Tag: environment

Who’s Enforcing Water Regulations Anyway?

We often tend to make over-generalizations and over-simplifications in addressing global issues.  My research area of water privatization has lead to many interesting questions, more so, than concrete answers.  Partly, I think that these questions can lead to narrowing down policy decisions for more suitable results.  What I’ve seen is that these over-generalizations can lead to …

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Turn Out the Lights

This a video in the form of a public service announcement that encourages people to conserve energy by remembering to turn off unnecessary lights, and leave them off for as long as possible. What is your reaction to this video? Do you have other ideas that people could use to conserve energy in their home …

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Unsustainable Consumerism Part 4: Disposal

After three posts on the materials economy we’ve followed the story of our stuff through extraction, production, distribution, and consumption.  What’s left? Well, what do you think happens to our stuff after we’re done with it?  I mentioned in my last post that 99% of the stuff we purchase gets thrown away within 6 months.  Today …

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Fukushima y Deepwater Horizon: reacciones políticas

Read this post in English Abril 2010: Deepwater Horizon, fuga de petróleo en el golfo de México. Durante tres meses, el petróleo fluye sin cesar. Este fue el mayor derrame de petróleo en la historia del oro negro. La explosión mata a 11 hombres. El derrame causó daño ambiental en los hábitats marinos y en …

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El Agua: Ganancias vs Humanidad

Read this post in English Uno de los temas que me ha interesado cada vez más ha sido la inaccesibilidad del agua y la privatización del agua.  El último par de semanas, he estado siguiendo el Consejo Mundial del Agua y el Foro Mundial del Agua, los cuales se establecieron con el fin de abordar …

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Myanmar and the Politics of Tourism

Several months ago I wrote a post on the future of tourism in Myanmar (better known as Burma), which many groups were hoping to capitalize on in the coming years.  Myanmar has been largely untouched by tourists thanks to a combination of government restrictions and sanctions imposed by countries like the US, and now that …

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Simply Brilliant

Renewable energy is the wave of the future. Eliminating our dependence on fossil fuels and relying solely on renewable energy sources would be a boon for our environment unlike anything we have ever seen. However, even the United States, a very advanced nation, only satisfies 11% of its electricity needs through renewable resources. Simply put, …

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Gobiernos Locales Esenciales en el Problema del Agua

El otro día que estaba sentada en mi clase de Economía Política, mi profesor dio una respuesta muy sencilla de por qué surgen diferencias de desarrollo económico entre países: LAS INSTITUCIONES. Por supuesto, esta respuesta no es una epifanía, sino que más bien es una realización de lo que algunos países realmente carecen. Quizás no …

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Fukushima vs Deepwater Horizon: political reactions

April 2010: Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. During three months, oil flows unabated. This is the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of oil extraction. The explosion kills 11 men. The spill caused extensive environmental damage to marine and wildlife habitats, as well as economic damage to the fishing and tourism industries. March 2011: …

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Local Governments Essential In Water Problem

As I sat in my Political Economics class the other day, my professor gave a very simple answer to differences in economic development between countries: INSTITUTIONS.  Of course, this answer is not an epiphany by any means, but rather it is a realization of what some countries really do lack.  We may not think about …

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