Bosnia, Serbia and other parts of the Balkans are facing their worst drought for decades. The river Danube, usually one of eastern Europe’s busiest transport routes has eighty or more cargo ships at a standstill. Traffic on the river is “practically non-existent”. In Romania, Hungary, and Bulgaria crop production for 2012 is in jeopardy . Bosnia …
Continue reading “How climate change is impacting businesses in the Balkans”
Anybody still unsure why climate change is an issue for business can read this story where the recent floods in Thailand were cited by Sony as one of the three reasons for turning their $0.6bn profit forecast turned into a $0.8bn loss. The entire country of Thailand’s growth forecast was slashed from 4.1% to 2.6%. …
At Permabusiness we like to maintain a positive attitude, so we hesitate to share this story. But we also know that it is important to face reality as it is, not as it once was, or how we would like it to be. Accelerating amounts of permafrost methane and CO2 are beginning to be emitted …
Continue reading “Methane from melting permafrost set to accelerate climate change by 20%-30%”
The amount of investment in renewable energy has passed that in fossil fuels for the first time. Electricity from the wind, sun, waves and biomass drew $187 billion last year compared with $157 billion for natural gas, oil and coal, according to calculations by Bloomberg. Source, LA Times: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-renewables-20111125,0,2421278.story This related story has a nice graphic …
Continue reading “Renewable energy investment finally passes fossil fuels”
Oil remains volatile, with prices falling despite low US stocks. UK-based banks are swapping their liquid assets for the illiquid assets of European lenders — but does the resulting mix have a lower or higher risk of contagion? Use of the renminbi to settle cross-border trades fell.
The Earth is full and over the past ten years increasing demand from emerging markets has erased all the resource-price declines of the last century. A new report from McKinsey says three key trends look set to make this situation more difficult and more volatile: people in developing nations are looking to increase their standards of living, …
A BBC Panorama programme recently put out some figures on the UK’s up-coming energy crisis and the need to build new capacity. This short film explains how the programme got its figures wrong, and how within a few years (by 2020) renewable energy is expected to be cheaper, and more reliable, than fossil-fuel alternatives. If …
Continue reading “Why BBC’s Panorama got it wrong on Green Energy”
The solution to the financial crisis is straightforward. As Richard Douthwaite and others have pointed out, the problem we face is not a lack of money. Rather it is the fact that our money has been lent into existence. As we are now discovering, this creates an inherently unstable system of debt, in which default …
This movie tells the story of dirt. It is relevant to your business because it shows how current farming practices are destroying topsoil, increasing the likelihood that your employees, your suppliers, and your customers, will not have enough food to eat. And as one participant puts it, “here’s this 120 year window in which we …
A sustainable way forward needs to reconnect our economy back into the ecology of the planet. This excellent five minute video explores some of the issues: One thing jumps out from the very beginning: the origin of the word economics means ‘household management‘ the origin of the word ecology means ‘household organisation‘ What if you could …