World Watch articles from March 1999

World Watch archives from March 1999

NGO - friend or foe?(nongovernmental organizations)(Editorial)
March 1, 1999... Those of us who work to defend human rights or the environment often find that our main impediments are the dominant institutions of the world - nations and corporations. Up to now our institutional allies have been NGOs - not-for-profit,...

Self-consciousness and the future of the earth.
March 1, 1999... Ten years ago, in a speech assessing where things stood in the defense of Planet Earth, Denis Hayes asked a rueful question that has been quoted by rueful environmentalists ever since. "How could we have fought so hard and won so many battles,"...

Super-bugs arrive.(Environmental Intelligence)(evolution of microorganisms to develop strains that are resistant to antibiotics)
March 1, 1999... Human pathogens are growing increasingly immune to the drugs used to treat them, a development that threatens the enormous gains made in fighting infectious disease since the introduction of the first antibiotic, penicillin, in 1943. Cheap,...

Crossing the threshold: early signs of an environmental awakening.
March 1, 1999... At a time when the Earth's average temperature is going off the top of the chart, when storms, floods and tropical forest fires are more damaging than ever before, and when the list of endangered species grows longer by the day, it is difficult...

Bull market in wind energy.(Pamplona, Navarra's increased generation of wind power capacity)
March 1, 1999... Many countries may soon find that the cheapest way to produce electricity is to pull it out of the air. The Spanish city of Pamplona has long been known for its annual running of the bulls. But this mid-sized industrial center, the capital...

Polio is nearing eradication.(Vital Signs)
March 1, 1999... Reported polio cases worldwide have declined a remarkable 90 percent since 1988, when the World Health Organization (WHO) launched its global vaccination campaign to eradicate polio by the year 2000. Over the past decade reported cases of the...

HIV/AIDS pandemic is worsening.(Vital Signs)
March 1, 1999... Since the beginning of the AIDS epidemic in the early 1980s, the number of people infected with HIV - the virus that causes AIDS - has climbed to nearly 50 million. Nearly 6 million people were infected in 1998, and 2.5 million people died from...

Sperm counts are dropping.(Vital Signs)
March 1, 1999... The average sperm count of men in the United States and Europe has plummeted by more than 50 percent since the late 1930s, according to a recent analysis by University of Missouri epidemiologist Shanna Swan. The finding fuels ongoing concerns...

Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge.(Review)
March 1, 1999... Edward O. Wilson, (New York: Knopf, 1998). As the widely dreaded senior essay approached during my final fall in college in 1992, I decided to write about the historical roots of climate change science, and how it was shaping and in turn...