Climate & Energy / Earth & Environment / Economic Development / Politics & International Relations / Sustainable Development / World
The truth beyond the food crisis
What’s behind the world food crisis? Yes, the growing world population is a huge contributor to the need for more food. Yes, reckless food- and oil-seed-based biofuel subsidies have added to the problem. Yes, the climate crisis will contribute enormously. Yes, greater prosperity by previously vegetarian consumers in India and China will increase demand for...
Measuring Genuine Progress
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was first used in the United Kingdom to measure their war-time production. Since the whole economy was geared up to wage war, it was a fair measure of how much the system was turning over. While the second world war has finished, GDP is peculiarly still the measurement system of choice...
Connecting the dots
Complexity thinking and social development By Alan Fowler. How are societies ‘developed’? For years, international aid has failed to provide a convincing answer. This article offers a potential path to improving both aid performance and development in a broader sense. Read more at The Broker…. Related items HOME: It’s Too Late To Be A Pessimist...
Design for the other 90%
“The majority of the world’s designers focus all their efforts on developing products and services exclusively for the richest 10% of the world’s customers. Nothing less than a revolution in design is needed to reach the other 90%.†—Dr. Paul Polak, International Development Enterprises A great exhibition on view in the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum,...
Jacqueline Novogratz: Tackling poverty with ‘patient capital’
Jacqueline Novogratz is pioneering new ways of tackling poverty. In her view, traditional charity rarely delivers lasting results. Her solution, outlined here through a series of revealing personal stories, is “patient capital”: support for “bottom of the pyramid” businesses which the commercial market alone couldn’t provide. The result: sustainable jobs, goods, services — and dignity...
On Corporate Altruism
[By Gary Becker] In the past few decades, economists have analyzed the competition from companies motivated solely by the desire for profits against companies truly motivated in part by other considerations. These considerations include altruism toward consumers, discrimination against minority employees, and a desire to help the environment by using carbon offsets to own carbon...
A Bright Green Future?
Green recovery isn’t a dream — it’s already begun. The U.S. has committed to invest almost 1% of its economic output in sustainable recovery programmes. China is racing ahead, putting over a third of its big stimulus package into green investments, while South Korea investing two-thirds of its package in energy efficiency, green jobs, public...
Goodbye Free Trade, Hello Mercantilism…
As countries grow more interdependent, they’re also becoming more nationalistic, tells us another Newsweek article. Is there a clear trend towards mercantilism, or could it be merely a reaction on the current Western, neoliberal expansionism? (for those who believe in it). Here’s today’s quiz. What do the following have in common: (a) Vladimir Putin; (b)...
The Booming South – and the Good News…
A recent article in Newsweek comes with an unexpeted story: despite the economic gloom, a looming credit crisis, failing holiday shoppings in Great Britain and the US, the numbers tell us something other about most developing countries outside western Europe and the US. On the contrary: the future looks actually quite bright, when 98% of...
