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Aug 19, 2024 | 
thebreakthroughjournal.substack.com | Alex Smith |Vijaya Ramachandran
By Alex Smith and Vijaya RamachandranJournalists, academics and policymakers often talk about the “global food system.” But if there is such a thing, it isn’t really global, it’s only partially about food, and it’s not very systematic. To be sure, some food commodities flow around the world. Grains, food oils, fish, and even meat can travel vast distances before they’re forked, spooned, or shoveled into a consumer’s mouth.
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Aug 19, 2024 | 
breakthroughjournal.org | Alex Smith |Vijaya Ramachandran
By Alex Smith and Vijaya RamachandranJournalists, academics and policymakers often talk about the “global food system.” But if there is such a thing, it isn’t really global, it’s only partially about food, and it’s not very systematic. To be sure, some food commodities flow around the world. Grains, food oils, fish, and even meat can travel vast distances before they’re forked, spooned, or shoveled into a consumer’s mouth.
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Aug 5, 2024 | 
thebreakthroughjournal.substack.com | Vijaya Ramachandran
By Vijaya RamachandranIn 1992, Al Gore termed adaptation to be “a kind of laziness, an arrogant faith in our ability to react in time to save our skin.” The evidence suggests otherwise. Climate adaptation—the set of actions that societies take to protect their populations from extremes, such as storms, floods, droughts, heatwaves, and cold snaps—works.
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Jul 9, 2024 | 
thebreakthroughjournal.substack.com | Vijaya Ramachandran |Juzel Lloyd |Seaver T. Wang
By Vijaya Ramachandran, Juzel Lloyd, and Seaver WangAmongst the many energy-hungry technologies supporting modern society, artificial intelligence (AI) is emerging as a major driver of energy demand. Data centers—the physical infrastructure enabling AI—are becoming larger, multiplying, and consuming more energy. Environmental organizations such as Greenpeace are concerned that this will jeopardize decarbonization efforts and halt progress in the fight against climate change.
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May 28, 2024 | 
thebreakthroughjournal.substack.com | Vijaya Ramachandran |Alex Smith |Satvika Mahajan
By Vijaya Ramachandran, Alex Smith, and Satvika MahajanIn 2023, Blue Carbon, a Dubai-based company, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Liberian government for the exclusive rights to generate and sell carbon credits on about 2.5 million acres of Liberia’s forests. Blue Carbon will have those rights—which covers approximately 10 percent of Liberia’s total land area—for 30 years, and will retain 70% of the revenue from the sale of carbon credits.
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Apr 29, 2024 | 
thebreakthrough.org | Vijaya Ramachandran |Alex Smith
One of the many impacts of Russia’s war against Ukraine was a spike in global food prices. Although food prices are lower today than they were in the immediate aftermath of the invasion, the impact of the war on global food prices remains the most important consequence for the world’s poor countries. For many African states, Russia and Ukraine are the largest suppliers of wheat, corn, and other staples.
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Dec 4, 2023 | 
almendron.com | Alex Smith |Vijaya Ramachandran
As the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference (or COP28) gets underway in Dubai, the call for rich countries to provide more money to poor countries to fight climate change has taken center stage. But if the record on climate finance is any indication, poor countries should be careful what they wish for. The conventional critique of climate finance is that it’s too little.
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Dec 1, 2023 | 
foreignpolicy.com | Vijaya Ramachandran |Alex Smith
As the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference (or COP28) gets underway in Dubai, the call for rich countries to provide more money to poor countries to fight climate change has taken center stage. But if the record on climate finance is any indication, poor countries should be careful what they wish for.
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Nov 14, 2023 | 
obgyn.onlinelibrary.wiley.com | Natalie Chandler |Vijaya Ramachandran |Clare Beesley |Chineze Otigbah
1 REPORT Duo exome testing was requested on a fetus conceived via in vitro fertilization with an egg donor (see Table 1 for details). The fetus presented with non-immune hydrops fetalis (NIHF) with right pleural effusions, skin edema, ascites and increased nuchal fold (7 mm). No structural anomalies were detected by fetal echocardiogram and fetal Doppler assessment including the fetal middle cerebral artery showed no evidence of anemia.
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Oct 5, 2023 | 
foreignpolicy.com | Seaver T. Wang |Vijaya Ramachandran
At the 2023 Africa Climate Summit, a coalition of 500 activist groups called for an immediate global fossil fuel phaseout and demanded a “new 100% renewable energy system” capable of meeting “all African energy needs with renewable, socially and environmentally sound, people-centred renewable energy.” At the 2023 Africa Climate Summit, a coalition of 500 activist groups called for an immediate global fossil fuel phaseout and demanded a “new 100% renewable energy system” capable of meeting...
