World Watch articles from September 1996

World Watch archives from September 1996

Life is cheap. (increasing extinction of many amphibian species)(Editorial)
September 1, 1996... At least 14 species of Australian rainforest frogs have died out or dwindled to near extinction over the past 15 years. The largest known breeding population of a salamander native to the US Southeast has virtually disappeared. And in a remote,...

Iodine deficiency affects over a quarter of world population.(Environmental Intelligence)
September 1, 1996... Despite huge gains in programs that add iodine to food, some 1.6 billion people remain vulnerable to a range of crippling health problems because their diets do not contain enough of this essential element, according to the World Health...

A private-sector sustainable fishing initiative.(Environmental Intelligence)
September 1, 1996... In response to dwindling fish stocks worldwide, a seafood distributor is teaming up with an environmental group to create economic incentives for sustainable fishing. The U.K. branch of the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) and Anglo-Dutch Unilever...

Brazil's "genocide decree." (Pres. Fernando Henrique Cardoso's Decree 1775 which allows non-indigenous claims against many indigenous areas)(Environmental Intelligence)
September 1, 1996... Violent incursions into areas claimed by Brazil's indigenous peoples have reached a new high, according to the Indianist Missionary Council (CIMI), a human rights monitoring group made up of Catholic missionaries. In a June 5 report, CIMI cited...

China's challenge to the United States and to the earth.
September 1, 1996... During the 1990s, China has emerged as an economic superpower, boasting the world's second largest economy. It is now challenging not only U.S. economic leadership, but the earth's environmental limits. Using purchasing power parity to measure...

The refrigerator revolution.
September 1, 1996... How a simple, new technology threw the best-laid plans of the chemical and refrigerator industries into disarray - and provided a new perspective on how future environmental agreements can be reached. In recent years, a series of massive...

Re-energizing South Africa.
September 1, 1996... Bringing modern energy services to South Africa's deprived majority doesn't have to mean simply expanding the now obsolete coal-based system built for the nation's white minority. Apartheid still haunts South Africa's energy economy. The...

Labeling wood. (timber certification)
September 1, 1996... How timber certification may reduce deforestation. A series of landmark developments, including satellite photography revealing massive burning of the Amazon and scientific findings confirming a link between deforestation and climate change,...

Windpower: small, but growing fast.
September 1, 1996... Wind power is now the world's fastest growing energy source. Global wind power generating capacity rose to 4,900 megawatts at the end of 1995, up from 3,700 megawatts a year earlier [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 1 OMITTED]. Since 1990, total installed...

Human health and the future.(Illustration)
September 1, 1996... Number of people now living within the reach of malaria-transmitting mosquitoes (potential transmission zone), worldwide 2.5 billion Number of people who will live in the transmission zone by the latter half...