The Green Book

Environment May 8, 2015 Snapshot

The Green Book

Gideon Rose

A worker clears an algae-filled pond on the outskirts of Yingtan, June 27, 2007.

Environment Nov 19, 2009 Postscript

Where the Wild Things Were

As the International Year of Biodiversity approaches in 2010, the loss of wildlife, genetic material, ecosystems, and evolutionary processes is as marked as ever....

Steven Sanderson

Climate Change March/April 2012 Essay

The Globalization of Animal Welfare

As demand for meat has spread around the world, so, too, have the brutal industrial scale methods used to raise and slaughter animals for food, raising a host of...

Miyun Park and Peter Singer

People dressed in costumes take part in a demonstration against the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), a proposed free trade agreement between the European Union and the United States, in Munich April 18, 2015. The posters (L-R) read:

Environment Feb 5, 2014 Snapshot

Africa’s Anti-Poaching Problem

Wildlife trade bans are failing because they have run into the same basic problem as the war on drugs. Prohibitions on trading wildlife products such as tusks and...

Alexander Kasterine

A White Rhino awaits buyers in a pen at the annual auction in the Hluhluwe-Imfolozi national park, September 18, 2010.

Science & Technology March/April 2014 Essay

Networking Nature

New technologies have given conservationists amazing new powers, and so for the first time they are starting to operate at the pace and scale necessary to keep up with...

Jon Hoekstra

Environment Apr 28, 2015 Letter From

Animal Rights, Animal Wrongs

Today, activists worldwide are pushing the legal boundaries of personhood, arguing that animals are people too.

Steven M. Wise

Energy Aug 20, 2013 Snapshot

The Day the Earth Ran Out

As of today, just 34 weeks into 2013, humanity’s demand for natural resources has exceeded the earth’s ability to renew them in a year. Welcome to ecological overdraft.

Carter Roberts

Officials from the China's Water Conservancy Bureau walk on the fringe of a desert.

Economic Development July/August 2012 Essay

Environmental Alarmism, Then and Now

Forty years ago, the Club of Rome produced a best-selling report warning humanity that its escalating wants were on a collision course with the world’s finite...

Bjorn Lomborg

Large fields of corn growing in fields in Louisville, Kentucky, August 26, 2009.

Economics September/October 2012 Response

Is Growth Good?

The warnings of The Limits to Growth were far more prescient than Bjørn Lomborg suggests, argue several critics, including two of the book’s authors. No they...

Frances Beinecke; Dennis Meadows; Jørgen Randers; John Harte; Bjorn Lomborg

A worker stands on a crane parked at a construction site at Keihin industrial zone in Kawasaki, south of Tokyo October 22, 2008.

Natural Resources Oct 18, 2012 Snapshot

No Wars for Water

The policy community has long prophesied about the coming water wars. But don't expect them anytime soon. More likely, tensions over access will merely exacerbate...

Shlomi Dinar, Lucia De Stefano, James Duncan, Kerstin Stahl,

Cairo and Alexandria at Night, October 28, 2010.

Pollution November/December 2013 Essay

The Devolution of the Seas

Over the last several decades, human activities have so altered the basic chemistry of the seas that they are now experiencing evolution in reverse: a return to the...

Alan B. Sielen

The old man of the sea: the fringed blenny, photographed near Japan.

Natural Resources Jul 23, 2013 Snapshot

How Yemen Chewed Itself Dry

In a little over a decade, Sana’a, Yemen, might become the world’s first capital to run out of water, turning its millions of citizens into water refugees. A major...

Adam Heffez

A Yemeni man chews qat in the main qat market in Sana'a May 9, 2007.

Environment Jul 18, 2014 Snapshot

Suicide By Drought

On the grasslands of the Tibetan plateau, one sometimes hears a strange chattering -- an excited buzz that seems to emanate from the earth itself. Anyone who stops to...

Sulmaan Khan

Intellectual Property March/April 2013 Essay

A Light in the Forest

Since 1988, Brazilians have cleared more than 153,000 square miles of Amazonian rain forest, devastating the environment and driving global climate change forward ever...

Jeff Tollefson

An aerial view of a natural lake fed by a spring in the Amazon River basin near Manaus, September 30, 2010.

Natural Resources Oct 7, 2013 Snapshot

The Reincarnation Machine

The metal shredder stands as the singularly most important piece of recycling equipment ever developed. It is, among other things, the best and really only solution to...

Adam Minter

Old cars are pictured at a junkyard near Frankfurt, Germany, September 2, 2009.

Environment September/October 2007 Essay

The Great Leap Backward?

China's environmental woes are mounting, and the country is fast becoming one of the leading polluters in the world. The situation continues to deteriorate because...

Elizabeth C. Economy

A fisherman rests next to containers filled with oil cleaned up from the oil spill site at a port in Dalian, Liaoning province July 25, 2010.

Environment Jun 10, 2014 Snapshot

Pollution Without Revolution

China’s environmental crisis, severe as it is, won’t bring down the communist regime -- its leaders are too clever to let that happen. Instead, they have carefully co...

Scott Moore

A hazy day in downtown Shanghai, December 2013.

Environment Feb 25, 2015 Snapshot

Harder to Breathe

India’s environmental crisis is not just endangering human lives, but is also holding back the country’s economy. For Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, this story...

Ira Trivedi

Energy November/December 2011 Essay

Why We Still Need Nuclear Power

The world cannot let the March disaster at Japan’s Fukushima power plant scare it into forgoing the benefits of nuclear energy -- a cheap, reliable, and safe source of...

Ernest Moniz

Steam rises from the cooling towers of the Electricite de France nuclear power station of Le Bugey in Saint-Vulbas near Lyon, April 13, 2015.

Energy May/June 2012 Essay

Tough Love for Renewable Energy

Proponents of renewable energy have had a hard time lately, thanks to the recession, competition from natural gas, and embarrassments such as Solyndra. But it’s too...

Jeffrey Ball

Windmills turn in the breeze at Horns Rev 2, the world's largest wind farm, 19 miles off the west coast of Denmark near Esbjerg, September 15, 2009.

Energy July/August 2012 Essay

Cleaning Up Coal

Coal combustion is the largest source of carbon dioxide emissions on the planet. But the fuel isn’t going away anytime soon, since demand for it is ballooning in the...

Richard K. Morse

A coal miner takes a shower after his shift at a bathroom of a coal mine on the outskirts of Changzhi, Shanxi province, May 19, 2009.

Energy May/June 2014 Comment

Don't Just Drill, Baby -- Drill Carefully

The shale revolution carries real environmental dangers, especially the release of methane, a highly potent greenhouse gas. It still has the potential to benefit the...

Fred Krupp

$All hat, no hydrocarbons: protesting fracking in Los Angeles, May 2013.$

Energy Dec 13, 2011 Snapshot

How Chinese Innovation is Changing Green Technology

China's appetite for energy and jobs has made it a global hub for green innovation. Washington and the West will have to change their strategies to catch up.

S. Julio Friedmann

A worker inspects solar panels at a solar farm in Dunhuang, 590 miles northwest of Lanzhou, Gansu Province, September 16, 2013.

Environment March/April 2014 Review Essay

The First Cold War

A new book by Geoffrey Parker examines how the Little Ice Age of the seventeenth century contributed to an era of war and upheaval. But it offers a blinkered view of...

Deborah R. Coen

Environment March/April 2009 Essay

The Geoengineering Option

Global warming is accelerating, and although engineering the climate strikes most people as a bad idea, it is time to take it seriously.

David G. Victor, M. Granger Morgan, Jay Apt, John Steinbruner, Katharine Ricke

Snow falls over the Wumen Gate of the Forbidden City at night in Beijing February 17, 2009. China took credit on Tuesday for the first snowfall of the winter in Beijing, saying it fired sticks of chemicals into the sky to seed clouds in a bid to end a per

Environment Mar 27, 2013 Postscript

The Truth About Geoengineering

With predictions about climate change growing direr every week, geoengineering (which includes everything from fertilizing the oceans in an attempt to cajole great...

David G. Victor, M. Granger Morgan, Jay Apt, John Steinbrune

Officials prepare to seed clouds near Bangkok, 2007. Royal Thai Air Force rainmakers hoped to coax rains to clear away thick smoke from forest fires and stubble burning.

Environment May/June 2012 Essay

The Climate Threat We Can Beat

For too long, climate diplomacy has focused on carbon dioxide. But at least 40 percent of global warming can be blamed on shorter-lived pollutants, which also cause...

David G. Victor, Charles F. Kennel, Veerabhadran Ramanathan

The remnants of a roller coaster sits in the surf three days after Hurricane Sandy came ashore in Seaside Heights, New Jersey, November 1, 2012.

United Nations September/October 2013 Comment

How Big Business Can Save the Climate

To stop climate change, the international community should shift focus from setting targets countries can’t meet to compelling multinational corporations to act. The...

Jerry Patchell and Roger Hayter

Foreign Affairs Anthology Series

The Green Book

Our best writing on animals, natural resources, pollution, energy, and climate change.

Table of Contents

Animals

Food, water, and natural resources

Pollution

Energy

Climate Change

Must-Read Anthologies