For forest residues to become sustainable end-products, forestry needs to be sustainable in the first place; but this is not the case today. Most people would assume a few things about our forests based on what they’ve been told: first, that Europe has a fair amount of protected forests – and even if not yet as much as the EU has promised, that protection rates are at least moving in the right direction. Other common misconceptions are that forestry is carried out sustainably, that predominantly climate-friendlywood products are produced, and that only forest residues are burned for energy.

members of the European parliament vote on a revised EU renewable energy directive. If the parliament fails to change the EU’s discredited and harmful renewables policy, European citizens’ tax money will continue to pay for forests around the globe to literally go up in smoke every day.

Increasing volumes of wood pellets and other wood fuels are being imported from outside the EU to satisfy Europe’s growing appetite for burning forests for energy. This is an appetite that the existing EU renewable energy directive incentivises. It does this by classifying forest biomass on paper as zero-carbon emissions when in reality, burning forest biomass will produce higher emissions than fossil fuels during the coming decisive decades.

This theme of geography is associated with toponymy (the name of a place), site (the description of the features of the place), and situation (the environmental conditions of the place).

The concept of “place” aids geographers to compare and contrast two places on Earth. For example, it helps to distinguish Antarctica from the Sahara Desert. One is a cold desert while the other is a hot one

Movement deals with studies of population immigration, emigration, and distribution in the countries of the world

The weaknesses and contradictions of authoritarian regimes are at the heart of the Middle East’s ongoing tribulations. Even the rampant ethnic and religious sectarianism is a result of this authoritarianism, which has come to define the Middle East’s state system far more than the Sykes-Picot agreement ever did.

The region’s “unnatural” borders did not lead to the Middle East’s ethnic and religious divisions. The ones to blame are the cynical political leaders who foster those divisions in hopes of maintaining their rule. In Iraq, for instance, Saddam Hussein built a patronage system through his ruling Baath Party that empowered a state governed largely by Sunnis at the expense of Shiites and Kurds.

The colonial carve-up was always vulnerable. Its map ignored local identities and political preferences. Borders were determined with a ruler—arbitrarily. At a briefing for Britain’s Prime Minister H. H. Asquith, in 1915, Sykes famously explained, “I should like to draw a line from the ‘E’ in Acre to the last ‘K’ in Kirkuk.” He slid his finger across a map, spread out on a table at No. 10 Downing Street, from what is today a city on Israel’s Mediterranean coast to the northern mountains of Iraq.

It was like a forced marriage. It was doomed from the start. It was immoral, because it decided people’s future without asking them

In Syria, the death toll is many times higher, the sectarian and ethnic divide at least as deep as in Iraq. The test in both countries is not just finding a way to re-create states more viable than the various formulations attempted since the Sykes-Picot process was launched. It’s also rallying public will in the current environment.

he death of a monarch is an entirely foreseeable event, the solemn formalities hardwired into the rituals of dynastic succession. But it is also an event that is difficult, partly for the simple reason of good manners, to anticipate with any accuracy at any particular time.

Back in the old Soviet Union, the political joke was the principal underground conduit of political opinion. One that made the rounds soon after Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in 1985 posed this question: “Who supports Gorbachev in the Politburo?” The answer: “Nobody has to. He can move around on his own.”

But when I heard of Mr. Gorbachev’s death, what came to my mind first and foremost was that broad smile, that contagious euphoria, that courageous faith in change and those shouts of “Gorby! Gorby!” from people being set free. That is Mikhail Gorbachev’s true legacy.

The rise of a dynamic, young and charismatic leader after a series of funerals of doddering old leaders

The wisdom of peace through strength has been proven many times over. The folly of weakness is equally axiomatic and, sadly, it is once again on display.