Environment

While the world focuses on the devastating storms in South Asia and the US, it is timely to ask ourselves two broad, related questions. First, how do we prevent such disasters from being so devastating in the future? And second, how do we best help the vulnerable people who are most affected?

When big weather events happen, often the first thing talked about is climate change. Perhaps it’s a matter of trying to pin blame for a natural disaster. “South Asia is also suffering the horrors of climate change” was one recent American headline.

Climate change has been blamed for a dizzying array of absurd woes, from the dwindling number of customers at Bulgarian brothels to the death of the Loch Ness monster. Most of us can see through these silly headlines, but it’s far harder to parse the more serious claims when they’re repeated in good faith by well-meaning campaigners.

Donald Trumps Kündigung des Pariser Klimavertrags ist ein Problem. Jedoch lassen sich auch so erhebliche Mängel am abkommen feststellen. Langfristig wird die Welt so oder so effizientere und tragbarere Alternativen finden müssen.

La nutricionista Rocío Pastor enumera los pros y contras de un estilo de vida que «comenzó con la cultura hippie» y que ahora «tiene un público con un nivel económico medio-alto».

These days, people for the most part believe that governments should try to promote the general welfare of the populations they serve. The disagreements come over how to do that—what goals to focus on, what policies to adopt, and so on. These questions are usually approached through broad intellectual frameworks, such as political ideology or religion, and much time is spent debating the finer points of various doctrines.

Poleti se je težko izogniti vročini. Na to nas spominjajo tudi mediji. "Smrtonosni vročinski valovi postajajo vse bolj pogosti zaradi podnebnih sprememb," poroča televizijska postaja CNN. "Ekstremni vročinski valovi bodi spremenili naš način življenja. Na to nismo pripravljeni," svari tednik Time. Nekatere zgodbe so bolj senzacionalistične od drugih, a nosijo isto sporočilo: nevarni vročinski valovi bodo vse pogostejši in silnejši zaradi globalnega segrevanja.

Vor einer Woche haben die USA bei den Vereinten Nationen offiziell ihren Austritt aus dem Pariser Klimaabkommen eingereicht. Dieser von Präsident Donald Trump forcierte Rückzug lässt das Land ohne eine politische Strategie in Bezug auf die globale Erwärmung zurück. Das ist alarmierend. Doch die weltweite Reaktion – eine verstärkte Betonung des Abkommens in Opposition zu Trump – bietet ebenfalls Anlass zur Sorge.

We often hear the story of humans voraciously exploiting the world’s resources and living way beyond Earth’s means. On “Earth Overshoot Day”, campaigners such as the Global Footprint Network claim that, by August 2, we have already exhausted this year’s supply of natural resources and Earth is now sliding into “ecological debt” for the rest of 2017.

YMPÄRISTÖNSUOJELIJAT tyrmistyivät, kun presidentti Donald Trump ilmoitti Yhdysvaltojen vetäytyvän Pariisin ilmastosopimuksesta. Eräät väittivät päätöksen suorastaan uhkaavan ihmiskunnan olemassaoloa. Mutta onko Pariisin sopimus todellakin kuin kilpi, joka varjelee planeettaa ilmastonmuutoksen vaikutuksilta? Ei missään tapauksessa.

They say the sequel is always worse than the original, but Al Gore’s first film set the bar pretty low. Eleven years ago, “An Inconvenient Truth” hyped global warming by relying more on scare tactics than science. This weekend Mr. Gore is back with “An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power.” If the trailer is any indication, it promises to be more of the same.