World Watch articles from March 2004

World Watch archives from March 2004

Bottled water.(Life-Cycle Studies)
March 1, 2004... Overview Seventy percent of the Earth's surface is covered with water, but more and more people now get theirs out of bottles. Global consumption of bottled water is rising about 12 percent per year, supported by annual spending of about...

A new kind of warrior.(Editorial)
March 1, 2004... We are living at an extraordinary--and extraordinarily dangerous--moment. Never before have the wages of our transgressions, against ach other and against the Earth itself, been so high. Should we fail to develop a more conscious orientation to...

What happens to civilization when its main source of knowledge is ads?(Note From A Worldwatcher)
March 1, 2004... In the last issue, I ended this column by recalling a TV commercial I had seen, in which it was suggested to us that eating fast food while watching solitary TV is a good way to "get on with your life." I commented that I thought that ad was...

Save the Mekong River and the giant catfish.(From Readers)(Letter to the Editor)
March 1, 2004... I was alarmed by the article "Messing With the Mekong" by Lisa Mastny (November/December 2003), citing the Upper Mekong Navigation Improvement Project, initiated by the Chinese government, which involves blasting of shoals, rapids, and reefs...

Rocket fuel in your salad.(From Readers)(Letter to the Editor)
March 1, 2004... I am writing in response to the great article in the November/December 2003 issue ("A Little Rocket Fuel With Your Salad?"), but first I want to say how much I look forward to receiving my World Watch every two months! I am always quoting...

Freeport McMoRan takes exception.(From Readers)(Letter to the Editor)
March 1, 2004... Please allow me to correct false statements about our company contained in your story titled "The Hidden Shame of the Global Industrial Economy," appearing in the January/February 2004 issue of World Watch magazine. Our mining operation in...

Plastic containers for water and food.(Green Guidance)
March 1, 2004... Consumers tend to buy bottled water under the impression that it is healthier than tap water. However, studies by the Natural Resources Defense Council and University of Geneva have found that, in general, bottled water is not necessarily any...

Antarctic melting goes deep.(Environmental Intelligence)
March 1, 2004... A study in the October 31 issue of Science offers new clues to the connection between rising temperatures on the Antarctic Peninsula and the collapse of that continent's massive ice shelves. The authors suggest that the recent disintegration of...

World Bank report: bank should stop supporting coal, oil projects.(Environmental Intelligence)
March 1, 2004... The World Bank Group should continue to deny funding to coal projects, and should phase out support of oil production projects by 2008, concludes a new study of the Bank's oil, gas, and mining projects commissioned by Bank president James...

Global warming now threatens millions of species.(Environmental Intelligence)
March 1, 2004... For more than a decade, World Watch has reported on the growing evidence that a rapidly changing climate could drive many species into extinction by shrinking or altering their habitats. Now, the most comprehensive study yet published on that...

Institutional investors demand corporate climate-change risk disclosure.(Environmental Intelligence)
March 1, 2004... Institutional investors think U.S. carbon-emitting corporations aren't doing enough to assess the business risks of climate change, and have begun pressuring the firms to act more vigorously. Last July CERES, a coalition of investor and...

Russia agonizes over the Kyoto Protocol.(Environmental Intelligence)
March 1, 2004... During international climate negotiations in Milan last December, a senior Kremlin aide announced that the Kyoto Protocol on climate change could not be ratified in its current form. Soon thereafter, he was contradicted by an official from the...

Gold mining in Peru.(Updates)
March 1, 2004... The government of Peru has rejected a Canadian mining company's proposal to dig an open-pit gold mine where the town of Tambogrande now stands. Most of the town's 16,000 people had vociferously opposed the project, which they feared would...

Brominated fire retardants.(Updates)
March 1, 2004... Great Lakes Chemical Corp., the manufacturer of two flame retardants belonging to a class of chemicals called polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) has announced that it is ceasing production of the products. The January/February Green...

"Possession".(Updates)
March 1, 2004... In his editorial on the U.S. culture of excessive consumption, Tom Prugh sardonically wrote, "So waddle onward, America!" Apparently, despite all our excessive body weight, Americans are still wont to do more than waddle. In November, according...

Hunger increasing.(Updates)
March 1, 2004... Four years ago, Gary Gardner and Brian Halweil noted that while hundreds of millions of people were overweight, equal numbers were underweight. According to the most recent UN data at that time, 834 million of those underfed people suffered...

The war on Bosnia: in the ethnic war of a decade ago, people and communities suffered and died. Now, it's the environment's turn.
March 1, 2004... In war, the silences are sometimes more terrifying than the noises. It was one such silence, in the cratered streets of Mostar, that made me pause in mid-stride and duck behind a bombed-out van--moments before a mortar round crashed to earth...

Ladies, you have no choice: how extremists took over U.S. family planning policy.(Cover Story)
March 1, 2004... Every Friday morning, Stirring Scruggs receives a fax that the sender, an organization called C-FAM, may or may not have intended for him to receive. C-FAM is the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, based in New York near the United...

Friends of worldwatch.
March 1, 2004... We offer our sincerest thanks to the following donors of $100 or more. Their generosity supports our search for a more sustainable World.--John Holman, Director of Development GIFTS IN-KIND Ecofish; Green Circle Organics; Morning Star;...

The company formerly known as Philip Morris wants to talk about risk. So, let's talk.(Between The Lines)
March 1, 2004... This ad from "Altria" Corporation recently appeared in major magazines. We think it needs a little explanation. Why just tell us her first name? That's what emcees do when the woman is there for appearances, not real communication....

Planet golf.(Matters Of Scale)
March 1, 2004... Planet Golf Number of photos in the January/February issue of Coastal Living that showed coastal wildlife (seabirds, crustaceans, turtles, or other fauna) 1 Number of photos in the same issue showing golf...

Breaking up is hard to do.
March 1, 2004... Nearly 100 old ships, some dating from World War II, are moored together in the James River in Virginia. The Ghost Fleet, as it's called, was once valuable as scrap, but current laws and environmental regulations make shipbreaking uneconomical,...

Where there was war.
March 1, 2004... All over the world, the places where war has raged in recent decades have become melancholy landscapes--most of all for those who grew up there and remember how their world was before the destruction came. In the former Yugoslavia, which was...