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health and pollution > features
New Year Resolutions to help save the planet
As the New Year approaches, it's a good time to make a few personal resolutions that can help save the planet from environmental meltdown. Fortunately Friends of the Earth has come up with a handy list which we reproduce here. ... more
Ghana's gold inflicts heavy price
by James Haselip
Gold mining is Ghana�s most valuable export industry: in 2005, US$1.4 billion worth of gold was shipped from the country, dwarfing the value of its other major foreign currency earners - timber and cocoa. However, very little of the gold revenues stay in the country while damage to the physical environment by both large and small-scale mining is inflicting an incalculable cost to the economy with vast tracts of farming land permanently ruined, forests destroyed and water resources diverted and polluted. ... more
'China's pollution increase is inevitable'
Although China is doing many of the right things, its pollution levels will inevitably rise says a leading Beijing-based independent energy consultant, Jim Brock. ... more
SUCCESS STORY:
New computers for old
by Naunidhi Kaur
Recently this website published a report on the dumping of useless IT equipment on the developing world. Here by contrast is a report from Canada on an initiative which is successfuly recycling old computers for local use. ... more
Fighting garbage in Goa
by Lionel Messias
The tiny west Indian state of Goa is drowning in garbage - almost literally, not least from the 200,000 tourists hoidaying there this year. But now Goans are beginning to fight back against government apathy, as Lionel Messias reports. ... more
Challenging apathy to clean up the deadly Ganges
The latest 'Clean Ganges Day', in September, has once again heightened public awareness in India about the need to cleanse the world's most important river: lifeline for nearly 500 million people. Here Ganges river activist Roger Choate reports on the uphill battle to restore to good health this most holy of rivers, and on a pond treatment system which is helping to deal with the pollution which contributes to the death of thousands of Indian children every year. ... more
Toxic trespass
A chemical invasion of women's bodies threatens the rights they have so recently won. Sharyle Patton reports. ... more
Development or disaster in India?
by Dinesh Sharma
As rapidly developing countries such as India industrialise, the dangers to local communities from pollution are often overlooked until there is a major disaster such as occurred in Bhopal. But action groups in India are beginning to sound the alarm, as in Patencheru, in the Indian State of Andhra Pradesh. It is one of the country's newest high tech destinations - and one of its most toxic hotspots, as Dinesh Sharma reports. ... more
Coal takes heavy human toll
by Janet Larsen
Startling new research shows that one out of every six women of childbearing age in the United States may have blood mercury concentrations high enough to damage a developing fetus. This means that 630,000 of the 4 million babies born in the country each year are at risk of neurological damage because of exposure to dangerous mercury levels in the womb. ... more
How millions can be saved
by John Rowley
Two recent reports have shown how the health of the world's poorest people, living under dangerous environmental conditions, can be improved - and millions of lives saved - if the right policies are pursued. ... more
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