Blogs and Opinions
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Can smart cities help their residents without hurting their privacy?
Monday 9th of December 2019
We live in a world where information has been transformed into one of the world’s most precious commodities. Data is a significant driver of our economies and the backbone of the world’s most powerful technology companies.
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Globally, women are hit harder by climate change. These Vietnamese women are fighting back
Wednesday 4th of December 2019
Tran Thi Phuong Tien remembers when the floods came. Sitting at her cafe in Hue city, where she roasts her own coffee beans and serves sizzling beef that draws customers from the other side of the Perfume River, she recalls how Tropical Storm Eve hit the coast in October of 1999, pounding the region with more than its monthly average of rain in just a few days. The massive rainfall, which landed mostly upstream, conspired with the tide to cause the largest natural disaster for the area in the 20th century. The sea spilled aggressively through the narrow, unprepared streets of the communes and the single-storey homes of Hue. The unfeeling water rose shockingly fast.
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Thailand’s ‘floating’ crosswalk is making drivers stop and look
Tuesday 3rd of December 2019
The Thai children walking on the zebra crossing look as if they are stepping from one white board, floating well above the road, to the next – but it is just an optical illusion, created by a volunteer group aimed at making roads safer for pedestrians.
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We’re in the age of ‘InstaGrat’ – and we need to learn to say no
Monday 2nd of December 2019
InstaGrat. It is not quite the same as Instagram, where we can put up pictures of what we want the world to see of us.
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This secret vault stores humanity’s most valuable knowledge – in case of an apocalypse
Friday 29th of November 2019
Hard copy
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Mobile theatres in rural India are screening a child slavery film to raise awareness
Friday 29th of November 2019
A film about a boy trafficked to work in a carpet factory is to be screened in remote Indian villages to raise awareness about child slavery among families often targeted by human traffickers.
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Deaths from HIV/AIDS are still falling
Friday 29th of November 2019
December 1 marks World AIDS Day, which aims to promote awareness of the disease and mourn those who have died from it. Earlier this year, UNAIDS reported that the number of deaths from the HIV/AIDS pandemic has fallen. In 2018, there were 770,000 AIDS-related deaths, a 33 percent decline in 2010. Though that may seem like good news, progress in reducing new infections, increasing access to treatment and ending deaths is actually slowing down. In some countries, considerable progress has been made and one notable example is South Africa where new infections and deaths have both been reduced by 40 percent since 2010.Elsewhere, progress has stalled and there have been worrying setbacks in Eastern Europe and Asia where new infections have risen 29 percent. UNAIDS reported that the gap between resource needs and resource availability is widening and for the first time, the AIDS response has fallen by nearly $1 billion. Last year, $19 billion was available for the response, $7.2 billion short of the estimated $26.2 billion required by 2020. UNAIDS urged all partners to step up action and increase bilateral and domestic funding for fighting the disease.
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Here’s what the history of the El Niño climate system reveals about climate change
Wednesday 27th of November 2019
El Ninos have been very intense in our times, which stands to worsen storms, drought, and coral bleaching in El Nino years. A new study has found compelling evidence in the Pacific Ocean that the stronger El Ninos are part of a climate pattern that is new, strange and appears unique to the industrial age.
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Why are millions of Americans dying over failing to afford healthcare?
Tuesday 26th of November 2019
This is a stark statistic: 34 million Americans know someone who died after being unable to afford needed medical treatment.
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Greenhouse gases hit a new record in 2018, says U.N.
Tuesday 26th of November 2019
Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere hit a new record in 2018, exceeding the average yearly increase of the last decade and reinforcing increasingly damaging weather patterns, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Monday.
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Hackers can use public USB chargers to steal personal data. Here’s what you need to know about ‘juice jacking’
Tuesday 26th of November 2019
We all know the feeling of panic when your mobile phone is about to die when you’re out and about – and the feeling of relief when you find a convenient place to give it a power boost.
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This disease killed 60% of Europe’s population, now it’s back
Monday 18th of November 2019
While you may have read about plague in history books, three recent cases in China are a stark reminder the disease is not a thing of the past.
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Bangladesh is using 5 million palm trees to stop deadly lightning strikes
Monday 18th of November 2019
Along the rutted village roads of this sub-district in central Bangladesh, one plant stands out: young palm trees.
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Plants will make future river flooding way worse
Friday 15th of November 2019
By hoarding water underground, plants will contribute to future river flooding, adding to soil saturation and boosting rain runoff, researchers report.
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As wildfires worsen, Californians harness tech for help
Wednesday 13th of November 2019
To better protect themselves from wildfires worsened by climate change, communities are pulling together to share information.
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Here’s why no country is prepared for the wide range of global threats facing us today
Wednesday 13th of November 2019
There’s little that the left and the right agree on these days. But surely one thing is beyond question: that national governments must protect citizens from the gravest threats and risks they face. Although our government, wherever we are in the world, may not be able to save everyone from a pandemic or protect people and infrastructure from a devastating cyberattack, surely they have thought through these risks in advance and have well-funded, adequately practiced plans?
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Venice mayor declares disaster as annual flooding reaches critical levels
Wednesday 13th of November 2019
Venice’s mayor prepared to declare the city a disaster zone on Wednesday after the second highest tide ever recorded flooded its historic basilica and left many of its squares and alleyways deep under water.
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The economics of neutral countries during World War 2
Wednesday 13th of November 2019
Neutrality has long been viewed as impartiality in war. This column, part of the Vox debate on World War II, asserts that neutral states in the war were realist in approaching their defence to ensure their survival. Neutrals such as Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland maintained independence by offering economic concessions to the belligerents to make up for their relative military weakness. Economic concessions took the form of merchandise trade, services, labour, and capital flows. Depending on their position and the changing fortunes of war, neutral countries could also extract concessions from the belligerents, if their situation permitted.
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This is what’s happening to the Amazon, according to NASA
Tuesday 12th of November 2019
Human activity is drying out the air above the Amazon, according to a new study, raising fears the planet’s biggest and most biodiverse rainforest will soon be unable to sustain itself.Researchers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California analyzed atmospheric moisture levels over the Amazon going back two decades. They found a significant drop over time, with forest trees requiring more water to cool down – water that can’t be provided by the atmosphere or the forest soil.
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Sydney is threatened for the first time as ‘catastrophic’ bush fires rage
Monday 11th of November 2019
Authorities declared a state of emergency across a broad swath of Australia’s east coast on Monday, urging residents in high risk areas to evacuate ahead of looming “catastrophic” fire conditions.
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The majority of people at risk from sea level rise live in just 8 countries – and they’re all in Asia
Monday 11th of November 2019
Before today, sea level rise and flooding were already forecast to wreak havoc for millions now and in the coming decades. Now, the story looks much worse – three times worse, to be precise. According to new research, hundreds of millions more people are already at risk from climate breakdown-caused coastal flooding and sea level rise than previously thought. And by the end of the century, large swathes of the coastal land we live on today could be unihabitable – even with immediate and deep emissions cuts.
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The devastation of Australian bushfires in pictures
Friday 8th of November 2019
Towns were evacuated and hundreds of residents told to flee on Friday as a record number of emergency-level bushfires raged across two Australian states.
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A ‘green interest rate?’ Fed digs into climate change economics
Friday 8th of November 2019
In their deliberations on monetary policy, Federal Reserve policymakers need to consider many factors, but up to now, climate change has not been one of them.
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Onagawa’s spirit of togetherness: lessons from the 2011 tsunami
Monday 4th of November 2019
November 5 is World Tsunami Awareness Day. According to the United Nations: “In the past 100 years, 58 tsunamis have claimed more than 260,000 lives, or an average of 4,600 per disaster, surpassing any other natural hazard.”
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These are the world’s top 10 business risks – by region
Friday 1st of November 2019
Even though international relations are tensing up, the world is more connected and complex than ever before. This has two implications: first, that businesses everywhere are becoming increasingly exposed to global risks; and second, that the traditional top-down approach to mitigating such risks is not enough. Let’s start with the first implication.