British government report on climate crisis - “prevention now will cost 1% of GDP, cure later more like 20%”.

Sir Nicholas Stern, Head of the Government Economics Service and Adviser to the Government on the economics of climate change and development, published perhaps the most significant report on climate change in years this week.

Read the report here, or the BBC summary here. In essence, the report takes 700 pages to say “(the effects of) global warming could shrink the global economy by 20% … but taking action now would cost just 1% of global gross domestic product.” Tony Blair said the Stern Review showed that scientific evidence of global warming was “overwhelming” and its consequences “disastrous”.

Nobel Peace Prize for the inventor of micro-finance

Our own Sara Aviel conributes some articles dedicated to Dr. Muhammad Yunus, the Grameen Bank and the thousands of micro finance practitioners who have spread his inspired vision around the world. The Nobel Peace Prize committee recognized today what Mercy Corps has long understood—economic development and peace-building go hand in hand.

Is there any evidence that development works for the poor?

The British Overseas Development Institute is hosting a World Bank paper entitled “Are there lasting impacts of a poor-area development project?” Nathan Plowman writes this summary of this fascinating paper that not only looks at what the short and long term effects of this program was, but also compares two different evaluation methodologies.

California introduces carbon trading in a bold step to address climate crisis

The Los Angeles times covers this in a brief but informative article that describes what may be the shape of things to come in terms of environmental protection. Their ‘cap and trade’ system sets limits to emissions, and then allows polluters to trade credits to reduce overall emission levels. National Public Radio Science Friday also has a podcast of a show that deals with this.

Humanitarian Dating

OK Folks, following on from our article on Hope For Dave (here), Bob points out that HumanitarianDating.com does indeed seem to exist, and function. Your fearless reporter registered for the site, and verified that it is, indeed, a dating web-site aimed at humanitarian workers, and that there are, indeed, humanitarian singles out there looking for like-minded folks. You’ll need to register to get access, but it looks like a potentially useful resource.