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The environmental policies of George W Bush are examined in detail, with forecasts for new policies.

A new role model, the portfolio parent, is starting to emerge as dual-career couples reject office-based jobs with long working hours in favour of more flexible, often part-time, employment. Gillian Moore and Bruce Nockles are part of this small, largely middle-class minority. Moore is mainly home-based, working two days a week for two different employers, while Nockles' flexible hours as a professional trumpet player allow him to be a hands-on father. BT middle-manager Colin White has chosen to work three days a week to have time to spend with his three young children.

Leading water scientist Dr Peter Gleick warns that water shortages will almost certainly get worse before they get better. He points out that more than 1 billion people worldwide already lack drinkable water and that the availability of supplies is declining while demand is growing. Gleick nevertheless remains optimistic, pointing to the way in which many water suppliers and planning agencies are shifting towards efficiency improvements, conservation and demand management. He sees small-scale, locally managed water supply systems as the way forward.

Labour peer Barbara Young, chair of nature conservation watchdog English Nature, laid down seven challenges to the Government, industry, the green lobby and the public in late Jul. 1999. Young called for new legislation to strengthen wildlife protection to be introduced in the Queen's Speech in Nov. 1999. She declared that legislation to protect England's 200 nature reserves and 4,000 Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) from a small number of landowning 'bastards' was urgently needed. English Nature operates as the guardian of the SSSIs but has very limited powers.

Founder-director of environmental charity the Women's Environmental Network (WEN) Bernadette Valley acknowledges a slight fall in environmental consciousness but rejects suggestions that women have lost interest in environmental issues. WEN is struggling financially but Valley argues that the charity will always find it difficult to attract long-term funders because it addresses taboo subjects such as toxic shock syndrome and possible links between chemical pollution and breast cancer. WEN needs committed core funders to put it on secure financial footing.

Some leading conservation groups are reducing their involvement with the Government's New Deal programme for the young unemployed because the criteria for the proposed environmental task force are so vague that young people could actually damage the environment. Environmental and voluntary groups are also reluctant to take on trainees because of the considerable cost involved. They fear that managing New Deal work programmes could put them at risk of bankruptcy. The contracts for the task force and voluntary sector programmes should have been awarded by Jan. 5, 1998, but only about half have been agreed.

The rich nations' think-tank, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), has admitted that the world's natural resources may be unable to withstand the strain of economic globalisation. The OECD has sent booklets on green taxes, consumption patterns and the ecological effects of globalisation to the trade and industry, finance and environment ministers of its 29 member governments. However the greening of the OECD's thinking under its new Director-General Donald Johnston has not stopped its trade and industry section from pursuing environmentally damaging policies.