by Robert K. Kaufmann on December 15, 2005 Boston University Center for Energy & Environmental Studies You will never wake to the headline, “World Runs Out of Oil.” Rather, global oil production will rise, reach one or more peaks, and decline. Well before production declines to very low levels, the peak will mark a point of no return that will be a watershed in the economic history of the 21st century. For the first time, industrial economies will be forced to a lower-quality energy source. And this decline will affect every aspect of modern life. The notion of a world speeding towards a peak in oil production was made famous by the geologist M. King Hubbert. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Hubbert used a simple bellshaped curve to forecast the annual rate of production in the lower 48 U.S. states (see figure). At a time when oil production was increasing rapidly, Hubbert forecast that it would peak in…
by Worldwatch Institute on December 14, 2005 The rapid growth in coal use in China and India, where pollution controls are minimal, is adding to local and long-distance pollution. More than 80 percent of Chinese cities in a recent World Bank survey had sulfur dioxide or nitrogen dioxide emissions above the World Health Organization's threshold.
Worldwatch Institute's Lisa Mastny, Senior Editor, and Brian Halweil, Senior Researcher, will be online to answer your questions on sustainable gift-giving this holiday season. Special guest Josh Dorfman, host of The Lazy Environmentalist and Founder/CEO of Vivavi, will join Lisa and Brian to weigh in with tips on guilt-free gift giving.
by Zijun Li on December 12, 2005 In the past month alone, China has suffered from two very serious human-caused disasters. Less then two weeks after a November 13 chemical plant explosion in Jilin province released a flood of toxins into the Songhua River, a blast at Dongfeng coal mine in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang killed 171 miners.
by Zijun Li on December 12, 2005 On December 7, Nanfang Weekend, a well-known Chinese newspaper, published a ranking of Fortune 500 companies' performance in China, revealing the poor records of the multinational corporations (MNCs) in tax payment, employee welfare, and environmental protection.
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