Green Options

A new report by Maplecroft, a world leader in global risk assesment, lists the countries at the greatest and the least risk of climate change problems.

The new study examined 166 countries in total. With climate change, it is hard to guess who will be hit the worst, but here is one scientific attempt at ranking the countries’ vulnerability to climate change.

Finally, some good news to come out of the global recession! As the price of rough diamonds plummets in Africa, miners throughout the continent are instead turning toward a future in agriculture.

Diamond mining has nearly destroyed many African nations. In Sierra Leone, for instance, diamonds are what fueled an 11-year civil war, which killed or injured nearly 100,000 people and displaced millions. The conflict was popularized in the Oscar-nominated blockbuster film, Blood Diamond, starring Leonardo DiCapprio.

Blood Diamond exposed to the movie-going masses the horrors of the diamond industry's operation in the West African country of Sierra Leone. Four West African countries, Angola, The Congo, Guinea and Sierra Leone, where the diamond trade is bloodiest, produce about 20% (PDF) of the world's rough diamonds. The growing global market for diamonds reached nearly $70 billion dollars in 2005 fueled largely by the insatiable appetite of US consumers who

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