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Locals Survey The Yellowstone Oil Spill

Posted by Wolf on Sunday, 17 July 2011 in Earth Violators

While ExxonMobil and government officials worked Saturday to clear a ruptured pipeline underneath the Yellowstone River of any residual oil, a small group of boaters began their own weeks-long survey of the river in an effort to document areas affected by the spill. Called the Oily River Rendezvous...

Elusive Snow Leopards Thrive in Surprising Spot

Posted by Wolf on Friday, 15 July 2011 in Animals

Thanks to the vigilant eye of camera traps stationed high in Afghanistan's remote northeast mountains, researchers have uncovered exciting news: A population of endangered snow leopards, one of the most elusive big cats on the planet, is thriving in the region. The big cats live among the dramatic ...

A Newbies Guide To Renewable Energy

Posted by Wolf on Wednesday, 13 July 2011 in Energy Efficiency

from: Carrington College

Rethinking Silly Car Trips

Posted by Wolf on Monday, 27 June 2011 in Transportation

In an article in Monday’s Times, I write about various strategies that European cities are using to cut down on private car use and inner-city driving. In Zurich, a multipronged approach has left residents less likely to own a car and less likely to use one if they do. The goal is to make cities mo...

'Super sand' to help clean up dirty drinking water

Posted by Wolf on Saturday, 25 June 2011 in Clean Water

Contaminated water can be cleaned much more effectively using a novel, cheap material, say researchers. Dubbed "super sand", it could become a low-cost way to purify water in the developing world. The technology involves coating grains of sand in an oxide of a widely available material called grap...

Mark Bittman: Eating Right Can Save The Planet

Posted by Wolf on Thursday, 16 June 2011 in Environmental Heroes

Mark Bittman says you can start by changing what you eat. In his book, Food Matters, The New York Times food columnist writes about the environmental impact of industrial farming — and how individuals can make a difference by cutting down on the amount of animal products they consume. "All industr...

Gasoline Tax Hike

Posted by Wolf on Wednesday, 15 June 2011 in Fossil Fuels

General Motors CEO, Dan Akerson, would like to see the federal gasoline tax boosted by as much as $1 per gallon in order to encourage drivers to choose more fuel efficient vehicles. If you are a politician in office today, it’s of course anathema to talk about raising fuel taxes – unless of course y...

Extreme Heat The New Norm

Posted by Wolf on Thursday, 09 June 2011 in Climate Change

The hottest summer day you remember from childhood could be the norm in a few decades; in fact it looks like the heat has already been cranked up. "When scientists talk about global warming causing more heat waves, people often ask if that means that the hottest temperatures will become 'the ne...

BP Oil Spill to Blame for Dolphin Deaths

Posted by Wolf on Wednesday, 01 June 2011 in Earth Violators

MOBILE, AL (WEAR/CNN) - Marine researchers say the BP oil spill may have played an indirect role in the unusual number of dolphin deaths along the Gulf Coast. The researchers said the dispersants used to clean the oil may have disrupted their food chain. "I used to say I had the best job in the wo...

Oceana launches seafood fraud campaign

Posted by Wolf on Thursday, 26 May 2011 in Food

Oceana turned its press conference yesterday at the National Press Club into a pop quiz: Organizers laid out skinless fillets of halibut next to skinless fillets of fluke, both without labels, and then asked the gathered audience to identify each fish by sight. Oceana then repeated the test ...

The Emerging Market for Small Renewables in California

Posted by Wolf on Wednesday, 11 May 2011 in Sustainable Development

The long battle between public and private power is flaring up again. California is the hot spot because the state legislature has lined up on the side of Community Choice Aggregation (CCA), a form of public power lite in which communities choose power sources but distribution is left to t...

The Return of ‘Drill, Baby, Drill’

Posted by Wolf on Monday, 09 May 2011 in Fossil Fuels

With the country again facing $4-a-gallon gasoline, the time would seem ripe for a grown-up conversation on energy. What we are getting instead is a mindless rerun of the drill-baby-drill operatics of the 2008 campaign, when gas was also at $4 a gallon. Then, as now, opportunistic politicians insist...

Gray Wolf Removed From Endangered Species List

Posted by Wolf on Friday, 06 May 2011 in Wildlife Conservation

The 1,300 gray wolves in the Rocky Mountain region are considered recovered and are losing federal protection. The U.S. government said Wednesday it is formally removing about 1,300 gray wolves in the Rocky Mountain region from the endangered species list, acting on the orders o...

Italy's Rare Bear in Losing Battle Against Extinction

Posted by Wolf on Tuesday, 03 May 2011 in Wildlife Conservation

In the forests of Italy's Abruzzo National Park live one of the rarest creatures on Earth: the Marsican brown bear. For the last several decades the species has been on the brink of extinction -- with current estimates putting their population at less than 50 individuals, down from over 100 in the e...

U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions Projected to Grow Slowly

Posted by Wolf on Tuesday, 03 May 2011 in Sustainable Development

Even if the United States takes no explicit action to regulate greenhouse gases, emissions of carbon dioxide and other climate-altering substances will grow slowly over the next two decades, not returning to 2005 levels until 2027, according to a new projection from the Energy Information Administra...

Wind Power Potential in Kazakhstan

Posted by Wolf on Tuesday, 03 May 2011 in Wind

Kazakhstan has huge potential for renewable energy, in particular in wind. Since the renewable sector is almost untapped and the government of Kazakhstan is actively working on promoting renewable energy sources and starting new programs to reach the renewable energy target of 5 percent by 2024, thi...

Earth Day 2011

Posted by Wolf on Thursday, 21 April 2011 in Peace

The aim of Earth Day 2011 is to gather at least one billion acts of services to the environment by the time the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development rolls around, otherwise known as Rio+20. So far the Earth Day Network has recorded over 70 million Acts of Green as part of E...

Has BP really cleaned up the Gulf oil spill?

Posted by Wolf on Wednesday, 20 April 2011 in Oil Spill

There are few people who can claim direct knowledge of the ocean floor, at least before the invention of the spill-cam, last year's strangely compulsive live feed of the oil billowing out of BP's blown-out well in the Gulf of Mexico. But for Samantha Joye it was familiar terrain. The intersection of...

Go Meatless On Earth Day

Posted by Wolf on Tuesday, 19 April 2011 in Food

Just in time for Earth Day, April 22, European scientists released a groundbreaking report linking meat consumption to nitrogen pollution. Nitrogen pollution? What on earth is nitrogen pollution? Nitrogen is commonly used to fertilize crops. Between 70 and 80 percent of agricultural greenhouse gas e...

What Works and What Doesn't in Living Green

Posted by Wolf on Friday, 08 April 2011 in Sustainable Development

It started with gray water, then escalated to chickens, composting toilets and rain barrels. I'm talking about the two years I've spent transforming my humble California bungalow into a test case for sustainable living — an experience that's cost me hundreds of hours of my time and thousands of doll...