World Watch articles from July 2009

World Watch archives from July 2009

Palm oil.(LIFE - CYCLE STUDIES)
July 1, 2009... Overview People have shimmied up the oil palm to reach its prickly red fruit for thousands of years. Native to West Africa, Elaeis guineensis contains two distinct oils used in a variety of dishes. The Industrial Revolution provided a boon...

Cultural survival.(FROM READERS)(Essay)
July 1, 2009... There is one perspective I continue to find remarkably unrepresented in virtually all forums that address sustainability issues: the selective forces acting on human behaviors. This is the field of sociobiology. The basic principle of...

Water pricing.(FROM READERS)(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2009... "Water Wars: Is Water a Human Right or a Commodity?" [March/April] gives a good overview of some water issues, but dwells too much on the privatization debate. Today, the privatization debate is not the same color as it was some years...

Beyond the tailpipe.(FROM READERS)(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2009... Neil Kolwey ("Planes, Trains, and Automobiles," March/April 2009) provided a good analysis of tailpipe emissions from transportation from an individual family perspective. However, looking only at tailpipe emissions means missing about...

Global mercury negotiations commence.(EYE ON EARTH)(Brief article)
July 1, 2009... At a United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) meeting in February, more than 140 countries agreed to reduce global mercury pollution through a multilateral treaty. "Today we are united on the need for a legally binding instrument and...

Carbon markets slow down.(EYE ON EARTH)(Brief article)
July 1, 2009... Negotiators are set to decide on the next international climate agreement this December in Copenhagen, Denmark. Until then, uncertainty surrounding how the United Nations will regulate carbon offsets in developing countries has slowed...

Tar sands could threaten millions of migratory birds.(EYE ON EARTH)
July 1, 2009... In April 2008, an anonymous tip alerted Canadian officials to the fact that 500 ducks had mistaken a tar sands company's polluted reservoir in Alberta as a safe place to land. Hundreds of decomposed ducks have since risen to the surface,...

Financial leaders call for adaptation resources.(EYE ON EARTH)
July 1, 2009... Leaders from the world's top development banks have acknowledged that significant research and funding gaps are preventing developing countries from adapting adequately to climate change. Sustainable development initiatives often do not...

Coffee sales helping chimpanzees, Goodall says.(EYE ON EARTH)
July 1, 2009... Decades after Jane Goodall began her efforts to protect Tanzania's endangered chimpanzees, she found a solution growing right beneath her nose: The forests surrounding the famed chimps grow some of the best coffee in Tanzania. At 1,400 meters...

Recession may hinder sustainable tourism.(EYE ON EARTH)
July 1, 2009... Developers of ecotourism and other "sustainable tourism" operations are searching for ways to ensure that the global economic slowdown does not undermine years of progress. The World Tourism Organization expects cross-border visits this year to...

Alliance formed to limit invasive species.(EYE ON EARTH)
July 1, 2009... A new partnership between the United Nations and global shipping companies will attempt to control the overseas travel of unwelcome species. The collaboration, known as the Global Industry Alliance, will encourage the shipping industry to share...

Drought may threaten Darfur peace.(EYE ON EARTH)(Brief article)
July 1, 2009... Africa's Sahel region has had above-average rainfall in recent years, but trends suggest that drought is in the near future, possibly unhinging peace efforts in the disputed region of Darfur. "This is three years they've been above the...

Updates.
July 1, 2009... See "Can Organic Farming Feed Us All?" May/June 2006, p. 18 Onward, Organics U.S. sales of organic products reached $24.6 billion in 2008, up 17 percent over 2007, according to the Organic Trade Association. Organic food now accounts for...

Portraits of climate change: the Rocky Mountains.
July 1, 2009... People have been moving westward in North America since the earliest European settlement of the continent. For many early migrants, the Rocky Mountains simply impeded progress toward California and the Pacific coast, but more recent arrivals...

Erik Assadourian: tea parties for the climate?(WORLDWATCH FIRST PERSON)(Essay)
July 1, 2009... On March 2nd, I and about 2,500 other people showed up at the Spirit of Justice Park, just south of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., in order to march around the coal- and gas-fired Capitol Power Plant and blockade the entrances. The...

"Good fences make good neighbors." What exactly did poet Robert Frost have in mind?(TALKING PICTURES)(Photograph)
July 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Caption: Ranch fence in the Badlands, South Dakota. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Caption: Matilda tries to get through a hole in a Gunnerbury fence, England. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Caption: Crying out for...

Local food: the economics: in the second part of this two-part series, we learn that local food is better for local economies. In some ways.
July 1, 2009... One drizzly Sunday last March, I went to the weekly farmers market in my favorite Seattle neighborhood and bought a bag of potatoes. I stopped at a stall where a farmer, his hands caked with dirt, was filling mesh bags with small, just-dug...

Bicycle production reaches 130 million units.(VITAL SIGNS)
July 1, 2009... Bicycle production was up 3.2 percent in 2007 to 130 million units, continuing a trend of several years. China produced two of every three bikes made worldwide. India, the European Union, Taiwan, Indonesia, and Brazil were the next five largest...

Goldman environmental prize winners.(Maria Gunnoe, Yuyun Ismawati, Olga Speranskaya, Marc Ona Essangui, Hugo Jabini, Wanze Eduards, and Rizwana Hasan)
July 1, 2009... In 1988 U.S. philanthropist Richard N. Goldman was inspired to create an honor recognizing six grassroots environmentalists each year--"among the most important people you have not heard of before," as Goldman has put it. "All of them have...

Brazil's carbon challenge: Brazil's carbon footprint comes mainly from land uses, not energy.
July 1, 2009... At the opening ceremony of last year's international climate conference in Poznan, Poland, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon praised Brazil for having built "one of the greenest economies in the world." South America's largest...

The Living Earth Ethical Principles: shifting perspective and active political engagement.(ESSAY)(Essay)
July 1, 2009... This is the seventh in a series of essays on a system of ecological ethics for living sustainably. This, and the previous and remaining essays, describe the 10 Living Earth Ethical Principles in detail. For references and additional discussion,...