World Watch articles from September 2005

World Watch archives from September 2005

Tires.(LIFE-CYCLE STUDIES)(environmental impact of automobile tires)
September 1, 2005... Overview Over half a billion automobiles throng the world's roads, and keeping them rolling requires some 1.1 billion new pneumatic tires every year. Each of them is a sophisticated bit of transportation technology, and a far cry from the...

A visit to the future.(LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT)(trip to Beijing)
September 1, 2005... Memories from my first trip to Beijing two decades ago are still vivid--the dark streets at night, rivers of bicycles flowing down the city's avenues, and, most unforgettably, the heavy, sulfurous smell of coal in the morning air. Landing...

Brian Halweil: think globally, eat locally.(WORLDWATCH FIRST-PERSON)(Column)
September 1, 2005... About a year after I came to Worldwatch, a columnist for the conservative Washington Times took advantage of me. During a long interview about what it was like to work for an environmental group, he homed in on one out-of-context statement...

Diesels and hybrids.(FROM READERS)(Letter to the Editor)
September 1, 2005... Not to disparage the growing hybrid market in the United States, but I feel that diesels come out unfairly when the two are compared [see "Diesels versus Hybrids: Comparing the Environmental Costs," July/August]. I realize that hybrids are...

Chestnut restoration.(FROM READERS)(Letter to the Editor)
September 1, 2005... We would like to compliment Karen Charman for her in-depth research on the article "The Shape of Forests To Come" [May/June], but we disagree with the generally negative slant of the article and would like to correct a few mistakes. We...

Even sweeter.(FROM READERS)(Letter to the Editor)
September 1, 2005... I wish to point out that your July-August "Matters of Scale" grossly understates the U.S. consumption of "sugar." Your figure of 30 kilograms per capita is for sucrose and ignores the much larger figure for corn-derived sweeteners. In 2002,...

Global climate change linked to increasing world hunger.(ENVIRONMENTAL INTELLIGENCE)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2005... Global warming is likely to reduce food production in developing countries by altering weather patterns and leading to more significant droughts and desertification of farmland, according to a recent UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)...

Moving glaciers to mine gold?(ENVIRONMENTAL INTELLIGENCE)
September 1, 2005... Farmers, environmental groups, and scientists in Chile and Argentina are opposing a new mining proposal that involves relocating three large glaciers in the Andes. Canadian mining giant Barrick Gold plans to move some 1 million cubic meters of...

Military spending near record high.(ENVIRONMENTAL INTELLIGENCE)
September 1, 2005... Global military expenditures hit $1.04 trillion in 2004 ($975 billion in inflation-adjusted 2003 dollars), nearing the historic peak of 1987-88, according to a June report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). In a...

Arctic ozone hits record low.(ENVIRONMENTAL INTELLIGENCE)
September 1, 2005... Ozone depletion over the North Pole reached record proportions this spring, heightening risks of UV-B radiation and sunburn as far south as Italy, according to scientists conducting a five-year assessment of Earth's ozone layer. In April,...

Cattle ranching eating up Latin American forests.(ENVIRONMENTAL INTELLIGENCE)
September 1, 2005... Cattle ranching is the leading cause of forest destruction in Latin America, according to a June 2005 study by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). By 2010, reports FAO, more than 1 million hectares of forest will be lost...

ExxonMobil investors show record support for climate change resolution.(ENVIRONMENTAL INTELLIGENCE)
September 1, 2005... In May, shareholders of ExxonMobil Corp., the world's largest energy company, gave record support to a resolution seeking greater corporate analysis and transparency about the financial risks posed by climate change. The first-year resolution,...

"Vampire" mite ravages U.S. honeybee population.(ENVIRONMENTAL INTELLIGENCE)(Varroa)
September 1, 2005... Beekeepers in the United States lost half their bees--more than 1.25 million colonies--in early 2005, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Unusually cool, rainy weather in the winter and spring and the spread of a new strain...

Analog technology helps preserve languages.(UPDATES)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2005... See "Last Words: The Dying of Languages," May/June 2001, p. 34 The Rosetta Project, begun by The Long Now Foundation to preserve disappearing languages, has selected an almost old-fashioned technology for the job: nickel disks. The...

Food is traveling farther.(UPDATES)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2005... See "The Irony of Climate," March/April 2005, p. 18 A British government study, reported in The Guardian, concludes that food consumed in the United Kingdom is traveling farther from source to retailers, and that shoppers are driving...

Unborn babies polluted with industrial chemicals.(UPDATES)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2005... See "A Little Rocket Fuel With Your Salad?" November/December 2003, p. 12, and Green Guidance: "Plastic Containers for Water and Food," March/April 2004, p. 8 The Environmental Working Group, testing umbilical cord blood collected by the...

Fat city.(Philadelphia)(Weight)
September 1, 2005... The global cultural obsession with losing weight is spreading rapidly, as attested by the hundreds of "miracle" diets, the thousands of weight-loss products, and the near-universal excitement over the claimed discovery of the "fat gene." Hardly...

Reducing "globesity" begins at home.(GREEN GUIDANCE)(weight)
September 1, 2005... Sixty-four percent of Americans are overweight or obese, but the rest of the world is gaining fast. French women do get fat, despite Mireille Guiliano's best-selling book that claims the opposite; 42 percent of the French are far from...

Water in South Asia.(TALKING PICTURES)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2005... Water is not a sure thing in South Asia. Some places normally receive 80 inches of rainfall every year, and monsoons flood vast areas. But drought is now common, too. Karachi, in Pakistan, can deliver less than three-fourths of the water its...

Living with climate change in the Arctic.(Inuits)
September 1, 2005... In the late spring of 2000, a group of 52 hunters from Arctic Bay, a small Inuit community on the northern coast of Canada's Baffin Island, were hunting narwhal from the edge of the sea ice. But things didn't go according to plan, recalls Levi...

The evolving corporation: the role of stake-holders; Part 2 of a series.(Bank industry (environmental policy))
September 1, 2005... IN APRIL, JPMorgan Chase, the third-largest bank holding company in the United States, announced that it would adopt a comprehensive environmental policy. The policy will improve its own internal practices, such as reducing greenhouse gas...

Hungry for more: re-engaging religious teachings on consumption.
September 1, 2005... In his book God's Politics, evangelical minister Jim Wallis describes an episode from his seminary days when a fellow student took scissors and snipped out of an old Bible every verse that focused on poverty and wealth. The remaining text was...

Between alienation and claustrophobia?(Book Review)
September 1, 2005... Sustainable Community: Learning From the Cohousing Model Graham Meltzer, Ph.D. (Victoria, British Columbia: Trafford Publishing, 2005), 189 pp. The global consumer class is steadily expanding around the globe, and with it so is the...

The measure of all things.(MATTERS OF SCALE)(Chronology)
September 1, 2005... The Measure of All Things Assumed distance of humanity from the 0 center of the Universe (Earth) in the time of Copernicus (1473-1543), kilometers Assumed distance of humanity from the ...