Guy Ryder, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confedaration, went to Poznan to attend his first UN climate meet. He sees green opportunity in the financial crisis. Pradip Saha caught up with him Is it okay to discuss climate change in the midst of a financial crisis? Governments are indicating that they are ready to inject large sums of money into their national
I spent a week at the climate change conference in Poznan, and realized the world is in deep trouble and deeper denial. Worse, the denial is now entirely on the side of action. It is well
Conflicts will increase in the next two decades but we have what it takes to keep going The next decade or two are going to be rough. Conflicts of all kinds will increase. These will be over water, land, technologies, energy sources, geopolitical power, religion and science. We will lurch from one economic crisis to the other, and struggle to contain the impacts of the havoc we have wrought
Sea turtles have inspired far-reaching conservation programmes. Pity, they are still in peril Sea turtles are magical animals, all the more mystifying because of our ignorance about them. For millions of years, they have wandered the oceans. But today, they are threatened by habitat loss, lighting on beaches, which disorients hatchlings and prevents them from finding the ocean, pollution
Industry sees sense in going green On the face of it, there is not much to celebrate. Wastage of resources has become acute. We seem to be in an era of energy-guzzlers. But things are not that bad if we scratch the surface a bit
Preservation laws have made trees a problem for people STATE monopolies are not exclusive to modern times. Mining was the preserve of the state in ancient and medieval times. The Mughal state exercised an iron hand over opium production and trade. Once the Mughal empire declined, satraps asserted their independence by establishing monopolies over various commodities including tobacco and
