May 2023 — With the launch of the new United Nations University (UNU) global website platform, Our World has been integrated into the UNU website and will shift to become a curated collection of UNU's ...

In August 1883 the painter Edvard Munch witnessed an unusual blood-red sunset over Oslo. Shaken up by it, he wrote in his diary that he “felt a great, unending scream piercing through nature”. The ...

Climate change effects are already observable in many parts of the world and, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a continuous rise in mean temperatures for the rest of the ...

Last month I returned to Nauru, the smallest member of the United Nations and my home. The island is located in the Pacific Ocean close to the equator, about halfway between Hawaii and Australia. Our ...

Each year, the total amount of electric and electronic equipment the world uses grows by 2.5 million metric tonnes. Phones, radios, toys, laptops, and more — if it has a power or battery supply it’s ...

Every minute, an estimated 20 people are forcibly displaced due to conflict, persecution, or war. Of the 68.5 million forcibly displaced people worldwide, 25.4 million are refugees. Compounding the ...

Pulling up just before sunrise at the Salton Sea, California’s biggest lake, is an almost surreal experience. At this time of day it’s eerily quiet; just the sound of water, a few desolate cries of ...

Rice has long been Thailand’s traditional food crop and the country’s main export product. Though declining in relative importance, it still occupies about 55% of the total arable land . Over 80% of ...

The political turmoils in Syria, along with Egypt and other countries in the Middle East, have entangled the international community and served as a major test of global governance. Syria’s political ...

Renewable energy is helping to power increasing numbers of the world’s road vehicles. Now several European countries are exploring the potential for using renewables to fuel their trains. In the ...

In 2020, every human on Earth created an average of at least 1.7 megabytes of data per second, collectively amassing 2.5 quintillion data bytes. Some 90% of the world’s total data was created in the ...

As production (real GDP) grows, its marginal utility declines, because we satisfy our most important needs first. Likewise, the marginal disutilitiy inflicted by growth increases, because as the ...