(The Guardian)Australia’s natural wonder is in mortal danger. Bleaching caused by climate change has killed almost a quarter of its coral this year and many scientists believe it could be too late for the rest. Using exclusive photographs and new data, a Guardian special report investigates how the reef has been devastated – and what can be done to save it. ... read more at TheGuardian

Du Pont fusioniert mit Dow Chemical und wird weltgrößter Produzent von Saatgut und Pflanzenschutzmitteln, Chem-China übernimmt mit Syngenta den zweitgrößten Saatgut-Anbieter der Welt, jetzt will Bayer Monsanto kaufen, um dann ein Viertel des Weltmarktes für Spritzmittel und Saatgut zu kontrollieren. Für die Bauern ist das keine gute Perspektive. Zukunftsfähiger wäre der ökologische Landbau: Er macht unabhängig, erhält die Artenvielfalt, schont Böden, Wasser und Klima.

Where should you go if you want reliable, detailed data on fragile states, land grabs or trade deals?

It’s easy to be a bit nostalgic for work pre-internet, when research could involve exploring the dusty confines of the British Library or the excitement of digging out an old tome from a government archive with numbers on Ugandan coffee exports from 1957. But nothing really beats the satisfaction available today from downloading in just three or four clicks the entire import-export database for the same country. Yet, it can be tempting to make Wikipedia or Google the default for research. So, here are some gems which make international development research better, easier and more productive

Read all: http://www.theguardian.com

1 | Economic atlas and the globe of economic complexity

2 | International Energy Agency atlas

3 | Transnational land database – the Land Matrix

4 | IMF data site, data mapper and IMF Article IV reports

5 | The Armed Conflict Database maintained by Uppsala University

6 | World Bank Doing Business database

7 | The World Bank’s World Development Indicators

8 | UNDP’s Human Development Index (HDI)

9 | UN COMTRADE database

10 | OECD aid database

The Atlas of Economic Complexity

The Atlas online is a powerful interactive tool that enables users to visualize a country’s total trade, track how these dynamics change over time and explore growth opportunities for more than a hundred countries worldwide.

The Atlas is used by investors, entrepreneurs, policymakers, students and the general public to better understand the competitive landscape of countries around the globe. For any given country, The Atlas shows which products are produced and exported; The Atlas can then use this information to suggest products a country could begin manufacturing in order to fuel economic growth. As a dynamic resource, The Atlas is continually evolving with new data and features to help analyze economic growth and development.

http://atlas.cid.harvard.edu

The Globe of Economic Complexity

http://globe.cid.harvard.edu

(Weforum.org) We have entered the age of migration. If all the people who live outside the country of their birth united to form their own – a republic of the rootless – it would be the fifth-largest country in the world, with a population of more than 240 million people. .... read more at Weforum.org

Ashley Cooper hat die letzten 13 Jahre damit zugebracht, die Welt zu bereisen und die Auswirkungen des Klimawandels und der erneuerbaren Energien zu dokumentieren.... Er hat viel gesehen und fotografiert und möchte jetzt 500 seiner besten Bilder in einem Bildband veröffentlichen: "Images From a Warming Planet - One mans's mission to document climate change around the world" .

Wenn Sie mehr über das Buchprojekt oder die Arbeit von Ashley Copper wissen möchten, hier finden Sie alle Bilder: www.globalwarmingimages.net

Die Kickstarter-Kampagne findet sich hier: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/warmingplanet/images-from-a-warming-planet

Klimawandel

Der Good Country Index misst wie sehr ein Land in den globalen Wohlstand und die Friedenserhaltung investiert. Er ist indirekt ein Indikator für die langfristige Entwicklung eines Landes, da sich Länder mit einem hohen GCI auch bessere Handelsbeziehungen sichern können. Eine ausführliche Definition gibt es in der englischen Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Country_Index - die Website zum GCI gibt es hier http://goodcountry.org - das aktuelle Ranking mit den Plazierungen in den einzelnen Kategorien gibt es hier: http://goodcountry.org/index/overall-rankings

1000 Years of History. This timelapse video shows the map of Europe from year 1000 to year 2000 AD. Watch in high quality the geopolitical history of European and Middle-Eastern empires, nations, kingdoms, armies and republics. The animated historical atlas contains over 10.000 border changes.

(Hakai Magazine) Evicted by Climate Change - Government regulations forced the Yup’ik to give up their semi-nomadic existence. Now, as the land around them vanishes, they’re puzzling through the problem of moving. .. read more at Hakai Magazine

The Ninglick River has been steadily consuming the bank that Newtok sits along at an average rate of 21 meters per year. The riverbank is now 55.5 meters from the nearest home. Illustration by Mark Garrison (based on the Arctic Slope Consulting Group’s Newtok Erosion Shoreline Map)