Development and Sustainability

A Boston-based company that will turn wood waste into ethanol for vehicles has received a $26-million grant from the federal government to build a plant in … [Read more]

Illegal immigration, which has sparked political and social turmoil in communities across the nation, is on the wane, according to an independent report released Thursday. … [Read more]

The World Bank said Tuesday that more people were living in extreme poverty in developing countries than previously thought as it adjusted the recognized yardstick for measuring global poverty to $1.25 a day from $1.

The bank said there were 1.4 billion people — a quarter of the developing world — living in extreme poverty on less than $1.25 a day in 2005 in the world’s developing countries. Last year, the bank said there were 1 billion people living under $1 a day.

The 2005 figures, the latest available, are likely to put fresh pressure on big donor countries to move more aggressively to combat global poverty.

Even so, the new estimates, based on updated global price data, show how progress has been made in helping the poor over the past 25 years. In 1981, 1.9 billion people were living below the $1.25 a day poverty line. The data are based on 675 household surveys in 116 countries.

Is your alma mater among those stepping up to green their campus? Are our colleges preparing students for a greener future? You can find out in National Wildlife Federation's just-released Campus Environment 2008 Report Card, a comprehensive look at nationwide trends in sustainability among America’s institutions of higher learning. The report compares findings with the previous study conducted in 2001.

The 2008 Report Card, based on a survey conducted in partnership with Princeton Survey Research Associates International, found that environmentally progressive and sustainable operations are now ranked among the highest priorities on campus. Ironically however, students are less likely to be environmentally literate when they graduate than their predecessors. … [Read more]

Al Gore's heroic speech challenging us to make our electrical system 100 percent renewable promised it would simultaneously address three major crises: the weak economy, catastrophic climate change and the dire national security problems inherent in our dependence on imported oil.

He got two out of three right. A crash renewable electricity initiative would provide an immediate boost to our economy and could slow climate change, since electricity accounts for about a third of our overall greenhouse gas emissions.

But it would do little to enhance our national security. … [Read more]

The Urban Homestead is the essential handbook for a fast-growing new movement: urbanites are becoming gardeners and farmers. Rejecting both end-times hand wringing and dewy-eyed faith that technology will save us from ourselves, urban homesteaders choose instead to act. By growing their own food and harnessing natural energy, they are planting seeds for the future of our cities. … [Read more]

In this pioneering collection, some of the world’s most eminent critics of development review the key concepts of the development discourse in the post-war era. … [Read more]

Recently, an unprecedented Chinese attempt to acquire the major American energy firm Unocal was blocked by Congress amidst hysterical warnings of a Communist threat.

But the political grandstanding missed a larger point: the takeover bid was a harbinger of a new structure of world power, based not on market forces or on arms and armies but on the possession of vital natural resources.

Surveying the energy-driven dynamic that is reconfiguring the international landscape, Michael Klare, the preeminent expert on resource geopolitics, forecasts a future of surprising new alliances and explosive danger.
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