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Sharon Guynup, Mongabay
Address Risky Human Activities Now or Face New Pandemics, Scientists Warn
›In early 2020, as a novel coronavirus swept the globe, a little-known word entered dinner table conversation. COVID-19 was “zoonotic”: a disease that originated in animals, then evolved, breached the Darwinian divide, and jumped to humans. On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a global pandemic.
Now, with another wave surging worldwide — and more than 600,000 new cases being diagnosed daily — a new fear-evoking word has entered the lexicon: “variant.”
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Benjamin Pohl, Climate Diplomacy
Sustaining a climate for peace
›June 14, 2021 // By Wilson Center Staff -
Michael Kugelman, The Third Pole
Why was Pakistan Left out of Biden’s Climate Summit?
›April 8, 2021 // By Wilson Center StaffGiven that Pakistan is one of the most climate-vulnerable countries in the world, Washington shouldn’t write it out of the climate change cooperation script
The White House has announced the names of 40 world leaders invited by US President Joe Biden to participate in a virtual global climate summit on April 22-23. Many Pakistanis are unhappy – and with good reason – that Prime Minister Imran Khan isn’t on the list.
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Sharon Guynup, Mongabay
Can ‘Slow Food’ save Brazil’s fast-vanishing Cerrado savanna?
›April 2, 2021 // By Wilson Center StaffIt’s November in southeast Brazil, and the tall, feathery macaúba palms (Acrocomia aculeata) are beginning to drop ripe coconuts. By January, the ground is littered with them, as some 67 families that live nearby, outside the town of Jaboticatubas, get to work dragging the trove home.
This coconut serves as the lifeblood for these traditional farming communities in the Cerrado savanna in Minas Gerais state, Brazil. Archaeological sites trace its use back to at least 9,000 B.C.
Every part of the all-purpose coconut is used, from its delicious yellowish flesh to the nut at its core. It’s a favorite kids’ snack, and is used to make a highly nutritious flour, baked into bread and cookies. Livestock eat it too.
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Elizabeth L. Chalecki, The Internationalist
An Internationalism that Protects: Why We Need to Reboot the Baruch Plan for Geoengineering
›March 26, 2021 // By Wilson Center StaffNew planet-changing geoengineering technology is available to help humanity combat an existential security threat. However, like atomic fission, this technology is not to be jumped at without caution.
This year is the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Baruch Plan. Almost no one knows this, or if they do, they probably don’t remember who Bernard Baruch was, or what his eponymous plan was for. But the Baruch Plan of 1946 was our first and last real attempt at world governance of nuclear weapons. Three-quarters of a century later, the ill-fated effort carries important lessons for addressing the crisis of climate change.
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Zafar Imran, Le Monde diplomatique
Climate Change in the Indian Farmers’ Protest
›The ongoing farmers’ movement in India has taken the world’s largest democracy by storm. Hundreds of thousands from all over the country have laid siege to New Delhi for more than two months. As both the protestors and the government dig their heels in, the chances of confrontation and violence are increasing by the day.
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Michael Standaert, Ensia
How effective are China’s attempts to reduce the risk of wildlife spreading disease to humans?
›Nearly a year ago, somewhere in China, a previously unknown virus made its way from a wild animal into a human host. There it found not only a hospitable home, but also an opportunity to spread trillions of copies of itself, eventually replicating to become the global Covid-19 pandemic.
That outbreak, now having infected more than 46 million people around the world, has been the impetus for a series of actions taken by the Chinese government to — in theory — get a handle on zoonotic disease outbreaks now and in the future.
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The Top 5 Posts of October 2020
›The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) is both a point of contention and an opportunity for collaboration among countries sharing the Nile river basin’s water resources. In our most read post this month, Matthew Gallagher covers a recent UNC event with Wilson Center Global Fellow Aaron Salzberg on the intricacies of the GERD and the importance of stakeholder diplomatic processes in shaping relationships around the dam.
Showing posts by Wilson Center Staff.