My friend Ian tipped me off to the new 2006 Environmental Performance Index, in which Taiwan seems to have done well. Last year's Index was a spectacularly bad job. This year does not seem to have seen any improvement.The report once again ranked The Beautiful Isle 24th in the world.
1 New Zealand 88.0
2 Sweden 87.8
3 Finland 87.0
4 Czech Rep 86.0
5 Unit Kingdom 85.6
6 Austria 85.2
7 Denmark 84.2
8 Canada 84.0
9 Malaysia 83.3
10 Ireland 83.3
11 Portugal 82.9
12 France 82.5
13 Iceland 82.1
14 Japan 81.9
15 Costa Rica 81.6
16 Switzerland 81.4
17 Colombia 80.4
18 Norway 80.2
19 Greece 80.2
20 Australia 80.1
21 Italy 79.8
22 Germany 79.4
23 Spain 79.2
24 Taiwan 79.1
The US ranked 28th. The report remains as clueless about Taiwan as last year and the methodology and definitions do not seem to have undergone any major changes, so rather than repost, you can review what I wrote in my previous analysis of this.
[Taiwan] [EPI]
I remember seeing last year's report that said Taiwan was practically dead last when it comes to "environmental performance". (I agree that these are difficult to rely on as the criteria are often absurd and inconsistent.)
ReplyDeleteHowever, these findings are alright with me because it kinda helps justify living here; rationalization rocks.
They say that if you habitually smoke cigarettes, a certain amount of time is taken off your life expectancy. How many years can you tick off if everyday you ride a motorcycle down Taichung Gang Lu in rush hour traffic?
I dont think this report focused on the percentage of people in cities. I live in London and I'm surprised to see the UK ranked that high too.
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