Environment
Twelve step programme to poverty
IPN Opinion article
World Environment Day on 5 June offers the poor a tempting formula: developing countries must slow economic growth to avoid becoming eco-vampires like the industrialized economies. Its "Twelve Steps to Help You Kick the CO2 Habit" mean we Africans should be content to live quaintly in our mud huts lit by solar and wind power.
New definition of fake drugs
IPN Opinion article
There has been much coverage in India of the campaign to resist a WHO crackdown on counterfeits, which activists and the government claim will damage the Indian generics industry. This does not make any sense but, as the coverage shows, it makes a lot of noise: Julian Harris says the new definition of counterfeits will, on the contrary, help Indian generics companies and Brand India.
Protectionism harms consumers and the environment
IPN Opinion article
Proposals to restrict imports from countries which do not reduce greenhouse gas emissions are simply protectionism. They would decrease world trade, disproportionately harming poorer countries, and favour the status quo by rewarding inefficient producers and thus delaying the adoption of cleaner, resource-saving technologies.
Fencing In Europe's Farmers
IPN Opinion article
EU environment ministers will decide this week whether Europe should have GMO-free zones - although genetically-modified crops have been in commercial production in the USA for a dozen years now, and, so far, there are no signs of killer tomatoes rampaging through California. Yet some environmentalists still so oppose modern agricultural biotechnology that the fear is still widespread.
Hot air and human health
IPN Opinion article
The WHO has overstated the health implications of climate change in order to call for strict caps on carbon emissions. By undermining economic growth, this would have very serious consequences for health in developing countries.
Pesticides are good for you
IPN Opinion article
A scare story about pesticides and prostate cancer in the Caribbean made big headlines with little or no proof: in fact, Nature offers more fatal threats than pesticides do. This sort of alarmism undermines trust in science and in chemicals and it causes real damage to health and the environment.
Montreal Protocol and ozone crisis that wasn't
IPN Opinion article
Governments and activists are celebrating from 12-21 September the 20th anniversary of the Montreal Protocol that saved the ozone layer - or did it? This analyst shows how other factors in real life up in the stratosphere had more effect than the CFC ban. He fears similar hype will lead to radical and expensive policies in the attempts to alter climate change - and the cost will hit the poorest hardest.
Free water!
IPN Opinion article
Poor management and inefficiency plague government water programmes but the oil market may provide examples for improvement.
