In The News

Emerging Green Technology Poses Threat of Trade Wars

Bruce Stokes May 14, 2010
Smart investors recognize that cheap oil won’t last forever and emerging green technologies could revolutionize everyday business as much as computers did. As with any new technology, nations compete to perfect and produce new products for the world, making lots of money along the way, explains international economics columnist Bruce Stokes. But Stokes warns that the global trading system lacks...

Tuareg Activist Takes on French Nuclear Company

Cordula Meyer April 28, 2010
Areva, a largely state-owned French power giant, has extensive uranium mining operations in northern Niger. That uranium generates the majority of France's electricity, along with thousands of jobs in France and across Europe. Yet, left in northern Niger are millions of tons of radioactive waste that have contaminated groundwater and killed crops, destroying the nomadic lifestyle of the...

Race for Resources: Deciding the Arctic’s Future Behind Closed Doors

Christoph Seidler April 7, 2010
As the Arctic changes dramatically, Canada, Russia, Denmark, Norway, and the United States met last month to discuss and plan its future. Melting ice has created new border disputes along with opportunities for mineral extraction, the latter exacerbating tensions as countries stake rival claims. Still, all five agree on one thing: no guarantees of expansive environmental protection for the region...

Cutting Climate Change's Gordian Knot

John C. Topping Jr. April 2, 2010
Black carbon, commonly known as soot, a byproduct of incomplete combustion, is a major contributor to global warming. It also can have significant, deleterious effects on one’s health. Now, several environmental groups are asking the US Environmental Protection Agency to regulate black carbon under the Clean Water Act on the grounds that it affects sea ice and glaciers. While this proposal may...

World's Biggest Cities Merging Into 'Mega-Regions'

John Vidal March 29, 2010
A new UN report charts the growth of mega-regions – clusters of cities that may stretch across countries and include more than 100 million people. With half the world now dwelling in cities and the pace of urbanization only expected to increase, mega-regions may displace countries to become the principal locii of economic growth. Already, mega-regions account for outsized percentages of global...

E-Waste Trade Ban Won’t End Environmental Threat

Joe Kullman March 25, 2010
While the US Congress considers a ban on the trading of electronics waste (e-waste), the larger, global problem remains unaddressed. Currently, many developed nations export their technological waste to developing nations for “backyard recycling”, where it releases harmful toxins into the environment. Trade bans, like the one Congress is considering, are intended to remove the environmental...

Roots of Copenhagen Failure: Nature Does Not Recognize Nations

Bo Ekman March 24, 2010
The Copenhagen climate summit was not just a failure to achieve meaningful results to avert climate change, it was also a failure for national actors to find solutions to supranational problems, according Tällberg Foundation Chairman Bo Ekman. Indeed, the summit was likely to fail from the beginning not simply because national self-interest often trumps global common interest, but because the...