Word: rurality
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...Gard, between the Mediterranean and the hills of the Massif Central, got the worst of the floods, with 19 dead and 3,000 people forced from their homes. Provence has suffered five such disasters since 1988. Jacques Thorette, a drainage expert, said: "Everywhere in France, we have paved rural roads; we have built car parks around supermarkets without worrying where the water would go." MIDDLE EAST No Confidence At a meeting of the Palestinian Legislative Council, the entire cabinet of Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority submitted its resignation when it became apparent that the majority of council representatives would support...
...development and family-planning programs have helped slow the tide of people, but in some places, population growth is moderating for all the wrong reasons. In the poorest parts of the world, most notably Africa, infectious diseases such as AIDS, malaria, cholera and tuberculosis are having a Malthusian effect. Rural-land degradation is pushing people into cities, where crowded, polluted living conditions create the perfect breeding grounds for sickness. Worldwide, at least 68 million are expected to die of AIDS by 2020, including 55 million in sub-Saharan Africa. While any factor that eases population pressures may help the environment...
...ENERGY AND CLIMATE: In the U.S., people think of rural electrification as a long-ago legacy of the New Deal. In many parts of the world, it hasn't even happened yet. About 2.5 billion people have no access to modern energy services, and the power demands of developing economies are expected to grow 2.5% per year. But if those demands are met by burning fossil fuels such as oil, coal and gas, more and more carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases will hit the atmosphere. That, scientists tell us, will promote global warming, which could lead to rising seas...
...Equator Initiative, a public-private group, is publicizing examples of sustainable development in the equatorial belt. Among the projects already cited are one to help restore marine fisheries in Fiji and another that promotes beekeeping as a source of supplementary income in rural Kenya. The Global Conservation Trust hopes to raise $260 million to help conserve genetic material from plants for use by local agricultural programs. "When you approach sustainable development from an environmental view, the problems are global," says the U.N.'s Malloch Brown. "But from a development view, the front line is local, local, local...
...firewood and cow dung, burning it in primitive stoves that belch smoke into their lungs. To emerge from poverty, they need modern energy. And renewables can help, from village-scale hydro power to household photovoltaic systems to bio-gas stoves that convert dung into fuel. More than a million rural homes in developing countries get electricity from solar cells. "The potential is enormous," says Anil Cabraal, an energy specialist for the World Bank, which has helped finance 500,000 residential solar systems from Argentina to Sri Lanka...