World Development Movement blog

Guest blog by Jess Gold

Can songs about sustainability make a sustainable difference?

 “Never let a good crisis go to waste”, as the saying goes.  Well investors are certainly not known for their passive reflection in times of crisis.  As if food speculation wasn’t enough, the US drought provides yet another crisis for investors to take advantage of: water shortages.

DFID's technical fixes won't address the root causes of hunger.

Cameron's approach risks entrenching the root causes of hunger.

The recent plight of British dairy farmers has sparked a debate in some circles about the creation of a fair trade mark for UK products. Yet should we be considering more radical solutions to our global food crisis? 

Arriving in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital, the first thing you notice is the extensive swathes of mountainside covered with poorly built, crowded, ad-hoc homes – known locally as the barrios. Caracas’ shanty-town barrios were built in response to the influx of migrants from the countryside during the twentieth century. As Venezuela struck oil in the 1920s, it became easier and cheaper to use oil money to import foodstuffs and so many small farmers lost their livelihoods and poured into the capital in search of work.

Last week, the Scottish government published the results of its first annual target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.  It was not good news. The target was missed. In fact greenhouse gas emissions in Scotland had increased by 2%.