World Watch articles from July 2001

World Watch archives from July 2001

The Power of Conservatiion.(Brief Article)(Editorial)
July 1, 2001... In May, U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney released his new energy plan, which, like a fad diet, assures the United States -- the world's largest consumer of energy that it can gorge its way into energy security. The plan calls for speeding up...

Indiana Jones to the Rescue? (Note From A Worldwatcher).(United States' energy policy)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. And these times aren't just extraordinary. On the energy policy front, they're almost unbelievable. The United States, the most powerful and profligate country on Earth, has just re-entered...

From Readers.
July 1, 2001... Have U.S. Environmentalists Abandoned Population Stabilization? The years surrounding 1970, the year of thc first Earth Day, marked the coming of age of the modern environmental movement. As that movement enters its fourth decade, perhaps...

U.S. transit outpaces driving. (Environmental Intelligence).(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
July 1, 2001... For the fourth consecutive year, use of trains and buses in the United States grew faster than automobile use, according to the American Public Transportation Association. The number of trips taken via public transit increased by 21 percent in...

Corporations target NGOs. (Environmental Intelligence).(nongovernmental organizations)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
July 1, 2001... A new international survey finds that non-governmental organizations (NGOs), such as Greenpeace and Amnesty International, are seen to be nearly three times more credible than government, media, and corporate sources on issues regarding the...

Diversity boosts plant growth. (Environmental Intelligence).(increased carbon dioxide and nitrogen research)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
July 1, 2001... A new study, published in the 12 April 2001 issue of the journal Nature, finds that undermining biodiversity may make coping with climate change more difficult. Over the course of two years, the researchers, led by University of Minnesota...

Ocean Warming Studies Bolster Evidence of Human Hand in Climate Change. (Update).(research)(Brief Article)(Illustration)(Statistical Data Included)
July 1, 2001... Two new independent studies on the warming of the Earth's oceans add some of the most convincing evidence yet that human actions are playing a significant role in the Earth's rising temperatures. The studies, published in the April, 13 2001...

America's Energy Problem. (Essay).(analysis)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
July 1, 2001... One might have expected that the rest of the world would be pleased when the country that consumes 25 percent of the world's oil and produces a similar share of global carbon dioxide emissions announced a new energy plan in May. But the new...

U.S. Environmental Policy: Where is it Headed?(research)
July 1, 2001... So far, the Bush administration has begun to redirect policies on international family planning, climate stabilization, renewable energy R&D, wilderness protection, endangered species protection, air and water quality standards, nuclear waste...

Airports and Cities: Can They Coexist?(Jim Starry, research)(Statistical Data Included)
July 1, 2001... As high-speed global commerce expands, and demand for air transport explodes, airports and cities are invading each-other's space in increasingly hazardous ways. The conventional response is simply to keep expanding airport capacity. But more...

An Earth-Covered Airport. (Addendum).(Infra Structures)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... "I CAN'T IMAGINE THE NEXT STEP beyond air travel," wrote the Cape Cod-based environmental architect Malcolm Wells in his book Infra Structures. "Unless vertical take-off for large aircraft becomes economically feasible, the acres of impervious...

Perceiving the Population Bomb: The real damage began about 60 years ago.(books and research)(Statistical Data Included)
July 1, 2001... Thirty-two years ago, in 1968, Paul Ehrlich sounded a wake-up call to the world with his book The Population Bomb. Now that we can see the Bomb in historical perspective, even establishing when it went off, let us set ourselves the task of...

Matters of Scale.(world debt)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)(Illustration)
July 1, 2001... MATTERS OF SCALE A Fate Worse than Debt Amount owed by the world's 47 poorest and most indebted nations $422 billion Amount of money spent by Western industrialized nations on weapons and soldiers every 12 months ...