The good, bad and ugly

The recent environment performance index compiled by researchers at Yale and Columbia universities places Iceland, Switzerland, Costa Rica, Sweden, and Norway in the top, US somewhere in the middle, India and China near the bottom, with African nations at the bottom.

The Index ranks countries based on 10 main categories such as environmental health, air quality, water management, biodiversity and habitat, forestry, and climate change. Iceland ranked at the top because of its excellent environmental public health and reliance on renewable sources of energy such as geothermal and hydropower. (Of course population counts!) Although national income was a key factor in the rankings, other factors such as good governance and natural resource management were important.

While the U.S. was placed high in categories such as safe drinking water and forest sustainability, it ranked 61st overall because of its massive greenhouse gas emissions and local air pollution problems. The low rankings of India and China are cited as being due to the severe environmental strain brought about by overpopulation and rapid economic growth.