World Watch articles from May 2002

World Watch archives from May 2002

A warning from 100 Nobel prize winners.(need to address global warming, weaponized world)(Brief Article)(Editorial)
May 1, 2002... The most profound danger to world peace in the coming years will stem not from the irrational acts of states or individuals but from the legitimate demands of the world's dispossessed. Of these poor and disenfranchised, the majority live a...

Revisiting the canary in the coal mine. (Note from a World Watcher).(environmental issues)
May 1, 2002... The environmental movement is now old enough to have a real history, as outlined in the chronology on pages 30-35 of this issue. In the course of that history, we have experienced some momentous changes, both in our understanding of the threats...

From readers.(letters)
May 1, 2002... 6 Billion People, 45 Billion Farm Animals Thank you for your insightful observation that antibiotics mixed into the feed of billions of animals raised in factory farms in the United States each year may be just as important a biosecurity...

Mystery in the nitrogen cycle. (Update).(different use in polluted or pristine forests)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2002... Polluted and pristine forests may use nitrogen in radically different ways, according to a recent report by Steven Perakis and Lars Hedin, two ecologists studying remote South American forests. Their research, which appeared in the January 24...

Black market CFCs move South. (Environmental Intelligence).(chlorofluorocarbons)(South Asia)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2002... The world's black markets in ozone-depleting CFCs have migrated from industrial to developing countries, according to a new report by the London-based Environmental Investigation Agency (ETA). The illegal trade in CFCs has been estimated to be...

India builds dam over seismic fault. (Environmental Intelligence).(Tehri Dam)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2002... In late November 2001, the Indian government ordered shut the diversion tunnels on the partially completed Tehri Dam, beginning the creation of a giant reservoir on the Bhagirathi River. The dam has been under construction since 1978, and when...

New studies show cooling and ice-sheet thickening in Antarctica. (Environmental Intelligence).(Brief Article)
May 1, 2002... A new study published in the journal Nature reports that Antarctica's overall climate is cooling, with the most distinct temperature decrease occurring in the summer. The report shows that temperatures in Antarctica's McMurdo Dry Valleys...

Activists propose halting biological patenting. (Environmental Intelligence).(Brief Article)
May 1, 2002... In February 2002, a diverse group of activists from more than 50 countries convened the second annual World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil, where they put together a proposal to prohibit patenting living organisms. The now-annual social...

Malaria, mosquitoes, and DDT: the toxic war against a global disease.(controlling mosquito population with pesticides)
May 1, 2002... This year, like every other year within the past couple of decades, uncountable trillions of mosquitoes will inject malaria parasites into human blood streams billions of times. Some 300 to 500 million full-blown cases of malaria will result,...

Fateful Harvest: The True Story of a Small Town, a Global Industry, and a Toxic Secret. (New and Noteworthy).
May 1, 2002... Fateful Harvest: The True Story of a Small Town, a Global Industry, and a Toxic Secret, by Duff Wilson (New York: Harper Collins, 2001). "Who in the world would think to look for toxic waste in plant food?" writes investigative journalist Duff...

Power Politics. (New and Noteworthy).
May 1, 2002... Power Politics, by Arundhati Roy (Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2001). In her new collection of essays, Booker Prize winning author Arundhati Roy rescues from obscurity a number of difficult issues that have been neglected by the...

The plight of birds: today, more than a thousand species of birds face extinction. Many more are in steady decline. Significantly, the strategies that can stop this attrition are the same strategies needed to achieve a sustainable human future.(Donana National Park)
May 1, 2002... Very little remains of the rich wildlife that once flourished in Europe. Most of the wolves, bears, and bison are long gone. The few fragments of wilderness that remain are highly valued. Among them, not many can compare with Spain's Donana...

The path to the Johannesburg Summit.(Johannesburg World Summit)
May 1, 2002... In the 1960s, many people around the world began to face critical environmental issues in their communities: forests were being destroyed by acid rain, rivers poisoned beyond use by industrial wastes, cities choked by pollution from automobiles...

Why your daily fix can fix more than your head: coffee, if grown right, can be one of the rare human industries that actually restore the Earth's health.
May 1, 2002... Take a deep breath. If you are in a coffeeshop--or you've just brewed your own java--you are inhaling microscopic particles of coffee, which carry some of the 800 naturally occurring chemicals that give coffee its seductive aroma. These...

Homeland security.(dichlorodiphenyl trichloroethane (DDT) lack of effectiveness)(Brief Article)(Illustration)
May 1, 2002... This photograph, taken on July 8, 1945, shows an insecticide-spraying machine being tested publicly for the first time. The figure on this beach on Long Island, New York, has been enveloped in a fog of dichlorodiphenyl trichloroethane, or DDT....