Although warnings that water crises, even water wars, are pending have a long history — and a long history of being overblown — there are increasing signs that the management of water resources worldwide is now reaching a tipping point. Many lakes and rivers are vanishing, and the quality of those that remain is deteriorating. Ground-water supplies are under pressure from overuse and pollution. Some fish populations are accumulating anthropogenic toxins; others threaten to disappear altogether (remember Atlantic cod?). Climate change may already be rearranging rainfall and glacial melting patterns, making life in arid areas increasingly untenable and intensifying floods in the already wet, and more populous, regions.

Water experts have long quipped that when the problem is not too much water, it is too little water, or water that is too dirty. Increasingly, however, the problem also seems to be that water is in the wrong hands. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, nearly 70 percent of the water used worldwide goes to irrigation, rarely the most productive use for it. As economies and people shift toward cities and the demand for industrial and household water grows, the pressure on supplies is building. Some water must also […]

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Five days after a massive earthquake and tsunami struck Japan, triggering the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl, America’s leading nuclear regulator came before Congress bearing good news: Don’t worry, it can’t happen here. In the aftermath of the Japanese catastrophe, officials in Germany moved swiftly to shut down old plants for inspection, and China put licensing of new plants on hold. But Gregory Jaczko, the chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, reassured lawmakers that nothing at the Fukushima Daiichi reactors warranted any immediate changes at U.S. nuclear plants. Indeed, 10 days after the earthquake in Japan, the NRC extended the license of the 40-year-old Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor – a virtual twin of Fukushima – for another two decades. The license renewal was granted even though the reactor’s cooling tower had literally fallen down, and the p! lant had repeatedly leaked radioactive fluid.

Perhaps Jaczko was simply trying to prevent a full-scale panic about the dangers of U.S. nuclear plants. After all, there are now 104 reactors scattered across the country, generating 20 percent of America’s power. All of them were designed in the 1960s and ’70s, and are nearing the end of their planned life expectancy. But there was one […]

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Energized by Republican gains in the last election and still stinging from the passage of President Obama’s healthcare overhaul, conservative lawmakers in statehouses around the country have put forward a torrent of measures aimed at restricting abortion.

The measures now under consideration in dozens of states reflect advances in technology and a political cycle that has reempowered a reliably antiabortion bloc – conservative Republicans – on the state and federal levels.

Some proposed laws, drawing upon improvements in medical imaging, seek to shorten the window during which women may have an abortion, though states may not impose restrictions in the first trimester.

Others focus on eliminating federal dollars for abortion providers such as Planned Parenthood. Even though it is illegal to use public funds for most abortions, some conservatives argue that any money given to an organization that provides abortions is subsidizing them, even if the public funds are spent on other services.

In the first three months of 2011, legislators in 49 states introduced 916 measures related to reproductive issues, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a New York nonprofit research organization that supports abortion rights but is viewed by both sides of the debate as providing reliable statistics on the issue.

More than half […]

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NEW YORK — The best place in the world to be a mom is Norway, where maternal and child mortality rates are low, women’s life expectancy and years in school are high, and the average maternity leave is about one year, a new study measuring the well-being of mothers and babies shows.

Australia and Iceland join Norway at the top of Save the Children’s 12th annual Mothers Index, released Tuesday. Afghanistan comes in last, and the United States places 31st.

Released every year in the days before Mother’s Day, the international nonprofit group’s ranking analyzes the maternal and child indicators and other published information of 164 countries.

The survey noted that the United States came in at 31 mainly because its maternal mortality rate of 1 in 2,100 is among the highest of any industrialized nation.