Tilting at windmills
OSTERATH’S 12,000 citizens are angry. Their quiet backwater in the Ruhr, close to Düsseldorf, is the proposed site for the biggest converter station in Europe. This vast installation will transform...
View ArticleTime to dig deep
A long-awaited bill ends uncertainty, but will hit mining companies’ profits Four years after Brazil’s government said it was planning a radical rewrite of mining laws, on June 18th the industry, which
View ArticleTepid, timid
This is an unusually busy moment in the unhappy history of efforts to curb climate change. In two weeks at the end of June the world’s three biggest polluters unveiled carbon-reducing measures. In China
View ArticleUnspontaneous combustion
Forest fires bring record levels of air pollution; and the end is not in sight. Since the mid-1980s, when Indonesia first began to clear its bountiful forests on an industrial scale in favour of lucrative
View ArticleWhile Congress sleeps
In the full glare of Washington’s summer sunshine, Barack Obama unveiled what he called “a co-ordinated assault on a changing climate” on June 25th. He promised to deploy almost every green weapon at his
View ArticleOut of the gloom
Fly by night over Uttar Pradesh in northern India, the country’s most populous state, and its cities appear as dazzling islands. In between, however, lies an inky sea. Perhaps two-thirds of Uttar...
View ArticleThe cost del sol
ÁNGEL MIRALDA was proud of his 320 solar panels in a field near Benabarre, in northern Spain. They added 56 kilowatts of clean-energy capacity to a country that depended on oil imports. The panels cost
View ArticleSensitive information
“THAT report is going to scare the wits out of everyone,” said Yvo de Boer recently. He is a former United Nations chief climate negotiator and was talking about the forthcoming fifth assessment by the
View ArticleBattle of the bulge
For countries with rich culinary traditions that date back to the Aztecs and Incas, Mexico and Peru have developed quite a taste for modern food fashions. Mexicans quaff more fizzy drinks than any other
View ArticleFour wheels good, two wheels bad
Travel within any Indian city is usually crowded and slow. But Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), capital of West Bengal, has certain advantages. Its underground rail network, which was the first to open in
View ArticleStubborn things
IN 2007 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a body of scientists, said the glaciers of the Himalayas could melt by 2035. This was complete fiction. It also said global surface...
View ArticleStubborn things
IN 2007 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a body of scientists, said the glaciers of the Himalayas could melt by 2035. This was complete fiction. It also said global surface...
View ArticleThe long war
A new vaccine will help, but will not defeat malaria. On October 8th researchers announced progress in developing a vaccine against malaria. GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), a British pharmaceutical firm, said it
View ArticleAll dried up
China endures choking smog, mass destruction of habitats and food poisoned with heavy metals. But ask an environmentalist what is the country’s biggest problem, and the answer is always the same. “Water
View ArticleDivided by five
By building dams in the Himalayas, Chinese engineers are tinkering with one of the world’s great sets of watersheds. Five great streams—the Red River, the Yangzi, the Irrawaddy, the Salween and the...
View ArticleConflict’s harvest
NAVIGATING Colombia’s mountainous countryside was even harder than usual for three weeks in the summer, when thousands of farmers blocked roads to protest about poor conditions in rural areas. The...
View ArticleSmelling a rat
Genetically modified maize causes cancer: that was the gist of one of the most controversial studies in recent memory, published in September 2012 by Food and Chemical Toxicology. Well, actually, it...
View ArticleFields of beaten gold
IN AUGUST environmentalists in the Philippines vandalised a field of Golden Rice, an experimental grain whose genes had been modified to carry beta-carotene, a chemical precursor of vitamin A. Golden Rice
View ArticleFood fight
A fierce public debate over GM food exposes concerns about America. Of the many thousands of usually small protests that break out in China every year, few relate to national policy. Many consider the
View ArticleFuelling controversy
Over the past year energy subsidies have become a target for politicians on austerity drives. In June Indonesia increased petrol prices by 44% to cut its annual subsidy bill of $20 billion. More recently
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