Climate and Environment

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19 Ways We Innovate

Reporting in collaboration with Yadira Gutierrez.

More than 800 staff members in 47 countries cast a vote for their favorite innovation. Which is your favorite?

A simple solution makes a big impact for Ethiopia's farming families. Photo: Erin Gray/Mercy Corps.

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19 Ways We Innovate: Winners Announced

And the winner of Mercy Corps’ internal innovations competition is...(drumroll, please)... Ethiopia! Despite—or very well perhaps because—of the massive drought that's hit the Horn of Africa, community members and Mercy Corps staff have hit on a solution that's both simple and cheap.

An oil pipeline to Canada's untapped Tar Sands deposits would create short-term construction jobs, but its effects on the climate could permanently destroy jobs elsewhere. Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rickz/2113212191/">rickz (Flickr)</a>

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Diffusing a carbon bomb: tapping Canadian tar sands would hit Africa’s poor hardest

Earth to Big Oil: On a global scale, The Keystone XL pipeline would probably kill more jobs than it creates.

Women in Kenya drag jerry cans of water 4 kilometers through a parched landscape. Photo by Erin Gray/Mercy Corps.

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The East Africa drought: forecasting for humanitarian aid

How bad is the drought and famine in East Africa? Climate scientist Simon Mason elaborates in this video interview.

Mercy Corps made cutting down trees for cooking fuel more sustainable through a reforestation project in Alta Verapaz, Guatemala. Photo: JGrant for Mercy Corps.

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Payment for protection: an innovative program boosts incomes and saves trees

A new program in Brazil is turning tragedy on its head by paying the poor to preserve their natural surroundings.

Yesterday's news could be tomorrow's biofuel. Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/ljb/26549528/lightbox/">Lisa Batty (Flickr)</a>

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Power to the paper: Pulp-powered batteries are in the works

Why not do something useful with those stacks of holiday cards languishing at home? Like re-charge your cell phone.

Informal trash collectors may gain "green" jobs in the formal sector with the closure of the world's largest trash dump. Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/associationbasmati/2885924570/"> basmati - authentic help (flickr)</a>

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Diverting garbage to a recycling plant leaves out a key player: dump dwellers

Does your old lunch bag go in the garbage or the recycle bin? For hundreds of thousands of garbage scavengers worldwide who make a meager living by collecting, recycling and reselling trash, that decision is worth its weight in cash.

A flourishing economy has enabled many Chinese citizens to climb the socio-economic ranks. Photo:<a href="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3054/2928911826_e8754e82e2_s.jpg">xiaming (flickr)</a>

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As China's middle class rises, so does social discontent

The spirit of 1989’s Tiananmen Square is alive in China, except the swarm of charged students has been replaced by a disgruntled, expanding middle class.

Inadvertently, an economic boom has resounded with cries for change.

Industrial emissions are a major source of CO2 contributing to climate change. Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/un_photo/5410822714/sizes/z/in/photostream/">United Nations Photo (flickr)</a>

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Amid financial crisis, China is the new champion for carbon reduction

The ongoing global financial crisis should not impede the fight against climate change. That's the concern coming from a surprising corner of the world: China.