Felix Dodds comments on sustainable development, coffee & life

Founded in 2000 by the late Arthur Lyons, the Palm Springs Film Noir festival includes an eclectic mix of Classic Film Noir “B” movies. Soon it will be F ilm Festival time in Palm Spring .   This will be my first visit to this Film Festival and my second time to Palm Spring.  Writer and Film Noir Foundation director Alan K. Rode, who is producing and hosting the festival for the sixth consecutive year, promises another fun-filled weekend of classic noir enlivened by special guest star appearances and introductions by noted film historians.   "I try to keep the Festival fresh for our core audience members who aren't necessarily habitués of the film noir festival circuit," said Rode. " While the guest stars and the commentators are a major component of the festival's rich heritage, our loyal patrons continue to sustain the Arthur Lyons Film Noir Festival primarily because of the unique mix of films that are programmed every year." The festival is ...

Geneva 26th and 27th of April:  Dialogue 1 :  The Nexus Approach and the environmental dimension of the 2030 Agenda: Policy, Practice and Partnerships The first Dialogue will launch the Dialogue series and introduce the nexus approach and nexuses. A highlevel segment involving a panel discussion among UN senior officials, invited Member States, the private sector and civil society will officially launch the process, highlighting the needs for and benefits of the nexus approach from an environmental perspective. During the technical part, attendees will be introduced to the process, benefits, and challenges related to the nexus approach, focusing on practical application. Participants will explore the nature of interactions across multiple SDG targets and identifying crucial “nexus targets” between sectors. Participants will be invited to identify where they have used nexus-like approaches and/or where they see potential. The discussion will move on ...

The PRI and the UN Global Compact call for more sustainability around Corporate Pensions  The leaders of the world's two largest corporate and investor sustainability initiatives today called on CEOs to ensure their corporate pension plans – an untapped sustainability area – adopt responsible investing policies – highlighting concrete benefits including improved investment performance, fulfilling fiduciary duty and managing regulatory risk and boosting corporate sponsor credibility. According to a guide released today b y the UN-supported Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) and UN Global Compact , CEOs should ensure plans mirror their own sustainability values. Aligning Values: Why corporate pension plans should mirror their sponsors  includes case study examples from major corporate pension plans showing how companies have taken steps to make their plans sustainable. It also gives five steps a CEO could take to ensure their plan invests responsibly, such as ...

Achim Steiner will be the new Administrator of UNDP. In an interesting move UN Secretary General António Guterres has picked former Executive Director of UNEP as the new head of UNDP. He will take over from Helen Clark in the summer and will be facing some challenging financial issues as the funding for UNDP has halved during Helen's term of Office. The organization has also seemed to lack any vision of what it is there for. Steiner saw funding for UNEP increase during his term of office and he oversaw the implementation of the Rio+20 commitment to create a biannual United Nations Environment Assembly which has all member states as members. Ina press report there was some unhappiness that the position had not gone to a woman. One of the candidates that did not succeed was  French Environment Minister Segolene Royal, she was surprised at the decision because Guterres had promised a woman would take the job. "I regret it, of course. That doesn't gel with what was s...

  ((Rogue CNN exists in a parallel universe to ours where a property developer and reality TV star gets elected President)) There is a shake-up in the White House caused at the latest press conference by Sean Spicer who had forgotten the 1st rule of politics: Never compare anything to Hitler.   President Trump had had enough of Spicer’s mistakes. This time his mistake had stopped a small bounce in the opinion polls the President had seen due to the air strike against Syria.  Headline’s across the web were now on Spicer and Hitler – not a good follow up to the lack of mention of the Jewish suffering on the anniversary of the Holocaust. A late press conference was called where Sean Spicer was forced to announce he had resigned as White House Press Secretary and introduced his replacement, Michael Strauss. Spicer leaving the White House Press Room for the last time  Michael Strauss is Executive Director of Earth Media, an independent political and com...

Khalil Shahyd’s work focuses on the Energy Efficiency for All Project, which aims to increase utility-funded energy efficiency programs in the affordable multifamily housing sector. He coordinates with NRDC’s affordable housing partners to advocate for efficiency investments in the EPA’s Clean Power Plan. As part of the LEED Neighborhood Development initiative, Shahyd also promotes the expansion of “green” communities in New Orleans. Climate activists are often frustrated by the slow pace of national and global actions on climate change. Recognizing the urgent need for action doesn’t always give rise to the political will necessary to follow through ,  particularly with an issue as complex as transitioning the global economy away from fossil fuels. A recent paper  in  Science Magazine  titled "A roadmap for rapid de-carbonization" (hereafter “the roadmap”) spells that part out—as does a perhaps more accessible  Vox article  reviewing it...

"There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know" Donald Rumsfeld By Jack Moss – Executive Director – AquaFed - www.aquafed.org When I was a child in the 1950s, people were dying in the great “ pea-souper smogs ” of London. When I was a student in the 70s, atmospheric pollution was part of our course on weather and climate. In 2006, the film “ An Inconvenient Truth ” came out. Last week (11 February 2017) the Economist magazine published an article on cleaning up Britain´s air pollution . Progress in fighting air pollution has been slow and patchy. There have been local successes, such as the UK Clean Air Acts, but overall atmospheric pollution is still on the rise. The crisis A local crisis, such as the recent air pollution peaks in London and Paris, seems to ...