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Republicans push through mining deregulation bill that could avoid US environmental reviews

Posted by Aaron on Thursday, 12 July 2012 in Mining

Republicans pushed a bill through the House Thursday that allows the government to exempt gold, copper, silver and uranium mining on federal land from formal environmental reviews. The bill makes it harder for opponents to mount legal challenges against new ventures. The legislation, appro...

Why New York's Sea Level Is Rising Faster Than the World's

Posted by Aaron on Monday, 09 July 2012 in Ocean/Seas/Coastlines

Sea level is rising around the world, but in many places on the U.S. East Coast, it's rising considerably faster than elsewhere. An oceanographer studying this phenomenon explains. A team of U.S. Geological Survey scientists recently discovered that the sea level along the East Coast of the United ...

In Developing Countries, Are Tourists Taking Clean Water Away From Locals?

Posted by Aaron on Monday, 09 July 2012 in Clean Water

Study finds visitors to Bali, the Gambia and Goa use 16 times as much water as locals, causing conflict and disease. The disproportionate use of fresh water by tourists in developing world destinations is causing local conflict, exacerbating poverty and helping to spread disease, says a report to b...

U.S. Resolves to Take the Lead in Whale Conservation

Posted by Aaron on Saturday, 30 June 2012 in Wildlife Conservation

By International Fund for Animal Welfare With President Barack Obama declaring June "National Oceans Month," the sanctity of the marine ecosystem resonates around the globe. Reaffirming their commitment to the oceans and those that inhabit them, Representatives Bill Keating and Howard Berman have i...

Designing microbes that make energy-dense biofuels without sugar

Posted by Aaron on Saturday, 30 June 2012 in Biofuels

With metabolically engineered microorganisms hungry for levulinic acid rather than sugar, a University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison) chemical and biological engineer aims to create more sustainable, cost-effective processes for converting biomass into high-energy-density hydrocarbon fuels. Curr...

Solar Powered Trash Cans

Posted by Aaron on Wednesday, 27 June 2012 in Solar

Environmental strategists have been talking about green cities for years. The hope of the future in terms of reducing the carbon footprint and negative ecological impact of the industrialized world lies in our ability to clean up our cities. Our major urban centers have the potential to do the most ...

Environmentalism is not a religion

Posted by Aaron on Tuesday, 26 June 2012 in General Environment

By James Murray Of all the blithering nonsense climate deniers throw at the environmental movement, there is perhaps one criticism that does real damage – that "green is the new religion". We can handle the scientifically illiterate and ethically questionable attempts to undermine evidence of clim...

Environmental health expert discusses healthy city planning

Posted by Aaron on Friday, 22 June 2012 in Sustainable Development

Regular exercise adds about eight years to a person's life — more even than quitting smoking does. That's why a community should design an environment in which people want to walk and bike rather than drive. That's the message Dr. Richard Jackson, the host of the Public Broadcasting Service series ...

‘Agriculture the plastics of the modern era’

Posted by Aaron on Wednesday, 20 June 2012 in Agriculture

By Tom Quaife Movie aficionados will remember the scene from "The Graduate" where the main character, Benjamin Braddock, is at a lavish party thrown by his parents, receiving career advice from the well-heeled guests. A man takes him aside and says there is just one word to consider: plastics. Thi...

Carpet of lush flora once ringed icy Antarctica

Posted by Aaron on Monday, 18 June 2012 in Climate Change

Plant life thrived about 15 million to 20 million years ago, new research finds The few plants that live in Antarctica today are hardy hangers-on, growing just a few weeks out of the year and surviving poor soil, lack of rain and very little sunlight. But long ago, some parts of Antarctica were alm...

Off-the-Grid Living in Brooklyn

Posted by Aaron on Monday, 04 June 2012 in Solar

By RONDA KAYSEN As the standards for environmentally friendly construction rise, a Brooklyn developer has a new goal: renovate an apartment building so it generates as much energy as it uses. When the developer, Voltaic Solaire, finishes a $1 million rehabilitation of a 19th-century brownstone at ...

Separate the trash and get it right

Posted by Aaron on Wednesday, 30 May 2012 in Recycling

With the approval of the National Plan on Solid Waste (PNRS) in 2010, Brazil expects municipalities to raise awareness about the importance of separating trash at home. The National Plan on Solid Waste requires municipalities to take measures to ensure environmentally-friendly disposal of waste by 2...

Ocean Temperatures Harm Protected Coral Reefs

Posted by Aaron on Thursday, 15 March 2012 in Ocean/Seas/Coastlines

Special conservation zones known as marine protected areas provide many direct benefits to fisheries and coral reefs. However, such zones appear to offer limited help to corals in their battle against global warming, according to a new study. To protect coral reefs from climate change, marine prote...

Clean energy, dirty business

Posted by Aaron on Sunday, 26 February 2012 in Earth Violators

The fact is that 10 to 12 per cent of the primary energy supply today comes from renewable sources (not counting hydroelectric energy). But new renewables – technologies of the future – still make up only one or two per cent of this supply. The rest comes from biomass systems of the poor, ...

Selling Whales to Save Them?

Posted by Aaron on Tuesday, 17 January 2012 in Wildlife Conservation

When it comes to commercial whaling, things are rarely as simple as they seem. The fact that it continues, 30 years after the International Whaling Commission (IWC) voted for an indefinite moratorium, suggests that there has been some kind of failure on the part of environmentalists and other oppone...

Carbon Emissions are Much Worse Than Predicted

Posted by Aaron on Thursday, 17 November 2011 in Climate Change

The U.S. Department of Energy recently released calculations stating that the total global carbon output in 2010 was the biggest increase ever recorded. The world pumped about 564 million more tons of carbon into the air in 2010 than it did in 2009, an increase of 6% with China, and the U.S. respons...

Can We Carry the Planet

Posted by Aaron on Friday, 30 September 2011 in Sustainable Development

The idea that human societies, at their best, seek to evolve toward a more perfect embodiment of humankind’s shared aspirations for peace, freedom, justice, prosperity, personal and collective wellbeing. Today, and for the foreseeable future, that list also includes sustainability: living within the...

Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Shows Problems in Fish and Shrimp

Posted by Aaron on Wednesday, 28 September 2011 in Food

BATON ROUGE, La. -- A new Louisiana State University study shows the effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on fish living in Louisiana marshes and reveals a problem that could affect the future of the seafood industry. The study was conducted by associate professors of biological scien...

Bill Clinton Slams GOP Climate Deniers During Global Initiative Conference

Posted by Aaron on Wednesday, 21 September 2011 in Agriculture

We look like a joke, right?" Former President Bill Clinton wasted no time at his annual philanthropic conference with an attack on GOP climate deniers. At the Clinton Global Initiative’s annual NYC meeting, Politico reports that the former president said, "If you’re an American, the best thing you ...

Report shows deep-sea fishing is unsustainable

Posted by Aaron on Friday, 09 September 2011 in Fishing

The deep sea, the planet's biggest ecosystem, is in trouble, an international research team says, underling the need to stop commercial fishing in such waters and focus on productive waters instead. Presented in the journal Marine Policy, a comprehensive analysis reveals the unsustainability of deep...