Chemists Without Borders

Friday, May 15, 2009

Living With Limits - Catastrophe Awaits

Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN) is excellent the weekly glossy news magazine of the American Chemical Society, the largest scientific society in the world. Rudy Baum, the editor-in-chief, is outspoken on many issues that affect all of us broadly, not just the chemical enterprise. His recent editorial, Living With Limits, elicited the following Catastrophe Awaits letter in response. I encourage you to read the letter (and more) by clicking the image below, whence you can also link to the original editorial. No doubt there are enormous changes coming in the next few decades that will affect all of us and our offspring, and there is much we can do to mitigate the pain and suffering for the most vulnerable. In the words of Captain Boyle, "Th' whole worl's in a terrible state o' chassis," (Juno and the Paycock) so we'd better extrayons le digit (get the finger out). Please come and join us!

May 11, 2009

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Cash Flows from China's Water

Jean-Francois Tremblay, C&EN Hong Kong (Chemical & Engineering News Digital Edition - May 11, 2009) writes:

"In this highly populated, rapidly industrializing country, water purification is becoming big business. ....... Between 200 million and 300 million people throughout the Chinese Countryside do not have access to a safe source of water."

In this picture, do-it-yourself farmers without access to safe water in central China set up their own water filtration unit. K. C. Wang, Chemists Without Borders' amazing COO, is leading a new initiative to improve water quality in China.

Click the title to read the full article.

May 11, 2009

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Taxing Carbon - Part 4 | Mother Jones

There's an interesting dialog on taxing carbon between Kevin Drum at Mother Jones and Jeffrey Sachs (Sachs is, among other things, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and author of The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time). You can read the latest episode here:

Taxing Carbon - Part 4 | Mother Jones: Taxing Carbon - Part 4
— By Kevin Drum | Mon May 11, 2009 8:44 AM PST

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