Category Archives: Magazines

A Canadian Compromise

May 25, 2010

MAY 2010 is looking like a good month for forests. In a couple of days, on the 27th, the Oslo Forest Climate Conference is expected to mark another step on the road to a comprehensive deal on tropical deforestation. And last week, on the 18th, an unlikely-seeming collection of forest-products companies and environmental organisations announced the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement, which should drastically change the way in which huge areas of Canadian forest are managed. (more…)

Posted in Magazines, Online, The Economist

The Connected Car

Jun 4th 2009

Cars are becoming more connected, both to remote systems for navigation and information, and to each other

IN “KNIGHT RIDER”, a 1980s television show, Michael Knight fought for justice with the help of KITT, an artificially intelligent Pontiac Trans Am. The pair chatted amiably, with KITT sensing and reacting to nearby objects, navigating and looking up information about Mr Knight’s immediate surroundings and deadly adversaries. KITT could even drive itself. Thirty years on, many of the fantastical Pontiac’s features are becoming reality. (more…)

Posted in Magazines, The Economist

Destination: The Java Zone

Jan/Feb 2009

Nicaraguan coffee growers are preserving ecosystems that nurture banana trees, sloths, and a new breed of tourists

The mist was clearing, revealing forested hilltops that mark the edge of a protected national forest in Nicaragua’s northern highlands. With a trio of toucans in a tall tree looking down their long, green banana beaks at us, I walked with Flora Montenegro, a coffee farmer, as she inspected her crop. Montenegro is always smiling. Her black hair flows in a bushy ponytail from under her baseball cap. She is descended from the German settlers who first brought coffee to this region, and her blue eyes scanned the scene around us: coffee and more coffee, shade trees protecting it from the sun, and above us the verdant forest. I’ve been drinking coffee for years. I love the way a warming mug of the stuff marks my daily transition to wakefulness. But I knew there was more to my morning jolt than just caffeine. I had come to the mountains of Nicaragua to peer into coffee’s murky depths. (more…)

Posted in Magazines, Sierra