In The News

The IPCC: The Science Is In on Climate Change

April 21, 2008
Rajendra K. Pachauri, director-general of the Energy Research Institute, was elected chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2002. For that work, he was co-awarded the 2007 Nobel Prize for Peace. In this interview with Nayan Chanda, Pachauri explains the IPCC’s purpose of collecting and disseminating science. Climate change affects countries in many different ways, and...

Clock Running Out on Irreversible Climate Change – Part II

Bo Ekman April 18, 2008
The coming negotiations over the successor to the Kyoto Protocol appear doomed as states express more concern about their narrow rights than the planet’s health. Bo Ekman, founder of Tällberg Forum, argues for developing fallback policies that global citizens must consider in the event of failure of the Copenhagen Process. Ekman fears that the “world will descend into eco-protectionism, where...

America for Sale: 2 Outcomes When Foreigners Buy Factories

Peter S. Goodman April 16, 2008
The debate over globalization’s effects on the US economy has become a focal point of the presidential campaign. Outsourcing jobs is a major concern of voters, and with good reason. In Michigan alone, as New York Times’ writer Peter Goodman notes, more than 300,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost to foreign competition during the last eight years. Yet globalization encourages foreign investment...

Outpacing Resources

Nayan Chanda April 15, 2008
In 1798, economist Thomas Malthus predicted that population growth could lead to declining resources and catastrophe. The global population was then less than a billion, and critics dismissed his concerns. Now, the human population has grown more than sixfold, and is estimated to reach 9 billion in less than 50 years. Shortages of basic resources, including oil, food and water are not uncommon in...

Food Prices Stir Poverty Concern

April 11, 2008
Development and trade have lifted many from poverty, but have also widened inequality around the globe. Diverting grain crops from food products to biofuels depleted global food stocks causing spikes in prices. Climate change and a declining dollar also add to prices. Reports of food riots and families stretching meals by adding dirt as an ingredient reveal growing desperation in the world’s...

The Age of Scarcity?

Chris Farrell April 9, 2008
The world is facing a surfeit of scarcity. The emergence of new economic heavyweights like China and India has increased global demand, even as many observers warn that past development has left the world’s resources dangerously depleted. These arguments, combined with alarming increases in food and energy prices, have led some to believe that Malthus was right after all: Economic growth is...

Monsanto’s Harvest of Fear

Donald L. Barlett April 7, 2008
Relying on genetics and biotechnology, the Monsanto Company creates and patents specialized seeds with built-in protections against insects, fungus and disease as well as tolerance for heat, drought and other stresses – all of which can increase crop yields. The catch with Monsanto patents is that farmers can no longer collect seeds from their own crops at the end of the season. Donald L. Barlett...