Investing in ways to adapt to climate change will promote the livelihood of 65 per cent of Africans, the UN environmental agency on 13 August 2014 reported*, warning also that failing to address the phenomenon could reverse decades of development progress on the continent.
New UN report says investment in climate change adaptation can help promote the ivelihoods of 65 per cent of Africans. Photo: UNEP
Africa’s population is set to double to 2 billion by 2050, the majority of whom will continue to depend on agriculture to make a living, according to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). “With 94 per cent of agriculture dependent on rainfall, the future impacts of climate change – including increased droughts, flooding, and seal-level rise – may reduce crop yields in some parts of Africa by 15 – 20 per cent,” UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said. “Such a scenario, if unaddressed, could have grave implications for Africa’s most vulnerable states,” he added.
By Jasmine Pilbrow*, 14 August 2014 — Last week marked the 69th anniversary since the devastating nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. On the 6th and 9th of August this year, people around the world took the time to remember the tragic loss of lives, and the disastrous effects the atomic bombs had on Japan and so many of its people.
Photo from: International Campaign Against Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).
On the 6th of August 1945, a 12 year old boy was at school in Hiroshima when the atomic bomb was dropped.
69 years later he says that “even now, I carry the scars of war and that atomic bombing on my body and in my heart. Nearly all my classmates were killed instantly. My heart is tortured by guilt when I think how badly they wanted to live and that I was the only one who did.”
Mayor Kazumi Matsui of Hiroshima and Mayor Tomihisa Taue of Nagasaki both took the time last week to write Peace Declarations to mark the significant dates, and to announce their priority to join with people around the world, to ban nuclear weapons.
Nairobi, 12 August 2014 -World Elephant Day, now in its third year, should be an opportunity to celebrate the majesty of the planet’s largest land animal. Instead, it is a reminder that if poaching continues at current rates, we face a future in which one of the environment’s keystone species may be driven to extinction by rising demand for illegal ivory in the rapidly growing economies of Asia.*
African Elephants(Loxodanta Africana)in the Luangwa Valley, Zambia. Image: UNEP/GRID Arendal
UNEP and partner research reveals that large-scale seizures of ivory (consignments of over 800 kg) destined for Asia have more than doubled since 2009 and reached an all-time high in 2011.
To meet this insatiable demand for ivory, approximately 20,000 to 25,000 elephants are killed per year, out of a population of between 420,000 and 650,000.
Poached African ivory may represent an end-user street value in Asia of US$165 to US$188 million of raw ivory.
The Asian elephant is now endangered, with less than 40,000 remaining worldwide, and it is estimated that one in every three elephants in Asia lives in captivity.
Like so many, like millions, this author’s heart is bleeding for the killed and bereaved in Gaza–so disturbingly similar to the Warsaw ghetto in 1943. With Arab and Western governments doing nothing; like the Red Army. But the latter was heading for Berlin. And the West uses Ukraine as a distraction, trying to hit Moscow.
Various ethnic and religious types present in the Middle East, 19th century | A post card from the 19th century showing the rich mix of ethnic and religious types in the Indian subcontinent 1. unknown; 2. Maratha 3. unknown; 4. Zoroastrian; 5. Jew; 6. Chinese; 7. unknown; 8. unknown; 9. Arab (sitting in the middle on a chair); 10. Sikh | Public Domain
Like Rabbi Michael Lerner, my non-Jewish heart is also bleeding for Judaism and the Israel that could have been. The present regime is a traitor to both, driving into the abyss. Yet they have parliamentary and democratic, voter, support? Except that parliaments are not infallible, democracies can be wrong; even more so if the people think they have a divine mandate.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 