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Reports that the preparatory committee for the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development held its first agenda-planning session last year. Presents edited excerpts of the committee's report, which reveal the tone and the major issues to be addressed come June 1992.

Presents a report on the Climate Policy reports at the Aspen Institute's Climate Change Policy Dialogue which occurred during November 2003. How the report was commissioned by the Pew Center and was issued to participants in May 2003 under the title Designing a Mandatory Greenhouse Gas Reduction Program; Introduction of the report by Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Change; Controversies surrounding the Kyoto mechanisms and emissions trading practices; Focus of the report on a U.S. unilateral mandatory scheme to be launched outside the Kyoto Protocol; Efficiency of U.S. action on climate change.

Discusses smog in the summertime and the hazardous effects of ozone on our health as of the September 1987 issue of 'Environment'. Air pollutants; Failure of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in ridding our air of contaminants; The Clean Air Act.

Discusses several articles on the impact of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in the December 2004 issue of Environment. Consideration of how levels of carbon dioxide have risen to 375 parts per million in the last 50 years; Articles on the efforts of humans to stabilize the atmosphere with emission cuts of 50 to 80 percent; Accessibility and cost of fossil fuels as an environmental challenge; Reference to articles by Robert Socolow, Roberta Hotinski, and Stephen Pacala; Need for the government to instill a greater sense of urgency regarding climate change; Limitations associated with using fear and guilt as motivations for actions.

Presents briefs related to environmental issues. Research on the shrinking ozone in the stratosphere over Antarctica by scientists at New Zealand's National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research; Findings from a global survey that sewage is used to irrigate 10 percent of the world's crops; Announcement of a plan for FedEx to built a solar-power system atop its central offices in Oakland, California in order to produce one-fourth of the city's power; Others.

The article discusses how a recent study of three proposed plans to reduce emissions from coal-fired power plants in the United States rated the Bush administration's Clear Skies Act the weakest of the three. The report, Dirty Air, Dirty Power, commissioned by the government and conducted by the international research firm Abt Associates, found that although the Clear Skies Act would save 14,000 lives, the most aggressive of the three, a bill introduced by Senator James Jeffords (I-VT), would save as many as 22,000 lives. The third plan, Senator Thomas Carper's (D-DE) bill, would save 16,000 lives. Industry representatives, along with the administration's chief environmental policy adviser, attacked the report for focusing on just one emission source. According to the report, pollution from power plants kills nearly 24,000 Americans each year under current policies. Reauthorization of the Clean Air Act, the report says, will save 4,000 more lives than the proposed Clear Skies Act. However, congressional action may be far off, as the 2004 election campaigns have put a hold on major legislation this year.