Jul 29, 2021
BEIRUT – Severe water shortages in Iran in recent weeks have prompted electricity outages and even sparked deadly protests, but analysts say the underlying causes go back decades and will rattle the country for much longer than this summer’s drought.
Sadeq Ziaeian, director of Iran’s National Drought Warning and Monitoring Center, said the country was facing one of its toughest rainfall seasons in 50 years.
In comments to the official IRNA agency and carried by the Tehran Times, he noted rainfall had dropped by nearly 50% in South Khorasan province this year compared to the long-term average and by as much as 80% in southeastern Sistan and Baluchistan province.
Apr 15, 2021
London – Environmental scientist Laura Garcia Velez cut her teeth on projects to help Ethiopian farmers insure crops for drought and connect remote Colombian communities to the electricity grid before working for conservation campaigners WWF.
Now she’s an analyst for Lombard Odier, charged with improving the $350 billion Swiss bank’s green credentials.
“It’s really important that finance recruits from science,” said Velez, one of a growing number of campaigners and scientists who have switched to banking, which she hopes can play a role in “greening the polluting industries.”
Activism and finance may seem an unlikely pairing of two implacable foes.
Climate scientists swap fieldwork for high-paid finance jobs japantimes.co.jp - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from japantimes.co.jp Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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In 2018, volunteers with an interest in microdosing – regularly taking tiny amounts of psychedelic drugs such as LSD – began taking part in an unusual experiment. For four weeks, researchers at Imperial College London asked them to swap some of their drugs with empty capsules – placebos – so that when they took them, they didn’t know if they were microdosing or not. They then completed online surveys and cognitive tasks at regular intervals, aimed at gauging their mental wellbeing and cognitive abilities. The idea: to explore if microdosing produces the benefits to mood and brain function that some people claim.