To all of our readers in the United States, Happy Thanksgiving! In that time honored tradition of American college students we’re not posting new content today to allow our readers to catch up on all the reading that has been overlooked over the last few weeks. Here’s a brief overview of our most recent publications:
In Electric Power to the People Sam Stolper explores the relationship between access to cheap electricity and economic growth. While it seems obvious that access to energy would make the lives of the rural poor better in all cases the real story turns out to be more complicated.
Next, our partnership with the Environmental Defense Fund gives us an article on how companies are getting smarter about their energy use. Companies are rapidly moving beyond just optimizing their energy plans to be efficient by making low cost investments and are now tackling some seriously large projects. In a policy environment where there may not be much Federal support for energy efficiency working with companies may more important than ever.
Caroline Park explores the newest super-food in A Tale of Teff. Like quinoa before it, teff is a food well known to Ethiopian farmers that has recently been ‘discovered’ by the West. Caroline explores what that means for the farmers who have traditionally grown it in this third part of a four-part series.
One of our newest authors, Danny Bresler, revisits the challenges posed by Malthus more than a century ago in Escaping the Malthusian Trap. While we’ve safely avoided the most dire of Malthus’ predictions to date – and past predictions that we would soon encounter those dire circumstances have proved very wrong – it is important to remember the role technology has played in our success. Can we reasonably expect that to continue?
Finally, our partnership with GreenBuzz gives us an article on the importance of gender equality in reach sustainability. Despite the recent attention given to gender issues in the West it can be easy to forget how much more advanced much of the West is relative to the developing world when it comes to gender equality. Make progress on this front will be crucial for achieving sustainable development.
For everyone who is caught up on our most recent articles, we’ll be back to publishing new content on Monday. Coming up in December we’ll have several new podcasts in addition to our regular written content.
