It is perhaps no surprise that Switzerland, Sweden and Norway top a new international ranking of environmental performance. Those wealthy nations have invested heavily in water- and air-pollution control, as well as other environmental-protection measures. More surprising are the places awarded to Costa Rica and Colombia, which ranked fifth and ninth respectively in the 2008 Environmental Performance Index, despite per capita incomes under US$10,000 per year. By contrast, the United States came in 39th among the 149 countries evaluated, while Nicaragua, Bolivia and Haiti ranked near the bottom at 77, 110 and 119 respectively. The intent of the annual report by environmental experts at Yale and Columbia universities, released last month at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, is to gauge... [Log in to read more]