GLOBAL ISSUES / JUNE 2005 eJOURNAL USA 

Front Cover: Cupped hands collect water in a Bolivian rainforest that 

is protected with support from the U.S. Agency for International Development. USAID works with Bolivian nongovernmental organizations 

and local farmers to manage forest, water, and biodiversity resources 

for sustained economic growth. (AP/WWP Photo by Dado Galdieri)

Editor.........William T. Peters

Managing Editor.................Charlene Porter

Associate Editors .........Jenifer Bochner

Kara Breissinger

 Rhobyn K. Costen-Sykes

Cynthia Lacovey

Cheryl Pellerin

Rosalie Targonski

Gerri Williams

Reference Specialists.................Lynne Scheib

Joan R. Taylor

 Art Director.................Tim Brown

Photo Researcher.................Ann Jacobs

Publisher..................Judith S. Siegel

Senior Editor......................George Clack

Executive Editor......................Guy E. Olson

Production Manager.................Christian Larson

Assistant Production Manager.........................Chloe D. Ellis

Editorial Board.........Alexander C. Feldman

Francis B. Ward

Kathleen R. Davis

 Marguerite P. England

 

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GLOBAL ISSUES
eJOURNAL USA GLOBAL ISSUES / JUNE 2005

The United States has made remarkable progress 

over the past 30 years in reducing pollution and 

protecting the environment within its borders. 

Statistics help tell the story. During this time, the U.S. 

economy grew by 187 percent, population grew by 39 

percent, and energy consumption increased by 47 percent, 

yet air pollution decreased by 48 percent. In 2002, 94 

percent of Americans were served by community water 

systems that met all health-based standards, up from 79 

percent of the population in 1993.

The United States has taken a leadership role as a 

global environmental steward in developing a better 

understanding of environmental options and in shaping 

a sustainable approach to development. Achieving 

greater sustainability is a key objective in the provision 

and management of energy. New technologies offer 

the possibility of renewable energy sources that do not 

contaminate the air and the water, or release greenhouse 

gases and destroy Earth’s protective ozone layer. New 

technologies also promise ways in which we may more 

effi ciently utilize traditional energy resources.

Such technological innovation and development 

demand participation of the broad reach of society. In 

the United States, business, industry, and science are 

increasingly playing critical roles in shaping national 

strategies for greater energy conservation and wiser 

resource management and disposal.

Environmental stewardship is critical to the promise of 

a better life for people around the world, and authors on 

these pages emphasize that theme as they discuss climate 

change, alternative energy innovations, air quality, forest 

and freshwater management, and waste recycling. Included 

are an extensive bibliography and a collection of Web 

resources. Two photo stories document environmental 

progress over the past three decades and the development 

of “green” technologies, which are preparing our world for 

a better tomorrow.

Our distinguished contributors include Under Secretary 

of State Paula Dobriansky, White House Science Advisor 

John Marburger, Environmental Protection Agency 

Assistant Administrator Jeffrey Holmstead, and many 

dedicated scientists, activists, and citizens committed to 

protecting the planet we all share and on whose resources 

we all depend.

About This Issue

Yellowstone National Park in the American West became the world’s 

fi rst national park in 1872. Signing legislation that established the park, 

President Ulysses S. Grant declared that this area would be preserved 

forever, “dedicated and set apart as a public park or pleasuring ground 

for the benefi t and enjoyment of the people.”

AP/WWP Photo by Kevork Djansezian
GLOBAL ISSUES / JUNE 2005 eJOURNAL USA 

PROTECTING THE ENVIRONMENT

30 YEARS OF U.S. PROGRESS

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE / JUNE 2005 / VOLUME 10 / NUMBER 2

HTTP://USINFO.STATE.GOV/JOURNALS/JOURNALS.HTM

The Environment: Shared Goals and a 

Common Mission

PAULA J. DOBRIANSKY, UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR

GLOBAL AFFAIRS

The United States has made real progress in protecting the environment domestically and internationally.

.

Thirty Years of Clean Air Progress

JEFFREY R. HOLMSTEAD, ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR

FOR AIR AND RADIATION, ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION

AGENCY

The United States has made significant strides in 

improving air quality and is now preparing to take 

further actions to remove more pollutants from the 

air.

Real Air in Real Time

U.S. government agencies provide Internet views to 

real-time air quality conditions at many sites around 

the country. (Box)

Environmental Progress—A Portfolio

Photos illustrate results of U.S. efforts to improve 

the air and water quality in major cities and national 

parks. 

The U.S. Climate Change Vision

JOHN H. MARBURGER III, WHITE HOUSE SCIENCE

ADVISOR

The United States is turning to technology and 

international partnerships to address climate change 

in order to preserve living standards and reduce 

greenhouse gas emissions.

Understanding Climate and Global 

Change

RICHARD H. MOSS, DIRECTOR, U.S. CLIMATE CHANGE

SCIENCE PROGRAM

The U.S. Climate Change Science Program is the 

nation’s foremost national research program focusing on changes in climate and related environmental 

systems.

Methane to Markets

PAUL GUNNING, CHIEF, NON-CO2 PROGRAMS

BRANCH, CLIMATE CHANGE DIVISION, ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

DINA KRUGER, DIRECTOR, CLIMATE CHANGE DIVISION, ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

Methane emissions contribute to global warming, 

but the Methane to Markets program seeks to recover methane and use it as an energy source instead, 

enhancing economic growth, promoting energy 

security, and improving the environment.

Seal of Energy Efficiency 

Energy Star persuades consumers to make smart 

energy choices. (Sidebar)

Wind Power Today

ROBERT THRESHER, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL WIND

TECHNOLOGY CENTER, NATIONAL RENEWABLE ENERGY

LABORATORY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

The U.S. government has worked for 25 years to research wind technologies in order to reduce the cost 

of production and increase U.S. reliance on renewable, nonpolluting technologies.

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eJOURNAL USA GLOBAL ISSUES / JUNE 2005

Chemistry Goes Green

CHERYL PELLERIN, SCIENCE WRITER, BUREAU OF INTERNATIONAL INFORMATION PROGRAMS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

New processes in the laboratory can prevent the 

creation of industrial pollutants and yield more 

environmentally friendly products.

Thinking Green—Environmental 

Efficiency, Technology, and Creativity

Photos of green building techniques, increased fuel 

efficiency methods, and innovative recycling techniques illustrate the cutting edge in environmental 

protection.

Exporting America’s “Best Idea”: 

Sharing Our National Park System 

With the World

JOHN F. TURNER, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE FOR

OCEANS AND INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL AND

SCIENTIFIC AFFAIRS

With a century-long record of land conservation, the 

United States is now working to build international 

commitment to preserving land and forests.

Tending the Rivers

AN INTERVIEW WITH DAVID ALLAN, PROFESSOR OF

CONSERVATION BIOLOGY AND ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN; AND BRIAN RICHTER, 

DIRECTOR, FRESHWATER INITIATIVE, THE NATURE

CONSERVANCY

Knowledge of how to sustain water systems for the 

needs of humans and nature has evolved significantly 

over the past few decades.

The Thousand Ton Clean Up

Living Lands and Waters is a nongovernmental organization mobilizing thousands of volunteers each 

year to remove trash and debris from some of the 

nation’s largest river systems. (Sidebar)

Advancing Democracy and Prosperity 

Through Sustainable Development

JONATHAN A. MARGOLIS, SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE FOR

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF

STATE

The United States supports communities in other 

nations in the adoption of water management 

strategies that meet diverse demands of health, food, 

energy, and the environment.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

AN INTERVIEW WITH RECYCLING EXPERTS LAURIE

BATCHELDER ADAMS AND JAIME LOZANO

Thirty percent of American solid waste is recycled, 

up from 6 percent a few decades ago, and local officials play key roles in leading this movement.

Recycling Works

Novelis Inc. recycles aluminum in 12 nations and 

is recognized for its environmental commitment. 

(Sidebar)

Green Messages

Media campaigns have been an important tool in 

raising environmental awareness.

Bibliography

Readings on environmental issues and concerns.

Internet Resources

Online resources for environmental information.

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GLOBAL ISSUES / JUNE 2005 4 eJOURNAL USA 

The United States, a leader in protecting the environment, is committed to helping countries around the 

world achieve sustainable development while preserving 

their natural resources and promoting clean air, clean 

water, and thriving ecosystems.

Dr. Paula J. Dobriansky is the Under Secretary of 

State for Global Affairs. Her portfolio includes oceans 

and international environmental and scientific affairs.

The U.S record of achievement in addressing environmental issues over the past 30 years is impressive. Today, we treasure the clear skylines of our 

great cities, the swimable waters of lakes and rivers, and 

our national parks, forests, and wilderness areas. The symbol of our nation, the bald eagle, can be seen again nesting 

within 35 kilometers of the nation’s capital.

The modern environmental movement in the United 

States began with the launch of the first Earth Day on 

April 22, 1970. Key pieces of U.S. environmental legislation followed, including the National Environmental 

Policy Act of 1970, the Clean Air Act of 1970, the Clean 

Water Act of 1972, the Endangered Species Act of 1973, 

the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976, and 

the Superfund Law of 1980, designed to clean up heavily 

polluted waste sites. Many of these laws and environmental 

initiatives were among the first of their kind in the world.

In sharing with other nations our experiences of the last 

30 years, we have learned that clean air, clean water, and 

thriving ecosystems are fundamental and shared goals for 

all nations. We have also learned that environmental issues 

are not constrained by national borders and that the Earth 

is an interconnected system.

To address global environmental challenges, the United 

States is an active partner in more than 200 international 

environmental treaty negotiations, including agreements 

to protect the ozone layer, preserve wetlands, safeguard 

endangered species, conserve natural resources, promote 

sustainable fisheries, and reduce hazardous chemicals.

The United States is also taking concrete actions to address some of the world’s greatest development challenges, 

such as improving human health, conserving natural resources, increasing economic development, and alleviating 

poverty. During the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable 

Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg, South Africa, the 

United States was at the forefront of international efforts 

to champion sustainable development.

The United States put forth nearly $1 billion as part of 

our Water for the Poor initiative, with the aim of realizing the U.N. Millennium Declaration goal of halving 

the proportion of people who lack safe water by 2015. In 

the two and a half years since WSSD, this partnership has 

improved water and sanitation services for more than 8 

million people.

The Environment 

Shared Goals and a Common Mission

Paula J. Dobriansky

A bald eagle—once an endangered species in the United States and 

now revitalized—flies over Lake Okeechobee, north of the Florida 

Everglades.

AP/WWP Photo by Luis M. Alvarez
eJOURNAL USA 5 GLOBAL ISSUES / JUNE 2005

U.S. Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky (left) 

talks with U.K. Minister of State for Climate Change and Environment 

Elliot Morley at the 10th International Convention on Climate Change 

in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in December 2004. 

AP/WWP Photo by Natacha Pisarenko

We also have partnered with governments and the 

private sector to form the Congo Basin Forest Partnership, devoting $53 million dollars and leveraging tens of 

millions more. This initiative promotes economic development, poverty alleviation, and improved local governance 

through natural resource conservation and improved 

resource management, including control of illegal logging 

and wildlife poaching and trafficking.

The United States is committed to assisting other nations, particularly developing countries, meet the energy 

needs of their people, grow their economies, and address 

environmental concerns presented by air pollution and 

greenhouse gas emissions. These multiple objectives can be 

achieved by developing clean, efficient, affordable energy 

technologies for the long term, while continuing to improve and deploy the current generation of lower-emission 

technologies. This year alone, the United States will spend 

more than $3 billion to develop, deploy and commercialize cleaner and more efficient energy technologies, such as 

hydrogen, nuclear, clean coal, and renewables.

The United States is also leading international efforts to 

build a coordinated, sustained, and comprehensive Global 

Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS). When 

deployed, GEOSS will help us improve environmental 

forecasts and provide early warnings of natural disasters. 

Because effective policies are based on sound science and 

accurate data, this global system of measurements will help 

the world community take appropriate actions to protect 

the environment while safeguarding people and fostering 

economic growth.

The people of the United States take pride in protecting our environment, and we remain committed to this 

endeavor for the benefit of future generations. We are 

fully engaged in leading international efforts to meet the 

complex challenges of global environmental issues, and we 

reaffirm the critical role of all nations in this shared mission of protecting the health of our planet.. 
GLOBAL ISSUES / JUNE 2005 6 eJOURNAL USA 

The United States made the connection between polluted air and public health decades ago and has worked 

steadily to reduce harmful emissions, down fully half in 

30 years. As science has revealed more about the risks of 

various pollutants, efforts to monitor, control, and even 

eliminate these substances have grown ever more ambitious.

Jeffrey R. Holmstead is the Environmental Protection 

Agency’s assistant administrator for air and radiation. 

Prior to EPA service, he was associate counsel to the 

president in the White House of President George H.W. 

Bush from 1989 to 1993, working primarily on environmental policy.

By virtually any measure, the air we breathe in the 

United States is cleaner today than at any time since 

we started monitoring air quality back in 1970. This 

success is all the more remarkable because there was relatively little public interest in air pollution until the 1960s. 

In fact, it was not until the Clean Air Act of 1963 that the 

United States began to focus its attention on the link between air pollution and public health. Since then, we have 

seen the Clean Air Act strengthened and improved—most 

notably with amendments in 1970, 1977, and 1990.

Where We Are Today

Under the Clean Air Act, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has focused on six key air pollutants 

that have a significant impact on public health and the 

environment: ozone, particulate matter, carbon monoxide, 

nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and lead. Since President 

Nixon signed the 1970 Clean Air Act, emissions of these 

pollutants have been cut by more than half—from 273 

million metric tons of annual emissions to 133 million 

metric tons. The reductions for individual pollutants are 

just as impressive. Over the same period, emissions of lead 

decreased 98 percent, volatile organic compounds (contributors to ground level smog) 54 percent, carbon monoxide 

(CO) 52 percent, sulfur dioxide (SO2) 49 percent, and 

nitrogen oxides (NOx) 24 percent.

Perhaps most impressive, these reductions in air pollution came during a period of robust economic growth. 

Between 1970 and today, the U.S. economy grew by more 

than 187 percent, the number of vehicle miles traveled 

in the United States increased by 171 percent, and U.S. 

energy consumption grew by 47 percent.

Particle Pollution—Major Health Threat

Over the past decade, we have learned that particulate 

pollution, and especially fine particulate matter such as 

dust and soot (generally referred to as PM fine or PM2.5 

which is particulate matter that is 2.5 micrometers in size) 

is the most serious environmental threat to public health 

in the United States. Researchers in government and 

academia estimate that elevated concentrations of fine particles are responsible for tens of thousands of the nation’s 

premature deaths every year.

Thirty Years of Clean Air Progress

Jeffrey R. Holmstead

San Franciscans enjoy clear skies over their California city in April 2005. 

AP/WWP Photo by Eric Risberg
eJOURNAL USA 7 GLOBAL ISSUES / JUNE 2005

The good news is that we have already made signifi cant 

progress in reducing particle pollution. Since setting a 

new national standard for fi ne particles in 1997, EPA has 

worked with state and local governments on the monumental task of monitoring fi ne particle concentrations 

throughout the country. Our most recent Particle Pollution 

Report shows that:

• I n 2003, PM2.5 concentrations were the lowest they 

 have been since nationwide monitoring began in 1999.

• In 2003, concentrations of a related pollutant known as 

PM10 (10 micrometers) were the second lowest since 

nationwide monitoring began in 1988.

• Signifi cantly, we have seen the biggest improvements in 

regions with the worst air quality problems. Between 

1999 and 2003, PM2.5 levels dropped 20 percent in 

the Southeast, 16 percent in southern California, and 9 

percent in the industrial Midwest.

Our progress toward clean air is often measured by 

reductions in individual air pollutants. It is also important 

to look beyond these environmental improvements and 

understand what they mean for our health and well being. 

Such progress means that we are living healthier, longer 

lives. In fact, EPA’s air programs prevent tens of thousands 

of deaths and hundreds of thousands of illnesses every year, 

including cancer and long-term damage to the immune, 

neurological, reproductive, and respiratory systems.

Although EPA is proud of this success, we recognize 

that there is still more to do. Poor air quality continues to 

threaten people’s health in many urban areas, and emissions often reduce visibility in many parts of the country, 

including national parks.

Programs That Work

Over the past few years, EPA has worked with government and outside experts to develop methodologies for 

quantifying the public health benefi ts of reducing air 

pollution. These methods, which have been reviewed by 

the National Academy of Sciences and are now widely 

accepted, allow us to focus our attention on programs 

that provide the greatest value to society. They also make 

it possible to compare the benefi ts of the many air pollution control programs that have been adopted over time. 

The top fi ve programs, measured in terms of public health 

benefi ts, are:

• The removal of lead from gasoline (adopted by EPA in 

the late 1970s).

• The acid rain program (enacted by Congress in 1990 to 

NATIONAL AIR POLLUTANT EMISSIONS ESTIMATES

(FIRES AND DUST EXCLUDED) 

FOR MAJOR POLLUTANTS

 MILLIONS OF TONS PER YEAR

1970 1975 1980 19851 1990 1995 20001 20042

CARBON MONOXIDE

(CO)

197.3 184.0 177.8 169.6 143.6 120.0 102.4 87.2

NITROGEN OXIDES

(NOX)

3

26.9 26.4 27.1 25.8 25.2 24.7 22.3 18.8

PARTICULATE MATTER

(PM)4 PM10

12.21 7.0 6.2 3.6 3.2 3.1 2.3 2.5

PM2.55 NA NA NA NA 2.3 2.2 1.8 1.9

SULFUR DIOXIDE (SO2) 31.2 28.0 25.9 23.3 23.1 18.6 16.3 15.2

VOLATILE ORGANIC

COMPOUNDS (VOC)

33.7 30.2 30.1 26.9 23.1 21.6 16.9 15.0

LEAD6 0.221 0.16 0.074 0.022 0.005 0.004 0.003 0.003

TOTALS7 301.5 275.8 267.2 249.2 218.2 188.0 160.2 138.7

Notes:

1. In 1985 and 1996 EPA refi ned its methods for estimating emissions. Between 1970 and 1975, EPA revised its methods for estimating particulate matter emissions. 

2. The estimates for 2004 are preliminary. 

3. NOx estimates prior to 1990 include emissions from fi res. Fires would represent a small percentage of the NOx emissions. 

4. PM estimates do not include condensable PM, or the majority of PM2.5 that is formed in the atmosphere from ‘precursor’ gases such as SO2 and NOx. 

5. EPA has not estimated PM2.5 emissions prior to 1990. 

6. The 1999 estimate for lead is used to represent 2000 and 2004 because lead estimates do not exist for these years. 

7. PM2.5 emissions are not added when calculating the total because they are included in the PM10 estimate.

Source: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
GLOBAL ISSUES / JUNE 2005 8 eJOURNAL USA 

reduce SO2 from power plants).

• The Clean Air Interstate Rule (adopted by EPA in 2005 

to further reduce SO2, as well as NOx, from power 

plants).

• The nonroad diesel rule (adopted by EPA in 2004 to 

reduce particulate matter and NOx from construction, 

farming, and other nonroad equipment).

• The heavy-duty highway vehicle and diesel sulfur rule 

(adopted by EPA in 2000 to reduce particulate matter and 

NOx diesel trucks, buses, and other on-road vehicles).

One striking thing about this list is that, even after 

more than 30 years of air pollution regulation, three of 

the top fi ve programs in EPA history have been adopted 

in just the past fi ve years—and two in the last year alone. 

Two developments have made this progress possible: a 

better understanding by government and industry of the 

need to address fi ne particle pollution (including SO2 and 

NOx, which contribute to the formation of fi ne particulate 

matter), and advances in technology, especially for diesel 

engines and power plants.

The most recent of these rules is the Clean Air Interstate 

Rule (CAIR), which will dramatically reduce pollution in 

the eastern United States by cutting power plant emissions 

of SO2 by more than 70 percent and NOx by more than 

60 percent. It will also place permanent caps on emissions 

that lead to smog and soot. When fully implemented, 

CAIR will provide nearly $2 billion in visibility benefi ts, 

signifi cantly reducing haze in eastern national parks.

Most importantly, CAIR will result in the greatest 

health benefi ts of any rule initiated by EPA since the late 

1970s—almost $100 billion per year by 2015. By 2015, 

CAIR will annually prevent approximately 17,000 premature deaths; 1.7 million lost workdays; 500,000 lost school 

days; 22,000 nonfatal heart attacks; and 12,300 hospital 

admissions.

Days after CAIR was signed, EPA released a related 

rule designed to reduce mercury emissions from power 

plants. This rule, known as the Clean Air Mercury Rule, is 

designed to work with CAIR and provide a fl exible multipollutant approach to reducing SO2

, NOx, and mercury 

emissions from power 

plants.

Like CAIR, the 

Clean Air Mercury 

Rule limits emissions 

by using a marketbased, cap-and-trade 

program that will 

permanently cap utility mercury emissions 

in two phases. The fi rst 

phase will reduce emissions from 48 tons to 

31 tons by 2010, and 

the second phase will 

achieve a reduction of 

70 percent from current levels. As a result 

of this action, the 

United States is now 

the only country in 

the world to regulate 

mercury emissions 

The World Summit for Sustainable Development meets in Johannesburg, South Africa, in August 2002. 

AP/WWP Photo by Dario Lopez-Mills

emissions from power 

plants.

Clean Air Mercury 

Rule limits emissions 

by using a marketbased, cap-and-trade 

program that will 

permanently cap utility mercury emissions 

in two phases. The first 

phase will reduce emissions from 48 tons to 

31 tons by 2010, and 

the second phase will 

achieve a reduction of 

70 percent from current levels. As a result 

of this action, the 

United States is now 

the only country in 

the world to regulate 

mercury emissions 

National NOx and SO2 Power Plant Emissions:

Historic and Projected with CAIR

20

15

10

5

0

1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020

Million Tons

SO2

NOx Projected, 

w/ CAIR

Source: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
eJOURNAL USA 9 GLOBAL ISSUES / JUNE 2005

REAL AIR IN REAL TIME

The EPA has been working to reduce air pollution for more than 30 years, but the Internet has 

taken that pursuit to an entirely new level. Web 

cams allow anybody to go just about anywhere 

in the country to check out air quality for the 

day. The EPA maintains a portal for these sites at 

http://www.epa.gov/airnow/webcam.html

The National Park Service maintains a similar 

portal, providing views of the air quality over 

some of the most breathtaking landscapes in 

the nation at http://www2.nature.nps.gov/air/

webcams/

The U.S. Forest Service keeps a Web cam 

trained on the Mt. Saint Helens volcano in the 

state of Washington at http://www.fs.fed.us/

gpnf/volcanocams/msh/

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration provides a variety of views from different points surrounding the Great Lakes in the 

Midwest at http://www.glerl.noaa.gov/webcams/

from coal-burning power plants.

The success of EPA’s air programs is not limited to 

legislation and regulation. Much of our progress can be attributed to voluntary programs developed in concert with 

states, industry, and environmental organizations. An example of this is Energy Star, a government-backed program 

helping businesses and individuals protect the environment 

through superior energy efficiency.

Through partnerships with hundreds of organizations, 

Energy Star has eliminated millions of tons of greenhouse gas emissions and saved consumers money at the 

same time. In 2004, EPA’s voluntary programs reduced 

greenhouse gas emissions in an amount equivalent to the 

greenhouse gas reductions that would be achieved by eliminating 32 million cars.

EPA’s International Efforts

Because air pollution does not respect geographic 

boundaries, the United States has been engaged internationally to translate its domestic successes into solutions 

around the world. For example, less than half of the mercury deposited in the environment in the United States is 

from sources located in this country.

Airborne mercury is a global problem, requiring global 

solutions. Moreover, even if we could completely eliminate 

mercury deposition in the United States (from U.S. and 

foreign sources), many Americans would still be exposed 

to elevated mercury levels. Virtually all mercury exposure 

in the United States comes from eating mercury-contaminated fish—more than 80 percent of which comes from 

other parts of the world.

EPA estimates that coal combustion, chloralkali (a 

chlorine-containing chemical used in chemical processing, plastics, environmental services, and metal cleaning) 

production, mercury use in products, and mercury use in 

small-scale gold mining are together responsible for about 

80 percent of global anthropogenic (human-generated) air 

emissions of mercury. It should be noted, however, that 

almost two-thirds of annual global mercury emissions are 

from natural sources such as volcanic activity and from the 

“re-emission” of mercury that has already been deposited in 

the environment.

At the February 2005 United Nations Environment 

Programme (UNEP) Governing Council meeting in Nairobi, the United States put forth an initiative to develop 

multistakeholder partnerships to improve global understanding of mercury transport and to reduce mercury releases in these key sectors. The UNEP Governing Council 

recognized partnerships as an important way for the world 

community to move forward in reducing mercury use and 

emissions. The United States plans to launch partnerships 

in these five areas over the next few months.

EPA has pursued similar partnership initiatives to address other air pollutants. Because transportation sources 

are the largest contributor to air pollution in urban areas 

National Park Service Web cam allows views of air quality at 

Arizona’s Grand Canyon. AP/WWP Photo by Matt York
GLOBAL ISSUES / JUNE 2005 10 eJOURNAL USA 

of the developing world, one of EPA’s key priorities is the 

Partnership for Clean Fuels and Vehicles (www.unep.org/

PCFV), launched at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in South Africa in August 2002. The partnership, which boasts 75 international partners from government, industry, and the nongovernmental sector, is seeking 

to eliminate leaded gasoline worldwide and simultaneously 

reduce sulfur in fuels while introducing cleaner vehicle 

technologies.

Eliminating leaded gasoline in Africa is a focus of the 

partnership and for EPA. Since 2002, the countries of 

sub-Saharan Africa have made huge strides in phasing out 

leaded gasoline. Currently, more than 50 percent of the 

gasoline in sub-Saharan Africa is lead-free and many more 

countries have set a date for complete lead phase-out. U.S. 

funding has supported technical expertise, stakeholder 

workshops, public outreach, training of gas station attendants, and blood-lead-level studies in Ghana, Kenya, 

Nigeria, and South Africa.

Under the umbrella of the partnership, EPA also initiated the Mexico City Diesel Retrofit Project in June 2004 

in cooperation with the World Resources Institute and the 

U.S. Agency for International Development. The project is 

designed to demonstrate how the combined use of lowsulfur fuels and diesel retrofit technologies can improve air 

quality and reduce effects on human health. It has already 

shown that newer public buses retrofitted and running 

on ultra-low sulfur fuel can reduce up to 90 percent of 

particulate emissions. The Mexico City project is serving 

as a model for EPA projects in other areas of the world, 

including Beijing, China; Pune, India; Santiago, Chile; 

and Bangkok, Thailand.

The Future

Although challenges remain, we have made a great deal 

of progress in our effort to improve air quality throughout 

the United States. Because of actions taken over the past 

five years, we know that this progress will continue far 

into the future. We look forward to continuing our efforts 

in the United States and to sharing the lessons we have 

learned with our partners worldwide. Because pollution 

can be transported around the globe, these international efforts will-help improve air quality in the United States and 

the health and well being of people around the world. 
eJOURNAL USA 11 GLOBAL ISSUES / JUNE 2005

ENVIRONMENTAL	PROGRESS

A	PORTFOLIO

The United States has a record of land stewardship that stretches back more 

than 130 years to the creation 

of the first national parks. In 

the past 50 years, increased 

understanding of the human 

potential to harm the environment and its diverse web of life 

has heightened our vigilance 

and led us to take corrective 

measures. The pictures in this 

gallery reflect the progress that 

has been made in the United 

States and continuing efforts to 

improve the environment.

Above: Rocky Mountain National Park in 

Colorado offers sweeping views like this one 

of Longs Peak, Glacier Gorge, and Bear Lake. 

Scientists closely monitor air and water quality, 

giving park managers the information necessary 

to make responsible decisions. 

Right: A flock of ibis fly near the Kissimmee River 

in the Florida Everglades. Over the past 20 years, 

federal, state, and local partners have joined 

forces to counteract the effects of overdevelopment and ecosystem degradation. Everglades 

National Park is designated a World Heritage 

Site, an International Biosphere Reserve, and a 

Wetland of International Importance. 

Photo © Glenn Randall

AP/WWP Photo by Luis M. Alvarez
GLOBAL ISSUES / JUNE 2005 12 eJOURNAL USA 

Top: The air is clear in this January 2005 view of downtown Los Angeles, yet smoggy days (above) remain a 

fact of life in the southern California city. 

Left: A chemist compares filters used to collect fine 

air particulate pollution in Los Angeles and nearby 

Lynnwood; monitoring is part of the state’s effort to 

achieve clean-air standards in southern California by the 

end of the decade. 

 AP//WWP Photo by Mark J. Terrill; AP/ WWP Photo by Ric Francis

AP/WWP Photo by Damian Dovarganes
eJOURNAL USA 13 GLOBAL ISSUES / JUNE 2005

Left: A fire started in an oil slick blazes on the Cuyahoga river 

in 1952. Such fires, caused by the dumping of chemical wastes, 

occurred several times during the 1950s and 1960s. The sight 

of a river on fire did much to spark the U.S. environmental 

movement.

Below: Water contaminated 

with creosote from a woodtreating plant near Seattle, 

Washington, is cleaned with a 

naturally occurring, oil-eating microbe. The jars contain 

water from the same source, 

before and after treatment. 

AP/WWP Photo by Ted S. Warren

Photo courtesy of the Cleveland Public Library

AP/WWP Photo by Mark Duncan

Below: The Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, Ohio, is today a 

picture of health. 
GLOBAL ISSUES / JUNE 2005 14 eJOURNAL USA 

Left: Its numbers restored to 

sustainable levels, the gray wolf 

was removed from the endangered species list for the eastern 

United States in 2004. 

Wolf populations will continue 

to be monitored closely. 

Below: Green sea turtles, protected by the federal Endangered Species Act, were raised to maturity at a 

zoo then released into their natural habitat in the Pacific Ocean. 

AP/WWP Photo by Brookfield Zoo, Jim Schultz

Above: Schoolchildren in New York City anxiously watch a family of 

red-tailed hawks that nested on the ledge of a luxury apartment building (above right). Many New Yorkers were outraged when apartment 

owners decided to have the nest, the birds, and the grate that held the 

nest removed so the birds could not return. Citizens groups protested 

vigorously until the building management relented and replaced the 

grate; the birds quickly returned and rebuilt their nest. 

 AP/WWP Photo by Richard Drew

AP/WWP Photo by Dawn Villella

 AP Photo/FILE-Lincoln Karim
eJOURNAL USA 15 GLOBAL ISSUES / JUNE 2005

President George W. Bush announces climate study initiatives, as Vice 

President Dick Cheney (left) and then-Secretary of State Colin Powell 

look on at the White House in June 2001.

The Bush administration is confronting climate change 

by making significant investments in new technologies 

and partnerships with other governments. “The vision 

here is to forge new energy technologies that all nations 

can use to meet their goals of limiting greenhouse gas 

emissions, without compromising the sustained improvements in living standards to which all nations aspire,” 

says the author, science advisor to President George W. 

Bush and director of the Office of Science and Technology 

Policy in the Executive Office of the President.

Immediately before taking up his current positions 

at the White House in 2001, John Marburger, Ph.D., 

was director of the Brookhaven National Laboratory in 

Upton, New York. From 1980 to 1994 he was president 

of the State University of New York-Stony Brook.

“The issue of climate change respects no border. Its effects cannot be reined in by an army nor advanced by any ideology. 

Climate change, with its potential to impact every corner of 

the world, is an issue that must be addressed by the world.” 

President George W. Bush, June 11, 2001

With these words, President Bush clearly 

acknowledged the reality and seriousness of 

climate change and launched a responsible and 

practical climate policy with three primary aims:

• To introduce new technologies for producing and 

using energy that can dramatically weaken the link 

between economic growth and the generation of 

greenhouse gases.

• To improve scientific tools and understanding 

needed to respond more effectively to the problems 

posed by climate change.

• To enlist the cooperation of other nations to 

address the entire spectrum of climate change issues.

To advance these aims, the United States will spend 

$5.2 billion in fiscal year 2005 on climate change science 

research, advanced energy technologies, voluntary programs, and related international assistance—far more than 

any other nation.

U.S. climate-oriented technology initiatives are ambitious on a scale commensurate with the challenges: development of hydrogen technologies that can enable more 

efficient and carbon-free means of transportation and other 

applications, new kinds of power plants—“FutureGen” 

plants—that generate power from hydrocarbons but release 

no carbon to the atmosphere, and renewed commitment to 

research on future carbon-free forms of power generation 

such as nuclear fusion that can be scaled to an economically significant size. The vision here is to forge new energy 

technologies that all nations can use to meet their goals of 

limiting greenhouse gas emissions, without compromising 

the sustained improvements in living standards to which 

all nations aspire.

Climate science initiatives are critically important 

for the kind of long-range planning that must be 

done region by region around the world to rise to the 

challenge of climate change. Even modest advances in our 

understanding of weather and climate can have a positive 

The U.S. Climate Change Vision

John H. Marburger III

AP/WWP Photo by Kenneth Lambert
GLOBAL ISSUES / JUNE 2005 16 eJOURNAL USA 

impact. The United States is spending nearly $2 billion 

per year on climate science within a well-defined strategic 

plan, developed and reviewed in consultation with the 

international scientific community and the National 

Academy of Sciences.

International cooperation is crucial for observing, 

understanding, preparing for, and mitigating potential 

impacts of climate change. The United States is by far 

the largest funder of activities under the United Nations 

Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) 

and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 

(IPCC).

Bush administration international initiatives include:

The Methane to Markets Partnership is an actionoriented initiative that will reduce global methane 

emissions to enhance economic growth, promote 

energy security, improve the environment, and reduce 

greenhouse gases. Fourteen countries launched the 

initiative at a ministerial meeting on November 16, 2004 

in Washington, D.C. [http://www.epa.gov/methane/

international.html]

The International Partnership for a Hydrogen Economy was formed to implement internationally the goals of 

President Bush’s Hydrogen Fuel Initiative and FreedomCar Partnership. The Partnership’s 15 countries and the 

European Union (EU) are working together to advance 

the global transition to the hydrogen economy with the 

goal of making fuel cell vehicles commercially available by 

2020. [http://www.eere.energy.gov/hydrogenandfuelcells/

international_activities.html]

The Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum is a 

framework to work cooperatively with global partners, 

including developing countries, on research, development, 

and deployment of carbon sequestration technologies 

in the next decade. [http://www.fe.doe.gov/programs/

sequestration/cslf/]

The Generation IV International Forum for 

nuclear power is a multilateral partnership fostering 

international cooperation in research and development for 

the next generation of safer, more affordable, and more 

proliferation-resistant nuclear energy systems. 

[http://gen-iv.ne.doe.gov/intl.html]

The Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership was formed at the World Summit on Sustainable 

Development in Johannesburg, South Africa, in August 

2002 and seeks to accelerate and expand the global market 

for renewable energy and energy-efficiency technologies.

These initiatives and bilateral partnerships bring together approximately 20 developing and developed nations 

that, with the United States, account for more than 70 

percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. 

The United States mounted a vigorous and widely 

supported international initiative on integrated Earth 

observations, a “system of systems” approach to improving 

knowledge of global conditions that is engaging 55 

countries and the European Union. A 10-year strategic 

plan, just released, maps out the U.S. component of an 

integrated Earth Observation System. Guidelines for the 

global system—the Global Earth Observation System of 

Systems, or GEOSS—were recently adopted at the third 

summit of the Group on Earth Observations in Brussels. 

The end result will be access to an unprecedented amount 

of environmental information, integrated into new data 

products benefiting societies and economies worldwide.

These actions add up to a thoughtful, visionary 

approach to the huge challenge of climate change. In 

President Bush’s words, “My approach recognizes that 

economic growth is the solution, not the problem. 

Because a nation that grows its economy is a nation that 

can afford investments and new technologies.” These 

investments are made on behalf of all nations and are 

essential for a sustainable global economy in the future. 
eJOURNAL USA 17 GLOBAL ISSUES / JUNE 2005

The United States has made significant investments in 

advancing human knowledge about climate, its role in 

the environment, and its impact on human activities. 

Scientists have identified global-scale climate changes, 

and they are working to ascertain potential consequences 

and responses.

The U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) 

coordinates the scientific activities of some 13 federal government agencies and departments and seeks to provide 

the United States and the global community with the science-based knowledge to manage the risks and opportunities of change in the climate and related environmental 

systems.

Richard H. Moss, Ph.D., is the director of the office of 

the U.S. government’s Climate Change Science Program 

and senior scientist in the Joint Global Change Research 

Institute at the University of Maryland.

Climate and climate variability play important roles 

in shaping the environment, natural resources, 

infrastructure, economy, and other aspects of life 

in all countries of the world. Potential human-induced 

changes in climate and related environmental systems, and 

options proposed to adapt to or mitigate these changes, are 

also projected to have significant environmental, economic, and societal consequences.

To make informed judgments and decisions, citizens 

and decision makers in public and private sector organizations need reliable and readily understandable information. 

To meet this information need, U.S. research efforts strive 

to develop and provide information on variability and 

change in climate and related systems.

Substantial Investment in Research

Over roughly the past 15 years, the United States has 

invested heavily in scientific research, monitoring, data 

management, and assessment for climate change analyses 

to build a foundation of knowledge for decision making. 

To date, more than $20 billion of research funding has 

been provided by U.S. agencies and departments.

In 1989, President George H.W. Bush established 

the interagency U.S. Global Change Research Program 

(USGCRP), which was institutionalized in the U.S. 

Global Change Research Act in 1990. The rationale for 

establishing the program was that global change issues are 

so complex and wide ranging that they extend beyond 

the mission, resources, and expertise of any single agency, 

requiring instead the integrated efforts of scientists and researchers working in or supported by several departments.

During its first decade, USGCRP-supported research 

demonstrated that global-scale changes are taking place in 

Earth’s environment and that human activities contribute 

to these changes. Alteration of atmospheric composition, 

stratospheric ozone depletion, climate change, and land 

cover change were among the phenomena detected.

The USGCRP also conducted research into Earth’s 

natural variability and laid the basis for developing predictions of shifts in phase of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation 

(ENSO)—a natural fluctuation of ocean currents that has 

Understanding Climate and 

Global Change

Richard H. Moss 

Three-dimensional view of a rain squall was captured by the 

Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite, a joint endeavor of 

the United States and Japan. 

NASA
GLOBAL ISSUES / JUNE 2005 18 eJOURNAL USA 

major effects on global weather and natural hazards—and 

identifying other climate oscillations.

USGCRP-supported activities developed and deployed 

a series of remote sensing satellites that form the basis of 

a global environmental observing system being developed 

through the Global Earth Observation System of Systems 

(http://iwgeo.ssc.nasa.gov). A suite of climate and Earthsystem models has been developed under the USGCRP 

to integrate these observations, to analyze global change 

processes, and to project changes and their potential consequences.

In 2001, President George W. Bush launched the Climate Change Research Initiative “to study areas of uncertainty and identify priority areas” for research. In 2002, the 

president created a new Cabinet-level management structure 

to oversee climate change science and technology programs.

The Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) is the 

part of that structure that coordinates the scientific investments and activities of 13 participating federal government 

agencies and departments (http://www.climatescience.gov).

CCSP Vision, Mission, and Goals

The seriousness of climate variability and change, and 

the unique role that science can play in helping determine 

society’s course, give rise to CCSP’s guiding vision: A nation and the global community empowered with the sciencebased knowledge to manage the risks and opportunities of 

change in the climate and related environmental systems.

The core precept that motivates CCSP is to apply the 

best possible scientific knowledge in managing climate 

variability and change and related aspects of global change. 

The CCSP mission is thus to facilitate the creation and application of knowledge of Earth’s global environment through 

research, observations, decision support, and communication.

CCSP will add significant integrative value to the individual Earth and climate science missions of its 13 participating agencies and departments and their national and 

international partners, coordinating research and integrating and synthesizing information to achieve results that no 

single agency, or small group of agencies, could attain.

CCSP has five goals related to addressing society’s information needs.

Goal 1: Improve knowledge of Earth’s past and present climate and environment, 

including its natural variability, and improve understanding of the causes of observed 

variability and change.

Climate conditions change 

significantly over time. CCSP 

research will improve understanding of natural oscillations in climate on timescales 

of weeks to centuries, including improving and harnessing 

ENSO forecasts. Improved 

observations, analysis, and 

modeling will sharpen qualitative and quantitative understanding of how and why 

climate is changing and will determine whether changes in 

the frequency or intensity of extreme climate events (e.g., 

droughts) lie outside the range of natural variability.

Goal 2: Improve quantification of the forces bringing 

about changes in Earth’s climate and related systems.

Burning of fossil fuels, changes in land cover and land 

use, and industrial activities produce greenhouse gases and 

aerosols, altering the composition of the atmosphere and 

physical and biological properties of Earth’s surface. These 

changes have important climatic effects, some of which can 

be quantified only poorly at present.

Research conducted through the CCSP will increase 

confidence in our understanding of characteristics of 

greenhouse gases and aerosols, their long-range atmospheric 

transport and removal from the atmosphere, as well as their 

interactions with global climate, ozone in the upper and 

lower layers of the atmosphere, and regional-scale air quality.

Research will also improve quantification of interactions among the carbon cycle, other biological/ecological 

processes, and land cover and land use to better project 

atmospheric concentrations of key greenhouse gases and 

support improved decision making. The program will also 

improve capabilities for developing and applying emissions 

scenarios in research and analysis, in cooperation with the 

multiagency Climate Change Technology Program.

Composite satellite images of Earth reflect the latest scientific data about our planet’s terrestrial, oceanic, 

and atmospheric features. 

NASA
eJOURNAL USA 19 GLOBAL ISSUES / JUNE 2005

Goal 3: Reduce uncertainty in projections of how 

Earth’s climate and related systems may change in the 

future.

Uncertainty exists regarding precisely how much climate 

will change overall and in specific regions.

A primary CCSP objective is to develop the information and scientific capacity needed to sharpen qualitative 

and quantitative understanding through interconnected 

observations, data assimilation, and modeling activities. 

CCSP-supported research will address basic climate system 

properties and a number of “feedbacks” or secondary 

changes that can reinforce or dampen the initial effects of 

greenhouse gas and aerosol emissions and changes in land 

use and land cover.

The program will also address the potential for future 

changes in extreme events and possible rapid or discontinuous changes in climate. The CCSP will build on existing 

U.S. strengths in climate research and modeling.

Goal 4: Understand the sensitivity and adaptability 

of different natural and managed ecosystems and human 

systems to climate and related global changes.

Seasonal-to-annual climate variability has been shown 

to impact ecosystems and human life. Improving our ability to assess potential implications of changes in climate 

and environmental conditions on ecosystems and human 

systems could help governments, businesses, and communities reduce damages and seize opportunities by adapting 

infrastructure, activities, and plans.

CCSP research will examine the interactions of interdependent changes and effects. Examples are the carbon 

dioxide fertilization effect, in which some plants’ rates 

of photosynthesis rise with increases in carbon dioxide; 

changes in landscapes that affect water resources and habitats; and changes in frequency of fires or pests.

CCSP research will improve methods for integrating 

our understanding of potential effects of different atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, and develop 

methods for aggregating and comparing potential impacts 

across sectors and locations.

Goal 5: Explore the uses and identify the limits of 

evolving knowledge to manage risks and opportunities 

related to climate variability and change.

Over the past decade, the scientific and technical community has developed products to support the management of risks and opportunities related to climate variability and change. CCSP will foster more studies and 

encourage evaluation and learning from these experiences 

to develop processes and products that use knowledge to 

the best effect, with the ultimate objective of supporting 

policymaking, planning, and adaptive management.

These resources will communicate critical information 

and explore the implications of uncertainty for decision 

making through a variety of means, including observational data, model products, scenario analysis, visualization 

products, and scientific syntheses and assessments.

International Collaborations

Climate variability and change are intrinsically international in scope. Effective research thus requires international cooperation—cooperation among scientists and research 

institutions and governmental agencies. U.S. scientists, 

institutions, and agencies are at the forefront of such international cooperation, reflecting the leadership role of U.S. 

climate science.

CCSP is a leader in a global network of active and 

engaged international research scientists and institutions, including the International Geosphere-Biosphere 

Programme (http://www.igbp.kva.se), the International 

Human Dimensions Programme (http://www.ihdp.unibonn.de), the World Climate Research Programme (http:

//www.wmo.ch/web/wcrp/wcrp-home.html), Diversitas 

(http://www.diversitas-international.org), and the Earth 

Science System Partnership (http://www.ess-p.org).

The United States has also developed bilateral and 

regional partnerships to advance the science of climate 

change, enhance the technology to monitor and reduce 

greenhouse gases, and help developing countries through 

capacity building and technology transfer.

The CCSP will continue to interact with these organizations and partnerships directly and through support to 

U.S. scientists providing dynamic scientific leadership.

As a leader in climate change science, the United States 

assumes responsibility for participating in and providing 

data to international assessments such as those on ozone, 

biodiversity, ecosystems, and climate.

An Announcement

As part of its commitment to develop partnerships with 

those who provide and use climate information around the 

world, the U.S. CCSP invites participation in a workshop, 

Climate Science in Support of Decision Making, to be held in 

the Washington, D.C., area November 14-16, 2005 (http:

//www.climatescience.gov/workshop2005/default.htm).

We encourage the attendance of representatives of international organizations and countries interested in learning 

from U.S. experiences or helping shape future U.S. activities related to the application of climate information. 
GLOBAL ISSUES / JUNE 2005 20 eJOURNAL USA 

Methane is the primary component of natural gas and a 

greenhouse gas, meaning that its presence in the atmosphere affects Earth’s temperature and climate system. 

A new U.S.-supported international partnership seeks 

to advance the recovery and use of methane as a clean 

energy source. The Methane to Markets Partnership is 

a public-private undertaking that involves 15 national 

governments and more than 90 organizations committed to achieving economic, environmental, and 

energy benefi ts.

Paul Gunning is chief of the Non-CO2 Programs 

Branch in the EPA’s Climate Change Division.

Dina Kruger is director of the Climate Change Division in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 

(EPA).

Launched in November 2004, the Methane to Markets Partnership is a multilateral initiative uniting public and private interests to advance the recovery 

and use of methane as a clean energy source.

Today, 15 national governments and more than 90 

organizations are working collaboratively to advance project development in three major methane emission source 

areas: landfi lls, underground coal mines, and natural gas 

and oil systems.

The partnership’s activities are expected to yield signifi cant benefi ts: they will reduce global methane emissions, enhance economic growth, promote energy security, 

improve air quality, and enhance industrial safety.

The Importance of Methane

Methane is a hydrocarbon and the primary component 

of natural gas as well as a potent greenhouse gas. Globally, a 

large amount of methane is emitted to the atmosphere rather than being recovered and used for fuel. About 60 percent 

of global methane emissions come from the anthropogenic 

(human-generated) sources noted below—landfi lls, mines, 

and gas and oil operations—and from agriculture. The rest 

are from natural sources, mainly wetlands, gas hydrates 

(crystalline solids made up of methane molecules, each surrounded by water molecules), permafrost, and termites.

Methane to Markets

Paul Gunning and Dina Kruger

Dairy cows in Woodsboro, Maryland, wait to be milked. Methane gas 

from cow manure is a potentially valuable fuel. 

AP/WWP Photo by Timothy Jacobsen

Global Methane Emissions

Rice Natural gas

Coal

Oil

Solid waste

Waste water

Enteric fermentationRice

Biomass burning

Biofuel combustion

Fuel stationary and mobile

Coal

Solid waste

Manure Waste water

Enteric fermentation

Biomass burning

Note:

Enteric fermentation accounts for the largest amonut of global 

methane emissions at 28%, solid waste accounts for 13% 

while fuel, both stationary and mobile, account for 1%.

Source: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
eJOURNAL USA 21 GLOBAL ISSUES / JUNE 2005

China, India, the United States, Brazil, Russia, and other 

Eurasian countries are responsible for almost half of all anthropogenic methane emissions. Methane emission sources 

vary signifi cantly among countries. For example, the two key 

sources of methane emissions in China are coal mining and 

rice production. Russia 

emits most of its methane from natural gas 

and oil systems; India’s 

primary sources are rice 

and livestock production; and landfi lls are 

the largest source of 

U.S. methane emissions.

Methane is the main 

component of natural 

gas and an important 

clean energy source. 

It also accounts for 16 

percent of all global 

greenhouse gas emissions resulting from human activities. Methane 

is considered a potent 

greenhouse gas because, kilogram for kilogram, it is 23 times 

more effective than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the 

atmosphere over a 100-year time period.

Methane is a short-lived greenhouse gas, with an atmospheric lifetime of about 12 years. Because of these unique 

properties, reducing global methane emissions could have a 

rapid and signifi cant positive effect on atmospheric warming and yield important economic and energy benefi ts.

Methane-Reduction Opportunities

Sources for which recovery and use of methane gas for 

energy is viable include coal mining, oil and gas systems, 

landfi lls and animal manure. Below are some methane 

recovery and use options for these sources:

• Coal mines. To reduce explosion hazards, methane 

is removed from underground mines before, during, or after mining. Natural gas pipeline injection, 

power production, and vehicle fuel are all profi table 

uses for methane from coal mines.

• Landfi lls. The principal approach to reducing 

methane emissions from landfi lls involves collecting 

and burning or using landfi ll gas. Landfi ll gas-use 

technologies focus on electricity generation and 

direct gas use. Electricity generation involves piping 

collected methane to engines or turbines. Direct-use 

technologies use landfi ll gas directly as a fuel; other 

technologies require that the gas be upgraded and 

distributed to a natural gas pipeline.

• Natural gas and oil systems. Emission reduction 

activities fall into three categories: technologies 

or equipment upgrades that reduce or eliminate 

equipment venting 

and other emissions, 

improvements in 

management practices and operational 

procedures, and 

enhanced management practices that 

take advantage of 

improved technology. In all cases, 

reducing methane 

emissions makes 

more gas available 

for sale and use.

 Manure management. Methane 

and other gases are 

produced when animal manure is managed under anaerobic (without 

oxygen) conditions. Methane reduction and other 

environmental benefi ts can be achieved by using 

anaerobic digestion systems that collect and transfer 

manure-generated gases to energy-producing combustion devices such as engine generators or boilers.

Even with current technology and the benefi ts of mitigation, methane recovery and use is not widespread for several 

reasons. First, methane is a secondary issue in the industrial 

processes that emit the gas. Coal mines, for example, want 

to vent methane from the mine workings because it is 

explosive. Mining companies have not historically viewed 

methane as an energy resource in its own right.

Second, those responsible for the emissions may not be 

familiar with the technologies available for methane recovery or the potential for profi table projects. This is especially 

true in developing countries, where increased information 

and technical training would help generate support for 

methane recovery projects.

Finally, poorly functioning energy markets and fi -

nancially insolvent utilities and municipalities in many 

countries fail to attract investment from the private sector 

in methane capture and use projects.

and other emissions, 

improvements in 

management practices and operational 

procedures, and 

enhanced management practices that 

take advantage of 

improved technology. In all cases, 

reducing methane 

emissions makes 

more gas available 

for sale and use.

• 

ment. Methane 

and other gases are 

Global GHG Emissions — 2000

CO2 - Land Use 

Change & Forestry 

19%

CO2 - Fuel & 

Cement 55%

Methane 16%

High Global Warming 

Potential Gases 1%

Nitrous Oxide 9%

Source: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
GLOBAL ISSUES / JUNE 2005 22 eJOURNAL USA 

Methane to Markets

Addressing these barriers to advance methane recovery 

and use is the focus of the Methane to Markets Partnership. Through private-public partnerships, the initiative 

brings together the technical and market expertise, financing, and technology necessary for project development.

Member countries work in collaboration with the private sector, multilateral development banks, and other governmental and nongovernmental organizations. The core 

goal is to identify and implement activities that advance 

methane recovery and use project development at landfills, 

coal mines, and oil and gas systems.

The 15 national governments, or partners, that have 

already committed to the partnership have signed a voluntary agreement that establishes the partnership’s purpose, 

structure, and organization.

As part of this commitment, each partner agrees to undertake a variety of activities aimed at advancing methane 

recovery and use internationally in the target sectors. Each 

partner country manages its own financial contribution 

and assistance mechanisms based on its national interests 

and areas of expertise.

Guiding the partners’ work is a steering committee supported by an administrative support group, or secretariat, 

housed at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 

(EPA) in Washington, D.C. Sector-specific subcommittees 

for landfills, oil and gas systems, and coal mining are also 

in place.

The subcommittees develop action plans that identify 

and address key barriers and issues for project development, address market assessment and reform issues, facilitate investment and financing opportunities, and report on 

progress.

They also engage organizations outside the partner 

governments, encouraging private-sector entities, financial 

institutions, and other governmental and nongovernmental 

organizations to build capacity, transfer technology, and 

promote private investment.

To this end, the partnership has created Project Network to facilitate communication and coordination among 

these organizations. Interested organizations can become 

members of the Methane to Markets Project Network by 

signing a one-page, nonbinding agreement that is available on the partnership’s Web site. To date, more than 90 

organizations have joined these efforts.

U.S. Government Commitment

The U.S. government intends to commit up to $53 

million over the next five years to facilitate development 

and implementation of methane projects in developing 

countries and countries with economies in transition. 

These technologies will be promoted using a range of 

activities, such as the export of successful U.S. voluntary 

programs, training and capacity building, market development, feasibility assessments, and technology demonstrations.

Leveraging the efforts of fellow partner countries and 

the expertise and investment of the private sector and other 

Project Network members are other central objectives of 

the U.S. commitment.

EPA leads this effort for the U.S. government and will 

build on the success of its voluntary domestic methane 

partnership programs, which have reduced methane emissions in the United States as of 2004 by 10 percent below 

1990 levels. 

Conclusion

The Methane to Markets Partnership offers a unique 

opportunity for governments and organizations around the 

world to work together to address methane emissions while 

achieving economic, environmental, and energy benefits. 

The U.S. government believes significant progress can be 

made and is committed to working with its domestic and 

international public- and private-sector partners.

The United States estimates that Methane to Markets 

has the potential to deliver by 2015 annual reductions 

in methane emissions of up to 50 million metric tons of 

carbon equivalent, or recovery of 15 billion cubic meters of 

natural gas.

If achieved, these reductions could lead to stabilized 

or even declining levels of global atmospheric concentrations of methane. To give a sense of scale, this would be 

equivalent to removing 33 million cars from the roadways 

for one year, planting 22 million hectares of trees, or eliminating emissions from 50 500-megawatt coal-fired power 

plants. 

Resources

EPA’s Voluntary Methane Partnership Programs 

http://www.epa.gov/methane

 U.S. government Methane to Markets Web site 

http://ww.epa.gov/methanetomarkets

 Methane to Markets Partnership site 

http://www.methanetomarkets.org
eJOURNAL USA 23 GLOBAL ISSUES / JUNE 2005

The Energy Star seal is widely known in the North 

American marketplace. Almost 60 percent of consumers recognize it as a mark of energy efficiency. 

When stamped on a kitchen appliance, a light fixture, a 

computer, a television, or any one of thousands of other 

products, the seal confirms that the product meets government standards for efficient use of energy and that the product will cost less to operate over time than a similar product 

lacking the Energy Star label. 

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) introduced Energy Star in 1992 as a market-based partnership to reduce energy consumption and air pollution. The U.S. Department of Energy and the Canadian 

government have since joined the effort to develop product manufacturing and performance standards for 

energy efficiency. 

Energy Star operates under the slogan: “The quality of our environment is everyone’s responsibility.” The 

program aims to make energy efficiency an easy thing for consumers and business to support. Energy Star 

performs research, sets standards, and provides information to help consumers make well-informed decisions 

about energy consumption. 

Consumers have confirmed the effectiveness of the Energy Star endorsement, purchasing more than 1.5 

billion products bearing the Energy Star seal through the 13-year life of the program. The savings in energy 

in 2004 alone is the equivalent of that needed to power 24 million homes, according to EPA statistics. In 

addition, 30 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions have been prevented by use of the more efficient 

products. That emission level is equivalent to what 20 million vehicles would emit in the United States each 

year. Consumers have saved about $10 billion in deferred energy costs. 

Energy Star also benefits more than 7,000 businesses and nongovernmental organizations that are partners 

in the program. The EPA-DOE program guides businesses in developing energy management strategies that 

measure energy performance, set goals for improvement, and track the savings achieved. 

Many major names in corporate America are Energy Star partners—companies such as 3M, Marriott International, General Electric, Sylvania, Whirlpool, and Canon. The program is also making increasing inroads 

into the construction industry. More than half of the top U.S. homebuilders now participate as Energy Star 

partners, building greater efficiency into new structures from the ground up. 

Further information is available at http://www.energystar.gov

Seal of Energy Efficiency

Energy Star persuades consumers to make smart energy choices
GLOBAL ISSUES / JUNE 2005 24 eJOURNAL USA 

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has worked 

with the U.S. wind energy industry for more than 30 

years to turn yesterday’s dream for a clean, renewable 

energy source into today’s most viable renewable energy 

technology.

Robert Thresher is the director of the National Wind 

Technology Center at the U.S. Department of Energy’s 

National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

Wind power—the technology of using wind to 

generate electricity—is the fastest-growing new 

source of electricity worldwide. Wind energy 

is produced by massive three-bladed wind turbines that sit 

atop tall towers and work like fans in reverse. Rather than 

using electricity to make wind, turbines use wind to make 

electricity.

Wind turns the blades and the blades spin a shaft that is 

connected through a set of gears to drive an electrical generator. Large-scale turbines for utilities can generate from 

750 kilowatts (a kilowatt is 1,000 watts) to 1.5 megawatts 

(a megawatt is 1 million watts). Homes, telecommunications stations, and water pumps use single small turbines of 

less than 100 kilowatts as an energy source, particularly in 

remote areas where there is no utility service.

In wind plants or wind farms, groups of turbines 

are linked together to generate electricity for the utility 

grid. The electricity is sent through transmission and 

distribution lines to consumers.

Since 1980, research and testing sponsored by the 

DOE Wind Program has helped reduce the cost of wind 

energy from 80 cents (current dollars) per kilowatt hour to 

between 4 and 6 cents per kilowatt hour today.

One goal of the wind program is to further reduce the 

cost of utility-scale wind energy production to 3 cents 

per kilowatt hour at land-based, low-wind-speed sites 

and 5 cents per kilowatt hour for offshore (ocean) sites. A 

low-wind-speed site is one where the annual average wind 

speed measured 10 meters above the ground is about 21 

kilometers per hour.

To accomplish this and other goals, two of DOE’s main 

research laboratories, the National Renewable Energy 

Laboratory (NREL) in Colorado and Sandia National 

Laboratories in New Mexico, work with industry partners 

and university researchers nationwide to further advance 

wind energy technologies. Each laboratory has unique 

skills and capabilities to meet industry needs.

NREL’s National Wind Technology Center (NWTC) 

is the lead research facility for the wind program. NWTC 

conducts research and supports industry partners in design 

and review analysis, component development, systems 

and controls analysis, testing, utility integration, technical 

assistance, and more. Sandia conducts research in advanced 

manufacturing, component reliability, aerodynamics, 

structural analysis, material fatigue, and control systems.

Wind Power Today

Robert Thresher 

The sun sets behind a wind farm near Montezuma, Kansas. The farm’s 

170 turbines can generate enough electricity to power 40,000 

households. 

AP/WWP Photo by Charlie Riedel
eJOURNAL USA 25 GLOBAL ISSUES / JUNE 2005

Thanks to such research and development, global 

wind energy capacity has increased 10-fold in the last 10 

years—from 3.5 gigawatts (a gigawatt is 1 billion watts) 

in 1994 to nearly 50 gigawatts by the end of 2004. In the 

United States, wind energy capacity tripled, from 1,600 

megawatts in 1994 to more than 6,700 megawatts by the 

end of 2004—enough to serve more than 1.6 million 

households.

In 2005, because of a federal production tax credit 

renewed by Congress in 2004, the U.S. wind energy industry is poised for record growth. The tax credit provides a 

1.9-cent per kilowatt hour credit for eligible technologies 

for the first 10 years of production. Some wind industry 

experts predict that wind technology installations for 2005 

will add more than 2,000 megawatts of capacity because of 

the tax advantage provided by this law.

The wind industry has grown phenomenally in the past 

decade thanks to supporting government policies and the 

work of DOE Wind Program researchers in collaboration 

with industry partners to develop innovative cost-reducing 

technologies, cultivate market growth, and identify new 

wind energy applications.

Developing Cost-Reducing Technologies

Work conducted under DOE Wind Program projects 

from 1994 to 2004 produced innovative designs, larger 

turbines, and efficiencies that have led to dramatic cost reductions. Although this drop in cost is impressive, electricity produced by wind energy is not yet fully competitive 

with that produced by fossil fuels. Researchers believe that 

further technology improvements will be needed to reduce 

the cost of electricity from wind another 30 percent for it 

to become fully competitive with conventional fuel-consuming electricity generation technologies.

Cultivating Market Growth

To cultivate market growth by increasing acceptance of 

wind technology around the country, DOE’s Wind Powering America (WPA) team works with industry partners to 

provide state support, develop utility partnerships, conduct 

outreach, and develop innovative market mechanisms to 

support the use of large- and small-scale wind systems.

The WPA strategy for increasing acceptance of wind 

technology includes extensive information activities to better inform various publics about the benefits of this technology. In 2004, WPA team members staffed exhibits at 36 

events in 20 states and distributed 43,000 copies of WPA 

publications to state wind working groups and at various events. The number of visitors to the Wind Powering 

America Web site (http://www.windpoweringamerica.gov) 

continues to grow.

Through such efforts, the WPA seeks to increase the 

use of wind energy in the United States with the goal that 

at least 30 states have 100 megawatts of wind capacity by 

2010.

New Wind Energy Applications

Decades of work conducted through public-private 

partnerships have moved wind energy from yesterday’s 

dream to today’s reality.

To ensure continued industry growth in 2005 and 

beyond, the Wind Program is exploring innovative applications that will open new markets. The applications include 

installing wind turbines offshore in shallow and deep water, using wind energy to produce fresh water, and developing new technologies that will help wind work in synergy 

with other renewable energy technologies like hydropower.

Offshore and Deep-Water Development

Offshore wind turbines, now in the early stages of 

development, are more expensive and harder to install and 

maintain than turbines on land. Offshore turbines must 

be designed to survive the offshore wind and wave loading 

of severe storms and must be protected from the corrosive 

marine environment.

Some advantages of offshore installation are that turbines can be made bigger than those onshore to produce 

more power per turbine, and the ocean location provides 

greatly increased wind speeds and less turbulence. Offshore 

installations also reduce land-use and could ease aesthetic 

concerns if the turbines are located far from shore and out 

of sight.

Recent studies show that there are significant offshore 

wind resources in regions of the United States near major 

urban areas in the mid-Atlantic and Northeast. In Europe, 

offshore wind turbines produce about 600 megawatts, but 

no turbines have yet been installed in waters deeper than 

20 meters.

For offshore turbines in shallow water (less than 30 meters), European turbine manufacturers have adopted conventional land-based turbine designs and placed them on 

concrete bases or steel monopiles driven into the seabed. 

An offshore substation collects the energy and boosts the 

voltage, and then a buried undersea cable carries the power 

to shore, where another substation provides a further voltage increase for transmission to utilities for distribution to 

customers.

A large amount of potential U.S. offshore wind resourc-
GLOBAL ISSUES / JUNE 2005 26 eJOURNAL USA 

es are in waters deeper than the current technology limit 

of about 30 meters, as developed in Europe for the Baltic 

Sea. Monopile foundations driven into the seabed are less 

suitable for the deeper waters off U.S. coasts. To produce 

cost-effective wind energy in deep water, floating platform 

technologies developed by the oil and gas industries need 

to be adapted and scaled for application to wind energy 

and new lower-cost anchoring methods developed. The ultimate vision for this new offshore wind technology would 

be to build the turbines and the supporting platform in 

a shore-based dry dock with local labor, tow the floating 

turbine to its place on the sea, drop anchor, and plug in to 

the power cable to shore.

The Wind Program is evaluating several floating platform concepts for offshore wind turbines for cost-effective electricity generation in water 50 to 200 meters deep. 

The program is also negotiating a partnership agreement 

with a domestic company to develop the first U.S. multimegawatt wind turbine prototypes designed specifically for 

shallow-water offshore use.

Wind and Water

The Wind Program is investigating how wind and 

water can work together to provide a more stable supply of 

electricity and fresh water. The scarcity of fresh water is a 

growing global problem. According to the United Nations, 

the world’s burgeoning population will need billions more 

cubic meters of fresh water per day by 2025. The current 

global desalination capacity is an estimated 28 million 

cubic meters per day.

An important solution to water scarcity is desalination 

of abundant ocean salt water, but desalination is a highly 

energy-intensive technology and is not cost effective in 

most areas. Among all the desalination process technologies, reverse osmosis has the highest electrical energy efficiency, at 3 to 8 kilowatt hours per cubic meter of water.

Reverse osmosis is a method of producing pure water 

by forcing salt water through a semipermeable membrane 

(which allows some molecules through but not others) that 

salts cannot pass through.

Even with the high efficiency of reverse osmosis, energy 

accounts for about 40 percent of the total desalinated 

water cost. From a cost and environmental point of view, 

inexpensive and clean alternative power sources are needed 

for a low-cost desalination solution.

Wind power is the most promising and least expensive 

renewable power source, but, because of its variable nature—because wind doesn’t always blow—researchers must 

determine the effects it will have on desalination systems 

and their operation.

In 2004, the Wind Program funded a conceptual 

design study for an integrated wind energy and desalination system. The project is exploring wind and desalination concepts, identifying technical issues, exploring the 

feasibility of alternative concepts, and evaluating their 

economic viability.

To provide a stable supply of electricity to the utility 

grid, the Wind Program is conducting research into the 

potential benefits of combining wind and hydropower (or 

waterpower), which harnesses the energy of moving or 

falling water.

As part of that effort, the United States helped form a 

working group of the International Energy Agency (IEA) 

whose participants will focus on integrating wind and 

hydropower systems (the IEA Research, Development and 

Demonstration Wind Annex XXIV).

The annex will exchange information and conduct 

cooperative research into the generation, transmission, and 

economics of integrating wind and hydropower systems. 

The annex held its first meeting at the Hoover Dam in 

Nevada in 2005.

Conclusion

The U.S. Department of Energy’s program to make 

clean and sustainable wind energy cost effective for several 

market applications has made significant progress in 

recent years and is on a steady course to further significant 

improvements. Sound and sustainable development of 

this renewable energy resource is a key element of the U.S. 

strategy to reduce national reliance on carbon-based fuels 

and reduce the production of greenhouse gas emissions. 
eJOURNAL USA 27 GLOBAL ISSUES / JUNE 2005

New processes in the laboratory can prevent the creation 

of industrial pollutants and produce more environmentally friendly products. This evolving technology is 

minimizing the use of hazardous materials in design and 

development, thus representing a fundamentally different 

way to reduce pollution.

Cheryl Pellerin is a science writer for the U.S. State 

Department in the Bureau of International Information 

Programs.

The term green chemistry refers to the design of 

chemical products and processes that reduce or 

eliminate the generation and use of hazardous 

substances. The practice began in the United States with 

the passage of the Pollution Prevention Act of 1990, which 

established a national policy to prevent or reduce pollution 

at its source whenever feasible.

The act also provided a way to move beyond traditional 

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) programs 

and devise creative strategies for protecting human health 

and the environment. Reducing pollution at the source, 

according to the act, “is fundamentally different and more 

desirable than waste management and pollution control.”

After the act’s passage, the EPA Office of Pollution 

Prevention and Toxics (OPPT) began to explore the idea of 

developing or improving chemical products and processes 

to make them less hazardous. In 1991, OPPT launched a 

model program that for the first time provided grants for 

research projects that included pollution prevention in the 

synthesis of chemicals. Since then, the EPA Green Chemistry Program (http://www.epa.gov/greenchemistry) has built 

collaborations with academia, industry, other government 

agencies, and nongovernmental organizations to promote 

pollution prevention through green chemistry.

Green Chemistry at Work

Chemical manufacturing is the source of many useful 

products. These include antibiotics and other medicines, 

plastics, gasoline and other fuels, agricultural chemicals 

such as fertilizers and pesticides, and synthetic fabrics like 

nylon, rayon, and polyester. These products are important 

but some of the chemicals and processes used to make 

them harm the environment and human health. Green 

chemistry aims to reduce pollution by preventing its creation in the first place.

In designing a chemical reaction according to the 

principles of this discipline, chemists pay close attention to 

what is known about possible hazards a chemical presents 

to health or the environment before using the chemical 

in a reaction or creating it as a product. In other words, 

they treat the hazard a substance poses as a property that 

must be considered along with other chemical and physical 

properties and select substances that minimize harm.

In their 1998 book, Green Chemistry: Theory and 

Practice (Oxford University Press), Paul Anastas and John 

Warner developed 12 principles that give chemists a road 

map for implementing green chemistry. Four of the principles follow.

1. Get off to a safe start: Identify reactions that use 

nonhazardous starting materials to make a desired 

product.

This minimizes danger to workers in manufacturing 

plants when they handle chemicals and prevents accidental 

release of harmful chemicals from leaks or explosions. A 

new way to make an important industrial chemical, adipic 

acid, illustrates this principle.

Almost 2 billion kilograms of adipic acid are needed 

each year to make nylon, polyurethane, lubricants, and 

plasticizers. The standard way to make adipic acid uses 

Chemistry Goes Green

Cheryl Pellerin

AP/WWP Photo by Sherwin Castro

Green chemistry aims to reduce or eliminate harmful substances in 

products starting with their design and development. 
GLOBAL ISSUES / JUNE 2005 28 eJOURNAL USA 

benzene, which can cause cancer, as the starting material. 

In a newly developed process that uses genetically altered 

bacteria called biocatalysts, the simple sugar glucose is 

substituted for benzene.

Starting with a safe substance like glucose to make 

adipic acid means that the use of large quantities of a 

harmful chemical can be avoided if new processes like this 

one become widely used.

2. Use renewable resources: Put more emphasis on 

renewable starting materials, such as substances 

derived from growing plants, rather than irreplaceable materials like petroleum and natural gas 

supplies.

The glucose mentioned in the example above as a starting material can be derived from cornstarch or the cellulose 

found in plant materials. Even corncobs, stalks, and fallen 

leaves can yield glucose. In another example, cornstarch is 

used to produce the small, puffed packaging pellets that 

cushion materials shipped in containers. These pellets can 

replace plastic packing materials made from petroleumbased chemicals.

3. Find safer solvents: Eliminate the use of toxic 

solvents to dissolve the reacting materials.

Solvents are chemicals that can dissolve another substance. Many solvents used in large quantities in industry 

are harmful to health or can create other dangers like 

explosions or fires. Widely used solvents that carry health 

risks include carbon tetrachloride, chloroform, and perchloroethylene.

It is sometimes possible to substitute safer solvents 

like water or liquid carbon dioxide. For example, new 

dry-cleaning processes for clothing have recently been 

developed that dissolve grease and dirt using liquid carbon 

dioxide rather than the toxic chemical perchloroethylene.

4. Economize on atoms: Design reactions in which 

most or all of the atoms you start with end up in 

the product rather than in waste byproducts.

Stanford University chemist Barry Trost developed this 

concept, which he calls atom economy. An example of this 

principle is an improved process designed in 1991 to make 

the pain reliever ibuprofen, the active ingredient in the 

brand name drugs Motrin, Advil, Nuprin, and Medipren.

In the original six-step process developed in the 1960s, 

only 40 percent of the reactant atoms ended up in the 

product (ibuprofen) and 60 percent ended up in unwanted 

byproducts or waste. Trost’s new process has three steps, 

and 77 percent of the reactant atoms end up in the ibuprofen. This green process eliminates hundreds of thousands of kilograms of chemical byproducts every year and 

reduces by hundreds of thousands of kilograms the amount 

of reactants needed to make ibuprofen.

Attention to these principles helps the environment and 

can save companies money in the long run by lowering the 

cost of pollution control and using less energy.

International Interest

Since the 1990s, many organizations around the world 

have embraced green chemistry.

The Green Chemistry Institute (CGI) (http://

www.chemistry.org/portal/a/c/s/1/acsdisplay.html?DOC

=greenchemistryinstitute%5cindex.html) is a nonprofit 

organization of the American Chemical Society, founded 

to promote green chemistry through research, education, 

information dissemination, conferences, symposia, and 

international collaboration. More than 20 international 

chapters are affiliated with the Green Chemistry Institute, 

including ones from Canada, India, Italy, China, South 

Africa, and Thailand.

In the United Kingdom, the Royal Society of Chemistry launched the Green Chemistry Network (GCN) 

(http://www.chemsoc.org/networks/gcn), based in the 

Department of Chemistry, University of York. The GCN 

promotes awareness and facilitates education, training, and 

the practice of green chemistry in industry, commerce, 

academia, and schools.

The CRYSTAL Faraday Partnership (http://

www.crystalfaraday.org) in the United Kingdom is a virtual 

center of excellence in green chemical technology that 

accesses the resources of industrial and academic participants to promote lower-cost, sustainable manufacturing 

for the chemical industry. Its three core organizations are 

the Institution of Chemical Engineers, the Royal Society of 

Chemistry, and the Chemical Industries Association. Ten 

consortia and network technology organizations and 18 

universities also participate.

In Japan, the Green & Sustainable Chemistry Network 

(GSCN) (http://www.gscn.net/indexE.html) promotes 

research and development on green and sustainable chemistry through collaboration, including international activities, information exchange, communication, education, 

and proposals to funding agencies. Members include 24 

major societies, associations, and industry organizations. 
eJOURNAL USA 29 GLOBAL ISSUES / JUNE 2005

THINKING	GREEN:

ENVIRONMENTAL	EFFICIENCY,	TECHNOLOGY,	

AND	CREATIVITY		

F

rom insulation made from old blue jeans to hydrogen fuel cells used in hybrid electric motors, 

the United States is producing and using an array of environmentally friendly technology. 

The photographs here depict examples of progress being made in environmentally friendly 

architecture, alternative energy sources, materials recycling, and new fuel technology.

The David L. Lawrence 

Convention Center in 

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 

is the world’s largest 

“green” building. The 

140,000 square-meter 

facility uses natural 

daylight and ventilation 

for light and heat, and it 

is equipped with a water 

reclamation system that 

reduces potable water 

use by nearly 60 percent. 

Photo courtesy of the David L. Lawrence Convention Center

At left, one-third of the building materials used in the Suwannee River Visitor Center in Georgia were made from recycled 

content, including decking made from plastics, insulation made 

from newspapers, and a retaining wall made from old automobile dashboards and electrical cables. 

Photo courtesy of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources

At right, workmen lay a 4.2-hectare “living roof” of 

sedum plants at the Ford Motor Company’s Rouge 

Center truck factory in Dearborn, Michigan. The 

plants absorb and filter water from rain and snow, 

absorb carbon dioxide, and give off oxygen. 

Photo courtesy of Ford Motor Company
GLOBAL ISSUES / JUNE 2005 30 eJOURNAL USA 

Windmill turbines, right, 

erected on a reclaimed 

strip mine by the Tennessee 

Valley Authority, have the 

power to generate 6 million 

kilowatt hours of electricity 

each year. 

AP/WWP Photo by Wade Payne

In Frisco, Texas, a solar energy contractor, above, displays a 

polycrystalline solar panel that will be installed in this “zeroenergy home”—a home designed to generate as much energy 

as it consumes. 

AP/WWP Photo by Leigh T. Jimmie

At right, a builder installs underground seawater pipes at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu. The pipes will tap into cold water beneath 

the surface of the Pacific Ocean to generate air conditioning for the 

seaside medical school buildings. 

AP/WWP Photo by Lucy Pemoni
eJOURNAL USA 31 GLOBAL ISSUES / JUNE 2005

A third grader in Laurel, Maryland, sorts trash from his lunch into bins for recyclable and nonrecyclable materials. To help students become more 

aware of how much they throw away, trash is weighed every Wednesday to see which classes do the most recycling. 

AP/WWP Photo by Matt Houston

Cell phones and cell phone batteries await recycling in Tucker, Georgia. 

In observance of Earth Day 2005 in the United States (April 22), 

environmentalists launched campaigns to increase awareness about 

recycling cell phones, music players, handheld gaming consoles, and 

other electronic devices. 

AP/WWP Photo by John Bazemore

Above, this piece of insulation made from old blue jeans is used 

to conserve energy in the offices of Brown & Jones Architects in 

Raleigh, North Carolina. Other “green” materials used in the facility 

include special light fixtures, skylights, ceiling fans, and a rainwater 

recycling system. 

AP/WWP Photo by Stan Gilliland
GLOBAL ISSUES / JUNE 2005 32 eJOURNAL USA 

In March 2004, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (below, second from left) and other officials display a new, low-emission, 

hybrid electric motor that will be installed in FedEx delivery trucks operating in and around the state’s capital city, Sacramento. 

AP/WWP Photo by Rich Pedroncelli

At left, a representative of Hyundai Motor Company views a 

hydrogen fuel cell hybrid electric automobile—the Focus, manufactured by Ford Motor Company—during the North American 

International Auto Show in Detroit, Michigan, in January 2005. 

AP/WWP Photo by Paul Sancya

At right, a bus powered by compressed natural gas (CNG) 

carries passengers along the streets of Washington, D.C. The 

Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (Metro) began 

operating CNG buses in 2002. By the end of 2005, Metro’s bus 

fleet will consist of 414 CNGs and about 1,440 diesel buses 

that operate on ultra-low sulfur fuel. 

Department of State Photo by Tim Brown
eJOURNAL USA 33 GLOBAL ISSUES / JUNE 2005

The United States launched a conservation ethic with 

establishment of Yellowstone National Park in 1872 and 

today manages some 34 million hectares in parks and 

36.4 million hectares in wildlife refuges. The country 

is committed to helping other countries share in the 

conservation and economic benefits of land and wildlife 

preservation. Examples include its participation in the 

Congo Basin Forest Partnership to protect lands and 

combat illegal logging in West Central Africa and a 

debt-for-nature swap with the Republic of Panama that 

allows the Central American nation to reduce a portion 

of its debt to the United States in exchange for generating 

funds to protect its biologically rich tropical forests.

John F. Turner is Assistant Secretary of State for 

Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific 

Affairs. Prior to joining the State Department, Turner 

served as president and chief executive officer of The 

Conservation Fund, a national nonprofit organization 

dedicated to public-private partnerships to protect land 

and water resources.

More than 270 million people visited the United 

States’ national parks last year, inspired by their 

beauty and wildness. Our country’s park system, once described as America’s “best idea,” includes 388 

parks and encompasses some 34 million hectares, an area 

roughly the size of Germany. In addition, the United States 

has established 545 national wildlife refuges, protecting 

more than 36.4 million hectares to benefit wildlife, fisheries, and biodiversity. The government manages another 

186 million hectares of protected land, including national 

forests, wilderness areas, and marine sanctuaries.

Americans treasure wild public lands because they offer opportunities for solace and recreation and a chance 

to reconnect with the outdoors, learn about our nation’s 

history, and recharge our batteries. They provide critical habitat for wildlife, a vital ecological and economic 

resource that also embraces important scientific, cultural, 

aesthetic, and spiritual values. Moreover, public lands serve 

as engines of economic development by attracting tourists 

and, in some instances, providing a source of revenue for 

schools, transportation, and other needs.

We take pride in the fact that our nation is home to Yellowstone National Park, the world’s first national park. The 

establishment of this park in 1872 launched a conservation 

ethic in the United States and prompted the preservation 

of wild places and wild resources for their own intrinsic 

values and for the benefit of future generations. Individual 

states, conservation groups, local communities, and private 

landowners have protected vast areas of open space, watersheds, and wildlife habitat.

We are sharing with other nations the experiences we 

have gained in developing a network of protected lands. 

This is an important task because increasing competition 

for natural resources, growing scarcity of these resources, 

changes in land use patterns, economic development, 

political stability, and climate change can have enormous 

effects on the well-being of our lands.

People around the world are tackling these problems, 

seeking to build an enduring conservation movement that 

reaches to the corners of the globe. There are now more 

Exporting America’s “Best Idea” 

Sharing Our National Park System With

the World

John F. Turner

Yellowstone National Park covers more than 890,000 hectares in

Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. 

AP/WWP Photo by Kevork Djansezian
GLOBAL ISSUES / JUNE 2005 34 eJOURNAL USA 

than 102,000 protected areas in the world, covering more 

than 10 percent of Earth’s land surface. They encompass 

ecologically and economically important ecosystems, from 

mountain ridges to coral reefs, and total 18.8 million 

square kilometers—an area twice the size of Europe. The 

number of these areas continues to expand.

In recent years, developing countries have led the way 

in setting aside national parks and protected reserves. In 

doing so, they demonstrate a commitment to conservation 

that exemplifies great courage and boldness.

America has been proud to lend a hand to other nations interested in establishing systems of protected areas. 

For example, we are doing so through the Congo Basin 

Forest Partnership, an initiative that unites more than 30 

governments, international organizations, businesses, and 

environmental groups. The partnership aims to establish 

national networks of protected areas across West Central 

Africa in order to safeguard one of the world’s two largest 

intact tropical forests. At the same time, the Congo Partnership offers local people a stake in the forest by promoting sustainable harvesting and providing livelihoods such 

as ecotourism.

The six Congo Basin countries that have courageously 

bet their future well-being on the benefits of forest conservation are driving forces in this partnership. These nations 

see a future based on respecting, not exploiting, nature.

The United States is contributing $53 million over four 

years to create the training programs, infrastructure, and 

management and enforcement regimes necessary to realize 

this vision of a system of protected areas and sustainable 

forest management. In total, this undertaking could develop as many as 27 national parks and protect more than 

10 million hectares.

The Congo Basin Forest Partnership is also a powerful mechanism for stemming the take of bushmeat and 

advancing the fight against illegal logging. Illegal logging 

destroys ecosystems and threatens protected areas worldwide, and it costs governments $10 to $15 billion annually 

in lost revenues, according to estimates by the World Bank.

That is why President Bush launched the Initiative 

Against Illegal Logging to help developing countries reduce 

threats to protected areas. Through the initiative, we are 

working with other governments and nongovernmental 

organizations (NGOs) to improve forest law enforcement in Africa, protect orangutan habitat in Indonesia, 

and monitor forests in Brazil with remote sensing, among 

many other actions.

The United States is also promoting protected areas 

abroad through debt-for-nature swaps. These innovative 

agreements allow eligible developing nations to reduce 

their debt to the United States while generating funds to 

protect their tropical forests. Since 2000, we have concluded nine agreements that will generate $95 million to conserve forests in eight countries over the next two decades. 

Three U.S.-based international NGOs have contributed 

$7.5 million, in addition to debt relief funding appropriated by Congress, to make these agreements possible. 1

Recently, the United States concluded an agreement 

with the Republic of Panama that, with the help of a 

contribution of $1.3 million from The Nature Conservancy, an international NGO, will generate $10 million to 

protect and conserve Panama’s 129,000-hectare Chagres 

National Park over the next 12 years. The Chagres National Park provides 50 percent of the water necessary to 

operate the Panama Canal, supplies the drinking water for 

that country’s two largest cities, and serves as a habitat for 

endangered species such as jaguars, mantled howler monkeys, and the harpy eagle.

Another agreement with Panama will conserve the exceptionally biologically rich forests of the Darien National 

Park, which contains a unique biological bridge where 

North and South America meet and shelters a diverse 

range of flora and fauna.

In both cases, the funds resulting from these agreements 

will support specific conservation activities in the national 

parks and create permanent endowments to provide sustainable funding to the parks.

Americans are proud to share our heritage of land conservation with nations seeking to establish protected areas. 

By helping citizens around the world manage their natural 

resources on a sustainable basis, we are fostering a more 

hopeful world for millions of our fellow human beings and 

preserving great wild places for the enjoyment of future 

generations. 

(1) Nations currently participating in the debt-for-nature swap are Bangladesh, Belize, 

Colombia, El Salvador, Jamaica, Panama, the Philippines, and Peru. Participating NGOs 

are The Nature Conservancy, Conservation International, and the World Wildlife Fund. 

Deforestation is a threat to Panama’s Rio Chagres basin. 

AP/WWP Photo by Tomas Munita
eJOURNAL USA 35 GLOBAL ISSUES / JUNE 2005

Tending the Rivers

An Interview with David Allan and Brian Richter

The Mississippi River, shown here near New Orleans, Louisiana, is 

a trade route and recreational venue. The river provides habitat for 

diverse species of fish and wildlife and supports the largest continuous 

system of wetlands in North America. 

AP/WWP Photo by Bill Haber

Human life, health, and well-being depend upon clean, 

fresh water. So, why have we done so much to abuse the 

freshwater sources that we rely upon for our survival? 

Rivers and streams that bring us fresh water have been 

used as dumping grounds for waste, diverted from their 

natural courses, and drained for the exclusive use of only 

a few. The past couple of decades have brought a new 

level of understanding about the detrimental effects of 

these actions and stronger resolve to use water resources 

in a manner that can meet the needs of all users while 

preserving the ecosystems that surround them.

Two professionals in this field discussed these trends 

with Global Issues managing editor Charlene Porter. 

Brian Richter is the director of Freshwater Initiative, a 

project of the environmental nongovernmental organization The Nature Conservancy and co-author of Rivers for Life. David Allan is a professor of conservation 

biology and ecosystem management at the University of 

Michigan and co-author of Streams: Their Ecology and 

Life.

Question: Mr. Richter, in your 2003 book, Rivers for Life, 

you and co-author Sandra Postel called for a new mindset that would make preservation of ecosystem health an 

explicit goal of water development and management. To 

what degree is that idea taking hold today in the United 

States?

Richter: Interestingly, the development within the United 

States is a little bit slower, from my perspective, than it 

is in some other countries. It’s an odd coincidence too 

because the United States began to address these issues in 

earnest in the late 1960s as national environmental legislation was being passed. Scientists, decision makers, and 

regulators in the United States started grappling with a lot 

of these issues then, but the thinking in the scientific community on water quantity management was at a different 

point at that time than it is now.

Q: In what respect?

Richter: At that time, river ecologists had a fairly broad, 

general understanding of the importance of hydrologic 

variability—the changes in river flows and the influences 

that those changes would have on plants and animals and 

the overall ecosystem. Regulators were tapping that knowledge to make regulatory decisions, and they moved toward 

an approach where they generally said the most critical 

thing is how low the river gets during a dry time of the 

year or during a drought period. What we saw develop in 

the United States was a strong orientation toward the question: “What is the minimum in-stream flow level needed 

to keep the plants and animals in this river in good shape?”

We stayed stuck in that focus for the better part of three 

decades, and it wasn’t until the early 1990s that you started 

to see some differences of opinion and concerns that we 

needed to pay attention to more than just the minimum 

stream-flow level. We needed to address the important role 

that higher river flows—and even floods—play in sustaining the diversity and proper functioning of a river ecosystem. It has been difficult to get water managers and dam 

operators to understand that some level of flooding needs 

to be maintained for river health.
GLOBAL ISSUES / JUNE 2005 36 eJOURNAL USA 

Q: Professor Allan, ecosystem management is your specialty. How has the scientific thinking evolved over time?

Allan: Brian put it exactly right. For a very long time 

the issue was minimum flows. How low could the water 

levels go? How low could water quality go? What was the 

minimum standard based on dissolved oxygen [microscopic bubbles of oxygen gas in the water that are essential 

for aquatic life] which would respond to organic waste 

loading? Generally, it was a minimum approach toward 

protecting the environment and a maximum emphasis on 

making use of that resource.

What the field of ecosystem management brings to the 

table today is the recognition that our waters offer many benefits that we might have thought of as being intangible benefits, 

but they’re looking more and more tangible all the time.

These benefits only come from healthy ecosystems. 

Water problems risk the health of fish populations, for 

instance, or the water purification capacity of the aquatic 

ecosystem; or the health of the riparian ecosystem, the 

streamside vegetation and trees that live along the stream 

and have roots in the shallow ground water. We’ve seen all 

those ecological consequences become more and more apparent, and that’s leading us increasingly toward thinking 

of how to preserve those benefits.

So we’re realizing the ecosystem is being harmed and that 

is coming back on us in diminished services [ecosystem services are processes by which the environment produces clean 

water and air, timber, fish habitats, and plant pollination], 

which increasingly we can start to value in dollars.

Q: Mr. Richter, you began the discussion saying that some 

countries may be moving ahead of the United States in 

developing a holistic approach to managing watersheds 

and river systems. Expand on that point.

Richter: In the United States, we began heavily developing our water resources and building dams during the 

1950s and 1960s, and we began seeing environmental 

problems—such as the loss of species or reductions in fish 

populations—soon thereafter. Other countries were slower 

to develop their water resources. When problems began 

to develop in their countries in the 1980s and 1990s, 

their scientists looked around the world to see how other 

countries and other scientists were dealing with similar 

problems, how the knowledge base developed over the 

decades. They ended up fashioning some fundamentally 

different approaches to the questions that are critical to 

balanced management of the resource: How much water 

does the river need? How much of the natural variability in 

water flows is necessary to sustain the societal benefits that 

we derive from healthy ecosystems?

In Rivers for Life, we highlight advances that were made 

in places like South Africa, Australia, and some European 

countries. The scientists are taking a fresh look at how to 

address these questions. Working with the regulators, decision makers, and water planners, these countries have been 

developing approaches that better address modern-day 

interests.

The United States ended up with a legacy of environmental legislation that was developed some decades ago, 

and it’s proven to be more difficult in some respects to 

modify the legislation and regulatory approaches than it 

has been in countries that dealt with the issues as fresh 

cloth. These countries have, in essence, from a policy or 

regulatory standpoint, leapfrogged ahead of the United 

States in my perspective.

Q: The legislation you’re talking about is the Clean Water 

Act, passed in the United States in the 1970s, which 

brought significant progress in calling for wastewater treatment and discharge regulation, and ended by and large 

the discharge of raw sewage and waste into our waterways. 

Professor Allan, has the Clean Water Act done what we 

wanted it to do?

Allan: The Clean Water Act has done a lot for us. I agree 

with Brian’s point that a lot of our water law dates back to 

the 1970s. In fact, other water law goes back even further, 

to the Wild West era in the United States.

But the Clean Water Act certainly did good things for 

us. It instituted a whole lot of wastewater treatment at the 

secondary level; it definitely made water cleaner; and it 

brought language into the law about the physical, chemical, and biological integrity of freshwaters that gradually 

through the 1980s and 1990s led to the establishment of a 

panoply of biological assessment approaches that are now 

widely used by the states to assess the ecological health of 

freshwaters. The Clean Water Act continues to guide that 

activity, I think, in a very effective way.

But then we come up against new problems and we 

don’t have anything to guide us. Here in the Great Lakes 1 

region we’re wrestling with the issue of water export. It isn’t 

clear what laws and regulations could or should prevent 

export of Great Lakes water out of the basin or outside 

the boundaries of states that ring the basin. Tankers full of 

fresh water heading for Asia from the Great Lakes—who 

would have predicted that? So we’re scrambling to find the 

appropriate response and the appropriate tools with which 

to structure a response.

Q: Certainly in that situation many competing interests 

need to be satisfied—national governments, states, local 

governments, scientists, and environmentalists. Trying to 
eJOURNAL USA 37 GLOBAL ISSUES / JUNE 2005

make the right decision about the resource becomes that 

much more difficult when so many people and groups 

have an interest.

Richter: Yes. It’s important to understand that it is challenging for policy, decision making, and planning to stay 

perfectly in step with the advancement of scientific knowledge. They’re always going to lag behind scientific advancement. That’s a universal challenge, and some countries 

do a better job of translating science into policy and law 

than others do. All around the world, systems, laws, and 

practices for managing water have been developed, based 

on levels of understanding at some time in the past.

So we have to view water-resources management as 

always being in a very, very long transition, dating back 

thousands of years to when some of the first irrigation 

works and dams were constructed in China. Against that 

long history, we see countries coming into different phases 

or different eras of water management, water development 

decision making, and some do a better job of capturing the 

changing societal values of our modern times than others.

As a scientist who has to work with policy decision 

makers, I think certain modes of decision making seem to 

facilitate the translation of science more easily and more 

quickly into policy, legislation, and planning than others. 

For instance, some countries provide opportunities for 

active engagement of their populace to express their values 

and interests in a safe and constructive environment where 

other stakeholders and interests can hear them. Those 

countries seem to foster more rapid and successful evolution in policy and decision making.

Q: On the theme of setting standards, making choices 

with the best available information, Professor Allan, you 

recently wrote an article in the Journal of Applied Ecology 

suggesting that river restoration schemes should aim to 

move a river toward the least degraded and most ecologically dynamic state possible. Is identifying that target as 

simple as it sounds?

Allan: I agree that’s an ambitious goal, but we do have a 

lot of science that can help guide us in these directions. 

The emphasis is on moving in the right direction, toward a 

healthy, dynamic system.

A great deal of knowledge has been gained through scientific research about how to make a system healthier and 

more sustainable, and a great deal of knowledge has been 

gained through practice and implementation. The various 

goals we put forward in that article—the five-step plan 

for ecologically healthy rivers and for judging the success 

of restoration efforts—are appraised in a fairly qualitative 

way.2 We can determine with reasonable confidence that 

this action will move the system more in the direction we 

expect it to be, which could be based on reference conditions, comparisons to other healthy rivers in the area, or 

experience with similar systems. We generally know when 

we’re moving in the right direction and when we’re not. 

Articulating key aspects of the right direction is what we 

tried to do in that paper.

Q: Let me play devil’s advocate with you for a moment. 

Mr. Richter mentioned the long history in water management, and certainly there were times along the way when 

people decided, “Let’s build this dam. That’s a great idea.” 

Or they said, “Let’s build these levees and contain this river 

and prevent flooding.” Decades pass, and it turns out these 

weren’t such great ideas for the ecosystems. Knowing the 

history, what degree of confidence do you have that you 

are making the right calls now?

Allan: Well, that’s a fair position to take and a very hard 

one to defend against. There is the risk that the arrogance 

of the current generation will lead to the conviction that, 

“We know how to do things right. We won’t make mistakes. They made mistakes in the 1950s and 1960s but 

we’re smarter now.” I take that as a fair admonition, but 

we have a better chance today for moving in the right 

direction rather than the wrong direction. Common sense, 

along with scientific knowledge, is a useful guide to sensible management decisions.

Richter: It goes back to the definition of sustainability that 

came out of the Brundtland Commission some years ago. 3

A satellite image of North America’s Great Lakes, from left to right: 

Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, Lake Erie, and Lake Ontario. 

NASA
GLOBAL ISSUES / JUNE 2005 38 eJOURNAL USA 

They put a lot of emphasis on not reducing or negating the 

possibilities for future generations. That’s a wise standard 

for us to keep in mind. A lot of changes to water resources 

and freshwater ecosystems in the past are now very, very 

difficult to reverse in our generation.

Some development decisions that we make will foreclose options for future generations, and we always need to 

be mindful of that. That being said, societies in different 

parts of the world will have different imperatives. I just 

spent a couple of eye-opening weeks in Western China, 

where there’s a lot of discussion about constructing new 

hydroelectric power dams. The motivation is their interest 

in providing electricity to the remote villages of Western 

China. They see that as being a very important aspect of 

poverty alleviation and improving the quality of the lives of 

citizens in that part of the country.

These questions are very challenging from a societal 

standpoint, but to exercise the precautionary principle to 

the extent that we can and to be careful about not foreclosing on the options of future generations is something we 

should bear in mind.

Allan: We live in a rapidly changing world. I teach a course 

this semester on global environmental change, and we go 

through the litany of things that have changed dramatically 

since 1950. People were much less concerned about limits 

at that time. Dams were being built, cities were expanding, 

water extraction was expanding, and there are still today 

many people who view resources as essentially without 

limit and for the use of the present generation. So it is a remarkable transition to be arguing today for limits and ecosystem rights and the resource needs of future generations. 

These are fairly major transitions of quite recent time.

Echoing the point Brian made, social priorities are going 

to play out differently in different places based on immediate needs. I spent time in rural Venezuela in the late 1990s 

and realized that 80 to 90 percent of their electricity was hydroelectric. If you didn’t like dams, it meant you didn’t want 

the electricity to have medicine in hospitals—you didn’t 

have any refrigeration. Some fundamental human needs are 

going to dominate the dialogue in other parts of the world, 

but it’s only recently that we have come up with this notion 

of being farsighted. We’re still struggling with what it means 

to choose between future opportunities and present-day opportunities. Those are very hard to trade off.

Richter: I’m optimistic because two things have changed 

fairly substantially in recent decades. One is largely a scientific or technical capability to be able to understand and 

communicate what you’re trading off when you make these 

development decisions. David mentioned earlier that one 

example of a very important ecosystem service might be 

the sustenance of healthy fisheries. In a lot of the developing world, populations are quite dependent at a subsistence 

level upon having access to fish. Fish protein is a very important part of their diets. And we now are able to foresee 

and to some limited degree predict what the likely changes 

will be in things like fisheries. Society can weigh a loss in 

fisheries capacity with the development of energy availability or flood control. We’re able to create a much better-informed decision table. That gives me a lot of hope.

The second area that gives me hope is that governments 

are increasingly moving toward more transparent and inclusive models of decision making. A lot of these decisions used 

to be made fairly unilaterally by central bureaucracies or a 

limited number of individuals within a country’s water or 

energy agency, or by the private sector purely for economic 

considerations. That decision-making process is now beginning to open up and be more receptive to input from other 

interest groups and stakeholders with an array of values.

Q: Professor Allan, do you have a hopeful note to close?

Allan: The knowledge that ecosystems provide services 

that are of such great value is only now becoming appreciated, even in this country. Just to mention the valuable uses 

of fresh water is breathtaking if you run down the list—the 

water we have for drinking, for domestic use, for agriculture 

and industry, for employment, and to support healthy fish 

populations that are an important source of protein, and so 

on. Healthy ecosystems aid flood control and water purification. There are cultural values in recreation and in the sense 

of increased well-being that many people feel when visiting 

a park, a nature reserve, or a river’s edge. The water cycle 

feeds back into the condition of vegetation on land and the 

ability to maintain healthy forests.

As you start to get a better appreciation of all the reasons that these systems are important to us, you see that 

healthy ecosystems and healthy human populations go 

hand in hand. 

(1) The five Great Lakes on the border between Canada and the United States hold 

about one-fifth of the world’s fresh surface water supply, providing drinking water to 

almost 33 million people.

(2) Palmer, M.A., E.S. Bernhardt, J.D. Allan, et al. 2005. “Standards for ecologically 

successful river restoration.” Journal of Applied Ecology 42:208-217.

(3) The Brundtland Report, also known as Our Common Future, influenced the 

worldview regarding the urgency of making progress toward economic development that 

could be sustained without depleting natural resources or harming the environment. An 

international group of politicians, civil servants, and experts on the environment and 

development, chaired by Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland of Norway, defined sustainable development as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising 

the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” This statement has become a 

core principle in the field of sustainable development.

The opinions expressed in this interview do not necessarily 

reflect the views or policies of the U.S. government.
eJOURNAL USA 39 GLOBAL ISSUES / JUNE 2005

A young man who grew 

up on the banks of the 

Mississippi River has 

spent the past eight years in a 

true labor of love—cleaning up 

U.S. rivers, one river at a time, 

one piece of garbage at a time. 

Chad Pregracke, 29, worked as 

a commercial fisherman during 

secondary school and college. 

He noticed a worsening accumulation of trash on shorelines 

and made up his mind to do 

something about it. So in 

1997, Pregracke cleaned 100 

miles (160 kilometers) of the 

Mississippi shoreline with the 

help of community donations 

and a small grant from the 

Alcoa Corporation. The next 

year, he formed a nonprofit organization called Living Lands 

and Waters to raise funds and 

keep the project growing.

And grown it has. Pregracke estimates that he and his crew—with the help of thousands of volunteers—have 

dredged more than 1,000 tons of trash from American waters. The group has cleaned up hundreds of miles 

of Mississippi River shoreline and has moved on to the Illinois, Ohio, and Missouri rivers in the Midwest, 

and the Potomac and Anacostia rivers in the Washington, D.C., area. The organization sponsors community 

cleanups, educational workshops, reforestation projects, and the Adopt-a-Mississippi Mile program, through 

which citizens’ groups take responsibility for keeping one mile (1.6 kilometers) of the river’s shoreline clean.

Surprisingly, Pregracke does not consider himself an environmentalist. “I may be a conservationist, if anything,” he says. “I don’t like the label of environmentalist because it makes me seem different; I’m just a 

regular person. I’d like people to remember that anyone can make a difference.”

Learn more about Living Lands and Waters at http://www.livinglandsandwaters.org/

The Thousand Ton Cleanup

Living Lands and Waters is removing debris from some of the nation’s 

largest river systems.

Chad Pregracke, founder of Living Lands and Waters, motors along the Mississippi River near 

East Moline, Illinois, on his mission to clean up the river. 

AP/WWP Photo by Buzz Orr
GLOBAL ISSUES / JUNE 2005 40 eJOURNAL USA 

The United States is engaged in international assistance 

programs that aim to provide individuals with cleaner 

drinking water and, by so doing, improve health. These 

efforts strive to involve local communities in making 

decisions about their water use, promoting democracy, 

and improving environmental resource management at 

the same time.

Jonathan A. Margolis is special representative for sustainable development at the U.S. Department of State.

The United States is at the forefront of efforts to 

help developing countries address their fundamental needs for access to clean water, sanitation, 

modern energy services, and better health. Promoting 

such development, which balances economic freedom 

and growth with social advancement and environmental 

stewardship, is a hallmark of U.S. foreign policy. Indeed, 

as President Bush has said, combating poverty is a “moral 

imperative.”

Expanding the circle of development builds prosperity. 

Healthier individuals with access to basic services are better 

able to engage in economically productive activities, take 

care of their families, and pursue their dreams. Furthermore, when done right, the process of enhancing these 

services can strengthen participatory decision making—

strengthening the very fabric of democracy by empowering 

individuals and making institutions accountable to their 

constituents. The steady alleviation of poverty in turn 

enhances security, breaking the cycle of hopelessness and 

despair that can breed instability.

Water and health are two of humanity’s most fundamental needs. More than 1 billion people lack access to 

safe drinking water, and more than 2 billion lack access to 

adequate sanitation. Every year approximately 3 million 

people, mostly children, die from water-related disease, 

principally diarrhea. Many more become ill or disabled as 

a result of water-related infections, mostly due to an unsafe 

water supply, inadequate sanitation, and poor hygiene. In 

these areas, the United States is supporting activities that 

are improving peoples’ lives and transforming societies.

Lessons From Our Backyard

Integrated water resources management (IWRM) is 

a process of managing water resources while taking into 

account the multiple competing uses for water. Truly 

integrated water management also enables the adequate 

provision of food, urban infrastructure, energy, and other 

valuable services while maintaining a healthy environment. 

In the United States, such activities take place at the local, 

state, and federal levels, in cooperation with a wide range 

of agencies, nongovernmental organizations, the private 

sector, and individual citizens.

New York City provides one of the best demonstrations 

of the value of this integrated approach. The New York 

Advancing Democracy and Prosperity 

Through Sustainable Development

Jonathan A. Margolis

Residents of a San Salvador, El Salvador, neighorhood receive jugs of 

water from a well owned by a private water company.

AP/WWP Photo by Luis Romero
eJOURNAL USA 41 GLOBAL ISSUES / JUNE 2005

City water supply delivers 1.4 billion gallons of high-quality drinking water to more than 9 million people every day. 

This water originates in the Catskill/Delaware watershed. 

To meet the requirements of the federal Safe Drinking 

Water Act, the city would have to spend an estimated $8 

billion to build the necessary filtration plants.

The city proposed a different approach for purifying the 

water for drinking. Rather than build infrastructure, city 

leaders suggested a comprehensive long-range watershed 

protection program. Key elements of the program include 

land acquisition and stewardship, partnership programs, 

wastewater management, policy and regulatory changes, 

and environmental education and outreach programs. 

Working with upstream communities, the city designed 

projects to maintain and manage the forested and agricultural landscape to protect water quality and to enhance local economic opportunities. The cost: approximately $507 

million. By managing the watershed in a sustainable way, 

New York City was able to dramatically reduce the need 

for costly filtration and still maintain a long-term supply of 

high-quality drinking water. Another benefit was preservation of ecosystem values and the upstream economy that 

depends on the watershed resources.

Promoting Development 

and Democracy

IWRM is based on stakeholder participation. At its core 

are processes for participatory decision making at local, 

national, and regional levels to identify shared interests and 

define courses of action. Through a U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) project in El Salvador, for 

example, the community of Puente Arce recently elected 

an administrative board to oversee its newly expanded water service. This board now provides high-quality, efficient 

service rivaling systems in the United States. In some cases, 

the selection of these local administrative boards represents 

the first time citizens have been involved in electoral processes. IWRM nurtures a culture of democracy by making 

participatory decision making a reality and empowering 

stakeholders to demand greater transparency and accountability from public and private institutions.

The United States has placed a priority on IWRM, 

devoting a significant amount of USAID’s three-year, $970 

million Water for the Poor Initiative to these efforts. Above 

and beyond our bilateral projects, the U.S. government has 

also worked to raise the profile of IWRM in multilateral 

discussions and to engage other donors. For example, we 

recently began working through the Global Water Partnership (GWP) to fund additional IWRM assistance for El 

Salvador, Ethiopia, and Indonesia. With these funds, the 

GWP will encourage more discussion among stakeholders on water management to implement an IWRM plan. 

These new U.S. contributions have given rise to further 

contributions from other donors; in total, more than 18 

developing countries will receive additional support for 

their IWRM efforts through the GWP.

Reducing Water-Related Disease

Water-related diseases cause human suffering and 

impose heavy costs on families, communities, and nations. 

Through traditional bilateral aid as well as private investment and public-private partnerships and multilateral 

initiatives, the United States is working to reduce these 

diseases, saving lives and boosting prosperity by allowing 

people to engage more fully in creative, civic, educational, 

and entrepreneurial activities.

For example, the United States has joined with the 

World Health Organization, the United Nations Children’s 

Fund (UNICEF), and others in launching the Partnership 

to Improve Health through Water (PHW). Growing out of 

the U.N. Commission on Sustainable Development’s recent focus on water and sanitation issues, the PHW brings 

together several global programs and initiatives dedicated 

to reducing the incidence of water-related disease. This 

partnership is working to raise awareness of the health 

implications of unsafe water and to put in place programs 

that encourage clean water at the household and community levels.

In one part of this program, the United States is working with the partnership to support “point-of-use” water 

disinfection programs using locally manufactured products in more than 20 countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin 

America. These programs empower individuals to take 

control of their own health by disinfecting their water at 

The Ashokan Reservoir is a source of drinking water for residents of 

New York City.

AP/WWP Photo by Jim McKnight
GLOBAL ISSUES / JUNE 2005 42 eJOURNAL USA 

the household level. The Safe Water System initiative has 

already distributed more than 12 million bottles of disinfectant solution to improve the quality of drinking water 

at the household level. Each bottle typically provides one 

household with enough disinfectant to produce drinking 

water for up to two months.

While these point-of-use programs enable people to 

take responsibility for their well-being in the short term, 

they also have a broader effect. By demonstrating the 

linkage between cleaner water and better health, these 

programs empower communities to work with their governments for safer, more sustainable water services over the 

longer term.

Role of Local Financing

Clean water and other essential services often require 

significant flows of local financial resources. To address 

this need, USAID has developed innovative financing 

tools that strengthen local capital markets and mobilize 

domestic capital, empowering communities to take action. 

One such tool, the Development Credit Authority (DCA), 

stimulates lending by offering partial loan guarantees to 

local banks and financial institutions. In the Indian state 

of Tamil Nadu, a DCA project facilitated the issuing of a 

municipal bond to mobilize up to $6.4 million for local 

infrastructure projects. The township of Valasaravakkam 

(population 26,260), for example, is using newly available 

funds to upgrade its water system, increasing the water 

supply from two liters to 35 liters per person per day.

Promoting IWRM, reducing the burden of water-related illness, and unleashing domestic capital are some of the 

many ways in which the United States is helping developing countries improve the quality of their citizens’ lives and 

develop a culture of accountability and participation. In so 

doing, we are fulfilling the mission to create a more secure, 

democratic, and prosperous world. 
eJOURNAL USA 43 GLOBAL ISSUES / JUNE 2005

The United States is now recycling about 30 percent of 

its solid waste, a percentage that includes source reduction—using less material in the first place—and composting—using degraded organic material as a fertilizer 

and soil conditioner. The adoption of recycling programs 

and public support for them has been steadily increasing 

for the past couple of decades. The U.S. Environmental 

Protection Agency encourages and promotes recycling 

and composting of garbage, but no federal law requires 

local communities, counties, cities, and towns to take this 

action. Rather, local and state governments, with support 

of their citizens, are adopting programs on their own.

Global Issues managing editor Charlene Porter 

discussed the trends in recycling and waste management 

with two experts in this field. Laurie Batchelder Adams 

of Denver, Colorado, is a consultant who advises clients 

on managing recycling programs. She is also an official 

with the Solid Waste Association of North America, an 

industry group. Jaime Lozano is an environmental specialist in the Bureau of Sanitation, city of Los Angeles.

Question: Why are local governments finding that diversion of waste from landfills is a good decision?

Batchelder Adams: It started back in 1987 when the infamous garbage barge, the Mobro, left a town in New York 

with more than 3,000 tons of garbage on board. The ship 

wandered the Atlantic coast for months, unable to find 

a community willing to take this huge amount of waste. 

This traveling garbage barge received a lot of media attention, and the message that incident sent to the American 

public was, “We are out of landfills in this country.” A lot 

of recycling advocates jumped on that bandwagon, but a 

garbage crisis was only a partial truth as communities were 

not then, and are not now, out of space for developing and 

maintaining landfills.

Recycling became very popular after that episode. 

Everybody was doing it. A wave of publicity swept the 

country. Recycling was considered one of the sexy new 

ways to spend public works dollars.

A lot of easy recycling happened at first. A lot of easy 

materials could be captured and diverted into recycling. 

The public was very excited to be involved.

Lozano: That barge, the Mobro, represented the moment 

of reasoning. All of a sudden people started looking at that 

and saying, “Oh, my gosh, could that be us in the future?” 

Although there is no federal mandate for recycling or waste 

diversion programs at the state level, the legislatures started 

analyzing how their waste programs were designed and 

whether they made any sense.

The state of California issued a mandate to different 

jurisdictions at the city and county levels. Assembly Bill 

(A.B.) 939 mandated all cities and counties to reduce their 

waste by 25 percent by the year 1995 and 50 percent in 

the year 2000. This goal was based on studies conducted in 

1990 to establish a base year, or a starting point for future 

waste reduction. 

The law said that cities and counties that failed to 

implement these programs could be fined up to $10,000 

a day retroactively. A lot of people, especially the environmental community, were very supportive of that bill. It 

seemed like everybody decided that it was important to 

become part of the solution.

Bales of used plastic bottles are destined for recycling and conversion 

into such diverse products as chairs, kayaks, jewelry, and clothing.

AP/WWP Photo by Rich Pedroncelli

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

An interview with Laurie Batchelder Adams and Jaime Lozano
GLOBAL ISSUES / JUNE 2005 44 eJOURNAL USA 

Q: The current rates of recycling for different materials 

certainly vary considerably. What I’m seeing from the Environmental Protection Agency figures is that paper is at 42 

percent, aluminum cans at 55 percent, and 60 percent for 

steel. What affects the different recycling rates on different 

materials? 

Batchelder Adams: Different subcategories exist within 

certain types of materials, too. Cardboard is a subcategory 

in paper. The recycling rate for cardboard and some of the 

higher-value paper materials is in the 70 percent range. 

The basic curbside, residential recycling program collects 

about 70 to 75 percent paper, and the rest of the material is containers. Paper recycling is successful because it 

is collected in relatively large quantities. There are also 

paper mills operating in this country and abroad such that 

we have an abundance of end-users who want the paper 

that we’re generating in recycling programs. The market is 

strong. You’ve got plenty of it, you’ve got plenty of people 

who want it, and the price is high enough to keep it relatively lucrative within the business. Those factors make it 

win-win.

Aluminum has always been strong in its marketability, 

but we’re seeing aluminum fall now. Less packaging is 

made of aluminum these days. Other materials are taking 

over that share of the packaging market, so recycling programs are just not generating as much. Plus, an awful lot 

of this material is being used away from our homes so it is 

not getting into our curbside recycling programs.

Lozano: This is so important. You have to have markets 

for recycled materials in order to pay for the process of 

collection, sorting, baling, and storing all the materials 

you collect. So if you don’t have markets, you’re in a real 

difficult situation.

One of the things we’ve been talking about is trying to 

inject funding into the business community to get startup 

organizations that will actually take recycled material and 

make new products out of it. As Laurie said, there are 

plenty of paper mills that will buy recycled material. That 

means communities are almost guaranteed that they’ll find 

a market for recycled paper. If you collect it, as long as it’s 

not contaminated, you can take it to market.

But what about the different plastics? Can a community 

find a buyer for all the different types of plastics being 

used in the packaging industry? If you were to collect all of 

them, can you sell them or are you going to be stuck with 

them?

So this is one of the things that a community needs to 

start looking at. You need to have an end-use, and that’s 

why it’s so important. If you’re not buying recycled, you’re 

not recycling. You have to close the loop.

Q: Are manufacturers and businesses seeing this availability 

of material and coming up with new ideas about what to 

do with it?

Lozano: Absolutely. You’re seeing different industries 

springing up that want to take different material and try to 

make a new product. What’s fantastic is you’re generating 

employment in these enterprises. You employ the private 

waste-haulers or collectors in the city. You employ people 

who sort, wash, and dry the materials. Then more people 

are employed at the company that’s actually going to take 

that material and make new products. They make new 

bottles or plastic lumber. They make yarn for use in pants 

or jackets, things like that.

Q: Ms. Adams, what are some of the most innovative, 

exciting uses that you’ve seen developed in recent years for 

recycled materials?

Batchelder Adams: The ones Jaime mentioned are great. 

Products for glass are ones that we are seeing evolve slowly but 

they are desperately needed. Community recycling programs 

are really struggling with glass in this country. It becomes a 

real problem in local programs because it’s so heavy and costs 

a lot to manage, relative to other materials. Some communities are starting to eliminate it from their programs.

For the rural communities where I do a lot of work, and 

for countries with emerging programs, market development is the greatest emphasis. Areas with lower population densities struggle with two major things. One is 

low tonnage in collections, so that their per-unit costs of 

collection are high. The second thing is, these commuA classifier sorts various paper materials at the San Francisco, 

California, Recycling and Disposal Center. The city recycles two-thirds 

of its trash.

AP/WWP Photo by Jeff Chiu
eJOURNAL USA 45 GLOBAL ISSUES / JUNE 2005

nities are somewhat geographically isolated. They are a 

distance from any market and the transportation costs to 

get that material to a buyer will eat into profits that they 

might have. Because of these problems, it’s critical for these 

communities to be able to develop local markets, which 

will utilize at least low-value recycled materials, things such 

as low-grade papers or glass, as I mentioned. Higher-value 

materials—cardboard, newspaper, office paper, steel—are 

likely to bring you a price strong enough that you’ll be able 

to balance high transportation costs and still make a profit.

A thriving international market exists in recycled materials. Several developing nations are buying U.S. recyclables, 

but especially China. The Chinese are buying up secondary material out of this country, and U.S. end markets are 

being hurt by the competition that trend has created in 

prices. We are losing end users, such as paper mills, in this 

country. They are closing because they can’t compete with 

the exports to China.

If processors of secondary materials in the United States 

close down, we could come to the day when we have insufficient domestic capacity to make use of recycled material.

Q: Local governments have never been involved very much 

with management of raw materials, collection of raw materials, and these activities. Has that created a huge learning 

curve for local governments, figuring out how to set these 

programs up, how to manage something as industrially 

oriented as recycling is?

Lozano: I think it has. I came from the private sector 

myself and learned in business how cost avoidance was 

a major part of a business’s success story. In 1995, I was 

recruited by the city of Carson, California, to develop their 

recycling program just when A.B. 939 was taking effect. I 

learned from that experience that people working in these 

waste reduction programs need to get a grip on how a 

business works and start understanding how you can get 

businesses in your community to be part of the solution.

Batchelder Adams: At the local government level, staffs 

don’t often have the luxury of being market savvy. They 

don’t have the time to understand market dynamics. They 

often privatize or contract for the processing and marketing of the recyclable material they collect. They don’t really 

worry about the whole enterprise, except for how much 

revenue comes in from the sale of the material. Local governments would benefit from having a broader perspective 

on waste generation and the entire cycle.

Local governments also really struggle with this concept 

of “think globally, act locally.” Think what that means. 

It means that the local government pays the money, the 

resources, the time, and the heartache for the program to 

benefit the rest of us. That’s one of the hard sells for any 

recycling manager to make to their city council or county 

commission: They’re paying for the good of the world. 

While it’s the right thing to do, resources are limited. 

That’s a real dichotomy.

I have a list of three things that I recommend for any 

community starting a recycling program. First, you need 

public support. Get your citizens onboard as best you can. 

But realize the support is going to peak and valley and you 

need to be prepared for that. Second, your program will always be changing, whether it’s your level of public support, 

markets for materials, or the technology you use. You must 

be prepared for constant change.

Third, whatever program you have and however much 

you rely on the private sector, governments need to take 

control of the services provided by implementing basic 

policies and pricing strategies that will maintain public 

participation in the ways you need. I’m talking about policies such as frequency of collection, covered loads, mandates for refuse collectors to also offer recycling services, 

and directives for setting refuse collection charges that 

encourage recycling if that is a goal of your program.

Q: Mr. Lozano, you’ve traveled in Central and South 

America, talking with local officials about the importance 

of recycling, how to set up recycling programs. Will Ms. 

Batchelder Adams’ advice serve as good starting points for 

communities you’ve seen abroad?

Lozano: That is very excellent advice—most importantly, 

control and ownership. Officials setting up these programs 

need to work with the community to educate them that it 

is not just government’s responsibility to minimize waste 

and operate the landfills. Businesses and residents need to 

recognize their own contributions to the waste problems in 

A worker stacks pressed cans at an aluminum recycling center in 

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

AP/WWP Photo by Douglas Engle
GLOBAL ISSUES / JUNE 2005 46 eJOURNAL USA 

order for them to become part of the solution.

In the several countries I visited, I saw a hunger from 

the population to become part of the solution. They really 

want to participate but they want to learn more. There has 

to be a lot of education. The state of California has a great, 

great, program called Closing the Loop. It’s a program for 

the integrated waste program from kindergarten to 12th 

grade, and it’s available in Spanish. I believe El Salvador 

has formally accepted it and implemented it as part of their 

national environmental education, at least three states in 

Argentina are adopting it, and Chile is looking to do that. 

You need to get educators involved, you need to get the 

local and national governments involved, and you need to 

get the businesses involved. Finally, you need to find ways 

to generate money to make things happen.

Q: Another element in this whole equation is source reduction—reducing the amount of solid waste that is generated in your community in the first place. How successful 

are local governments in addressing that component of this 

whole cycle?

Batchelder Adams: I’d have to say low to moderate. It’s a 

hard thing to track and measure. It is also extremely hard 

to sell to your public because it requires people to change 

lifestyles, which is about the hardest thing to change.

We’re seeing more improvement with green purchasing 

policies. Local governments are buying recyclable products 

to fulfill their own supply needs and are helping to stimulate the market.

Lozano: Source reduction is a very difficult goal to achieve 

but it’s very important. In our work now, the slogan is 

reduce, then reuse, then recycle. It’s so important that we 

start doing more of those reduction activities. Reuse paper, 

for instance. Why is it most organizations only print on 

one side of the paper? That’s 50 percent being thrown 

away.

Companies can do simple things to achieve these goals. 

We did an audit with the Nissan Corporation of North 

America in Carson at a time when they were getting ready 

to purchase new copying machines. We made a suggestion 

that they set up the copiers so that the automatic default 

would be for double-sided copies versus single-sided. That 

means if you want a single-sided copy, you have to be 

proactive, change the default, make an effort, and press the 

button. All of a sudden, Nissan saw that monthly expenses 

of $50,000 dollars for paper went down to $25,000. What 

they were disposing of—whether as a recyclable or as 

trash—went down by half also.

Q: What are the difficulties that communities have had 

weighing the costs and benefits of these programs?

Batchelder Adams: Local governments really need to 

truly and comprehensively track all the costs involved in 

the recycling program, including equipment life cycle and 

avoided transportation and disposal costs. In time, we 

are all going to have the ability to identify and track costs 

beyond the direct recycle/landfill system. For example, 

researchers and some leading local governments in the 

United States are evaluating recycling versus disposal in 

terms of the impacts on the broader environment. This 

gets to factors such as pollution prevention and public 

health problems that might be associated with air pollution 

and greenhouse gases.

Lozano: And the cost to health can be enormous. In my 

travels, I’ve seen people living on landfills. That is a very, 

very terrible health hazard. I think there’s the potential for 

diseases that we haven’t yet come to know that could be 

transmitted from the landfill to those people and then be 

transmitted back into the general community. It’s a part of 

a circle that we need to break.

Batchelder Adams: If we look at the full and true costs of 

disposing of this nation’s waste, it is by orders of magnitude more expensive to this country than recycling. Being 

able to evaluate the complete economic and environmental 

sustainability of recycling in this manner is a new capability that we will have in the next few months and years. 

The opinions expressed in this interview do not necessarily 

reflect the views or policies of the U.S. government.
eJOURNAL USA 47 GLOBAL ISSUES / JUNE 2005

Recycling Works

Atlanta-based Novelis Inc. leads the world in recycling aluminum cans.

The aluminum can, introduced in 1965, has proven to be 

ideal as a container for beverages. It is lightweight, resists 

corrosion, and is recycled easily. In fact, the aluminum can 

is the most recycled beverage container in use; about 50 percent of 

all cans produced are recycled.

In February 2005, the National Recycling Coalition (NRC), based 

in Washington, D.C., presented its seventh annual Recycling 

Works Award to Novelis, the world’s largest recycler of aluminum 

beverage cans. “Novelis is the only aluminum company that has 

made its environmental commitment to recycling a fundamental 

part of its business,” said Kate Krebs, executive director of the 

NRC.

Novelis Inc. is the global leader in producing aluminum sheet, from which cans are made. Headquartered in 

Atlanta, Georgia, Novelis supplies aluminum sheet and foil to the automotive, transportation, beverage, food 

packaging, construction, industrial, and printing markets. The company operates 37 facilities in 12 countries 

and employs more than 13,500 people worldwide. Novelis annually recycles more than 24 billion aluminum 

beverage cans in the United States and more than 30 billion globally.

Novelis operates seven recycling centers—three in the United States and one each in Brazil, Italy, South 

Korea, and the United Kingdom. Together, these centers have the capacity to recycle 874,000 tons of aluminum annually.

In addition to making recycling a major component of its own business, Novelis actively promotes the benefits of aluminum recycling to the public. The company, for example, is a major supporter of Aluminum Cans 

Build Habitat for Humanity Homes. This unique program was established in 1997 as a partnership between 

Habitat for Humanity International and the Aluminum Association, a trade organization. Cans for Habitat 

has raised more than $2.5 million through aluminum can recycling to build homes for low-income families.

In partnership with the U.S. Conference of Mayors, Novelis sponsored a competition to encourage greater recycling efforts in cities. The Cans for Cash City Recycling competition inspired participating cities to collect 

more than 60 million cans over a two-week period, at the same time promoting greater recycling awareness 

among their populations.

“We are dedicated to fostering efforts to promote the economic, environmental, and social value of recycling 

aluminum,” said Brian Sturgell, the company’s president and chief executive officer. 

For more information about Novelis Inc.’s recycling activities, visit http://www.recycle.alcan.com/recycle/EN

Also see: The National Recycling Coalition http://www.nrc-recycle.org/

AP/WWP Photo by Shari Lewis

About 50 percent of all beverage cans are recycled, 

creating a thriving international market in recycled 

aluminum. 
GLOBAL ISSUES / JUNE 2005 48 eJOURNAL USA 

Keep America Beautiful and the Ad Council have produced 

public service announcements (PSAs) for television to raise 

public consciousness about responsibility for the planet. 

The Crying Indian, a PSA first broadcast on Earth Day 

in 1971, became iconic in the environmental movement. 

The ad became one of the most memorable and successful 

campaigns in advertising history and was named one of the top 100 advertising campaigns of the 

20th century by Ad Age magazine. http://www.adcouncil.com/campaigns/historic_campaigns_

Green Messages

The youth-oriented network MTV addresses environmental issues with a 

weekly show, Trippin, hosted by film star Cameron Diaz. 

http://www.mtv.com/onair/dyn/trippin/series.jhtml

The Globe Program is a worldwide school-based education 

and science program that encourages students to become 

directly involved in gathering environmental data, reporting their data through the Internet, and collaborating with 

scientists in the analysis of that data. 

http://www.globe.gov/cgi-bin/resourceroom.cgi?parentid=10

&lang=en&nav=1

Prominent film celebrities have contributed their names and faces to PSA campaigns on 

protecting the environment. For instance, actor Steven Segal urges viewers to properly 

dispose of used motor oil. http://www.earth911.org/usa/master.asp?s=psa&a=psa/psa.asp

In 1972, astronauts on board Apollo 17 captured the first full view of Earth suspended in 

space, exposed in full sunlight. Amid a growing awareness of environmental concerns, the 

“Blue Marble” photograph became a symbol of the planet’s fragility in the cold vast blackness of space. More than 30 years later, NASA receives more requests for this photo than 

any other, and the agency suggests that it could be the most frequently reproduced photograph of all time.

http://earth.jsc.nasa.gov/EarthObservatory/The_Blue_Marble_from_Apollo_17.htm

American awareness about the fragility of our planet and the need to protect 

our environment has grown from many seeds. The following links illustrate 

ways in which environmental messages reach mass audiences.

Keep America Beautiful, Inc., has been recruiting ordinary citizens to participate in its campaign 

against litter for more than 50 years. Its “Keep America Beautiful” slogan, posted on billboards 

and road signs, has been a constant reminder that keeping roadsides clean is everyone’s responsibility. http://www.kab.org/

Photographs courtesy of Keep America Beautiful®, Inc. (2); NASA; Earth 911; Globe Program; AP/WWP, Photo by Chris Pezzullo.
eJOURNAL USA 49 GLOBAL ISSUES / JUNE 2005

Bibliography

Additional readings on environmental issues and concerns

Anfinson, John O. The River We Have Wrought: A History of the Upper Mississippi. Minneapolis: University of 

Minnesota Press, 2005.

Baker, Susan. Environment and Sustainable Development. 

New York: Routledge, 2005.

Bosso, Christopher J. Environment, Inc: From Grassroots 

to Beltway. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2005.

Boulard, Garry. “Building Green.” State Legislatures, vol. 

31, no. 4 (April 2005): pp. 22-23.

Buell, Frederick. From Apocalypse to Way of Life: Environmental Crisis in the American Century. New York: Routledge, 2004.

Case, Scot. “Finding the Best ‘Green’ Value: Strategies 

Balance Cost, Human Health, and Environmental Concerns.” Government Procurement, vol. 13, no. 1 (February 

2005): pp. 14-16, 24.

Cassedy, Edward. Prospects for Sustainable Energy: A 

Critical Assessment. New York: Cambridge University 

Press, 2005.

Clapp, Jennifer and Peter Dauvergne. Paths to a Green 

World: The Political Economy of the Global Environment. 

Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005.

Clement, Douglas. “Recycling—Righteous or Rubbish?” 

Fedgazette, vol. 17, no. 2 (March 2005): pp. 6-9.

Conca, Ken and Geoffrey Dabelko. Green Planet Blues: 

Environmental Politics from Stockholm to Johannesburg. 

Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2004.

Cox, John. Climate Crash: Rapid Climate Change and 

What It Means for Our Future. Washington, DC: National 

Academy Press, 2005.

Diamond, Jared M. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail 

or Succeed. New York: Viking, 2005.

Dolin, Eric Jay. Political Waters: The Long, Dirty, Contentious, Incredibly Expensive but Eventually Triumphant 

History of Boston Harbor—A Unique Environmental Success 

Story. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2004.

Dunlap, Thomas R. Faith in Nature: Environmentalism 

as Religious Quest. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 

2004.

Easterbrook, Gregg. “The Good Earth.” Reader’s Digest 

(April 2005): pp. 80-90.

Fagan, Brian M. The Long Summer: How Climate 

Changed Civilization. New York: Basic Books, 2004.

Fitzhugh, Thomas W. and Brian D. Richter. “Quenching Urban Thirst: Growing Cities and Their Impacts on 

Freshwater Ecosystems.” BioScience, vol. 54, no. 8 (August 

2004): pp. 741-754.

Fleming, Sibley. “Cities Target ‘Green’ Building Projects.” 

The American City & County, vol. 119, no. 13 (December 

2004): pp. 14-16.

Glennon, Robert Jerome. Water Follies: Groundwater 

Pumping and the Fate of America’s Fresh Waters. 

Washington, DC: Island Press, 2004.

Gonzalez, George A. The Politics of Air Pollution: Urban 

Growth, Ecological Modernization, and Symbolic Inclusion. 

Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005.

Gottlieb, Robert. Forcing the Spring: The Transformation 

of the American Environmental Movement. Washington, 

DC: Island Press, 2005.

Gresser, Julian and James A. Cusumano. “Hydrogen 

and the New Energy Economy: Why We Need an Apollo 

Mission for Clean Energy.” The Futurist, vol. 39, no. 2 

(March/April 2005): pp. 19-25.

Gunther, Marc. “Taking on the Energy Crunch: How 

Corporate America Is Working to Develop Alternatives to 

Oil and Gas—and Lower Its Bills.” Fortune, vol. 151, no. 3 

(February 7, 2005): pp. 97-104.

Halweil, Brian. “The Irony of Climate,” World Watch, 

vol. 18, no. 2 (March/April 2005): pp. 18-23.

Harrington, Winston and Richard D. Morganstern. 

Choosing Environmental Policy: Comparing Instruments and 

Outcomes in the United States and Europe. Washington, 

DC: Resources for the Future, 2004.
GLOBAL ISSUES / JUNE 2005 50 eJOURNAL USA 

Helm, Dieter (ed.) Climate Change Policy. New York: 

Oxford University Press, 2005.

Jasanoff, Sheila and Marybeth Long Martello (eds.) 

Earthly Politics: Local and Global in Environmental Governance. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004.

Justus, John R. and Susan R. Fletcher. Global Climate 

Change. Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, Issue Brief IB89005, Updated October 29, 2004.

http://cnie.org/NLE/CRSreports/04Oct/IB89005.pdf

Lowy, Joan. “New Angles on the Environment: Five 

Emerging Threats That Will Change the Debate Over 

How Best to Protect the Earth.” CQ Weekly, vol. 63, no. 16 

(April 18, 2005): pp. 992-1003.

Lustgarten, Abrahm. “Getting Ahead of the Weather: 

How Companies are Protecting Themselves Against the 

Effects of Extreme Events and Long-Term Changes.” Fortune, vol. 151, no. 3 (February 7, 2005): pp. 87-90, 94.

Mendelsohn, Robert and James E. Neuman (eds.) The 

Impact of Climate Change on the United States Economy. 

New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Millett, Stephen M. “Personalized Energy: the Next 

Paradigm.” The Futurist, vol. 38, no. 4 (July/August 2004): 

pp. 44-48.

Morganstern, Richard D. and Paul R. Portney. New 

Approaches on Energy and the Environment: Policy Advice for 

the President. Washington, DC: Resources for the Future, 

2004.

Motavalli, Jim. “Catching the Wind: The World’s Fastest-Growing Renewable Energy Source Is Coming of Age.” 

E: The Environmental Magazine, vol. 16, no. 1 (January/

February 2005): pp. 26-39.

http://www.emagazine.com/view/?2176

Moucka, Liz. “Water Conservation Best Practices.” Texas 

Contractor, vol. 153, no. 7 (April 4, 2005): p. 8.

National Research Council. Implementing Climate and 

Global Change Research: A Review of the Final U.S. Climate 

Change Science Program Strategic Plan. Washington, DC: 

National Academy Press, 2004.

http://books.nap.edu/catalog/10635.html

Nelson, Gaylord, et al. Beyond Earth Day: Fulfilling the 

Promise. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004.

O’Hare, Greg, et al. Weather, Climate and Climate 

Change: An Integrated Approach. New York: Pearson/

Prentice-Hall, 2005.

O’Neill, Brian C., et al. Population and Climate Change. 

New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development. OECD Factbook 2005: Economic, Environmental 

and Social Statistics. Paris: OECD, 2005.

http://lysander.sourceoecd.org/vl=674872/cl=70/nw=1/

rpsv/factbook/#

Owen, Anthony D. “Burning Up: Energy Usage and the 

Environment.” Harvard International Review, vol. 26, no. 4 

(Winter 2005): pp. 62-66.

Palmer, Tim. Endangered Rivers and the Conservation 

Movement: The Case for River Conservation. Blue Ridge 

Summit, PA: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2004.

Peterson, Tarla Rai (ed.) Green Talk in the White House: 

The Rhetorical Presidency Encounters Ecology. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2004.

Philippon, Daniel J. Conserving Words: How American 

Nature Writers Shaped the Environmental Movement. 

Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2004.

Postel, Sandra and Brian D. Richter. Rivers for Life: 

Managing People and Water for Nature. Washington, DC: 

Island Press, 2003.

Richter, Brian and Sandra Postel. “Saving Earth’s Rivers.” Issues in Science and Technology, vol. 20, no. 3 (Spring 

2004): pp. 31-36.

http://www.issues.org/issues/20.3/richter.html

Satterfield, Terre and Scott Slovic. What’s Nature Worth?: 

Narrative Expressions of Environmental Values. Salt Lake 

City: University of Utah Press, 2005.

Schwartz, Peter and Spencer Reiss. “Nuclear Now! How 

Clean, Green Atomic Energy Can Stop Global Warming.” 

Wired, vol. 13, no. 2 (February 2005): pp. 78-83.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.02/nuclear.html

Smith, Rebecca. “Beyond Recycling: Manufacturers Embrace ‘C2C’ Design.” The Wall Street Journal, vol. 245, no. 

43 (March 3, 2005): p. B1.

Socolow, Robert, et al. “Solving the Climate Problem: 

Technologies Available to Curb CO2 Emissions.” 

Environment, vol. 46, no. 10 (December 2004): pp. 8-19.
eJOURNAL USA 51 GLOBAL ISSUES / JUNE 2005

Sorensen, Bent. Renewable Energy: Its Physics, Engineering, 

Use, Environmental Impacts, Economy, and Planning Aspects. 

Boston: Elsevier Science & Technology Books, 2004.

Speth, James Gustave. Red Sky at Morning: America and 

the Crisis of the Global Environment. New Haven, CT: Yale 

University Press, 2004.

Steffen, W.L., et al. Global Change and the Earth System: 

A Planet Under Pressure. New York: Springer, 2004.

Tucker, William. “The Solution [nuclear power].” 

American Enterprise, vol. 16, no. 1 (January/February 

2005): pp. 20-26.

United Nations Environment Programme. GEO Yearbook 2004/5: An Overview of Our Changing Environment. 

Nairobi, Kenya: UNEP, 2005.

Vaitheeswaran, Vijay V. Power to the People: How the 

Coming Energy Revolution Will Transform an Industry, 

Change Our Lives, and Maybe Even Save the Planet. New 

York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2003.

Wald, Matthew L. “Questions About a Hydrogen Economy.” Scientific American, vol. 290, no. 5 (May 2004): pp. 

66-73.

Weeks, Jennifer. “Opportunities for Biomass: Renewable 

Energy Markets.” BioCycle, vol. 45, no. 12 (December 

2004): pp. 38-44.

Weeks, Jennifer. “Opportunities for Biomass: State 

Incentives for Biomass Electricity.” BioCycle, vol. 46, no. 1 

(January 2005): pp. 38-44.

Worldwatch Institute. State of the World 2005: Redefining 

Global Security. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2005.

The U.S. Department of State assumes no responsibility for 

the content and availability of the resources from other agencies and organizations listed above. All Internet links were 

active as of May 2005. 

This bibliography reflects a range of current readings.
GLOBAL ISSUES / JUNE 2005 52 eJOURNAL USA 

Internet Resources

Online resources for environmental information

AIRNow Air Quality Web Cameras

http://www.epa.gov/airnow/webcam.html

America’s Clean Water Foundation

http://www.acwf.org/

American Wind Energy Association

http://www.awea.org/

Carbonfund.org

http://www.carbonfund.org/

Center for Clean Air Policy

http://www.ccap.org/

Climate Neutral Network

http://www.climateneutral.com/

ConservAmerica

http://www.conservamerica.org/

Earth Day in Your Neighborhood

http://www.allspecies.org/neigh/block.htm

Earth Day Network

http://www.earthday.net/

Earth Day.gov

http://www.earthday.gov/

Earth 911

http://www.earth911.org/

Environmental Defense

Global Warming

http://www.environmentaldefense.org/system/

templates/page/issue.cfm?subnav=12

Environmental History Timeline

http://www.radford.edu/~wkovarik/envhist/

Environmental Resources Trust

http://www.ert.net/

Freshwater Society

http://www.freshwater.org

Interfaith Climate Change Network

http://www.protectingcreation.org/

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

http://www.ipcc.ch/

International Rivers Network

http://www.irn.org/

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global 

Change

http://web.mit.edu/globalchange/www/

The National Academies

Division on Earth and Life Studies

http://www.dels.nas.edu/

National Pollution Prevention Roundtable

http://www.p2.org/

National Recycling Coalition

http://www.nrc-recycle.org/

National Religious Partnership for the Environment

http://www.nrpe.org/

National Renewable Energy Laboratory

http://www.nrel.gov/

National Wind Coordinating Committee

http://www.nationalwind.org/

The Nature Conservancy

Sustainable Waters Program

http://www.freshwaters.org/studies/

Pew Center on Global Climate Change

http://www.pewclimate.org/
eJOURNAL USA 53 GLOBAL ISSUES / JUNE 2005

Property & Environment Research Center

http://www.perc.org/

REP America

http://www.repamerica.org/

River Network

http://www.rivernetwork.org/index.cfm

Stanford University

Energy Modeling Forum

http://www.stanford.edu/group/EMF/home/index.htm

U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change

http://unfccc.int/2860.php

U.N. World Environment Day 2005

http://www.wed2005.org/

U.S. Climate Change Science Program

http://www.climatescience.gov/

U.S. Department of Energy

National Energy Technology Laboratory

http://www.netl.doe.gov/

U.S. Department of State

Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental & 

Scientific Affairs

Global Climate Change

http://www.state.gov/g/oes/climate/

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Clean Water Act

http://www.epa.gov/region5/water/cwa.htm

Climate Leaders

http://www.epa.gov/climateleaders/

EPA’s Global Warming Site

 http://yosemite.epa.gov/oar/globalwarming.nsf/content/

index.html

Methane to Markets Partnership

http://www.epa.gov/methanetomarkets/

Recycle City

http://www.epa.gov/recyclecity/

U.S. Global Change Research Information Office

http://www.gcrio.org/

U.S. Global Change Research Program

http://www.usgcrp.gov/

U.S. Office of the Federal Environmental Executive

http://www.ofee.gov/

White House

Council on Environmental Quality

http://www.whitehouse.gov/ceq/

World Bank

Carbon Finance

http://carbonfinance.org/

World Resources Institute

Climate Protection Initiative

http://climate.wri.org/project_text.cfm?ProjectID=197

The U.S. Department of State assumes no responsibility for 

the content and availability of the resources from other agencies and organizations listed above. All Internet links were 

active as of May 2005.
HTTP://USINFO.STATE.GOV/JOURNALS/JOURNALS.HTM

U.S. DEPARTMENT 0F STATE / BUREAU OF INTERNATIONAL INFORMATION PROGRAMS