World Watch articles from September 2004

World Watch archives from September 2004

Good news from China.(Editorial)
September 1, 2004... China was prominent in the world's headlines this past summer, and the news was mixed at best. The country's booming economy has helped to drive up the price of everything from oil and soybeans to steel and cement. Meanwhile the staggering...

What a nation values.(Note from a World Watcher)
September 1, 2004... When U.S. president G. W. Bush was publicly confronted with photographic evidence that his liberating army had committed some extraordinarily ugly deeds at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, he was mighty upset. "These acts do not represent the values...

Who's afraid of frankenfood?(From Readers)(Letter to the Editor)
September 1, 2004... As a scientist I am quite dismayed by the article on genetically modified rice ["Silent Winter?" May/June]. The article presumes that GMO grains will be harmful to migratory birds and that GMO-produced breast milk proteins will be risky to...

All the world's a stage--but who's watching?(From Readers)(Letter to the Editor)
September 1, 2004... Your article about extinctions versus Joe Gibbs, as competing stories in the Washington Post on January 18, 2004 ["Did You Hear the Big News?" May/June], is right on the mark. We glorify that which captures our imagination, without due regard...

Beefs about meat.(From Readers)(Letter to the Editor)
September 1, 2004... World Watch's July/August cover story ("Meat: Now, It's Not Personal!") prompted a flurry of e-mails and letters from the NGO community. In addition to some praiseful remarks from animal welfare organizations, we also received some surprisingly...

A disservice to environmentally appropriate livestock producers.(From Readers)(Letter to the Editor)
September 1, 2004... Your July/August article on meat consumption ["Meat: Now, It's Not Personal!"] does an excellent job of identifying the environmental issues with the current industrial meat production and processing industry. Reducing our consumption of...

Why do environmentalists avoid the meat issue?(From Readers)(Letter to the Editor)
September 1, 2004... I am writing to thank you for your excellent article, "Meat: Now, It's Not Personal!" I rarely, if ever, see this issue adequately addressed in environmental publications and by environmental organizations. I'm assuming that publications and...

Erosion is eating away Europe's coasts.(Environmental Intelligence)
September 1, 2004... The beaches, sand dunes, and marshes along Europe's coasts are under growing threat from erosion, according to a study released by the European Commission in 2004. One-fifth of the coastlines of the newly expanded European Union are in retreat,...

Global warming deniers lose a pet argument.(Environmental Intelligence)
September 1, 2004... For the small cadre of fossil-fuel industry apologists who have continued to insist that global warming is not happening, an often-recited argument has been refuted. Over the past decade or so, contrarians like Julian Simon and Bjorn...

Global treaty to phase out "dirty dozen" pollutants.(Environmental Intelligence)
September 1, 2004... A significant international agreement seeking to phase out the use of certain long-lasting chemicals entered into force in May 2004. Stipulations in the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants will now apply to the 50 countries,...

Chimpanzees headed for extinction.(Environmental Intelligence)
September 1, 2004... Chimpanzees, who share 98 percent of their DNA with humans, will be extinct within the next 50 years, according to a study presented at the Pan African Sanctuaries Alliance conference on June 8, 2004. With only 8,000 individuals remaining, the...

Outfall from Bonn: a host of renewable energy initiatives.(Environmental Intelligence)
September 1, 2004... "The age of renewables has now begun," proclaimed Germany's environment minister, Jurgen Trittin, at the close of a conference at which 154 nations pledged to make renewable energy "a most important and widely available source of energy."...

U.S. lawmakers authorize perchlorate cleanup.(Updates)
September 1, 2004... See "A Little Rocket Fuel With Your Salad?" Nov/Dec 2003, p. 12 In June 2004, the U.S. Senate approved an amendment to the Department of Defense (DOD) Authorization bill calling on the DOD to remediate perchlorate contamination at military...

Cruise ships agree to stop dumping raw sewage into the ocean.(Updates)
September 1, 2004... See "Crimes of (a) Global Nature," Sept/Oct 2002, p. 12 Caribbean International cruise line says it will install water treatment equipment on its 28 ships in order to clean up wastewater before dumping it at sea. A spokesman for the...

Scientists organize to expose Bush administration distortions of scientific knowledge.(Updates)
September 1, 2004... See "Send in the Clones?," July/Aug 2002, p. 2, and "Bush's Scientific Relativism," Jan/Feb 2003, p. 3 In July, 60 scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates, issued a statement asking George W. Bush to stop manipulating scientific knowledge...

World Bank changes its view of factory farming.(Updates)
September 1, 2004... See "Factory Farming in the Developing World," May/June 2003, p. 10 Once a major funder of large-scale industrial livestock projects in developing nations, the World Bank has more recently acknowledged that as that industry grows, "there...

Eating less--but healthier--meat.(Green Guidance)
September 1, 2004... As autumn approaches in the northern hemisphere, the committed meat eater looks ahead to cold-weather roasts. The urge to don a protective layer of fat against the cold and dark dates back to our Paleolithic past. Unfortunately, while our...

Death in Baghdad.(Matters of Scale)(Illustration)
September 1, 2004... Death in Baghdad Number of homicides per 100,000 people in the city of Baghdad during the first 12 months of the U.S. occupation (May 2003-April 2004) 76.0 Number of homicides per 100,000...

Population and its discontents.(Editors' Introduction)
September 1, 2004... Population arouses passions. No other topic covered recently in World Watch has driven so many people to sit down and dash off a strongly worded letter. At one time this passion was widespread; population seemed a more urgent issue in the...

The population story ... so far.
September 1, 2004... A generation ago, human population growth became an explosive issue. Since then, it has largely disappeared from the media. But the consequences of still-rising population colliding with fast-rising resource consumption have in some respects...

The hazards of youth.
September 1, 2004... In more than 100 countries, people are getting not only more numerous, but younger. "Youth bulges," combined with economic stagnation and unemployment, can burden these countries with disproportionately high levels of violence and...

World population, agriculture, and malnutrition.
September 1, 2004... Increases in food production, per hectare of land, have not kept pace with increases in population, and the planet has virtually no more arable land or fresh water to spare. As a result, per-capita cropland has fallen by more than half since...

Not tonight, sweetie; no energy: a neo-Malthusian looks at fossil fuels and fertility.
September 1, 2004... The "fertility opportunity hypothesis" holds that parents want more children when they perceive forthcoming opportunities for a better life, but have fewer children if they anticipate hard times ahead. Perceptions of a coming global oil...

[begin strikethrough]Definitely[end strikethrough] probably one: a generation comes of age under China's one-child policy.
September 1, 2004... Had China not imposed its controversial but effective one-child policy a quarter-century ago, its population today would be larger than it presently is by 300 million--roughly the whole population of the United States today, or of the entire...

Population, family planning, and the future of Africa.
September 1, 2004... In most African countries, over half the population is under the age of 15. Even if all of those countries were to shift to having just two children, beginning tonight, their total populations would continue to grow for another two decades....

Harmonizing population and coastal resources in the Philippines.
September 1, 2004... With half of the human population now living on or near the world's coasts, maintaining a healthy interdependence between coastal ecosystems and human communities is critical to the stability of both. In the Philippines, progressive communities...

Population, migration, and globalization.
September 1, 2004... Globalization is not internationalization, but the effective erasure of national boundaries--opening the way not only to free mobility of capital and goods but also, in effect, to free movement (or uncontrolled migration) of vast labor pools...

The economic conundrum of an aging population.
September 1, 2004... The shift to a stable population will increase the "dependency ratio" of old to young. While that may stem environmental decline, it could bring economic hardship to the countries that first achieve it. The only real chance of escaping this...

Low fertility and sustainability.
September 1, 2004... Motivation to stabilize population can be undermined by excessive worry that smaller numbers of young people will be supporting larger numbers of the elderly. But prevailing patterns of behavior and resource allocation can be changed in ways...

The positive side of the older populations to come.
September 1, 2004... The huge change in the age structure that would come with a slowing or halting of population growth need not result in older people becoming an economically crippling burden. In fact, the kinds of policies that could stimulate this change are...

Global population reduction: confronting the inevitable.
September 1, 2004... Looking past the near-term concerns that have plagued population policy at the political level, it is increasingly apparent that the long-term sustainability of civilization will require not just a leveling-off of human numbers as projected...

History forgotten: for Afghan women, a milestone achieved ... and lost.
September 1, 2004... Michael Schnorr, a professor of art at Southwestern College in California, was in Afghanistan at the time of an historic but little-known gathering of that country's women to declare their rights to plan their families and participate in modern...

Running shoes.(Life-Cycle Studies)
September 1, 2004... Running shoes are quintessential symbols of the global consumer economy. Made mainly in poor countries, they are sold mainly to the rich. They are iconic symbols of speed and success. About 80 percent of the athletic shoes sold by Nike, the...