In The News

Kyoto Protocol Misplaced Priorities

Bjorn Lomborg February 15, 2005
On Wednesday, the Kyoto Protocol on global climate change enters force, marking a milestone for environmentalism. But making climate change "a central moral test of our time" was wrong, writes Bjorn Lomborg, author of The Skeptical Environmentalist. Lomborg points to existing climate models that predict that even universal acceptance of the Kyoto rules would postpone warming by a mere...

The Rise of a New Axis?

Leonard S. Spector February 11, 2005
North Korea is at it again. On the eve of a new round of diplomatic talks on its troubling nuclear program, Pyongyang has upped the ante: Announcing that it has already manufactured 'nukes,' the government suddenly suspended its participation in negotiations. This revelation comes in the wake of US reports that North Korea secretly shipped nuclear material to Libya, a shipment which...

When Life, and Not Just Carnival, Is a Gas

Andy Webb-Vidal January 26, 2005
With the discovery of large natural gas reserves, Trinidad and Tobago, the Caribbean island state, has transformed into the biggest supplier of liquefied natural gas in the Americas. Already, foreign companies like British Gas are building the largest natural gas production units ever constructed. With foreign investment pouring in at an unprecedented rate, the Trinidadian government must wisely...

G8 "Must Lead Climate Control"

Matthew Tempest January 25, 2005
With much of Europe angered by President Bush's withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, Prime Minister Tony Blair will go over the president's head this week to appeal directly to US business leaders. The chief executives of most of the biggest corporations in the world - some of them notorious polluters - will be meeting this week at the World Economic Forum in...

Japan's Nuclear Nightmare

Eric Johnston January 19, 2005
A recent fatal accident in a nuclear power plant in Mihama highlighted many often neglected aspects of nuclear plant safety and power regulation in Japan. Plants are now older and inspections less thorough, as utility companies seek to maximize operations and minimize costs in an age of deregulation. Scandals and accidents throughout Japan's nuclear history have been serious problems that...

China's African Safari

Paul Mooney January 3, 2005
Since the 1960s, China has been rather consistent in offering assistance to African countries in agriculture, heavy industries, and infrastructure development. In recent years, Sino-African trade has enjoyed particularly rapid growth. As Paul Mooney reports, many African leaders, regarding China as a reliable friend who has suffered the similar imperialist aggression by Western powers, welcome...

Invisible Export – A Hidden Cost of China's Growth: Mercury Migration

Matt Pottinger December 20, 2004
When an American hockey player suffered symptoms from mercury contamination, he never expected that he might have power plants half way across the world in China to blame. With its growing appetite for energy, China is finding its many coal-burning power plants hard at work generating the much needed electricity power – as well as huge amounts of air pollutants like sulfur dioxide and mercury....