In The News

The World Wants Vancouverism – Shouldn’t Canada?

Doug Saunders March 5, 2013
The city of Vancouver touts its diversity, green initiatives, parks and mass transit and remains a popular destination for immigrants, who account for 40 percent of the metropolitan population. Vancouver has managed fast-growing urbanization with good planning that includes eliminating vast parking lots. “Vancouver has been remade dramatically, rendered into a thickly vertical city jammed with...

Wildlife at the Mercy of International Trade Politics

March 5, 2013
The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species regulates trade on endangered wildlife – so far 5000 animals and 29,000 plants. The parties meet about every three years, and at this year’s meeting in Bangkok, the US will propose a ban on trade in polar bears and their parts – a proposal opposed by ally Canada and supported by Russia. The US will also present a joint proposal with...

Bangladesh Tackles Climate Change, Fuses Rice Paddies With Fish Farms

Naimul Haq March 4, 2013
Low-lying countries like Bangladesh understand that they must adapt quickly to climate change – and explore a range of options. Saltwater intrusion is destroying rice paddies. Combining aquaculture with rice farming could increase nutrition levels of food, reduce environmental damage and increase output capacity of land and neighboring waters, suggests a report from a fisheries management...

A Report Card for Global Food Giants

Stephanie Strom March 1, 2013
NGO Oxfam has developed a scoring mechanism to evaluate multinational food companies and their effects on the environment, labor and health, reports a New York Times blog. “The goal of the scorecard, called ‘Behind the Brands,’ is to motivate consumers to pressure companies like Nestlé, Kellogg and Mars to improve their policies on land and water use and the treatment of small farmers, among...

Sea Urchin Nickel “Trick” Key to Capturing Carbon?

Matt McGrath February 18, 2013
It seems too easy. Newcastle University researchers have discovered that sea urchins use the metal nickel to turn carbon dioxide into shell or chalk, reports Matt McGrath for BBC News, and the process could serve as a model for a carbon capture-and-storage system. The researchers, including physicists and chemists, were studying sea-urchin larvae. McGrath reports, “Working with extremely small...

Meteorite Explodes Over Russia, More Than 1,000 Injured

Andrey Kuzmin February 16, 2013
Chelyabinsk, transportation hub and one-time Russian industrial center for weapons manufacture, was closed to foreigners until 1992. The combination of crisscrossing highways, a million-plus population and Russians’ fondness for dashboard cameras in vehicles to collect evidence in the event of potential mishaps has given the world ample footage of a rare event – a large meteorite blazing across...

Is China Choking on Success?

Robert A. Manning February 15, 2013
China’s citizens are paying a steep price for rapid economic growth. The government struggles to mask environmental problems, yet China is home to seven of the world’s 10 most polluted cities. Smog often blankets the nation’s cities. Robert A. Manning, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Brent Scowcroft Center for International Security and former US State Department official, points out that...