Recent Television Reviews
Well it has been a veritable delight of televisual output from the BBC in recent weeks with “Lost Land of the Jaguar” and “Britain from Above”. If you have missed any of these and are lucky enough to have access to the iPlayer I would recommend a catch-up, otherwise clips have been placed on YouTube…
Whales – wanted dead or alive?
Whales are featuring heavily in science and environmental news at the moment, as the annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission proceeds in Santiago, Chile. As always, feelings have been running high in both the pro- and anti-whaling camps. In the first vote of the meeting, Greenland has been denied the right to catch 10…
Can the world cope with more tourists?
The environment was the focus at the annual summit of the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) at Dubai this week, with an emphasis on the need to promote the tourism industry’s green credentials. Meanwhile, at the XII United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in Accra, Ghana, the UNWTO has presented a message…
It’s official – referees do favour the home team
While CABI is best known for its involvement in agriculture and the environment, the CAB Abstracts database also covers a range of other subjects, including leisure, tourism and sport. As one of the editors covering this subject area, from time to time I come across papers on subjects close to my heart. Most recently, football,…
NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!
The sound of despondent Handpicked bloggers rang through the air at CABI this morning. The corridors were reverberating in despair at the New Zealand Herald‘s frightening headline ‘Climate change could see pubs run dry‘. Streuth! Pedants among you who have checked the link will have noted that the story appeared in last week’s Herald, but…
Slum tourism: Pro-poor, or simple voyeurism?
A New York Times article published on 9 March on the questions of slum tourism has been generating hundreds of comments on the paper’s website, and has been picked up by many bloggers and news sites. While slum tourism is now offered in an increasing number of places around the world, from Rio de Janeiro…
Virgin flight fuels aviation and energy debates
The first flight by a commercial airline to be powered partly by biofuel has taken place. No passengers were on board, and just one of the aircraft’s four engines ran on fuel comprising a 20% biofuel mix together with 80% normal aviation fuel. But with both aviation and biofuels arousing strong emotions among environmentalists, the…
Review of 2007
Happy New Year and a big thank you to all those who subscribe or read our blog. It was a good 2007 for the hand picked … and carefully sorted with a full calendar year of blogging under our belt, turning 1 year old on 2nd November. We posted 167 articles on a variety of…
Maps – Finding Our Place in the World
If you can’t get to Chicago for the Festival of Maps which is currently underway, then why not pop along to the virtual gallery of the exhibition. Navteq have recreated the Chicago Field Museum Maps exhibit in interactive 3D, allowing you to tour the rooms where the maps are hung. By clicking on each of…
Carbon offsets – whats the deal?
At the UNWTO Conference on Climate Change and Tourism I attended in Davos, Switzerland last week, participants were requested to offset the carbon dioxide emissions of their travel and accommodation. Not an unreasonable request given the subject matter of the conference, and the fact that the conference itself was free to attend. But as reported…