Currents

While China’s economic flowering might be benefiting millions of people, it is also degrading their quality of life. The European Space Agency released satellite data last week showing that the air in the Chinese capital Beijing and its neighboring provinces contains the highest levels of nitrogen dioxide in the world. Analysts estimate that such elevated pollution levels probably account for 400,000 premature deaths in the region every year.

In an effort to generate revenue to rein in the ballooning federal deficit, the House Resources Committee has approved a federal budget package calling for an end to a decade-old moratorium on the sale of public lands to mining companies. Committee Chair Dick Pombo said that the contentious provision would add $2.4 billion or more to federal coffers over five years.

The CEO of Wal-Mart–that king of the big box retailers long condemned by environmentalists for irresponsible development, violations of clean water laws and other crimes against nature–announced last week that his company is embarking on a new $500 million-a-year initiative to green its operations.

In a report released last week, the World Conservation Union announced that without intervention, half of the world’s coral reefs would be gone by 2045. "Twenty percent of the Earth’s coral reefs, arguably the richest of all marine ecosystems, have been effectively destroyed today," said Carl Gustaf Lundin, who runs the marine environment program for the Swiss-based nonprofit that published the report.

As many of the world’s most important commercial fish populations have collapsed, fish farms have stepped in to fill the void. Marine aquaculture has more than doubled in size over the past decade, and now accounts for nearly 20 percent of the world’s seafood supply. The fast-growing industry has also triggered some environmental problems, but now it appears to be solving many of them.

After a decade of success in rolling back global levels of consumption, the California strawberry industry that uses 40 percent of the nation’s supply of ozone-depleting biocide methyl bromide convinced the Bush administration to back pedal. It was a victory for the "bromide barons."

Treating Christmas tree fields each spring, farmworker Felix Alvarez, 43, soaks his skin with Roundup, a weedkiller linked to cancer among applicators. Each spring and summer, Hispanic workers like Alvarez handle some of the deadliest pesticides allowed by law, potentially risking their health to help Americans celebrate life.

Natural gas provides about 24 percent of U.S. energy requirements, compared to 40 percent for oil and 23 percent for coal. Consumption has risen for a decade because gas was relatively cheap until the late 1990s and generates fewer pollutants and greenhouse gases than coal or oil. But even with a drilling boom under way, domestic production lags demand and environmentalists are opposing new LNG projects.

Environmentalists are incensed at draft regulations proposed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) last week calling on older coal-fired power plants to be judged on hourly pollution output as opposed to the current annual standard. Under the proposed change to the controversial New Source Review program, power plants would be able to emit more pollution than is currently allowed by simply operating for more hours.