If you want to learn what farmers think (and need), talk to African farmers – not to bureaucrats, environmental activists or politicos at the Rio+20 United Nations summit in Rio de Janeiro. You’ll get very different, far more honest and thoughtful perspectives.
If you want to learn what farmers think (and need), talk to African farmers – not to bureaucrats, environmental activists or politicos at the Rio+20 United Nations summit in Rio de Janeiro. You’ll get very different, far more honest and thoughtful perspectives. The recent (May 24) Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network conference in Pretoria, South Africa brought together delegates from agricultural communities in many African countries. FANRPAN’s primary objective is to improve food security in Africa, by ensuring that small-scale farmers can become more productive. Their obvious enthusiasm and commonsense views were heartening. FANRPAN chair Sindiso Ngwenya of [...]
Dr. Kelvin Kemm, a South African nuclear physicist and CFACT advisor, explains on Kenyan TV that Africans need to greatly increase the availability of affordable electricity and do not need Europeans telling them "No."
From my vantage point here in South Africa, I am aware of the momentum of the major build-up to the next big United Nations world environment conference, COP 17, which will be held in December, in Durban, the city where I went to school and university. I am honored to be part of CFACT's delegation to the Durban conference. We've certainly got our work cut out for us. We hear of ‘the road to Durban’ on international news broadcasts and, daily, people of all ranks are making comments on the issues to be addressed at COP 17. The conference organizers have [...]
Here in the “upside down” Southern Hemisphere, we have now passed mid-winter and are heading toward summer. However, the nights will remain rather cold for another month, before we start to really feel the returning warmth of summer.
PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA—South Africa is currently a world leader in malaria control and has achieved great success, particularly since reintroducing the use of DDT a number of years ago.I have had an interest in malaria for many years and, a few years ago, I was invited to write a chapter in a book published in London on Third World health. My chapter was on malaria and the wonder chemical DDT. DDT is not at all harmful, as so many activists have claimed.Malaria is both preventable and curable. Had the world invested as much effort into wiping out malaria as has been [...]
The earthquake and tsunami in Japan delivered a devastating one-two punch to that island nation and to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. So what does much of the world do? You guessed it. They blamed the designers, builders and operators of the nuclear plant for not doing a good enough job.
The recent tragic events in Japan have brought the issue of nuclear energy to the forefront of public discussion. While radical environmentalists have exploited the issue to advance anti-nuclear policies, others have tried to defend this important energy source on the grounds of its importance to our economy and standard of living. Missing in the discussion is the fact that important breakthroughs in nuclear engineering should now be given proper vetting – developments that could reduce or eliminate the threat of nuclear meltdown.In order to grasp the significance of these breakthroughs, a basic understanding of the development of nuclear power technology [...]
I started watching a National Geographic programme on TV about how the climate had changed over the past centuries. I have always had great respect for National Geographic because its material has always been well researched and presented. The programme showed how the sea level rose dramatically 125,000 years ago. Geological records showed underwater corals that were frozen in time in rock formations that are now some metres above sea level. Professional geologists explained how science was able to show all this to be true. Up to this point, the programme was good. Then, suddenly, the programme switched to projecting sea [...]