The world's smallest anteater is under threat in the Brazilian Amazon and Northeastern parts of the Atlantic forest.
This extremely rare species is barely know of even by populations living near its natural habitat.
Some others anteaters below...
A few excerpts from great article by John Gapper...
So everyone is now warning that low cost export model can't go on...
Suggestion here is that freeing up finance will make money flow to higher yielding areas of economic activity squeezing out the low cost manufacturing. How to reinvent China’s growth |
Qingdao thus encapsulates both China’s achievement and its future challenge. How does an economy with an average GDP of $3,200 per head, which relies heavily on trade, become more self-sufficient? |
Michael Spence, the Nobel prize-winning economist, told the forum that China is in “a very complex and perilous transition phase” as it tries to transform from a middle-income, high-growth, very big developing economy into an advanced economy with a diversified industrial base. |
The world is not big enough to keep on absorbing China’s export growth, and it faces the waning of what Arthur Kroeber, a managing director of Dragonomics, the economic consultancy, calls its “demographic dividend”. |
| China needs better-paid citizens to consume more of its output. |
| Bureaucrats have incentives to fund growth rather than to ensure companies achieve high margins and pay their workers well. |
| China must cultivate financial institutions and investors that demand higher returns on capitalRead more at www.ft.com |
Martin Wolf's article is well worth reading in full. He's asking China to take some responsibility and not just keep growing its surplus.
Benefits for China would be more purchasing power for households, more stable global system and less chance of protectionism from others (the US).
Why will China not go down this path?
Maybe they want business as usual to return meaning they can stick to the export led policy that acted as the quick fix to absorbing millions of rural > urban migrants. And then deal with the future with this big surplus and bilateral agreements with other Asian, Lat Am and African countries which they has been heavily investing in. Grim truths Obama should have told Hu |
Barack Obama, president of the US, met Hu Jintao, president of the People’s Republic of China, for a private meeting on Tuesday. The agenda was long, covering the world economy, climate change and non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. The last two are the most important, over the long run. But the first is the most urgent. If we do not achieve a healthy global economic recovery, hope of a co-operative relationship is likely to prove vain. Yet such a recovery is far from ensured. Worse, some of what is now happening – particularly China’s decision to depreciate the renminbi along with the dollar – makes healthy recovery less likely. |
| t a time of such weak global demand, yours is a ‘beggar thy neighbour’ policy. You complain about the protectionist actions I have implemented. But their impact will be trivial compared with China’s ‘exchange rate protectionism’. |
President Lula was in London calling for world leaders to attend COP-15 as he is doing.
Earlier this week Brazil was unable to set an emissions target to take to Copenhagen.
You can read my full analysis of Brazil's environmental profile and commitments on issues such as deforestation ahead of COP-15 here: http://i-seeglobal.com/brazilintel/brazil-at-cop-15-out-in-front/ Lula calls on leaders to attend climate talks |
Brazil’s president has challenged other world leaders to attend next month’s climate talks in Copenhagen to break the deadlock in negotiations to cut greenhouse gas emissions. |
“We may not reach an agreement because of a deficiency of global leadership,” Mr Lula da Silva said. “The discussions have been outsourced to advisers but it is better that the ones who say yes or no are prime ministers and presidents.” |
He made no new commitments to curb Brazil’s emissions. However, the call from a president with substantial success in the world’s ninth-largest economy, which has grown impressively in recent years, raises the pressure on other leaders to attend.
Read more at www.ft.com |
Which is more damaging - the highly polluting car (219gCo2/km) or the psychological havoc that Lexus’s ad agency wreak in selling it? |
Shouldn’t advertisements that deliberately work to drive positional consumption be banned, working as they do to undermine the values that must underpin concern about global challenges like climate change? |
How will we come to view an advertisement like this in ten years’ time, I wonder? |
The profound social and environmental challenges that we confront arise importantly from dominant identities (that is, who we see ourselves as being and the values we collectively express). This site provides a forum for exploring ways in which social values and identity can be engaged. It has been developed as part of WWF-UK's Strategies for Change Project. Read more at www.identitycampaigning.org |
Emerging markets must take up the slack |
Ousmène Mandeng is head of public sector investment advisory at Ashmore Investment Management. He was also a deputy division chief at the International Monetary Fund. |
Will lower global growth mean that non-financial, or Environmental, Social and Governance [ESG] performance will become more embedded into emerging markets and will demonstrate regional traits? For example, will companies operating in Brazil need to demonstrate greater attention to ESG housekeeping as well as long term commitments to issues such as Amazon conservation?
Jimmy Greer, London |
OM: Emerging markets have an upmost interest in upholding environmental, social and governance criteria. |
Peer pressure through regional affiliations could exert regional trends in strict ESG adoption. The risk is as well, though, that ESG will be used in a slower growing international economy as a form of non-tariff protectionism or administrative barrier of entry. |
Wealth of video and audio connected to the Radical Nature exhibition at the Barbican which is coming to a close soon.
No doubt that art is going to play a central role in helping shape and express our attitudes to the natural environment as it gets closer (hopefully), or more distant (boo) from our lives.
the RSA have an excellent NING site to get connected with lots of different people allsharing lots of ideas around these themes http://arts-ecology.ning.com/
all the info here about Radical Nature- (apparently has been excellently curated) http://ow.ly/sYhi
and here http://www.barbican.org.uk/radical_nature/audio-talks Cape Farewell: Art and Climate Change
Thu 3 Sep 09
Cape Farewell pioneers a cultural response to climate change. Working internationally, it brings artists, scientists and communicators together to stimulate the production of art founded in scientific research. Listen to choreographer Siobhan Davies, curator Greg Hilty and writer and literary manager at the Royal Court Theatre, Ruth Little, discuss art and environmental issues.
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| Alasdair Nicolson: The Art of Protest |
| Who Has the Right to Tell us What to Eat? |
This beautiful, giant mirror isn’t an art exhibit; it’s actually a solar furnace capable of reaching temperatures as high as 5,430 degrees Fahrenheit. Located in Font-Romeu-Odeillo-Via (a commune in the south of France), the furnace acts as a giant magnifying glass. The hillside opposite of the structure consists of hundreds of flat mirrors, which reflect a beam of sunlight onto the curved mirror to concentrate light onto a focal point. Solar furnaces like this one are used for melting steel, generating electricity, and even converting CO2 into fuel. They would be serious, serious overkill for burning helpless little ants. Read more at www.wired.com |
Mitsubishi Corporation (MC) is committed to sustainability in all of our activities, including the sourcing of bluefin tuna. We do not engage in fishing activities, but as a key link in the supply chain between those who catch tuna and the retailers that make bluefin tuna products, we take our responsibility seriously. MCs Atlantic Bluefin Tuna Sourcing Policy and Bluefin Tuna Position Statement reflect this commitment to sustainable sourcing. |
creating a low carbon economy in the developing world is the only game in town Having world economic growth strongest in emerging markets is great for equality and poverty reduction, but it is terrible for greenhouse gas emissions. “Rather than breaking the link between world economic growth and greenhouse gas emissions, at the global level they appear to be becoming more closely correlated,” says Dr Sentance. Quite. Read more at blogs.ft.com |
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