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Green fatigue

Posted by henryfool on Wednesday, 06 June 2012 in General Environment

By COSIMA MARRINER When Prince Charles boasted of his environmentally friendly lifestyle recently, it didn't come across quite the way he intended. His preference for wearing extra clothes rather than turning up the palace heating, his efforts to recycle old bathroom curtains into cushion covers, a...

About the Rio+20 Conference

Posted by henryfool on Thursday, 31 May 2012 in General Environment

At the Rio+20 Conference, world leaders, along with thousands of participants from governments, the private sector, NGOs and other groups, will come together to shape how we can reduce poverty, advance social equity and ensure environmental protection on an ever more crowded planet to get to the fut...

Artificial Glaciers Water Crops in Indian Highlands

Posted by henryfool on Wednesday, 29 February 2012 in Agriculture

Villagers discover that it is easier to store water in ice than in a reservoir, and less is lost to evaporation. A remote Indian village is responding to global warming-induced water shortages by creating large masses of ice, or "artificial glaciers," to get through the dry spring months. (See a ma...

The World at 7 Billion: Can We Stop Growing Now?

Posted by henryfool on Monday, 25 July 2011 in Human Health

Demographers aren't known for their sense of humor, but the ones who work for the United Nations recently announced that the world's human population will hit 7 billion on Halloween this year. Since censuses and other surveys can scarcely justify such a precise calculation, it's tempting to imagine ...

Forests revealed as climate giants

Posted by henryfool on Tuesday, 19 July 2011 in Forestry

FORESTS play a larger role in Earth's climate system than previously suspected for both the risks from deforestation and the potential gains from regrowth, a benchmark study released Thursday has shown. The study, published in Science, provides the most accurate measure so far of the amount of gree...

Tiger Poachers caught in Thailand

Posted by henryfool on Tuesday, 19 July 2011 in Wildlife Conservation

Two men suspected of killing endangered tigers in Thailand have been arrested, a U.S. conservation group said Thursday, and the key evidence turned out to be cell phone images of them with their prizes. A phone with the images was seized after a gun battle between Thai park rangers and suspected po...

Amazon Dammed

Posted by henryfool on Thursday, 14 July 2011 in Earth Violators

Sixty Minutes story on the damming of the Amazon Amazon dammed - Images by Cristina Mittermeier Reporter: Allison LangdonProducers: Stephen Rice, Julia Timms, Jo Townsend link to Sixty Minutes video There are few places on Earth quite as isolated or as spectacular as the Amazon. Venture deep i...

To Curb Driving, Cities Cut Down on Car Parking

Posted by henryfool on Wednesday, 13 July 2011 in Transportation

Despite downtown business fears, some urban centers embrace “mini-parks.” Josie GarthwaiteFor National Geographic News Bit by bit, for the past 40 years, the city of Copenhagen has done something revolutionary: The Danish capital has reduced its parking supply. Cutting the total number of parking ...

Big Coal Claims that Inbreeding, Not Mining, is to Blame for Birth Defects

Posted by henryfool on Wednesday, 13 July 2011 in Mining

Last month, when coal execs read the report linking birth defects to mountaintop removal mining, they weren't exactly thrilled. One rebuttal, penned by four attorneys with the firm Crowell & Moring, which represents the National Mining Association, accused the study's authors of using cherry-pic...

Woman Faces Jail Time For Growing Vegetable Garden

Posted by henryfool on Tuesday, 12 July 2011 in Food

Julie Bass faces the prospect of going to jail for what she's growing in her front yard. The illegal growth is tomatoes. And zucchinis, peppers and other edible and what normally would be legal plants. The officials in Bass' hometown of Oak Park, Mich., have charged her with growing "vegetable gar...

Mountaintop Mining and Birth Defects

Posted by henryfool on Thursday, 23 June 2011 in Mining

New study on the association between mountaintop mining and birth defects among live births in central Appalachia, 1996–2003 AbstractBirth defects are examined in mountaintop coal mining areas compared to other coal mining areas and non-mining areas of central Appalachia. The study hypothesis is th...

Global Warming Expert Focuses on Youth

Posted by henryfool on Wednesday, 15 June 2011 in Environmental Heroes

Since 1989 Weaver has been studying climate issues and, more recently, trying to get governments to act decisively to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, largely from burning of fossil fuels. He’s now come to the conclusion that the federal government isn’t interested, and that it’s time to concentrate...

California Is on Track to Ban Styrofoam Statewide

Posted by henryfool on Tuesday, 07 June 2011 in Sustainable Development

Styrofoam may seem fleeting. We use it to eat a quick take-out meal, then throw it away. But the stuff is damn near everlasting. When littered, it's carried from the streets to the storm drains to the ocean, making it the second most common type of beach debris in California, according to the Southe...

It's Only Natural - Organic Farming Down Under

Posted by henryfool on Monday, 06 June 2011 in Agriculture

City customers give organic farmers and sellers reason to keep growing, writes Carli Ratcliff. "Organic food is an imposition of city folk (worried about their colons) on farming folk, telling them how they should farm.'' So said A. A. Gill on his recent visit to Sydney. Though far from the most in...

The Amazon Mega Dam Project

Posted by henryfool on Thursday, 02 June 2011 in Lakes/Rivers/Wetlands

Brazilian authorities gave final approval to the controversial Belo Monte dam, reports AFP The project — which has been widely opposed by human rights groups, environmentalists, and indigenous tribes — will dam the Xingu river, one of the largest tributaries of the Amazon River. The $11 billion dam...

Chemical Dispersants More Harmful Than Effective

Posted by henryfool on Wednesday, 01 June 2011 in Oil Spill

New findings about the BP Oil Spill. The chemical sprayed in the Gulf to break up the BP oil spill may not have been effective and could be damaging the ecosystem more than the oil alone, according to preliminary findings by University of West Florida researchers. When mixed with oil, Corexit, the ...

CO2 to Make Fuel: A Long Shot for Green Energy

Posted by henryfool on Sunday, 22 May 2011 in Clean Technology

What if the ever-increasing amounts of carbon dioxide that are heating up the atmosphere could be used to produce an abundant supply of liquid fuels? The U.S. government and private labs are pursuing that Holy Grail of renewable energy — but for now the cost of large-scale production is prohibitive....

Tough Rules Have Made Our Air Cleaner

Posted by henryfool on Thursday, 12 May 2011 in Air Quality

May ushered in smog season and metro Atlanta had its first code orange alert Monday. We’ve made tremendous progress improving our air quality, but serious challenges remain, particularly with respect to elevated ozone levels. Since the passage of the Clean Air Act amendments in 1970, emissi...

On Mother’s Day, Hundreds of Events for iMatter March

Posted by henryfool on Monday, 09 May 2011 in General Environment

In 25 countries on five continents, the next generation of youth climate activists are participating in the iMatter march by taking to the streets and to the courts to demand action. Here at It’s Getting Hot in Here, we have seen a youth climate movement explode in Montreal, g...

Climate change curbs crops

Posted by henryfool on Sunday, 08 May 2011 in Agriculture

Warming has already lowered yields of wheat and corn. Nicola Jones Farmers have produced less food during the past three decades than they would have done were climate change not happening, according to a study published today1. Global maize (corn) production, for example, is estimated to be about...