Most of humanity today lives an a metropolis. Is all climate local? Cities are the locus of many of the world's unique environmental, social, and economic problems. But they are also demonstrating a unique talent for applying smarter technology and policy to create a better future.

"It would be natural to imagine that the fall of Tripoli would mean a significant decrease in the cost of oil and the pain that the average consumer feels at the pump. After all, in February, when unrest in Libya commenced, oil prices hit a two-year high. Libya is only the 15th biggest oil exporter in the world, but the oil it exports is of a particularly desirable type.

"STOCKHOLM — Population growth and water stress are driving Earth to a food and environmental crunch that only better farming techniques and smarter use of the ecosystem will avert, a UN report issued on Monday said."

"Seattle is the home of the U.S. Coast Guard's entire fleet of polar-class icebreakers.

Both of them.

Capt. George Pellissier commands both the Polar Sea and the Polar Star. He has spent much of his career on these ships, which were built in Seattle in the 1970s.

"A human fecal bacterium kills coral, new research shows, and U.S. scientists say this is a warning to Florida and the Caribbean to protect prized reefs from sewage or face a threat to a key pillar of their tourism."

"A third or more of all the honey consumed in the U.S. is likely to have been smuggled in from China and may be tainted with illegal antibiotics and heavy metals.  A Food Safety News investigation has documented that millions of pounds of honey banned as unsafe in dozens of countries are being imported and sold here in record quantities."

"Plants and animals are responding up to three times faster to climate change than previously estimated, as wildlife shifts to cooler altitudes and latitudes, researchers said on Thursday."

"U.S. solar company Evergreen Solar Inc filed for bankruptcy on Monday, its once cutting-edge technology falling victim to competition from cheaper Chinese rivals and solar subsidy cuts in Europe."

"The famine in the Horn of Africa is manmade - the result of artificially high prices for food and civil conflict, the World Bank's lead economist for Kenya Wolfgang Fengler told Reuters Tuesday."

"Japan insists its nuclear crisis was caused by an unforeseeable combination of tsunami and earthquake. But new evidence suggests its reactors were doomed to fail."

David McNeill and Jake Adelstein report for the Independent August 17, 2011. [39]

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