Good Food is First Food. It is not junk food. It is the food that connects nature and nutrition with livelihoods. This food is good for our health; it comes from the rich biodiversity of our regions; it provides employment to people. Most importantly, cooking and eating give us pleasure. …
IT is two years since western governments, in a fit of enthusiasm for green issues, proposed a US $1.5 billion "pilot project" to find ways to protect the world's rainforests. Meeting in Houston, Texas, the "Group of Seven" rich industrial nations backed a scheme from Germany's Chancellor Kohl to test …
AN entirely new breed of detectives has come up in the USA - the forensic entomologists. Detectives were stumped at the discovery of a 34-year-old man's decomposing body,'with a bullet through his neck, in a Washington house completely locked from inside and with no sign of the killer weapon. Till …
THE first deal to trade pollution permits has been signed in USA. This fortnight, two American power plants have agreed to buy from the other the right to emit sulphur dioxide. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) will buy the right to emit 10,000 tonnes of sulphur dioxide, the main cause …
THIRTY years of deforestation in the temperate regions has caused more pollution than 140 years' use of forests in the tropics. When' temperate forests were cut down in the 19th century by the colonial Europeans 12 North America, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and East Europe, they put into the …
AFTER two disappointing failures in 1987 and 1988, the Augmented Satellite Launch Vehicle (ASLV) was finally launched on May 20 from the Sriharikota range. It successfully placed the 106-kg SROSS (Stretched Rohini -Satellite Series) satellite in an orbit 450 km above the earth. The successful launch came as a, much-needed …
THE spotted owl is creating a flap in USA. A bitter fight over its habitat has driven everyone from President George Bush to the common environmentalist and loggers barmy. This fortnight, the spotted owl lost over 680 ha of its forest habitat in the Oregon region of western USA as …
THIS fortnight the European Commission unveiled a plan, which its environment comissioner, Carlo Ripa di Meana, called "revolutionary" to staise a carbon dioxide emissions at their 1990 levels by the year 2000. Half of this reduction is to be achieved through a tax on carbon fuels - of $3 on …
MR BUSH says he will go to Rio as he is now satisfied with the global agreement of climate. Nothing can be a sharper indictment of the climate convention. Whereas the world needs long-term cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, the western nations on whom the onus of change falls, have …
THAT America rules the waves became abundantly clear to me when I witnessed USA flex its muscles over the entire world at the last session of the Climate Change Convention. The UN was reduced to functioning as an extension of the US state department. And George Bush made a "neutered" …
It was something that nobody would have expected to hear at a global environment conference. The scene: the last preparatory committee meeting for the Rio conference. The US delegation suddenly threw a bombshell. It demanded that all references to control of overconsumption be deleted as these had -very low priority" …
What will UNCED discuss? Theoretically, everything. But it will focus on: Long-term issues like global warming. National resources in the South like tropical rain forests and conservation of biological resources. Mechanisms to transfer aid to the South. Quantum of aid that the South should get to avoid exacerbating global environmental …
THE Himalayan yew Taxus baccata is in the news. Researchers at the University of Kansas have found that the yew contains the anti-cancer drug, taxol, in sufficient quantities for it to replace its cousin, the Pacific yew. Indian botanists fear that the graceful tree may become gradually extinct. American researchers …
THE Chicago Board of Trade, one of the biggest markets for grain, meat, money, bullion and Fortune 500 scrips among others, is shortly to start listing an unusual commodity -the environment. In a significant step to turn over cleaning up of the environ- ment to financial markets, the US Commodity …
FOR once the Japanese are running scared from the Americans. Minolta, the camera manufacturer, recently coughed up US $127.5 million to Honeywell, the US controls technology group, which had slapped a suit for patents infringement on the auto-focus process now so widely used in Japanese cameras. The US company may …
USA, Japan and the European Community have together pledged a total of US $75 million to the establishment of an International Science and Technology Centre in Moscow which will provide stable employment to scientists in the erstwhile USSR. That this is primarily a bid to scotch the likelihood of these …
NEITHER the Honduran government nor Stone Container have had theii way. For it was the people's will that ultimately prevailed. The Honduran government has had to reject a contract that would have given Stone Container, a Chicago-based producer of paper bags and packages, the right to harvest between 0.4 million …
FEARS of ozone layer depletion have inspired research into refrigeration technologies that do not depend on ozone-destroying chemicals and which may even be more efficient than the conventional coolants. The Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Naval Postgraduate School at California,. USA, have jointly developed thermoacoustic devices that chill nitrogen …
TWO resident families in California's Beverly Hills, which houses many Hollywood stars, were recently fined US $1.2 million for cutting down a neighbour's trees to get a view. The Views Wars, the ultimate in upperclass environmentalism, is resulting in view-mongers being dragged into court, and several US towns have passed …
PRIME Minister P V Narasimha Rao"s government has taken dramatic steps in less than a year of its existence towards a liberalised regime for the industrial sector. If the new policies indeed lead to increased economic activity, there will be greater pressures operating on the natural environment. Given India"s people, …
THE last thing you would get to know from the US-based World- watch Institute's State of the World 1992 is the state of America's own environment. Instead, you get an update on the rest of the world- from A for Algeria to Z for Zambia. This is by no means …
