In The News

Mission to Save Planet is “Failing”

December 6, 2005
Two separate groups have recently released dismal assessments of the state of the world, warning that humanity is not doing enough to make life on the planet equitable, sustainable and safe. The World Economic Forum (WEF) has lambasted national governments for failing to act decisively against global warming, warning that unchecked climate change is already exacerbating a host of other human...

Environmentalists in Italy Fight a ‘Green’ Project

Elizabeth Rosenthal November 30, 2005
In the tiny Alpine village of Venaus in northern Italy, volunteers are mobilizing huge protests to stop the construction of a pan-European high-speed freight line. The project aims to connect Western and Eastern Europe with a high-speed rail network, achieving the dream of a single European market where goods can move freely and efficiently. In Velnaus, a crucial link in the system, two long...

Hundreds of Thousands Used ‘Lethal’ Water

Peter Goff November 28, 2005
Days after a massive chemical spill in industrial northern China, water supplies are still cut off in the major city of Harbin. Residents of Harbin must count themselves lucky, however, because their neighbors upstream learned of the contamination too late to avoid exposure to lethal levels of benezene. The authorities of Jilin and Heilonjiang provinces concealed the danger for 10 days, in...

Sugar Powers a Revolution on Brazil’s Roads

Tom Phillips November 23, 2005
Brazil has found an alternative to oil that it is touting as the future of fuel. “Alcohol,” a bio-ethanol fuel made from sugar cane, is increasingly powering Brazilian automobiles, and President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva speaks of an “energy revolution,” led by his country. Biodiesel, a renewable fuel, is seen as a way to make Brazil,and indeed the world, less dependent on oil. Its manufacture...

Nigeria Can Help Create More Moral Global Economy

Ken Wiwa November 9, 2005
Nearing the tenth anniversary of the execution of nine Nigerian political and environmental activists, questions still remain as to whether their sacrifice has been in vain. Ken Wiwa, a journalist whose father Ken Saro-Wiwa was instrumental in voicing the unjust corporate practices of Shell and other oil companies in the Niger Delta, here writes of the opportunity for Nigeria to escape the dark...

China’s Next Big Boom Could be the Foul Air

Jim Yardley October 31, 2005
China’s rise has both staggered and threatened the rest of the world. Sometimes the portrayal of China's military power as a threat has been exaggerated. An announcement by a top Chinese environmental official last week, however, introduced a statistic that is true cause for anxiety. Pollution levels in China could more than quadruple in the next 15 years if China does not slow its energy...

Global Warming: Adapting to a New Reality

Elisabeth Rosenthal September 15, 2005
Something is amiss in Europe. Sickness-inducing algae in Genoa, severe flooding in central Europe, Portuguese wildfires, ticks carrying Lyme disease northward into Sweden – all are recent occurrences that scientists have attributed to global warming. Countries and politicians, faced with mounting evidence of the trend, are starting to consider the changes they will have to make in order to adapt...