Environment Archives - Foreign Policy In Focus

Rep. Gilchrest: Stop Climate Change Now

by John Feffer, Michael Shank | Apr 10, 2007

Wayne Gilchrest is a Republican Congressman from Maryland. He chairs the House Climate Change Caucus and has co-sponsored the Climate Stewardship Act designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 to 70% below 1990 levels. Because of his reluctance to deny human responsibility for climate change, Gilchrest was not chosen by Republican leader John Boehner to serve on the recently formed bipartisan Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. At the end of March, FPIF contributor Michael Shank interviewed Gilchrest in Washington, DC about Kyoto, the congressional tipping point for climate change legislation, and the challenges posed by India and China.

Going Green

by John Feffer, Michael Shank | Mar 13, 2007

Elected officials far and near are doing it. The European Union is doing it. U.S. governors are doing it. Even U.S. mayors are doing it. France’s Jacques Chirac calls it “revolutionary,” and California’s Arnold Schwarzenegger says “the time to act is now.” Even Wal-Mart is getting off the dime.

Oil Grab in Iraq

by Raed Jarrar, Antonia Juhasz | Feb 22, 2007

While debate rages in the United States about the military in Iraq, an equally important decision is being made inside of Iraq–the future of Iraq’s oil. A new Iraqi law proposes to open the country’s currently nationalized oil system to foreign corporate control. But emblematic of the flawed promotion of “democracy” by the Bush administration, this new law is news to most Iraqi politicians.

Global Warming: Its All About Energy

by John Feffer, Michael Klare | Feb 15, 2007

Step It Up

by John Feffer | Feb 13, 2007

On April 14, 2007, if the organizers of Step It Up accomplish their goal, they will hold not only the largest climate change action in the United States but also the most widespread.

Global Warming: The Quick Fix Is In

by John Feffer, Pat Mooney | Feb 8, 2007

Hopes for the Kyoto Protocol are fading, and carbon trading is a farce. To arrest climate change, industrialized states can either "bite the bullet" and adopt socially responsible policies to dramatically cut fossil fuel use and useless consumption. Or they can hope for a "silver bullet"—some new techno-fix that might let them continue to pollute and avoid human extinction. The silver bullet may be winning.

China’s Filthiest Export

by John Feffer, Juli S. Kim, Jennifer L. Turner | Jan 16, 2007

The economic boom Deng Xiaoping sparked in 1980 brought millions out of poverty and turned China into the world’s factory. However, by following in the footsteps of many western countries that opted to “pollute first and clean up later,” China built its economic success on a foundation of ecological destruction. This environmental destruction is threatening the economy, human health, and social stability, as well as potentially causing irreparable damage to the water, soil, and forest ecosystems.

World Bank OK With Blood For Oil

by Daphne Wysham | Jan 8, 2007

It has been a year since the horror of the bloodshed in Sudan’s Darfur region–with over 200,000 dead in three years–began leaking across the border into Chad. It has also been a year since a simmering conflict boiled over into a full-scale confrontation between World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz and Chadian President Idriss Deby. Are the two connected? In a word, yes. Here’s how.

Stopping Firestone: Getting Rubber to Meet the Road

by Roxanne Lawson, Tim Newman | Dec 7, 2006

Liberia is rich in natural resources and Africa’s largest producer of natural rubber. It is also one of the world’s poorest countries. Liberia’s impoverishment is directly related to the wealth generated from its natural resources; wealth that because of a history of inequality and exploitation benefits multinational corporations and some wealthy Liberians at the expense of the citizens of Liberia. However, many Liberians, along with international allies, are actively resisting this unjust system.

The Post-Abundance Era

by John Feffer, Michael Klare | Nov 28, 2006

Ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union, foreign policy analysts have struggled to find a term to characterize the epoch we now inhabit. Although the ÂPost-Cold War EraÂ has been the reigning expression, this label now sounds dated and no longer does justice to the particular characteristics of the current period. Others have spoken of the ÂPost-9/11 Era,Â as if the September 11 attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon were defining moments for the entire world. But this image no longer possesses the power it once wieldedÂeven in the United States.