International Conservation & Development

An open-source publication targeted to machinery manufacturers, engineers, researchers and development practitioners, this book describes and provides technical designs for small-scale agricultural machinery developed or produced in Bangladesh to support the sustainable intensification of agriculture by smallholder farmers. The focus is on smart, scale-appropriate equipment particularly for use with two-wheel hand tractors suited for the small plots typical throughout Bangladesh, but also in many countries where small-holder farmers predominate.

The 2014 Indo-American Frontiers of Engineering will be held May 19-21, at the Infosys Center in Mysore, India. About 60 outstanding engineers under the age of 45 will meet for an intensive 2-1/2 day symposium to discuss cutting-edge developments in four areas: Biomaterials, Water Resource Management in the Face of Climate Change, Green Approaches to Communications, and Engineering in the Context of Big Data.

The oil and natural-gas industry probably won't ever get a thank-you card from President Obama, but he has a few big reasons to be grateful for the fossil-fuel boom. America's vast resources of oil and natural gas have enabled Obama to move forward on aggressive policies, including tougher environmental rules and Iranian oil sanctions, which he would not have been able to do nearly as effectively without them.

Wilmar International, one of the world’s biggest palm oil producers, has agreed to ensure the oil it supplies will not result in any additional loss of rainforests, in a move that could significantly slow the destruction of tropical forests around the world. “If Wilmar is genuine in its commitments to deforestation-free, peat-free, exploitation-free palm oil, this could be a game-changer for the industry,” said Sharon Smith, palm oil campaign manager for the Union of Concerned Scientists.

The development and deployment of cleaner energy technologies have become globalized phenomena. Yet despite the fact that energy-related goods account for more than ten percent of international trade, policy makers, academics, and the business community perceive barriers to the global diffusion of these emerging technologies. Experts point to problems including intellectual property concerns, trade barriers, and developing countries' limited access to technology and funding.

Democrats blame record drought. Republicans blame Obama. But one thing both parties agree on is that food prices are going up. In his acceptance speech at last week's GOP convention, Mitt Romney openly mocked tackling climate change as the opposite of helping working families, yet pointed to food prices in his long list of ongoing concerns: "Food prices are higher. Utility bills are higher, and gasoline prices, they've doubled," he claimed.

The most recent round of UN climate negotiations ended last month in Warsaw, and the outcome was familiarly inconclusive: Nations agreed to keep negotiating and making voluntary efforts to reduce emissionsof greenhouse gases. After nineteen years of negotiations little has changed. Or has it?

The Technion has inaugurated a brand new visualization laboratory, the first of its kind in Israel, in the Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning. The new visualization lab is a research and learning facility, which allows one to “enter” a three-dimensional digital simulation (model) of buildings, cities and landscapes, whether they physically exist yet or are in only in the planning stages.

While a farmer can control the inputs on to his land, ensuring that fertilizer and pest management and other products meet organic standards, that level of control isn’t really available in a natural body of water, says Lisa Bunin, CFS’s organic policy coordinator. For example, pollutants move freely through water, making it almost impossible to ensure a fish raised organically is not exposed. Further, some fish, such as salmon, are migratory, and stopping that migration would be adverse to the spirit of organic, Bunin adds.