In The News

Offsetting Environmental Damage by Planes

Harry Rijnen February 18, 2003
Frequent flyers can now do their part to save the world while still jetting around it. Each passenger who takes the popular transatlantic New York – London route is guilty of polluting the air with 2,776 pounds of carbon dioxide. But environmental companies like London-based Future Forests can help you ease the guilt – if you cough up a few extra dollars, they will plant a tree in Serbia or...

Behind Roses' Beauty, Poor and Ill Workers

Ginger Thompson February 13, 2003
In only five years Ecuadorean roses have become one of the most popular Valentine’s Day flowers on the international market. Born out of the anti-drug war in the US, which encouraged Central American farmers to convert to flowers rather than cocoa, Ecuador's flower industry now boasts 50,000 thousand jobs and salaries above minimum wage; the success has transformed a once impoverished...

E-JUNK: Loophole in dumping law 'hurts public'

Sirinart Sirisunthorn February 11, 2003
Technological junk from around the world is finding its way to Thai ports, where it becomes the government's property – and the government's responsibility. Since Thailand is not a member of international agreements banning trade in hi-tech garbage, it cannot send unclaimed shipping containers back to their country of origin. Instead, Thais must pay to have the contents processed and...

Hybrid Cars Are Catching On

Danny Hakim January 28, 2003
In a global economy in which national boundaries hold little meaning for multinational corporations, American businesses are being forced to deal with competition from abroad. Japanese hybrid automobiles have begun to gain popularity in American markets, and American automakers, fearful of ceding yet another market to Japanese companies, have responded by announcing plans for the development of...

Will Travel, Wreak Havoc: How Invasive Species Affect Ecological Diversity

Michael Richardson January 14, 2003
Flora and fauna have long moved around the globe along with wandering human beings. As the native Indians in North America learned after the arrival of diseases from the Old World, not all these exchanges have been beneficial. In recent years this problem has become even more acute, as increased travel and commerce have enabled invasive organisms to spread with alarming speed. In the United...

American Congress Can Affect Global Warming

James Gustave Speth December 27, 2002
We live in a world where air and oceans know no national boundaries, and where political choices made in one area have direct repercussions for others. Carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles and electricity plants in the US must be reduced today to avoid heating up our globe even more in coming decades. But American leaders in Congress, and President Bush in the White House, seem determined...

Can Global Warming Be Studied Too Much?

Andrew C. Revkin December 3, 2002
Globalization has resulted in a world in which actions in one area may have far-reaching consequences across the globe, and in no field of study is that fact more relevant than the current debate over global warming. The Bush administration has convened a three-day meeting to discuss the agenda for researching climate change. All agree that pollution, especially from fossil fuels, plays some...