A series of articles from TIME looking at where the world’s going – the entry on Africa has some good info on trade vs aid:
In 2006, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, foreign investment in Africa reached $48 billion, overtaking foreign aid for the first time. That gap has only widened, reflecting a quadrupling of foreign investment since 2000… War is down. Democracy is up. Inflation and interest rates are in single digits. Terms of trade have improved. Crucially, said Nellor, “growth is taking off.” The IMF puts Africa’s average annual growth for 2004 to ’08 at more than 6% — better than any developed economy — and predicts the continent will buck the global recessionary trend to grow nearly 3.3% this year.
I think the Ecological Intelligence entry is probably the most important though:
But ecological intelligence is ultimately about more than what we buy. It’s also about our ability to accept that we live in an infinitely connected world with finite resources. Goleman highlights the Tibetan community of Sher, where for millenniums, villagers have survived harsh conditions by carefully conserving every resource available to them. The Tibetans think ecologically because they have no other choice. Neither do we. “We once had the luxury to ignore our impacts,” says Goleman. “Not anymore.”
Also slightly scarily:
[Coke] uses 5% of the world’s total sugar crop
That’s something like 7 million tonnes of sugar.
(via kottke)