Special Report

Poor health at birth is one key channel through which economic status is passed from parent to child. Smart policies can lift kids beyond the poverty of parents.

Often, the most effective efforts to intervene in the lives of disadvantaged children start early — or even before they are born.

The science of early childhood development is as persuasive as the science of global climate change. Today, both challenges urgently call for a transformative politics.

Ultimately, until the standing forest is worth more than what it’s cleared for, large-scale conservation is probably a losing fight. This is potentially where the international carbon market comes in. The Bush administration has done a good job of convincing Americans that the Kyoto Protocol has failed (even though its effects cannot be measured yet). […]

A new generation of forest-friendly political leaders has emerged in parts of the Amazon.

From indigenous people to carbon traders, concerned groups have stepped up the fight to save the Amazon.

An Amazonian dilemma: Brazil has become a global producer, and China a global consumer.

The global economy discovers the most obscure corner of the rainforest.

Warming breeds drought, drought breeds fires, fires release carbon, carbon breeds warming.

Once economically marginal, cattle ranching in the Amazon now yields big bucks.