Vehicle Pollution in São Paulo Quadruples Risk of Death
Saturday, March 7th, 2009Vehicle emissions indirectly kill 20 people per day in the São Paulo metropolitan region, according to a study reported in the daily Folha de São Paulo done by the Air Pollution Laboratory of the University of São Paulo’s (USP) Faculty of Medicine (FM). The study was commissioned by the Brazilian Health Ministry (MS) and has […]
Outlook for “Green Jobs” / Prognóstico para “empleos verdes”
Monday, December 15th, 2008While the idea of creating a “green economy” with “green jobs” has been around quite a while, it really started to gain serious consideration as the climate change debate heated up, and recently moved front-and-center during the US presidential elections and the debates about how best to respond to the global financial crisis (here, here, […]
¿Se recupera el aire bogotano? / Is Bogotá’s Air Recovering?
Friday, November 28th, 2008Bogotá’s environment authority, SDA, just issued a release declaring that the city’s air is getting better. Their evidence that is so? First, that the sulfur content in diesel fuel sold in the capital has fallen from 500 parts per million (ppm) this past July to 231 ppm in October. They attribute the drop to the […]
A Sustainable Energy Plan for Barbados?
Tuesday, February 27th, 2007In an earlier article, I looked at the sustainability of Brazil’s long-range energy plans. Today I examine Barbados’ recently announced 20-year plans. The government of Prime Minister Owen Arthur recently presented to Parliament a ambitious draft national energy plan that has numerous environmental elements in it. While some have applauded its stated intentions — reduction […]
Quantifying the Health Impact of Poor Environmental Management
Wednesday, September 6th, 2006The Geneva-based World Health Organization (WHO) recently released an interesting report on the linkages between environmental conditions and public health. It should be required reading for health, environment and aid officials and policymakers in all nations, but particularly in developing nations such as those in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). It certainly will be […]