Britain's Gas Chance

When world leaders meet for the climate-change summit in Copenhagen this December, they will make decisions that will affect the world for many generations. Three months before that meeting, there is an alarming absence of serious discussion about what these decisions should be. What passes for debate is usually a shouting match between those who believe that climate change is not real and those who believe that it will end life on Earth. We are all, it seems, either "deniers" or "believers." (...) 

Air pollution is a major issue around the world. It kills seven million people annually-one in every eight people that die around the world. And, of course, air pollution is a well-known and much-complained-about fact in Bangladesh. Few major global cities suffer from air pollution worse than Dhaka. During the dry season, when dust is especially bad, pollution levels can reach up to 16 times higher than the World Health Organisation's air quality guideline.

2013-07-12 The United Kingdom has been reluctant to join the hydraulic-fracturing (or fracking) revolution. Yet tapping the Bowland Shale could reignite the UK economy and deliver huge cuts in CO2 emissions.