World Watch articles from September 2003

World Watch archives from September 2003

Africa who?(Editorial)(minimal Western media coverage on crisis in Africa)(Editorial)
September 1, 2003... Since September 11, the world's obsession with the war on terror has pushed many issues of crisis proportion onto the back burner. In particular, social and political upheaval on the continent of Africa has been largely ignored. (There was...

Doing well by doing good.(Note From A Worldwatcher)(socially responsible companies can be financially viable for investors)
September 1, 2003... One day in the mid 1960s, in London, I wandered into a used-book store the size of a Victorian mansion. I'd heard that it was the largest bookstore in the world. I forget the name of the place now, but recall making my away around huge pries of...

Getting it right about population (I).(From Readers)(Letter to the Editor)
September 1, 2003... Thank you for the exchange on population between Derek Dexheimer and Radhika Satin ("From Readers," July/August). I always look to the letters column for challenging probes of issues that are raised or implied by World Watch. Sarin's...

Getting it right about population (II).(From Readers)(Letter to the Editor)
September 1, 2003... I agree with Derek Dexheimer, who wrote concerning "the biggest elephant in the room"--human overpopulation. He offered this opinion in response to an article in the May/June 2003 issue of World Watch by Radhika Sarin, who had espoused allowing...

Getting it right about population (III).(From Readers)(Letter to the Editor)
September 1, 2003... In the July/August issue, in a reply to a letter to the editor on population growth, Radhika Satin advocated that developed nations take on the immigrants from undeveloped nations to absorb their excessive population growth. Satin's population...

Getting it right about population (IV).(From Readers)(Letter to the Editor)
September 1, 2003... I would like to give you some feedback on "Population: A Worldwatch Perspective" in the May issue of our Worldwatch donor newsletter, Connect. I believe it comes very close to being tight down the middle, but in the end fails to take the...

Did we get too political?(From Readers)(Letter to the Editor)
September 1, 2003... The "Note From a Worldwatcher" in the July/August issue, "Weapons of Mass Distraction" (no author identified, so I assume it's an editorial) continues the politicization of a magazine for which my respect is fading. Soon I'll be throwing your...

What Senator Lugar didn't say?(From Readers ... the U.S. seeks greater nuclear capability)(Letter to the Editor)
September 1, 2003... Senator Lugar's statement ("The New Clear Threat," May/June) exemplifies, by what it omits, how the United States Government evades and flouts world opinion. Aside from the usual implicit exception of the United States as subject to the...

Desalination getting serious.(Environmental Intelligence)
September 1, 2003... In discussions of the growing global water crisis, the option of desalination--making fresh water" out of sea water--has rarely been taken seriously because the cost, at least for large volume uses, has been prohibitive. Only in a few arid but...

Rescuing the Great Reef.(Environmental Intelligence ... Australia adopts proactive environmental policy)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Australia has taken a first step toward protecting its Great Barrier Reef, the largest coral reef in the world, from the destructive effects of overfishing. Until recently, just 4.5 percent of the area of the vast reef was closed to fishing....

New technologies allow for less invasive sterilization.
September 1, 2003... Men who want to undergo sterilization now have an alternative to the vasectomy. Vasclip, a device about the size of a grain of rice, was launched in April in the United States. In a procedure that takes less than 10 minutes, the clip is...

Women gain political seats, but gap in education and employment persists.(Environmental Intelligence)(femle political pariticipation is not related to national income)
September 1, 2003... Women accounted for only 14 percent of all members of the world's national parliaments in 2002, according to a report by the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM). Nevertheless, the report notes an encouraging trend towards greater...

Populations of large ocean fish decimated.(Environmental Intelligence)(fishery fleet impact on ocean ecosystems vastly underestimated)
September 1, 2003... Industrial fleets have fished out at least 90 percent of all large ocean predators--tuna, marlin, swordfish, sharks, cod, halibut, skates, and flounder--in just the past 50 years, according to a study published in the May 15 issue of Nature....

Farmers going organic.(Updates)(Rodale Institute offers information service for farmers converting to organic practices)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Refer to July/August 2003, p. 24 Farmers Going Organic Anthony Rodale, chairman of the Rodale Institute, announced an initiative aimed at converting 100,000 U.S. farmers to organic practices in the next 10 years. The campaign begins with...

Forward command post.(letter of complaint to JC Penney)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Refer to May/June 2003, p. 28 Forward Command Post A WORLD WATCH reader reacted to our annotation of a website ad for a toy that appears to encourage war-like play by writing a letter of protest to JC Penney. Penney replied to the reader,...

Weapons of mass distraction.(Updates)(CIA debunks Bush's claim regarding Iraqi weapons)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Refer to July/August 2003, p. 3 Weapons of Mass Distraction The Bush administration's use of scare tactics to gain American support for a war on Iraq exploded into the mainstream media with the disclosure that Bush's main "evidence" of the...

Who cares about AIDS?(Greenpeace wants investigation over AIDS bill)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Refer to March/April 2003, p. 23 Who Cares About AIDS? Maybe the criticism from former U.S. AIDS Czar Sandra Thurman stung. In any case, after our interview with her was published, the U.S. government made a surprising change of...

What is sustainability, anyway?(Biosphere II and Easter Islands)
September 1, 2003... Introduction Twelve years ago this September, eight men and women said goodbye to wellwishers and walked into Biosphere II, a 3.1-acre airtight greenhouse in the Arizona desert. The door was sealed behind the "bionauts," a team of...

Feedlots of the sea.(Atlantic salmon fish farming and environmental consequences)
September 1, 2003... On a typically cool and misty day on Canada's rugged rainforest coast, two unrelated events draw, scores of tribespeople to the remote reservation town of Bella Bella, British Columbia. The annual All-Native basketball tournament brings teams...

Souped-up salmon.(Aqua Bounty looks for approval for genetically modified salmon)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... No genetically modified salmon are on the market today, but Aqua Bounty, a biotech company from Waltham, Massachusetts, has applied for approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to produce genetically modified Atlantic salmon that can...

Helping to mobilize 100 nations.(Letter From The President ... Worldwatch furthers the cause of renewable energy around the world)
September 1, 2003... A few months I received a call from Stephan Contius, a top assistant to Germany's Environment Minister, Jurgen Trittin, who had a proposal to make. Stephan wanted to know if Worldwatch would be interested in co hosting the launch of a major...

Factory-fish farming.(statistics on environmental aspects)(Brief Article)(Illustration)
September 1, 2003... Factory-Fish Farming Number of different algicides, herbicides, pesticides, and other chemical additives normally fed to farm-raised salmon in 1989 3 Number of being used in...