-The New York Times     Small-scale farmers in the developing world, using low-tech sustainable agricultural techniques, may just hold the key to ensuring global food security, writes Andrea Stone The challenge is huge but the solution may be small, very small. Faced with global warming and a population that will swell to 9 billion by 2050, a growing number of experts say that the way to feed the masses as climate change makes...

-The United Nations   Concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have crossed a new threshold, the United Nation's weather agency today confirmed, warning that time is running out to curb rising greenhouse gas emissions. In April, monthly concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere topped 400 parts per million (ppm) throughout the northern hemisphere, the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reported. "This threshold is of symbolic and scientific significance and reinforces evidence...

-The Hindu   UDHAGAMANDALAM: The Union government favours a participatory approach to protecting natural resources, especially the precious soil and water, A.K. Sikka, Deputy Director-General (National Resource Management), Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), said on Monday. He was inaugurating a six-day advanced training programme on planning and design of engineering structures in the watershed management programme organised by the Central Soil and Water Conservation Research and Training Institute (CSWRTI) under the aegis...

-Financial Chronicle   Forecasts on possible monsoon behaviour are not very encouraging. There is a possibility of El Nino factors causing further problems. More recently, our farmers in parts of north and central India experienced the fury of hailstorms and heavy rains. Climate change further complicates the possibility of providing accurate advance estimates of monsoon behaviour. This is not only true in our country, but also around the world. California, for example,...

-Down to Earth   Britain's weather department has issued a heat wave warning and the US is presently basking in a summer with temperatures higher than normal Freak rains, hailstorms and now an early heat wave, it is all happening here in India. While Odisha and Kolkata were in the grip of heat wave in late April, which claimed 33 lives (30 in Odisha and three in Kolkata), intense heat wave conditions have...