Archived material from historical editions of The Generator
Trend analyst Faith Popcorn believes that many people are shifting away from consumption as the basis of happiness and there will be a trend towards thrift. Here are the actual statements from her web-site Reactions to Cashing Out: Lagom: From the Swedish, most commonly translated as “just enough”, it’s an approach to both design and Continue Reading →
“India is named for the Indus River, along whose fecund banks a great urban civilisation flourished more than 4,000 years ago,” writes American historian Stanley Wolpert in his well-know book A New History of India. But the 3,000-kilometre-long river that is the lifeline of Pakistan’s economy is dying a slow death due to thinning of Continue Reading →
Hunger riots will destabilise weak governments, says senior official
This article appeared in the Guardian on Wednesday April 09 2008
A farmer sprays pesticide at a rice field in the Karawang regency, Indonesia. Photograph: Beawiharta/Reuters
Rising food prices could spark worldwide unrest and threaten political stability, the UN’s top humanitarian official warned yesterday after two days of rioting in Egypt over the doubling of prices of basic foods in a year and protests in other parts of the world.
Sir John Holmes, undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs and the UN’s emergency relief coordinator, told a conference in Dubai that escalating prices would trigger protests and riots in vulnerable nations. He said food scarcity and soaring fuel prices would compound the damaging effects of global warming. Prices have risen 40% on average globally since last summer.
Addis Ababa, 7 April 2008 – (ECA) Without decisive action for sound adaptation, climate change will severely compromise agricultural production and exacerbate poverty and food insecurity in Africa, the Deputy Executive Secretary of Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), Ms. Lalla Ben-Barka said today in Addis Ababa. In a keynote address to the Senior Policy Seminar Continue Reading →
by Patricia Mayville-Cox Recently, the melting of a glacier in southern Chile caused a glacial lake to swell, and then empty suddenly, causing a tsunami of sorts against a river. Fortunately, no one was injured. According to glacier scientist, Gino Casassa, the melting of the Colonia glacier can be blamed on rising world temperatures. The Continue Reading →
The vast forests of Eastern Siberia, known as the Taiga, are a goldmine for Chinese wood traders, who send raw logs over the border to serve their home country’s booming economy. But much of the wood trade is illegal.
Logging is the greatest natural resource in much of Siberia
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With its barbed wire fences, smashed windows and crumbling apartment blocks, the border town of Zabaikalsk looks like an abandoned army garrison.
The only splash of colour is the pale yellow Stalinist tower of the railway station.
A seemingly endless procession of freight trains rumbles past, south towards China. Some trains are 30 wagons long, all heavily laden with Russian wood.
Much of this pine, larch, aspen and birch has been cut without a licence and is smuggled out of the country.
Illegal logging has long plagued Russia, but the problem has been exacerbated in recent years by China’s voracious appetite for timber.