EcocentricRegulation
These days, environmentalism has become synonymous with the fight against climate change. But good green campaigners know that more immediate environmental challenges still exist.
That reality hit home yesterday when the United Nations said it will send an emergency team to Nigeria, after 200 children died in an outbreak of lead …
EcocentricUncategorized
Ask Shai Agassi how his electric transportation startup Better Place is doing, and the Israeli-American entrepreneur will offer up an endless supply of good stories. The company’s trial in Tokyo—running several electric taxis in the Japanese capital, which can recharge and switch their batteries at a Better Place station—was recently …
EcocentricEnergy
Most of the focus on energy and climate in the developing world boils down to two words: India and China. The rapid growth of those two burgeoning economic giants is changing the pace of energy markets and adding much of the carbon that will be pumped into the atmosphere over the coming decades, speeding climate change. But there’s a …
EcocentricPolitics
The Heinz Family Foundation—set up in memory of the late Sen. John Heinz of Pennsylvania, who died in helicopter crash in 1991—today announced its 16th annual Heinz Awards, to honor heroes of the environment. (The awards are handled in part by Teresa Heinz, Sen. Heinz’s widow and now wife of Sen. John Kerry, who has emerged as a …
EcocentricUncategorized
Will the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approve a genetically modified salmon for sale in supermarkets around the country? Bet on it. Members of a federal advisory group in Maryland heard testimony on Sunday and Monday from scientists, environmentalists and businesspeople on the safety of AquaAdvantage salmon, a new brand that would …
EcocentricUncategorized
Everybody makes ill-informed decisions. This photograph, taken at a popular tourist stop in Kanchanaburi, Thailand, is a testament to a recent one of mine. Photos like these are the bread and butter of the so-called “Tiger Temple,” a sprawling monastery-cum-wildlife-sanctuary a few hours outside Bangkok, which functions both as a …
EcocentricOil
Looks like Ecocentric may need to find something new to write about. On Sunday morning retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen—who may need to find a new job soon—made it official: BP’s blown Macondo well has now been killed. After the long-awaited relief well successfully intersected the original well a couple of days ago, it was …
EcocentricHealth
In this week’s Science, researchers led by Michael Worobey of the University of Arizona and Preston Marx of the Tulane National Primate Research Center looked at the history of simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV)—the primate precursor to HIV—and found that the disease may be thousands of years older than scientists originally …
EcocentricOil
In what was possibly the most anticipated intersection between two shafts in U.S. history, the government announced late Thursday that BP’s relief well had finally connected with the company’s original blown well. That will allow BP to go ahead and place a final cement seal on the original well—finally, truly, really killing it. “The …
EcocentricWeather
A new report released by Oxfam this week has some good news and some bad news for the state of world hunger. The good news: last year, the FAO recorded the first significant dent in world hunger in 15 years, with a decrease from a record 1.02 billion people going hungry in 2009 after the global food crisis down to 925 million this …
