NEW DELHI, India — Small, sick, listless children have long been India’s scourge — ‘a national shame,’ in the words of its prime minister, Manmohan Singh. But even after a decade of galloping economic growth, child malnutrition rates are worse here than in many sub-Saharan African countries, and they stand out as a paradox in a proud democracy. China, that other Asian economic powerhouse, sharply reduced child malnutrition, and now just 7 percent of its children under 5 are underweight, a critical gauge of malnutrition. In India, by contrast, despite robust growth and good government intentions, the comparable number is 42.5 percent. Malnutrition makes children more prone to illness and stunts physical and intellectual growth for a lifetime. There are no simple explanations. Economists and public health experts say stubborn malnutrition rates point to a central failing in this democracy of the poor. Amartya Sen, the Nobel prize-winning economist, lamented that hunger was not enough of a political priority here. India’s public expenditure on health remains low, and in some places, financing for child nutrition programs remains unspent. Yet several democracies have all but eradicated hunger. And ignoring the needs of the poor altogether does spell political […]
ZUG, Switzerland — The tidy towns and mountain vistas of Switzerland are an unlikely setting for an oil boom. Yet a wave of energy companies has in the last few months announced plans to move to Switzerland — mainly for its appeal as a low-tax corporate domicile that looks relatively likely to stay out of reach of Barack Obama’s tax-seeking administration. In a country with scant crude oil production of its own, the virtual energy boom has changed the canton or state of Zug, about 30 minutes’ drive from Zurich, beyond all recognition. Its economy was based on farming until it slashed tax rates to attract commerce after World War Two. It still has a chocolate-box old town with views over a lake to the high Alps, but is now surrounded by gleaming corporate offices — including commodity trader Glencore and oil refiner Petroplus — shopping malls and housing developments. Local authorities say about 13 percent of full-time jobs in Zug canton are in the raw materials sector. Over the past six months companies including offshore drilling contractors Noble Corp and Transocean, energy-focused engineering group Foster Wheeler and oilfield services company Weatherfield International have all […]
A recent Amazon.com search for ‘green home pulled up more than 15,000 book titles. Who has time to read them all? So this week, The Green Home tracked down Eric Corey Freed, the author of ‘Green Building & Remodeling for Dummies, and asked him to distill this growing cottage industry of green advice into five must-do steps. What’s the first and most important thing every green-minded dweller should do? Look at all the vampire loads that are sucking energy even when you’re not using them. You mean like the toaster with a digital clock and the cellphone charger? Yes. Anything with a ready light. Collectively, vampire loads cost Americans about $3 billion a year. The biggest culprits are stereos, DVRs, game systems and plasma TVs. Simply unplug them when they’re not in use. Or purchase smart power strips, which cost about $25 and shut off automatically. What’s the second step for making our homes greener? Take an empty two-liter soda bottle, wash it out, fill it with water, screw the lid on tightly and set it into your toilet tank, as far away from the flapper valve as possible. This prevents two liters of […]
Florida will have to spend an estimated $3.6 billion to build new prisons if the number of people with mental illness behind bars keeps growing as fast as it has, a South Florida judge said Wednesday. ‘It’s madness,’ said Steve Leifman, a Miami-Dade County judge who serves as special adviser on criminal justice and mental health to the Florida Supreme Court. ‘The state can’t afford to keep doing it this way.’ The state’s treatment of people with mental illness earned a D on a national advocacy group’s report card Wednesday, down from a C three years ago. Florida has one of the largest uninsured populations in the nation, 3.7 million, but the state is falling behind, according to a National Alliance on Mental Illness ‘Grading the States’ 2009 report. Leifman supports a state Senate bill to rechannel existing resources to community-based programs. These would be designed to provide more effective treatment for mentally ill people who commit relatively minor crimes – not just stabilize them for court appearances. The number of Floridians with mental illness in prison has grown 145 percent to 17,000 in the past 10 years, he said. A commission has been […]
Ozone pollution is a killer, increasing the yearly risk of death from respiratory diseases by 40% to 50% in heavily polluted cities like Los Angeles and Riverside and by about 25% throughout the rest of the country, researchers reported today. Environmental scientists already knew that increases in ozone during periods of heavy pollution caused short-term effects, such as asthma attacks, increased hospitalizations and deaths from heart attacks. But the 18-year study of nearly half a million people, reported today in the New England Journal of Medicine, is the first to show that long-term, low-level exposure to the pollutant can also be lethal. Current standards for ozone pollution cover only eight-hour averages of the colorless gas, but even with that relatively relaxed rule, 345 counties with a total population of more than 100 million people are out of compliance. The Environmental Protection Agency ‘has already said that it will revisit the current ozone standards in the country,’ said Dan Greenbaum, president of the Boston-based Health Effects Institute, one of the study’s sponsors. ‘Undoubtedly, when it happens these results are going to be a very important part of that review,’ said Greenbaum, who was not involved in […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
