Centre (one of the world’s most reputable sources of climate change modelling) recently wrote a thoughtful piece for The Guardian which everyone concerned with climate change should read.
The Hadley Centre has been one of the research organisations consistently alerting the world community to [...]

Wendell Berry is a native of Kentucky who has written, elegantly and powerfully, for more than four decades on themes relating to sustainable agriculture.  He is, as a commentator recently said, the most passionate advocate for the family farm and homestead.  The principles he developed, however, go beyond agriculture: they bear on the whole question [...]

Although Wendell Berry was writing here some decades ago, the central principles he establishes have continued to be his main themes in more or less unaltered form. At the time of writing global warming was just beginning to be spoken of in public scientific discourse. Wendell Berry seems to have had early intuitions [...]

The system of agriculture–Wendell Berry would say, pattern–proposed as the alternative to agribusiness is idiosyncratic, but persuasively argued. It is built on fundamental principles, so that the recommendations derived from them are inter-dependent and consistent. And not simply argued, but documented. Wendell Berry is at his best when he is reporting on the various agricultures [...]

The recent article by Wendell Berry in the New York Times, written with his long-time associate Wes Jackson, on the loss of Iowa’s soil under the extreme storm events increasingly generated by climate change (see my January 14 post), sent me back to his writings, and to a rediscovered pleasure, and inspiration.
There is much about [...]

Looking at the way in which world leaders, including Australia’s, are attempting to deal with the global economic crisis, one might be forgiven for wondering whether an outbreak of split-brain has occurred.
There seems to be no difficulty among them–or indeed among economic commentators– in separating the two global crises, economic recession and climate change, as [...]

2009 has brought some important research findings related to climate change, and some important new perspectives. In addition, there are some remarkable new initiatives in renewable energy and technology.
Ian Lowe, the president of the Australian Conservation Society, and a well-established and articulate proponent of strong action on climate change (see my post September 17, 2007), [...]

From the UK today comes a welcome report of a new funding scheme designed to support financially farmers who protect natural resources, wildlife and other environmentally-valued aspects of their land.
Internationally these funding schemes are called Payments for Environmental Services.  Watersheds are a favourite application of these schemes.  The headwaters of rivers are often [...]