A publication of UNA-USA

Bringing global issues to the local level

Environment

UN Calls for Global Focus on Energy

By Elizabeth Dickinson | Jan 19, 2012

A decade ago, countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America leapfrogged over the West in telecommunications. After years of struggling to install the elaborate infrastructure for landline telephones and cable Internet, the global south is now home to the world's most enthusiastic cellular phone users. Today, many countries in these regions far outstrip the West in mobile technology.

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Feeding the World -- After Climate Change

By Matthew O. Berger | Dec 29, 2011

In the birthplace of the potato, things are heating up. Over the past decade, the Quechua farmers working at the El Parque de la Papa, outside Cusco, Peru, started noticing that the potato varieties they used to grow at lower altitudes can now only be cultivated much higher up the mountainside.

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As Invasive Pests Gain New Footholds, Little-Known Agencies Scramble to Defend the World’s Forests

By Matthew O. Berger | Nov 29, 2011

In 1986, a tiny but hungry new arrival took up residence in Malawi’s conifer trees. The cypress aphid may not have been native to the southern African forests, but once it came, it planned to stay.

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How Many Climate Migrants? UNESCO Takes a Careful Stance

By Karen Freeman | Sep 19, 2011

In April, New Scientist magazine asked a provocative question: “There were supposed to be 50 million climate refugees by 2010, so where are they?”

The environmentalist who made that prediction in 1995, Norman Myers, responded by saying, “It may be very difficult to demonstrate that there are 50 million climate refugees, but it is even harder to demonstrate that there are not.”

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Threats and Other Hindrances to Climate Scientists Thwart Their Work

By Karen Freeman | Sep 16, 2011

A knock on the front door at 10 p.m. was startling. “There was no one there, but a dead rat had been left on my doorstep, and a gentleman in a yellow Hummer drove off at high speed, shouting curses at me.”

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At an Arctic Outpost, Rapidly Melting Ice and Rising Sea Levels

By Barbara Crossette | Jun 29, 2011

To see firsthand the dramatic changes global warming is wreaking on one of the remotest corners of the world, members of the United Nations Foundation board traveled to Norway last week to meet with scientific experts and to visit the island of Svalbard, home to the northernmost community in the world.

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Stemming the Tide of Trash Flowing Into the Seas

By Karen Freeman | May 19, 2011

In 1784, a shipwrecked Japanese sailor in the Pacific carved the tale of his disaster into slivers of wood and sealed them into a glass bottle that he cast into the waves. In 1935, the bottle bobbed up near his home village in Japan, and the message was found.

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Environment-Award Winners Strive to Stand Out

By Dulcie Leimbach | May 18, 2011

One “champion” led a fleet of electric vehicles around the world in 80 days; another is a national president committed to mitigating climate change; while a third produces nonelectric air-conditioning systems, another sings professionally about environmental causes and a fifth is an activist striving to ban toxic chemicals and pesticides in the former Soviet Union.

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China Tackles Climate Change at Home

By Barbara Crossette | May 10, 2011

BEIJING -- While China's reluctance to support new international climate change agreements has been the focus of much attention in recent years, within the country the Chinese have begun working with the United Nations to lower environmental damage from high-pollution power generation and other sources of harmful emissions. The benefits could be global.

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Antarctica and the Arctic, Revealing the Planet's  Health

By Vicky Liu | Feb 17, 2011

Have you ever tried to imagine what the windiest, coldest and driest places on earth look like?

A United Nations dual photography exhibition through mid-April on the Arctic and Antarctica helps you visualize just how incredibly still and beautiful these two regions are through pictures by two Swedes of both the rough landscapes and active animal life.

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