In The News

Coronavirus Hits Aerospace: Financial Times

Peggy Hollinger April 25, 2020
Pandemic has reversed optimistic forecasts from only a few months ago, hitting the global aerospace industry led by Boeing and Airbus with cancelled orders and halted production. Government lockdown policies have grounded over 60 percent of the world’s commercial aircraft. Reduced flights force airlines to cut costs and scramble for government aid to survive the hardship. Some 25 million jobs in...

Project Syndicate: Stop Insuring Climate Disaster

Bill McKibben May 11, 2017
As alternative energies become more competitive, the transition from fossil fuels would go much faster if the insurance industry accounts for the challenges of climate change and does not give coal and other fossil fuels a free ride. “While insurance industry representatives declare their intent and passion to rein in climate change and ensure a livable planet, in the back rooms their agents are...

Harvard Business Review: One Cost of Increased Globalization – More Industrial Accidents

Robert G. Blanton and Dursun Peksen April 27, 2017
Economic globalization— trade, foreign direct investment and low tariffs—has a twofold effect in making costly, environmentally harmful and deadly industrial accidents more probable, according to professors Robert G. Blanton and Dursun Peksen in a discussion of their study in Harvard Business Review. First, there is more room for error as byzantine international supply chains straddle countries...

How Can We Tackle Abuse in the Global Garment Industry?

Alice Evans November 24, 2016
In the face of rampant labor exploitation in the clothing industry, many unions in countries like Vietnam, Indonesia, and Bangladesh are trying to increase the minimum wage and improve working conditions. In the mutual pursuit of financial gain by countries and corporations, the “mobility of capital (and immobility of labour) creates a global race to the bottom,” notes Alice Evans for the...

China’s Glut, Exports Could Threaten World Economy

Börje Ljunggren August 11, 2016
China came to the aid of the stricken global economy in 2008 with record stimulus funds. But that stimulus injection encouraged debt and overcapacity in key markets like steel and aluminum, explains Börje Ljunggren, author and former Swedish ambassador to China. The country’s total debt has more than doubled, now exceeding 250 percent of GDP. China accounts for half of global output in steel and...

Globalization’s Toll: Tata Steel’s Expansion Dream

Dilip Hiro April 7, 2016
Executives in the mining and steel industries miscalculated by expecting rapid growth to continue in China. China's leaders instead shifted the direction of their economy to rely less on manufacturing and more on services. Slowed growth led to a downturn in demand for commodities like iron ore and coal along with overcapacity in the steel industry. That increased China's exports,...

The Potential Downside of Natural Gas

Matthew L. Wald June 20, 2014
The natural gas industry suggests that reliance on its fossil fuel rather than coal will reduce carbon dioxide emissions, but the effects are difficult to quantify. A US plan to control carbon emissions at power plants centers on that promise. Natural gas produces fewer emissions than coal, but may not be superior to nuclear energy. Two consequences of replacing nuclear power with natural gas:...