British Waste Adds to
Environmental Crisis across China |
British high street waste is fouling streams and ditches in China despite promises of an environmental crackdown by both governments. Mai village in Guangdong province, southern China, suffers from a Made-in-Britain eyesore: Tesco and Argos plastic bags choke the waterways, snag on tree branches and contribute to a rotting stench during floods and hot weather. full story |
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Industry Tries New Ways to Fight Global Warming |
Sometime this summer, a huge coal-fired power plant near the shore of Lake Michigan will try a new process to capture CO2, a powerful greenhouse gas that gushes from its smokestack. The experiment at the We Energies plant in Pleasant Prairie, Wis., is among a batch of technologies aimed at slowing the rising tide of CO2 in the atmosphere, which scientists have concluded is a leading cause of global warming. full story |
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First EU Commercial Concentrating
Solar Power Tower Opens in Spain |
Europe's first commercial concentrating solar power plant was inaugurated today near the sunny southern Spanish city of Seville. Known as PS10, the project produces electricity with 624 large movable mirrors called heliostats. Each of the mirrors has a surface measuring 1,290 square feet that concentrates the Sun's rays to the top of a 377' high tower where a solar receiver and a steam turbine are located. The turbine drives a generator, producing electricity. full story |
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Government Official Faulted for Science
Meddling, Leaks of Private Information |
The department's deputy assistant secretary for fish, wildlife and parks acknowledged releasing information that was not supposed to be made public to organizations such as the California Farm Bureau Federation and Pacific Legal Foundation, according to the agency's inspector general. Environmentalists and other critics contend Julie MacDonald undermined federal endangered species protections.
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Canada Scales Back Seal Hunt
Because of Poor Ice |
The number of young harp seals that Canadian hunters can kill off the east coast this year will be cut by a quarter, mainly because of poor ice conditions where the animals give birth, officials said Thursday. The federal fisheries ministry also promised stricter controls on hunters to stop them killing more than their quota. The seals are either shot or clubbed to death on ice floes in a hunt that animal rights protesters say is inhumane. full story |
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Previewing a U.N. Climate Report:
Species Are Going To Be Lost |
From the micro to the macro, from plankton in the oceans to polar bears in the far north and seals in the far south, global warming has begun changing life on Earth. Animal and plant life in the Arctic and Antarctic is undergoing substantial change, scientists say. Rising sea levels elsewhere are damaging coastal wetlands. Warmer waters are bleaching and killing coral reefs, pushing marine species toward the poles, reducing fish populations in African lakes. full story |
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Govt. Looks to Continue Handouts
for Factory Farm Pollution |
The latest round of legislative proposals to address waste from the agricultural industry would continue to give government breaks to factory farms, despite critics’ arguments that the large-scale operations are unnecessarily harmful to the environment. The proposals are part of the first round of discussions between legislators, government officials and special interest groups over the renewal of the Farm Bill. full story |
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Eco-campaigner Calls For "Freeze on Biofuels" |
Biofuels are the current favoured option in the battle to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and slow down global warming, but environmental specialists and campaigners are warning that whilst biofuels - produced from sustainable-source crops which absorb carbon as they grow - are not necessarily an ethically-sound alternative to fossil fuels. full story |
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Global Warming Threatens More
Than Just Poles and Tropics |
Some of the world's most distinctive and biologically diverse climate regions, from South America's Andes Mountains to southern and eastern Africa and the US Southwest, may be drastically altered by century's end, endangering plant and animal life there, according to a new climate-modeling report issued March 26. full story |
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U.S. EPA Illegally Failed to
Update Safe Beachwater Standards |
Failure by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to update public health standards for beachwater quality violates the law, according to the ruling of a federal judge issued in California District Court in Los Angeles. Beachwater can be contaminated with viruses and bacteria from sewage and stormwater overflows.
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Government Eyes Changes in Species Protection |
The Interior Department is considering a broad revamping of how it protects animals and plants in danger of extinction, including changes that critics contend will reduce the number of species that will be saved. Details of some of the proposed changes surfaced Tuesday in a number of draft department documents released by environmentalists, who said the changes would amount to a gutting of the federal Endangered Species Act. full story |
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Former Park Service Chiefs Fear
Snowmobile Increase in Yellowstone |
The Bush administration today announced its proposal to continue allowing snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park, ignoring the protests of former National Park Service directors who say the plan will "undercut the park's resurgent natural conditions." The proposal, open for public comment through May 31, in effect extends a temporary rule that has governed snowmobiling in Yellowstone since 2004.
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Power Station Emissions Soar |
Carbon emissions from UK power stations have increased by nearly 30% over the past 8 years, putting the govt.'s climate change targets under threat, a report showed today. The report, compiled for environmental group WWF, shows that in 2006 alone emissions rose by 6% to reach 178m tonnes, as high gas prices led to an increased use of coal to produce electricity. full story |
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Bird Species Showing Up Farther North |
More bird species in the USA are ranging farther north and even staying there for the winter in a possible sign of adaptation to global warming, ornithologists and conservation groups say. Some indicators come from the recent Great Backyard Bird Count, which found more swallows, orioles and other common birds in uncommon locations. full story |
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Cities at Risk of Rising Sea Levels |
More than 2/3 of the world's large cities are in areas vulnerable to global warming and rising sea levels, and millions of people are at risk of being swamped by flooding and intense storms, according to a new study released Wednesday. 634 million people live in the threatened coastal areas worldwide, defined as those lying at less than 33' above sea level, and the number is growing. full story |
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PBDEs: They Are Everywhere,
They Accumulate and They Spread |
The chemicals called polybrominated diphenyl ethers are everywhere: in your TV, your computer, your toaster and your sofa. They've been in use since the 1970s. The global demand for PBDEs was 200,000 tons in 2003 alone. But PBDEs don't stay put. Sit down on a foam cushion and you're releasing countless, invisible PBDE particles. When the TV gets hot, still more escape. Scientists find PBDEs in house and office dust. full story |
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Climate Change Will Increase
Extinction Risk, Study Finds |
Unique climates and the species that inhabit them may disappear from the Earth entirely due to global warming, computer models suggest. Changes in regions such as the Peruvian Andes, portions of the Himalayas and southern Australia could have a profound impact on indigenous plants and animals, said John W. Williams, assistant professor of geography at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
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100-Year Forecast: New Climate Zones
Humans Have Never Seen |
If global warming continues unabated, many of the world's climate zones may disappear by 2100, leaving new ones in their place unlike any that exist today, according to a new study. Researchers compared existing patterns of temperature and precipitation with those that may exist at the turn of the century, based on scenarios put forth in the IPCC report. full story |
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Monkeys Learn Stone Skills from Each Other |
Monkeys can learn skills from each other in the same way that humans do, according to a new study of capuchin monkeys in Brazil. While not conclusive, this research into the way monkeys use stones adds to a mounting body of evidence that suggests other species have something approaching human culture. full story |
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China May Overtake U.S. as Biggest Emitter
of Carbon Dioxide in 2007 |
Data compiled by a Chinese govt. department give indications that the country will overtake the U.S. earlier than estimated as the world's biggest emitter of CO2. According to an official of a Chinese agency that advises the government on energy policies, the country's fuel consumption had risen 9.3% in 2006 to an equivalent of 2.4 billion tons of coal. full story |
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Chinese Hunger for Reef Fish
Emptying Asian Seas |
Turquoise fish with red dots stare at hungry tourists from a tank at a restaurant in Hong Kong, the capital of the world's live reef fish industry, a lucrative trade devastating reefs across the Pacific Ocean. Considered a delicacy, demand for coral fish has exploded in line with China's booming economy and some species such as the humphead wrasse are already endangered. full story |
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Whaling Ship Returns Home as Japanese Govt.
Reveals Minke Whales Could Be Immortal! |
The fire-damaged whaling factory ship, the Nisshin Maru, returned to port in Tokyo in the last hour, just days after an International Whaling Commission review of the Japanese government’s so-called "research" programme showed that virtually nothing has been learnt about whale populations in the Southern Ocean in 18 years of hunting. full story |
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Flame Retardant Raises Health Concerns |
Minnesota lawmakers are considering banning something you may have never heard of, but probably have in your home. It's a flame retardant commonly found in electronics and furniture. Supporters of the ban say the chemicals are toxic, and closely related to chemicals already banned in the European Union and California. full story |
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California, Environmentalists
Sue Navy Over Sonar |
California coastal regulators and environmentalists sued the U.S. Navy Thursday saying that it has planned training exercises that could endanger whales. In separate lawsuits by the California Coastal Commission and a coalition led by the NRDC, the Navy was accused of refusing to comply with regulations aimed at protecting marine life from sonar pulses used to detect underwater objects. full story |
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Yellowstone Park Grizzlies
No Longer Endangered |
Grizzly bears in the Yellowstone National Park area no longer need the protections of the federal Endangered Species Act to ensure their survival, U.S. officials said Thursday. The population of the outsize, hump- shouldered bears that roam in Yellowstone and parts of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming has grown to more than 500 today from 136 three decades ago. full story |
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Antarctic Melting May Be Speeding Up |
Rising sea levels and melting polar ice-sheets are at upper limits of projections, leaving some human population centers already unable to cope, top world scientists say as they analyze latest satellite data. "I feel that we're getting uncomfortably close to threshold," said Church, of CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research said. Past this level, parts of the Antarctic and Greenland would approach a virtually irreversible melting that would produce sea level rises of meters, he said. full story |
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Alaska Wolf-Control Program
Offers Cash to Hunters |
Hunters will now get cash and other incentives to kill wolves under Alaska's predator-control program that aims to protect moose populations, state officials said Wednesday. Alaska's Department of Fish and Game announced it will give $150 for every left foreleg of a wolf killed in the five areas where state officials are hoping to cull packs. full story |
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Iraq Environmental Nightmare Drags On |
"The Tigris and Euphrates rivers are essentially open sewers," Azzam Alwash, head of Nature Iraq, a conservation group based in Baghdad, told Tierramérica. Industrial waste, hospital waste, fertiliser run-off from farming, as well as oil spills plague the two rivers that define the Mesopotamia region and which provide much of the irrigation and drinking water. full story |
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Rainforest Protection: New Fund
to Conserve Congo Basin |
Britain is to give £50m towards helping to save the second-largest rainforest in the world, the Congo Basin in central Africa. The money will form the basis of a new Congo Basin rainforest conservation fund, to be set up under the aegis of the 10 African countries surrounding the great 700,000 square miles wilderness, that is increasingly threatened with development in the way the Amazon has been affected in Brazil. full story |
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Yellowstone Bison Controversy Thunders On |
The fate of the Yellowstone bison herd took center stage at a House committee hearing on Tuesday, with emotions running high over a controversial management policy that allows federal and state officials to kill bison in order to protect cattle from the disease brucellosis. House Resources Committee Chairman Nick Rahall said the policy allows the needless slaugter of "an American icon." full story |
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Environmentalists In Uproar as Iceland
Pays the Price for Green Energy Push |
Europe's largest wilderness is paying the price of Iceland's decision to market cheap, "green", renewable electricity to the world, as a massive new smelter nears completion. Across a pool of oily water deep inside a rocky cavern carved into a mountain, 2 steel pipes stretch up into a black void. They rise as high as the Empire State Building. full story |
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American Croc No Longer Near Extinction |
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declassified the American crocodile as an endangered species Tuesday, saying the animal has rebounded from the edge of extinction. The reptile remains protected under the federal Endangered Species Act even though it was downgraded to a "threatened" species, making it illegal to harass, poach or kill the reptiles.
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Alaska Natives Push Congress on Global Warming |
Blaming a hotter planet for endangering their lives and culture, more than 125 Alaska Native organizations have signed a resolution urging Congress to take stronger action to combat global warming. Several village leaders plan to give the resolution, which ask for a mandatory cap on greenhouse gas emissions, to members of Congress on Wednesday. full story |
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Material Shows Weakening of Climate Reports |
A House committee released documents Monday that showed hundreds of instances in which a White House official who was previously an oil industry lobbyist edited government climate reports to play up uncertainty of a human role in global warming or play down evidence of such a role. full story |
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Arctic Sea Ice Melt May
Set Off Climate Change Cascade |
Arctic sea ice that has been shrinking for decades may have reached a tipping point that could trigger a cascade of climate changes reaching Earth's temperate regions, finds a new study. Dr. Mark Serreze, a scientist at CU-Boulder's National Snow and Ice Data Center who led the study synthesizing results from recent research, said Arctic sea ice extent has been decreasing in every month since 1979, when satellite recordkeeping began. full story |
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Rising Sea Levels Threaten Indian Islands |
Sheikh Alauddin, like hundreds of other residents living on West Bengal's Moushuni island, has never heard the term "global warming". But he is living with its consequences. When the tide comes in, sea water laps at the top of a mud embankment that towers 6 metres (20 feet) above Alauddin's adjacent house and is all that keeps it from being washed away. full story |
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Bison Once Again Roam Eastern Colorado |
After an absence of more than a century, wild bison were returned to Colorado's Front Range on Saturday in full view of Denver's skyline. Sixteen buffalo from the National Bison Range in northwestern Montana were released in an enclosed 1,400-acre section of a wildlife refuge that formerly was the Rocky Mountain Arsenal, where nerve gas and other chemical weapons were manufactured. full story |
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Conservative Climate |
After some debate, the scientists and diplomats of the IPCC issued their summary report. The summary describes the existence of global warming as "unequivocal" but leaves out a reference to an accelerated trend in this warming. By excluding statements that provoked disagreement and adhering strictly to data published in peer-reviewed journals, the IPCC has generated a conservative document that may underestimate the changes that will result from a warming world. full story |
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Ethanol's Growing List of Enemies |
The ethanol movement is sprouting a vocal crop of critics. While politicians including President Bush and farmers across the Midwest hope that the U.S. can win its energy independence by turning corn into fuel, Paul Hitch and an unlikely assortment of allies are raising their voices in opposition. The effort is uniting ranchers and environmentalists, hog farmers and hippies, solar-power idealists and free-market pragmatists. full story |
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Climate Change Shifts Sheep Shape |
Climate change could have an impact on animal evolution and ecology, scientists believe. A 20-year study of Scottish sheep found weather patterns were driving changes in body shape and population size. Harsh winters led to larger sheep, which brought about changes in population size, yet in milder winters this effect was not seen. full story |
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G8 Climate Consensus Emerging,
U.S. Odd Man Out |
A consensus on the need to protect the world's environment is emerging among rich and developing nations, but the United States remains at odds with other countries on key points, Germany said on Saturday. Environment ministers of the Group of Eight leading industrialised nations, and officials from leading developing countries, were meeting to prepare for a June G8 summit at which climate change will be a major topic. full story |
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Feds Look at Climate Impact on Animals |
The Bush administration will examine whether a growing number of species, including polar bears affected by thinning sea ice, are at risk from global warming and need federal protection, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said Friday. "We have to ask ourselves that. And by 'we,' I mean not only those in the department, but we the public, the policy-makers,". full story |
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Study Shows European, Russian
Pollution Sullies Arctic |
Pollution from Europe and Russia is heading to the Arctic, adding to the potential for more warming around the North Pole, researchers reported Thursday. North America and Asia also add their share of sooty particles to the mix, along with ozone-forming nitrogen oxides and hydrocarbons, the scientists said in the journal Science. full story |
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Cereal Crops Feeling the Heat |
Warming temperatures since 1981 have caused annual losses of about US$5 billion for six major cereal crops, new research has found. This is the first study to estimate how much global food production already has been affected by climate change. From 1981 to 2002, fields of wheat, corn and barley throughout the world have produced a combined 40 million metric tons less per year because of increasing temps caused by human activities. full story |
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Arctic Could Have Iceless Summers by 2100 |
A review of existing computer climate models suggests that global warming could transform the North Pole into an ice-free expanse of ocean at the end of each summer by 2100, scientists reported today. The researchers said that out of the 15 models they looked at, about half forecast that the sea-ice cover, a continent-sized expanse that shrinks and grows with the seasons, would seasonally vanish by the turn of the century. full story |
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Chevron Faces More Scrutiny
in Ecuador over Pollution |
Leaders of indigenous communities in Ecuador are pressing their government to investigate senior executives from U.S. oil giant Chevron for an alleged environmental fraud scheme in the mid-1990s related to a long-running six-billion dollar class action suit in the South American nation. But the U.S. oil giant vehemently denies the accusations and says it has already been absolved by the local authorities. full story |
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Climate Change Could Cost Germany
800 Billion Euros |
If the world's temperature increases by 4.5 degrees Celsius (8.1 degrees Fahrenheit), when compared to pre-industrial times, Germany could be facing a total cost of about 800 billion euros ($1 trillion) by 2050 and costs would continue to climb, the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) in Berlin announced this week. full story |
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No Such Thing as Naughty Anymore? |
More and more badly behaved children are being diagnosed with conditions like ADHD. Latest figures show global use of ADHD drugs has nearly tripled since 1993. In England and Wales alone, prescriptions for the standard treatment, a drug called Ritalin, rocketed from just 4,000 in 1994 to 359,000 in 2004. At least one in 20 schoolchildren, 360,000 in total, is thought to have some degree of ADHD. full story |
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Manure Not Just for Compost Anymore |
Home-buyers of tomorrow could find themselves walking across floors made from manure. That's no cow pie-in-the-sky dream, according to researchers at Michigan State University and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. They say fiber from processed and sterilized cow manure could take the place of sawdust in fiberboard, which is used to make everything from furniture to flooring to store shelves. full story |
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Lawmakers Seek to Curb Trade in Illegal Timber |
It could be your new hardwood floor or coffee table, with a rich mahogany hue. While the wood may look good, there is a strong chance it came from timber harvested illegally in places such as Honduras, Indonesia or Peru, labor and environmental groups say. Now some lawmakers want to crack down on illegal logging around the world. full story |
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White House Seeks to Cut
Geothermal Research Funds |
The Bush administration wants to eliminate federal support for geothermal power just as many US states are looking to cut greenhouse gas emissions and raise renewable power output. The move has angered scientists who say there is enough hot water underground to meet all US electricity needs without greenhouse gas emissions. full story |
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Destruction of Forests in
Developing World 'Out Of Control' |
Progress in forest management in the industrial world is being overwhelmed by accelerating deforestation in the developing world, a global report from the UN has revealed. Many countries in Europe and North America have been able to reverse centuries of deforestation and even, in some cases, increase their forest cover. But the global picture is blighted by uncontrolled felling in poorer countries, home to the majority of the world's forests. full story |
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Wildlife Groups Urge China to
Keep Tiger Trade Ban |
Any easing of China's ban on selling tiger hides and bones could be catastrophic to efforts to save the endangered wild cat, leading conservation groups said on Tuesday. TRAFFIC, a wildlife monitoring project of the Swiss-based WWF and World Conservation Union, said it was concerned Chinese officials would succumb to pressure from businessmen seeking to revive commerce in tiger parts. full story |
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Waterbirds Threatened,
Need Better Flyways, Study Says |
Many species of waterbird are in decline because of a loss of wetland habitats and governments need to do more to protect "flyway" migration routes, an international study said on Monday. "Global actions for the protection of migratory waterbirds are losing the race with economic development," according to the report about birds such as ducks, geese, plovers or sandpipers and based on the work of about 450 experts in 59 nations. full story |
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Plan B for Global Warming? |
If man is inadvertently capable of heating the entire planet, surely it is not beyond his wit to cool it down as well? Although most climate scientists do not like to talk about it, cutting greenhouse-gas emissions is not, strictly speaking, the only way to solve the problem of climate change. Just as technology caused the problem, it might also be able to help reverse it. The use of planetary-scale engineering to counteract climate change is known as "geo-engineering". full story |
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Underfunding Cripples U.S.
National Wildlife Refuge System |
In an attempt to cope with a huge budget backlog, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is cutting and redeploying staff in the National Wildlife Refuge System across the Southwest and the Pacific Regions. Reductions in services will impact refuges in Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, Hawaii, Guam and several Pacific islands. full story |
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Chemical Exposures |
Over the past decade, evidence has accumulated that environmental contaminants, often at low levels, are causing infertility, declines in sperm count, miscarriages, birth defects, and cancers. Yet, a majority of health professionals, policy makers, and public health advocates have little knowledge of these findings.
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Electricity from the Sea |
Off the western coast of Scotland, on the Isle of Islay, science teacher Ray Husthwaite turns on the light in his classroom. The electricity comes from a power cable that runs to the mainland. But it also comes from the ocean. A few miles from the school, wave action compresses and decompresses air in a chamber. The moving air powers a turbine, which generates electricity. full story |
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Draft of New International Climate Report
Warns of Droughts, Starvation, Disease |
Hundreds of millions of people will not have enough water within a couple of decades as the harmful effects of global warming already start to appear, top scientists will say next month at a meeting in Belgium. At the same time, tens of millions of people will be flooded out of their homes each year as the Earth reels from rising temperatures and sea levels. Tropical diseases like malaria will spread. By 2050, polar bears will mostly be found in zoos, their habitats gone. full story |
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Drive for Clean Air Has Environmental Downside |
America's drive for energy independence and clean air could threaten orangutans, Sumatran tigers, elephants, rhinoceroses and the world's largest butterflies. All could be hurt as the rainforests of Southeast Asia are cleared to produce palm oil for use in biodiesel. It's the downside of the crash effort to rein in global warming. full story |
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Arsenic's Use in Chicken Feed
Troubles Health Advocates |
"It's very disturbing to me that people are being exposed to this arsenic, but we don't have a choice - we have to feed the chickens what the company gives us," says Morison, a contract grower who has been raising chickens on her Eastern Shore farm for more than 20 years. "Farmers spread manure with arsenic in it all over their land as fertilizer, and we don't know what the risks are." full story |
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Lawmakers Criticize Bush EPA Budget Proposal |
The Bush administration's plan to cut some $500 million from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's budget shortchanges vital environmental programs and is unacceptable, members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee told the agency chief on Wednesday. EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson endured a litany of criticism during the budget hearing, with committee chair Barbara Boxer leading the charge. full story |
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Polar Bear Population Shrinks:
Symptom of Global Warming? |
For many, the polar bear has become a living symbol of the dangers of global warming. The powerful kings of the Arctic are finding their habitat shrinking. On Monday, environmental activists, hunters and oil industry representatives spoke at a public hearing on whether the U.S. government should list polar bears as a threatened species. full story |
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EU Agrees Deal to Reduce
Carbon Emissions by 20 Percent |
The EU today agreed an ambitious deal for tackling climate change, committing the bloc to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2020 and to producing a fifth of its energy via renewable sources by the same date. Ms Merkel, whose country holds the EU's rotating presidency, has led efforts to agree the deal, hopeful that an EU example will see other major polluters such as the US and China agree to emissions cuts. full story |
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San Francisco Leaders to Consider
a Ban on Plastic Grocery Bags |
Six San Francisco supervisors want the city to prohibit large grocers from giving out plastic bags, which are blamed for eating up fossil fuel, littering streets and choking wildlife. The measure would require grocery stores that do more than $2 million in sales a year to offer customers bags made of recyclable paper, plastic that can be turned into compost or sturdy cloth or plastic that can be reused. full story |
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Memos Tell Officials How to Discuss Climate |
Internal memorandums circulated in the Alaskan division of the Federal Fish and Wildlife Service appear to require government biologists or other employees traveling in countries around the Arctic not to discuss climate change, polar bears or sea ice if they are not designated to do so. Environmental groups, proposed listing polar bears throughout their range as threatened under the ESA because the warming climate is causing a summertime retreat of sea ice that the bears use for seal hunting. full story |
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Even White House Predicts Rise
in Greenhouse Gases |
For years, the Bush administration has been under pressure from scientists, environmentalists, and other countries to acknowledge and do more about climate change believed to be the result of human-caused greenhouse gases. Now, the administration's own research shows US greenhouse-gas emissions increasing at a steady pace – yet the White House plans to deal with them mainly through voluntary measures. full story |
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Asian Pollution Affects Pacific Storms |
Pollution from Asia is helping generate stronger storms over the North Pacific, according to new research. Changes in the North Pacific storm track could have an impact on weather across the Northern Hemisphere. Satellite measurements have shown an increase in tiny particles generated from coal burning in China and India in recent decades. full story |
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Greenpeace Launches First Public
Pirate Fishing Vessel 'List of Shame' |
Greenpeace today launched a first global database of blacklisted, illegal fishing vessels, in a bid to tackle the huge problem of illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing, a $9 billion rogue industry which is having a devastating effect on fish stocks and biodiversity in some of the most ecologically important areas of the world’s oceans.
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Canadian Tundra Turning Green |
Northern Canada's tundra is disappearing at a rapid rate, with forests of spruce trees and shrubs taking over the once frozen landscape, new research finds. The study offers further evidence of climate change and the authors warn it shows that the shift in the Canadian tundra can happen at a much faster speed than scientists originally thought.
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Whale Protections Proposed
for Strait of Gibraltar |
A new proposal to protect the waterway that separates Europe from Africa for some of the world's most threatened whales and dolphins will be considered later this year by the 20 govt.s that have signed an agreement to conserve the heavily trafficked marine region. Areas used by fin, sperm, Cuvier's beaked and killer whales as well as bottlenose and common dolphins and harbor porpoises for feeding, breeding and rearing young are proposed for protection from encroaching industry and pollution. full story |
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China about to Pass U.S. as World's Top
Generator of Greenhouse Gases |
Far more than previously acknowledged, the battle against global warming will be won or lost in China, even more so than in the West, new data show. A report released last week by Beijing authorities indicated that as its economy continues to expand at a red-hot pace, China is highly likely to overtake the United States this year or in 2008 as the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases. full story |
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U.S. Projects 19% Rise in Emissions |
By 2020, the U.S. will emit almost 1/5 more gases that lead to global warming than it did in 2000, increasing the risks of drought and scarce water supplies. That projection comes from an internal draft report from the Bush administration that is more than a year overdue at the United Nations. The U.S. already is responsible for roughly 1/4 of the world's CO2 and other "greenhouse" gases that scientists blame for global warming. full story |
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Government Panel Will Examine
Safety of Plastic Chemical |
The safety of a chemical that's probably in your cell phone, eyeglass lenses, car, computer, baby bottles, microwaveable dishes, and hundreds of other popular products, will face public scrutiny today. Critics are concerned that the chemical could harm human health, particularly the development of fetuses and children, because it works like the female sex hormone estrogen. full story |
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Iraq: New Martial Law Powers
Threaten Basic Rights |
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's new security plan for Baghdad grants military commanders sweeping powers to arrest people and restrict their basic freedoms of speech and association, Human Rights Watch said today. On February 13, al-Maliki issued martial law powers giving military commanders authority to conduct warrantless arrests, monitor private communications, and restrict civil society groups in Baghdad. full story |
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Mexico Turns Blind Eye
to Endangered Species Sales |
Fancy a pet jaguar cub? How about a rare parrot? The trade in wild animals in Mexico threatens some of the world's most exotic endangered species. At the Sonora Market, a bustling bazaar, traders illegally sell animals alongside exotic herbs and folk cures in the heart of Mexico City's often lawless center. full story |
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Bolivia Blames Rich World Pollution for Floods |
As poor people from Bolivia's Andes to its Amazon lowlands are battered by devastating floods Evo Morales, the president, is blaming pollution from wealthy nations, and some experts say he has a point. The floods, droughts and hailstorms that have pounded South America's poorest country for three months were triggered by El Nino, a weather phenomenon believed to be aggravated by global warming, climate experts say. full story |
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State, Local Officials
Call for Federal Climate Action |
Congress needs to enact mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions, but federal legislation should not impede stricter policies adopted by state and local governments, state and local officials told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Thursday. "It is imperative for Congress to act, but we shouldn't have federal legislation that preempts states that are taking aggressive stands," said New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine. full story |
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Climate Change Victims
Chip Away U.S. Procrastination |
Nageak and other Inuit, who live a world away from burning smokestacks and traffic jams are among the first victims of global warming. And human rights groups say the Inuit case mirrors the plight of other populations around the globe who are expected to face the ramifications of climate change sooner, and more harshly, than the countries most responsible for the gases linked to global warming full story |
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New Trade Rules Proposed for
Dozens of Rare Plants, Animals |
Changes in the rules for international trade in elephant ivory, gazelles, leopards, sharks, eels, pink coral, rosewood, and cedar are just a few of the 40 new government proposals that will be decided at an upcoming meeting of the Parties to the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, CITES. full story |
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Illegal Loggers Mutilating Congolese Forests |
Delegates from the Congolese government, donor community and civil society will meet next week in Brussels to discuss the sustainable management of the forests of the Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC. Millions of acres of the second largest rainforest in the world after the Amazon, are being illegally logged, nongovernmental organizations report.
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Japanese Call Off Antarctic
Whaling Due to Ship Fire |
The Institute of Cetacean Research, in conjunction with Kyodo Senpaku and the govt. of Japan, said Wednesday that the Antarctic whale "research program" for the '06-'07 austral summer season will be cut short as a result of a fire aboard the whaling vessel, the Nisshin Maru. The target this season was up to 935 minke whales and 10 endangered fin whales. full story |
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