Planet Watch

By David Bjerklie, Tam Martinides Gray, Daniel S. Levy, Belinda Luscombe and Alain L. Sanders

LOOK WHO'S TRYING TO TURN GREEN

For years a powerful industry coalition, led by automakers and coal and oil companies, tried to persuade everyone that global warming was nothing to get overly alarmed about. The barons of fossil fuel warned that curbs on emissions of greenhouse gases would destroy jobs without necessarily having a positive effect on our climate. But now, as officials from 180 nations meet in Buenos Aires this week to firm up the Kyoto Protocol, the treaty forged in Japan last year to combat climate change, the forces of opposition have suffered some major defections.

The American Automobile Manufacturers Association, representing General Motors, Ford and Chrysler, refused to help pay for the latest anti-Kyoto TV ads produced by the Global Climate Information Project, an alliance of industry, labor and farm groups. And last week Washington's World Resources Institute brought together executives from GM, British Petroleum and Monsanto to pledge that their companies would contribute less to the greenhouse effect. "There is a rising tide of environmental awareness," says incoming Ford chairman William Clay Ford Jr. "Smart companies will get ahead of the wave. Those that don't are headed for a wipeout."

UNBEARABLE DEVELOPMENT

Grizzly-war alert: Later this month the U.S. government is expected to unveil a plan that could eventually lead to the removal of this Yellowstone-area resident from the "threatened" list under the Endangered Species Act. Federal officials say protection of the 400 or more grizzly bears in the region where Wyoming meets Idaho and Montana has been a success, and that under ESA rules, the animals are no longer threatened. A final decision won't come before next summer, but in preparation, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is finishing a plan for turning bear management over to a consortium of the three states, two national parks, seven national forests and four federal agencies. Environmentalists fear this unwieldy arrangement could weaken grizzly-conservation efforts (the head of Wyoming's Game and Fish Department has talked of authorizing a trophy hunt of nuisance bears). As the grizzlies den up for the winter, stay tuned for the growling of experts fighting over the bears' fate.

VITAL SIGNS

47 years The average life expectancy in 29 African countries for people born between 1990 and 1995

54 years What the life expectancy for those people would be were it not for the AIDS epidemic engulfing Africa

Source: United Nations

DUMPING GROUNDS

ADDRESS UNKNOWN In 1986 the Khian Sea picked up a cargo of toxic incinerator ash from Philadelphia. The ship plied the seas for 18 months, and it was turned away by seven nations before dumping 4,000 tons of ash on a Haitian beach. Now, a decade later, Haiti will load the cinders onto another boat and stamp the poisonous pile Return to Sender. The cleanup was delayed by the cost--up to $1 million--and denials of responsibility. A waste hauler with links to the original dumper has offered $200,000, and Philadelphia will chip in only $50,000. That leaves Haiti to pay the rest. Many landfills can now handle the ash, but for the sake of environmental justice, says activist Ann Leonard of Essential Action, based in Washington, the nasty stuff should be stored safely in Philadelphia's backyard.