Wednesday, 22 May, 2013

Latest Updates

Lizard named after Obama was wiped out by climate change

Well it was just a matter of time before some commie scientists named an extinct animal after the 44th president of the United States. Obamadon gracilis is the name, and the foot-long creature — which was discovered in a fossil bed in Montana — has been extinct for about 65 million years. And ironically, its extinction may indicate that paleolithic changes in climate affected animals differently than previously believed. Paleontologist Nicholas Longrich explains that scientists are now rethinking the idea that the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs spared smaller lizards like Obamadon:....

Ten Years of the Biological Diversity Act

India’s Biological Diversity (BD) Act was enacted in 2002. There is now a decade of its existence to reflect on.The genesis of the law can be traced to the Convention on Biological Diversity(CBD), which was signed at the Rio Summit in 1992. While assessing the 10 years of the Act, one has to be mindful of how India itself has undergone change in these years. By the time the Act came into force, trade imperatives had begun to influence environmental law and policy making both at the national and global level. The final shape of the Act and the manner of its implementation through the BD rules issued by the Ministry of Environment and Forests....

Endow-Bio, Inc., the First National Endowment for Biodiversity

This is the birth announcement of Endow-Bio, Inc., the First National Endowment for Biodiversity. Please help us to publicize our brand new, all-volunteer, 501(c)(3) public charity. Endow-Bio, Inc. operates wholly within the U.S. Our current crises of nature, conservation and culture call for an audaciously hopeful response in the form of this new public charity. Our mission is to further conservation of biodiversity of native species and their habitats in the U.S., to expose the full breadth of our environmental problems, to show there are good-hearted people working to solve these problems who would ....

Protecting Livestock and Wildlife through Transfrontier Conservation Areas: An Interview with Steve Osofsky

“We are looking to make wildlife and livestock more compatible by dealing with diseases, by dealing with human/wildlife conflict, and at the same time seeking economic opportunity in both of these arenas.” Steve Osofsky, director of wildlife health policy for the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), developed the Animal & Human Health for the Environment And Development (AHEAD) program at WCS and served as the first wildlife veterinary officer for the Botswana Department of Wildlife and National Parks. In an interview with Worldwatch Research Fellow Molly Theobald, Dr. Osofsky discusses how farmers can both help and benefit from wildlife c....

Interviews

‘We would love to have Canadian technology localized’

Hugh MacDiarmid, president of Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd (AECL), was in New Delhi to speak at the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy conference. He spoke to Vikram Sinha about the scope for civil nuclear cooperation between India and Canada: How do you see the Indo-Canadian civil nuclear deal progressing? I am not directly involved, but every indication I have is that we are very close to reaching an agreement. The number of issues to be resolved has been reduced to a very small number. And certainly, my understanding is that the progress is now being measured in weeks, not months. We are very hopeful that the deal will be concluded before the end of this calendar year. ...
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Thursday,08 October, 2009 | Hits: 129

“We are focusing on persuasion

Mahesh Pathak, Member Secretary, Maharashtra pollution Control Boards, Shares with Vijay Pandya the various initiatives taken by MPCB towards spreading awareness about controlling pollution that affects the ozone layer and the challenges faced: ...
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Tuesday,15 September, 2009 | Hits: 121

‘Solar power in India will cost less than coal energy in five years’

The Clinton Climate Initiative, a programme of the William J Clinton Foundation, is in the process of setting up four ‘solar parks’ across the world with an overall capacity of 20,000 Mw. On Monday,it signed an agreement with the Gujarat government for setting up what is billed as the world’s largest solar project. IRA MAGAZINER, CCI’s chairman, talked to Maulik Pathak on his plans. Excerpts: ...
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Saturday,12 September, 2009 | Hits: 125

Right actions don’t need consensus

Mohan Munasinghe, vice chairman of UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), is deemed to be co-winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize, with chairman R K Pachauri, which went to IPCC. Munasinghe, who delivered the keynote address at the two-day ‘Kathmandu to Copenhagen’ conference on climate change in Nepal believes that actions to mitigate the impact of change does not have to wait for full scientific consensus or knowledge. “If your house is under threat of fire, you do take insurance,” he told associate editor Hardev Sanotra. Excerpts. ...
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Tuesday,01 September, 2009 | Hits: 142

Solar Thermal: The answer to India’s energy security

The ACME Group is setting new benchmarks in the solar energy industry. The group has interests in green telecom shelters, and related power equipments. ...
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Tuesday,11 August, 2009 | Hits: 702

‘Icrisat aims to eliminate poverty and promote entrepreneurship’

‘ABI-Icrisat provides an opportunity for entrepreneurs to incubate farm technologies and become agri-business ventures. It offers technologies consultancies, funding, infrastructure and access to Icrisat… ABI-Icrisat has benefited around 40,000 farmers and supported 100 entrepreneurs besides generating around 627 jobs’ ...
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Sunday,09 August, 2009 | Hits: 245

Clean tech, biggest investment opportunity of the century

Start-ups built around so-called green or clean technologies—broadly those that help reduce pollution and increase energy efficiency—have attracted venture capital and private equity (PE) investors, that have poured billions into the sector in the last few years. Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers (KPCB), one of the most successful venture capital firms in the world, is one such investor with five deals in the space just in the June quarter....
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Monday,20 July, 2009 | Hits: 141

'We offer high-end cloud services to small businesses'

NaviSite, a Nasdaq-listed data centre service provider, has over 1,500 customers worldwide. The company has several Indian customers spread across sectors such as fast moving consumer goods, retail, healthcare and pharma, IT, banking and advertising. The company’s managing director, Sumit Sabharwal, spoke to Shilpa Shree on NaviSite’s India plans....
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Monday,27 July, 2009 | Hits: 132

‘We must make firm Choices’

We play lip service to environment protection and have to learn TO SAY NO, Jairam Ramesh, environment and forest minister, tells SREELATHA MENON. Over the last five years, the environment ministry was seen as being on the defensive on actions that were projected as harming the environment. How can you change that?I am aiming at transparency and working within the framework of the law, yet within a time limit, rather than making the conflict between development and environment cause unnecessary delays....
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Saturday,04 July, 2009 | Hits: 122

‘Reward firms with low environmental footprint’

The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (Unido) has been working on sustainable industrialization much before sustainability became a buzzword in the corporate world. Unido specializes in enabling companies, particularly in the small & medium enterprise sector, to identify and deploy sustainable production technologies and practices. Philippe Scholtes, representative and head of Unido South Asia, talks to FE about how the organization is creating an enabling environment for sustainable industrialization. Excerpts: ...
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Sunday,21 June, 2009 | Hits: 116

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