OECD
People would be willing to pay more for products that carry detailed nutritional information than for the so-called light items.
AMES, Iowa - Dramatic price fluctuations, increasing demand, the food vs.
Will problems associated with environmental issues improve in the next two decades?
Richard Hawkins, Canada Research Chair in Science, Technology and Innovation Policy, says there is no evidence that information technologies necessarily reduce our environmental footprint.
In a new report, the OECD says it expects more than 36 million people to face unemployment in its 30 member countries, equivalent to nearly 7 percent of their combined labour force. As governments strive to tackle unemployment, the OECD urges them to avoid taking too narrow an approach and to consider wider economic and social objectives as well.
Carbon dioxide emissions could be significantly cut if OECD countries used biomass -- fuel generated from agriculture and forest products -- instead of coal to generate electricity, according to a report by WWF and the European Biomass Association (AEBIOM). The report indicates that this could reduce emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), the main global warming gas, by about 1,000 million tonnes each year -- a figure equivalent to the combined annual emissions of Canada and Italy.
Americans spend considerably more money on health care services than any other industrialized nation, but the increased expenditure does not buy more care, according to a study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. They found that the United States spent 44 percent more on health care than Switzerland, the nation with the next highest per capita health care costs, in the year 2000. At the same time, Americans had fewer physician visits and hospital stays were shorter compared to most other industrialized nations. The study suggests that the difference in spending is caused mostly by higher prices for health care goods and services in the United States. The results are published in the May/June 2003, edition of the journal Health Affair.
