Monday, April 25, 2005

Bank Adopts 'Green' Lending Policies

J.P. Morgan Adopts 'Green' Lending Policies

"J.P. Morgan Adopts 'Green' Lending Policies
By Jim Carlton, Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, April 25, 2005; Page B1

Following pressure by ecological activists and shareholder groups, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. will adopt sweeping guidelines that restrict its lending and underwriting practices for industrial projects that are likely to have an environmental impact.

The New York banking giant -- third largest in assets in the U.S. -- is expected to issue a 10-page environmental policy today that takes an aggressive stance on global warming, including tying carbon-dioxide emissions to its loan-review process for power plants and other large polluters. The bank also plans to calculate in loan reviews the financial cost of greenhouse-gas emissions, such as the risk of a company losing business to a competitor with lower emissions because it has a better public standing.

And J.P. Morgan plans to lobby the U.S. government to adopt a national policy on greenhouse-gas emissions, becoming the first big American bank to pledge that kind of activism on such a contentious issue, according to shareholder activists.

The bank's move, on the heels of activist campaigns that produced similar pledges from Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp., suggest that a shift in tactics by the environmental movement is paying off. Green groups have largely failed in efforts to lobby the Bush administration on oil drilling and other issues. So they are pressuring corporations directly, hoping to counter business activity that could harm the environment.

Large banks are a particularly important target because of their potential role in financing activity such as energy development and logging. By agreeing to put some limits on lending, banks could forgo some profitable activity. But activists argue that eco-friendly policies can help banks sidestep loan defaults and costly litigation associated with businesses such as logging and mining.

'This is increasingly becoming the way all banks operate,' says Steve Lippman, vice president of social research at Trillium Asset Management, a socially oriented investment firm based in Boston that helped lobby J.P. Morgan. 'J.P. Morgan is now raising the bar for the sector.'"

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Wednesday, April 20, 2005

MyPyramid.gov - New food pyramids from the USDA

Steps to a Healthier You - New food pyramids from the USDA

"Steps to a Healthier You
By USDA, April 19, 2005

One size doesn't fit all. MyPyramid Plan can help you choose the foods and amounts that are right for you. For a quick estimate of what and how much you need to eat, enter your age, sex, and activity level in the MyPyramid Plan box.

For a detailed assessment of your food intake and physical activity level, click on MyPyramid Tracker.

Use the advice 'Inside MyPyramid' to help you

- Make smart choices from every food group,
- Find your balance between food and physical activity, and
- Get the most nutrition out of your calories."

Read the entire site and use the interactive features to tailor your plan

Sunday, April 17, 2005

How We Drive Our Jobs Away

How We Drive Our Jobs Away

"How We Drive Our Jobs Away -
The most recent government action in American health care has made things much, much worse. The result: a fiscal black hole.
By Fareed Zakaria, April 18, 2005

Which part of North America makes the most cars? If you answered Michigan, you would have been right for 100 years. But you would not be right anymore. Last year the Canadian province of Ontario surpassed Michigan in car production. Of course, most of the cars made in Ontario are manufactured by America's Big Three - General Motors, Ford and Daimler-Chrysler. These companies are shifting production out of the United States for one overwhelming reason: massive health-care costs. An American worker costs them more than $6,500 in health care per year. In Canada, which has a government-funded and -run health-care system, the cost to the employer per worker is just $800. While the Big Three are an unusual case, they highlight what might turn out to be the most significant threat to the competitiveness of American firms in an increasingly global economy: our out-of-control health system.

This year General Motors will pay about $5.2 billion in medical and insurance bills for its active and retired workers. That adds $1,500 to the cost of every GM car. For Toyota, whose products are manufactured in many countries abroad, these costs add just $186 per car. When China and India start making cars for sale in the United States and Europe, you can be sure that their health-care costs will be less than $50 per car."

Wednesday, April 13, 2005

Organic Cotton: A Case Study

Organic Cotton: A Case Study

"By Patagonia, Inc., Spring 2005

In 1991 Patagonia had commissioned an environmental impact study on the four major fibers we use in our products. We expected the synthetic, petroleum-based materials to be the worst, but we were surprised to learn that conventionally grown 100 percent cotton, which we had always thought of as a 'natural' product, was just as bad as the rest of them.

The process of growing conventional cotton involves the heavy use of chemicals that poison the soil, air and ground water. And, since many of these chemicals were originally formulated as nerve gases for warfare, it's no surprise that where spraying occurs, health problems follow. Higher rates of birth defects and cancer in both humans and wildlife surround the cotton fields. This is an outrageous cost to pay for the battle against bugs, and it's a battle we'll never win. While the bugs quickly adapt to the chemicals, some of which cost $500 a gallon, the rest of us sustain long-term damage.

We had to do something about our use of a fabric with so dreadful an impact on the earth.

Our organic cotton program is a success because our customers are making the same choice we made – to pay more now for organics rather than pay the hidden environmental costs down the road. It’s also a success because our cotton clothing is carefully thought out, and as a consequence, it sells well. As of this year, there are more encouraging signs. Just as in the organic food industry, which is currently growing at a rate of 20 percent a year, the worldwide demand for organic cotton is booming; it has tripled since we first made the switch in 1996. The farmers, gins, spinners, weavers and cloth manufacturers who followed our lead have all created a new source of revenue for themselves. The costs of organic cotton have gone down to where it is on the average only two times more expensive than industrial grown, and more and more companies, encouraged by us, are switching over.

Switching from industrially grown and processed cotton to organically grown is a positive step forward, but doesn’t completely solve the problem. Even when cotton is grown without toxic chemicals, it still uses an inordinate amount of water, and cannot be grown year after year without permanently depleting the soil. When a cotton garment is worn out, it is usually thrown away. We have to dig deeper and try to make products that close the loop – clothing that can be recycled infinitely into similar or equal products. We have to accept the responsibility for what happens to each product when it reaches the end of its life cycle, just as a computer manufacturer should be responsible for what happens to its old model computers that end up in landfills.

Some of the fiber mills we work with, at our prodding, are actively working on using less toxic materials and processes. They willingly work with us because they believe that what we are attempting to do is going to create a more sustainable business model for them and for society. They realize, as David Brower put it, that there’s no business to be done on a dead planet."

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Saturday, April 09, 2005

Vegans rattle ideas about bones

Vegans rattle ideas about bones

"Vegans rattle ideas about bones
Reuters, April 2, 2005

People who eat nothing but raw vegetarian food can still be healthy, US researchers reported.

Although nutritionists and the food industry have warned that a diet without dairy foods can lead to the bone-thinning disease osteoporosis, the research team at Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis found the vegans they studied had many of the signs of strong bones.

'We think it's possible these people don't have increased risk of fracture but that their low bone mass is related to the fact that they are lighter because they take in fewer calories,' Dr Luigi Fontana said.

'Because of their low calorie and low protein intake, raw food vegetarians have a low body mass index (BMI) and a low total body fat content. It is well documented that a low BMI and weight loss are strongly associated with low bone mass and increased fracture risk, while obesity protects against osteoporosis,' Dr Fontana's team wrote in this week's issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine."

Read the entire article

Thursday, April 07, 2005

It's a Flat World, After All

It's a Flat World, After All

"It's a Flat World, After All
By Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times Magazines, April 3, 2005

In 1492 Christopher Columbus set sail for India, going west. He had the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. He never did find India, but he called the people he met ''Indians'' and came home and reported to his king and queen: ''The world is round.'' I set off for India 512 years later. I knew just which direction I was going. I went east. I had Lufthansa business class, and I came home and reported only to my wife and only in a whisper: ''The world is flat.''

And therein lies a tale of technology and geoeconomics that is fundamentally reshaping our lives -- much, much more quickly than many people realize. It all happened while we were sleeping, or rather while we were focused on 9/11, the dot-com bust and Enron -- which even prompted some to wonder whether globalization was over. Actually, just the opposite was true, which is why it's time to wake up and prepare ourselves for this flat world, because others already are, and there is no time to waste.

Globalization 1.0 (1492 to 1800) shrank the world from a size large to a size medium, and the dynamic force in that era was countries globalizing for resources and imperial conquest. Globalization 2.0 (1800 to 2000) shrank the world from a size medium to a size small, and it was spearheaded by companies globalizing for markets and labor. Globalization 3.0 (which started around 2000) is shrinking the world from a size small to a size tiny and flattening the playing field at the same time. And while the dynamic force in Globalization 1.0 was countries globalizing and the dynamic force in Globalization 2.0 was companies globalizing, the dynamic force in Globalization 3.0 -- the thing that gives it its unique character -- is individuals and small groups globalizing. Individuals must, and can, now ask: where do I fit into the global competition and opportunities of the day, and how can I, on my own, collaborate with others globally? But Globalization 3.0 not only differs from the previous eras in how it is shrinking and flattening the world and in how it is empowering individuals. It is also different in that Globalization 1.0 and 2.0 were driven primarily by European and American companies and countries. But going forward, this will be less and less true. Globalization 3.0 is not only going to be driven more by individuals but also by a much more diverse -- non-Western, nonwhite -- group of individuals. In Globalization 3.0, you are going to see every color of the human rainbow take part.

''Today, the most profound thing to me is the fact that a 14-year-old in Romania or Bangalore or the Soviet Union or Vietnam has all the information, all the tools, all the software easily available to apply knowledge however they want,'' said Marc Andreessen, a co-founder of Netscape and creator of the first commercial Internet browser. ''That is why I am sure the next Napster is going to come out of left field. As bioscience becomes more computational and less about wet labs and as all the genomic data becomes easily available on the Internet, at some point you will be able to design vaccines on your laptop.''

Andreessen is touching on the most exciting part of Globalization 3.0 and the flattening of the world: the fact that we are now in the process of connecting all the knowledge pools in the world together. We've tasted some of the downsides of that in the way that Osama bin Laden has connected terrorist knowledge pools together through his Qaeda network, not to mention the work of teenage hackers spinning off more and more lethal computer viruses that affect us all. But the upside is that by connecting all these knowledge pools we are on the cusp of an incredible new era of innovation, an era that will be driven from left field and right field, from West and East and from North and South. Only 30 years ago, if you had a choice of being born a B student in Boston or a genius in Bangalore or Beijing, you probably would have chosen Boston, because a genius in Beijing or Bangalore could not really take advantage of his or her talent. They could not plug and play globally. Not anymore. Not when the world is flat, and anyone with smarts, access to Google and a cheap wireless laptop can join the innovation fray.

When the world is flat, you can innovate without having to emigrate. This is going to get interesting. We are about to see creative destruction on steroids.

How did the world get flattened, and how did it happen so fast?

It was a result of 10 events and forces that all came together during the 1990's and converged right around the year 2000. Let me go through them briefly.

The first event was 11/9. That's right -- not 9/11, but 11/9. Nov. 9, 1989, is the day the Berlin Wall came down, which was critically important because it allowed us to think of the world as a single space.

The second key date was 8/9. Aug. 9, 1995, is the day Netscape went public, which did two important things. First, it brought the Internet alive by giving us the browser to display images and data stored on Web sites. Second, the Netscape stock offering triggered the dot-com boom, which triggered the dot-com bubble, which triggered the massive overinvestment of billions of dollars in fiber-optic telecommunications cable. That overinvestment, by companies like Global Crossing, resulted in the willy-nilly creation of a global undersea-underground fiber network, which in turn drove down the cost of transmitting voices, data and images to practically zero, which in turn accidentally made Boston, Bangalore and Beijing next-door neighbors overnight. In sum, what the Netscape revolution did was bring people-to-people connectivity to a whole new level.

[The] third, ... I call ''workflow.'' Workflow is shorthand for all the software applications, standards and electronic transmission pipes, like middleware, that connected all those computers and fiber-optic cable. To put it another way, if the Netscape moment connected people to people like never before, what the workflow revolution did was connect applications to applications so that people all over the world could work together in manipulating and shaping words, data and images on computers like never before.

Indeed, this breakthrough in people-to-people and application-to-application connectivity produced, in short order, six more flatteners -- six new ways in which individuals and companies could collaborate on work and share knowledge.

One was ''outsourcing.'' The second was ''offshoring.'' The third was ''open-sourcing.'' The fourth was ''insourcing.'' The fifth was ''supply-chaining.'' The last new form of collaboration I call ''informing.''

So the first three flatteners created the new platform for collaboration, and the next six are the new forms of collaboration that flattened the world even more. The 10th flattener I call ''the steroids,'' and these are wireless access and voice over Internet protocol (VoIP). What the steroids do is turbocharge all these new forms of collaboration, so you can now do any one of them, from anywhere, with any device.

The world got flat when all 10 of these flatteners converged around the year 2000. This created a global, Web-enabled playing field that allows for multiple forms of collaboration on research and work in real time, without regard to geography, distance or, in the near future, even language. ''It is the creation of this platform, with these unique attributes, that is the truly important sustainable breakthrough that made what you call the flattening of the world possible,'' said Craig Mundie, the chief technical officer of Microsoft.

Wherever you look today...hierarchies are being flattened and value is being created less and less within vertical silos and more and more through horizontal collaboration within companies, between companies and among individuals.

The last 20 years were about forging, sharpening and distributing all the new tools to collaborate and connect. Now the real information revolution is about to begin as all the complementarities among these collaborative tools start to converge.

[A]nother convergence coincidentally occurred during the 1990's that was equally important. Some three billion people who were out of the game walked, and often ran, onto the playing field. I am talking about the people of China, India, Russia, Eastern Europe, Latin America and Central Asia.

It is this convergence -- of new players, on a new playing field, developing new processes for horizontal collaboration -- that I believe is the most important force shaping global economics and politics in the early 21st century. Said Craig Barrett, the C.E.O. of Intel, ''You don't bring three billion people into the world economy overnight without huge consequences, especially from three societies'' -- like India, China and Russia -- ''with rich educational heritages.''

That is why there is nothing that guarantees that Americans or Western Europeans will continue leading the way. These new players are stepping onto the playing field legacy free, meaning that many of them were so far behind that they can leap right into the new technologies without having to worry about all the sunken costs of old systems. It means that they can move very fast to adopt new, state-of-the-art technologies, which is why there are already more cellphones in use in China today than there are people in America.

They have a saying at Microsoft about their Asia center, which captures the intensity of competition it takes to win a job there and explains why it is already the most productive research team at Microsoft: ''Remember, in China, when you are one in a million, there are 1,300 other people just like you.''

The long-term opportunities and challenges that the flattening of the world puts before the United States are profound. Therefore, our ability to get by doing things the way we've been doing them -- which is to say not always enriching our secret sauce -- will not suffice any more. ''For a country as wealthy we are, it is amazing how little we are doing to enhance our natural competitiveness,'' says Dinakar Singh, the Indian-American hedge-fund manager. ''We are in a world that has a system that now allows convergence among many billions of people, and we had better step back and figure out what it means. It would be a nice coincidence if all the things that were true before were still true now, but there are quite a few things you actually need to do differently. You need to have a much more thoughtful national discussion.''

If this moment has any parallel in recent American history, it is the height of the cold war, around 1957, when the Soviet Union leapt ahead of America in the space race by putting up the Sputnik satellite. The main challenge then came from those who wanted to put up walls; the main challenge to America today comes from the fact that all the walls are being taken down and many other people can now compete and collaborate with us much more directly. The main challenge in that world was from those practicing extreme Communism, namely Russia, China and North Korea. The main challenge to America today is from those practicing extreme capitalism, namely China, India and South Korea. The main objective in that era was building a strong state, and the main objective in this era is building strong individuals.

Meeting the challenges of flatism requires as comprehensive, energetic and focused a response as did meeting the challenge of Communism. It requires a president who can summon the nation to work harder, get smarter, attract more young women and men to science and engineering and build the broadband infrastructure, portable pensions and health care that will help every American become more employable in an age in which no one can guarantee you lifetime employment.

When it comes to responding to the challenges of the flat world, there is no help line we can call. We have to dig into ourselves. We in America have all the basic economic and educational tools to do that. But we have not been improving those tools as much as we should.

This quiet crisis is a product of three gaps now plaguing American society. The first is an ''ambition gap.'' Compared with the young, energetic Indians and Chinese, too many Americans have gotten too lazy. As David Rothkopf, a former official in the Clinton Commerce Department, puts it, ''The real entitlement we need to get rid of is our sense of entitlement.'' Second, we have a serious numbers gap building. We are not producing enough engineers and scientists. We used to make up for that by importing them from India and China, but in a flat world, where people can now stay home and compete with us, and in a post-9/11 world, where we are insanely keeping out many of the first-round intellectual draft choices in the world for exaggerated security reasons, we can no longer cover the gap. That's a key reason companies are looking abroad. The numbers are not here. And finally we are developing an education gap. Here is the dirty little secret that no C.E.O. wants to tell you: they are not just outsourcing to save on salary. They are doing it because they can often get better-skilled and more productive people than their American workers.

These are some of the reasons that Bill Gates, the Microsoft chairman, warned the governors' conference in a Feb. 26 speech that American high-school education is ''obsolete.'' In 2001, India graduated almost a million more students from college than the United States did. China graduates twice as many students with bachelor's degrees as the U.S., and they have six times as many graduates majoring in engineering. In the international competition to have the biggest and best supply of knowledge workers, America is falling behind.

When I was growing up, my parents used to say to me, ''Tom, finish your dinner -- people in China are starving.'' But after sailing to the edges of the flat world for a year, I am now telling my own daughters, ''Girls, finish your homework -- people in China and India are starving for your jobs.''

This is the beginning of a crisis that won't remain quiet for long. And as the Stanford economist Paul Romer so rightly says, ''A crisis is a terrible thing to waste.''

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The Growing Popularity of Microcredit for the Poor

Microcredit Is Becoming Profitable

"Microcredit Is Becoming Profitable, Which Means New Players and New Problems
By Wharton School of Business, April, 2005

Microcredit, the innovative financial tool that provides very small business loans to poor people, is moving into adolescence and must wean itself off non-profit donors to become an established part of the global capital structure, according to Wharton faculty and experts in microfinance.

The movement began nearly 30 years ago with Muhammad Yunus, founder and managing director of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, which so far has provided $5 billion in loans to four million people. Since then, similar networks of microfinance institutions (MFIs) have sprung up around the world. Indeed, the United Nations has declared 2005 the International Year of Microcredit and will sponsor research projects and meetings to encourage the use of microcredit to alleviate poverty. 'It's a growing market,' says Wharton management professor Keith Weigelt. 'I view it as the good side of capitalism, using loans to give money to poor people so they can improve their lot in life.'

Large commercial financial institutions, including Citigroup and Deutsche Bank, are now showing interest in microfinance, which could increase access to credit for the poor. At the same time, challenges remain in attracting private capital, lowering costs and interest rates, and developing regulation.

More than 500 microfinance institutions around the world have loaned $7 billion to about 30 million small-business people, says Weigelt, but 300 million could benefit from microcredit to start viable businesses. So far, most of the loans made by MFIs have originated as grants from government or gifts from individuals and foundations. 'The big jump now is for microfinance institutions to wean off the donors and subsidies and operate like a commercial bank would,' Weigelt adds."

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Tuesday, April 05, 2005

Variation in Women's X Chromosomes May Explain Difference Among Individuals, Between Sexes

Variation in Women's X Chromosomes May Explain Difference Among Individuals, Between Sexes

"Variation in Women's X Chromosomes May Explain Difference Among Individuals, Between Sexes
Duke University, March 16, 2005

The first comprehensive survey of gene activity in the X chromosomes of women has revealed an unexpected level of variation among individuals, according to new work by researchers at the Duke University Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy (IGSP) and Pennsylvania State University.

The results may have important implications for understanding the differences in traits among women and between males and females, in terms of both health and disease, said Huntington Willard, Ph.D., director of the IGSP and the study's senior author. The findings also offer new insight into the basis for well-established differences between the sexes, he said.

Willard said that the extensive variation in gene activity in the sex chromosomes means that, in essence, there is not one human genome, but two — male and female.

'We looked at the X chromosomes of 40 women and every one of them had a unique pattern of gene expression,' Willard said. 'All of that variation is completely unique to women. The X chromosomes of males are all the same in this regard.'

Willard and study co-author Laura Carrel, Ph.D., of Penn State, reported their findings in the March 17, 2005, issue of Nature. The National Institutes of Health supported the research. In the same issue of Nature, more than 250 researchers, including Willard and Carrel, reported the complete DNA sequence of the human X chromosome."

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The Dawn of a New Oil Era?

MSNBC - The Dawn of a New Oil Era?

"The Dawn of a New Oil Era?
China is the world's second-largest consumer of oil. It has about 20 million cars and trucks now. By the year 2020, that may be 120 million.
By Robert J. Samuelson, Newsweek, April 4, 2005

The interesting question about the advent of $50-a-barrel oil is whether it signals a new era in the economics and politics of energy. To sharpen the question: have we entered a period when, owing to consistently strong demand and chronically scarce supplies, prices have moved permanently higher? We don't know, but the answer could be "yes" for at least one reason: China.

Americans consume almost 21 million barrels of oil a day, a quarter of the world total of 84 million barrels a day, reports the International Energy Agency. But China is now second at 6.4 million barrels a day, and its demand could double by 2020, various analysts told a conference held last week by the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) in Washington. Moreover, China will import most of its new needs; its domestic output is steady at about 3.5 million barrels a day. It's unclear how much China's extra demand—and that of other developing countries, especially India—will stimulate extra oil production.

Oil markets do undergo seismic shifts. Until 1974, the United States was the world's largest oil producer. Supplies were plentiful; Americans controlled their own oil prices, as Daniel Yergin explained in his 1991 book "The Prize." The message for Americans is simple. We import nearly 60 percent of our oil. We can't any time soon eliminate imports, but we could limit them by producing more at home and conserving more (meaning higher fuel taxes, tougher gasoline standards, smaller vehicles and more hybrid engines).

We could now be at a similar inflection point, where the global oil system changes dramatically. Certainly the short-term outlook already has. From 1991 to 1999, world oil demand rose annually about 1 million barrels a day, Guy Caruso, head of the U.S. Energy Information Administration, told the CSIS conference. But in 2004, demand unexpectedly jumped 2.7 million barrels a day. A third of the increase came from China, and much of that reflected electricity shortages. Unable to get reliable power, factories installed their own generators. China's regular power plants overwhelmingly use coal, but the new generators used imported diesel fuel. China could solve this problem by building more power plants and easing rail bottlenecks that hinder coal shipments. But there will still be new sources of oil demand. China now has about 20 million cars and trucks, energy consultant James Dorian said; by 2020, it could have 120 million. (In 2001, the United States had about 230 million cars, vans and trucks.)

Higher oil demand has now strained the global production system to its limits. Spare capacity of about 1.5 million barrels a day is the lowest in 30 years, said CSIS's Frank Verrastro. Most is located in Saudi Arabia. Higher prices partly reflect fear of more supply disruptions—from terrorism, war, political upheavals, weather or accidents. In theory, higher prices should be partially self-correcting. They should dampen demand and encourage supply. But theory must always be revised for new realities. Here, there are two.

One is that in rich countries—notably the United States—rising incomes make it easier to afford higher energy prices. In the latest month, American oil demand was actually up 2 percent from a year earlier (and, yes, adjusted for inflation, today's gasoline prices are still roughly a third below levels reached in 1980 and 1981). A second reality is that big oil companies seem less willing or able to find new oil.

The message for Americans is simple. We import nearly 60 percent of our oil. We can't any time soon eliminate imports, but we could limit them by producing more at home and conserving more (meaning higher fuel taxes, tougher gasoline standards, smaller vehicles and more hybrid engines)."

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China's Wasteful Ways - Colossally inefficient use of energy penalizes China twice

China's Wasteful Ways

"China's Wasteful Ways - Colossally inefficient use of energy penalizes China twice: With high costs and the ravages of pollution
Newsweek, April 11, 2005

When Chinese Vice-Premier Zeng Peiyan swung by the Beijing headquarters of steelmaker Shougang Group on Mar. 24, it wasn't a courtesy call. He confirmed rumors China's State Council had ordered Shougang to wind down its Beijing iron-and-smelting operation by 2007 and transfer the facilities out of the city. Shougang plants, mainly fueled by coal, belch out 18,000 tons of dust and contaminants a year, and Beijing is determined to clean up in time for the 2008 Olympic Games.

Shougang's departure will do more than reduce pollution: It will take a 40-year-old mill out of circulation and force Shougang to build a far more efficient facility. The energy needs of a fast-growing economy of 1.3 billion people are huge, of course. But China is also a world-class waster. University of Alberta political economist Wenran Jiang calculates China spends three times the world average on energy -- and seven times what Japan spends -- to produce $1 of gross domestic product. It also is far more inefficient than nations like Brazil and Indonesia. 'China needs to shift from a high energy-consumption model of development to a green model,' says Hu Angang, director of Tsinghua University's China studies center.

Chinese steelmakers on average use about twice as much energy as Japanese or Korean rivals per ton of output. Only 5% of the country's office and residential towers meet China's own minimal energy-conservation standards. China's waste has big implications for global oil prices: In 2004, China imported 2.4 million barrels per day. By 2030, the U.S. Energy Dept. estimates China will have to import 8.4 million bbl.

China has many wasteful steel, paper, chemical, and power plants relying on decades-old coal-fired turbines. Some steelmakers, such as Shanghai Baosteel Group Corp., boast modern facilities. But China is still dotted with the blast furnaces and smelters of many minor players. 'There are instances of steel plants set up just to meet local needs,' notes Jonathan E. Sinton, a China energy expert at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. "These are terribly inefficient." Partly as a result, fuel consumption in China grew 1.5 times as fast as its economy in 2004. In most developed nations, the ratio is one-to-one or lower.

China's consumer boom is stoking the appetite for energy-guzzling air conditioners, refrigerators, and bigger houses. Since 2001, Chinese cities have enacted new building standards that aim for 50% less energy use per square foot. But enforcement is weak.

Then there is China's auto boom. By 2020, vehicles on its roads are expected to swell from 24 million now to 100 million. By then, transportation will account for 60% of China's energy use, up from 33% now. Fuel efficiency rules have been weak. Starting in July, though, auto makers will have three years to boost efficiency by 5%. Now, only 44% of cars and 4% of sport-utility vehicles meet the new standards, estimates Washington's World Resources Institute. Still, skeptics doubt China has the regulatory muscle to punish violators.

Meanwhile, China is paying an onerous price for its profligacy. The World Bank figures inefficient fuel use is costing China upwards of $120 billion in lost industrial output annually and health costs related to pollution. Not even fast-growing China can afford the long-term bills that will come due from the way it burns through energy."

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Giving Hybrids A Real Jolt

Giving Hybrids A Real Jolt

"Giving Hybrids A Real Jolt - A plug-in gas-electric vehicle may be key in saving fuel and cutting pollution
BusinessWeek, April 11, 2005

Is there a car that can cut America's oil imports to a trickle, dramatically reduce pollution, and do it all with currently available technology? Greg Hanssen thinks so. His company has already built one such car -- a converted Toyota Prius that gets 100 to 180 mpg in a typical commute. Andrew A. Frank thinks so, too. The University of California at Davis professor has constructed a handful of such vehicles. His latest: a converted 325-horsepower Ford Explorer that goes 50 miles using no gas at all, then gets 30 mpg. 'It goes like a rocket,' he says.

These vehicles are quickly becoming the darlings of strange bedfellows: both conservative hawks and environmentalists, who see such fuel efficiency as key to ensuring national security and fighting climate change. Reducing dependence on the turbulent Middle East 'is a war issue,' says former CIA Chief R. James Woolsey, who calls the cars' potential 'phenomenal.'

What's the secret? It's as simple as adding more batteries and a plug to hybrids such as the Prius. That way, the batteries can be charged up at any electrical outlet -- letting this so-called plug-in hybrid travel 20 to 60 miles under electric power alone. Since most Americans drive fewer than 30 miles a day, such a car could go months without visiting the filling station. 'The only time you would have to gas up is when you go out of town,' says Felix Kramer, who founded the nonprofit California Cars Initiative to promote plug-ins. Run the internal combustion engine on a blend of gasoline and biofuels like ethanol, and it would use almost no oil products at all. 'That changes the world,' says Frank J. Gaffney Jr., president of the Center for Security Policy.

TRIVIAL MATTER
Professor Frank, 72, first began thinking about a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) years ago. 'But now all the pieces are here,' he says. Toyota Motor Corp. (TM ) has solved the big engineering problems with the Prius, so 'it's a trivial matter to make a plug-in,' says Joseph J. Romm, a former Energy Dept official. Greg Hanssen and his colleagues at EnergyCS, for example, replaced the Prius' existing 1.3-kilowatt-hour nickel metal hydride battery with an advanced 9-kWh lithium ion battery pack. They hope to offer a conversion kit to Prius owners.

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Saturday, April 02, 2005

National Security Hawks for Hybrids

Hawks for Hybrids

"Hawks for hybrids
By Page Rockwell, Salon.com, April 1, 2005

If the U.S. doesn't invest in hybrid cars, the terrorists have already won. Or so says a group of national security hawks, who have formed an unlikely alliance with enviro-friendly outfits like the Energy Futures Coalition and the National Resources Defense Council to call for reduced dependency on foreign oil. In an open letter to the President on Monday, such unlikely Prius advocates as former CIA director James Woolsey, Reagan administration national security advisor Robert C. (Bud) McFarlane, and Center for Security Policy head and Reagan-era Defense Department official Frank Gaffney, asked that the Bush administration pledge $1 billion over the next five years for hybrid technology research.

The hawks acknowledged that they haven't always been so hip to the environmentalist agenda. 'I don't often find myself in agreement with those at the Natural Resources Defense Council,' Gaffney noted. But according to Woolsey, reducing U.S. oil consumption has moved from a conservationist priority to an area of strategic concern: '[It's] no longer a nice thing to do. It's imperative.'

Americans are all too familiar with the high consumer cost of depending on foreign fossil fuels. But, McFarlane argued, the total costs are even higher. 'The price at the pump is not all we're paying right now. We are also paying $400 billion for a defense budget,' he said.

Defense strategists finding common cause with environmental advocates is strange and cheering news in and of itself. But the bipartisan alliance also offers a useful foreign policy critique of the Bush administration's approach to the Middle East. In a telephone press conference Monday, some of the letter's signers laid out the manifold dangers of maintaining our current energy dependency. Woolsey identified terrorism as one such danger: 'The petroleum infrastructure is very vulnerable to terrorists and other attacks. Bin Laden has called for [such] terrorist attacks in the Middle East.' Furthermore, he said, the U.S. investment in foreign oil perpetuates terror by funding terrorist-supporting regimes: 'The wealth that has gone to the greater Middle East for oil has been used to fund terrorism and its ideological underpinning…Saudi Arabia has spent some 85 to 90 billion dollars in the last thirty years spreading [fundamentalist] beliefs throughout the world.'

Woolsey suggested that instability in the Middle East could bar U.S. access to the region's relatively cheap and plentiful oil supply: 'There is a possibility, particularly if there is turmoil in the Middle East, [of] a regime’s coming to power that would not be conducive to selling a lot of petroleum to the West.'

Gaffney raised concern that such a reduction in available petroleum would send oil prices soaring. And, he said, mushrooming prices have far graver consequences than pain at the pump -- including the potential for war with China: 'The demand that China has already exhibited, let alone what it may seek in the future…could give rise…to sources of conflict with the United States or others in the West. And potentially violent conflict at that.'"

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Friday, April 01, 2005

Half of cancer deaths preventable

Half of cancer deaths preventable

"ACS: Half of cancer deaths preventable
Reuters, Thursday, March 31, 2005

More than 60 percent of all cancer deaths could be prevented if Americans stopped smoking, exercised more, ate healthier food and got recommended cancer screenings, the American Cancer Society reported on Thursday.

And Americans could realistically cut the death rate in half, the report says. This year 1.368 million Americans will learn they have cancer and 563,700 will die of it.

'The American Cancer Society estimates that in 2005, more than 168,140 cancer deaths will be caused by tobacco use alone,' the organization said in a statement.

'In addition, scientists estimate that approximately one-third (190,090) of the 570,280 cancer deaths expected to occur in 2005 will be related to poor nutrition, physical inactivity, overweight, obesity and other lifestyle factors.'

That totals 358,230 or 62 percent of all cancer deaths.

'The issue is how many could you actually pull off in reality and half doesn't seem like a big stretch,' Dr. Michael Thun, head of epidemiology for the non-profit group, said in an interview.

'If one could eliminate tobacco use, you would eliminate about half of cancer deaths. If you could help people maintain a healthy body weight and get more physical activity, that would be another 10 percent,' he added."

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