environment

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Germany Pledges Billions for Rainforest Protection

Funds tripled by 2012, add $785M a year after

(Newser) - Germany will spend billions of euros protecting tropical rainforests in an effort to halt global warming. Chancellor Angela Merkel said today at the United Nations' biodiversity conference that Germany will increase its funding for the conservation of rainforests from $330 million to $1.1 billion in the next three years...

Mag Uses Wheat Paper for Green Issue

Canadian publication is first in N. America to try forest-friendly idea

(Newser) - A Canadian magazine is printing a special environmental issue on paper made from wheat straw, the CBC reports. Canadian Geographic's "wheat sheets," made from harvest waste, will be a first for a North American magazine. Environmentalists say using wheat-straw pulp could save millions of trees every year and...

US Can Drive 55—and Should, Greens Say

Call to lower limit claims better mileage, lower emissions

(Newser) - Escalating fuel prices and fear of global warming are rekindling debate over the nation's maximum speed limit—and environmentalists are urging Congress to slow the US back down to 55 mph, Wired reports. Advocates say going back to the speed limit set during the oil crunch of the 1970s will...

Wildlife Populations Plunging
 Wildlife Populations Plunging 
May 16, 2008 8:25 AM CDT

Wildlife Populations Plunging

One of 'great extinction episodes in history' unfolding: report

(Newser) - Humanity is rapidly wiping out the planet's species, sending wildlife populations plunging, the BBC reports. Pollution, habitat loss, and overfishing have cut wildlife numbers as much as a third since 1970 and wipe out 1% of species each year. One of the "great extinction episodes" in Earth's history also...

'Greenwashed' Products Mostly Hype

Some 'Earth-friendly' products are more about marketing than reality

(Newser) - "Green" is in, and many new products being marketed as Earth-friendly are in reality only marginally less unfriendly. The Boston Globe points to hybrid SUVs that get barely better mileage than their standard brethren, water bottles that use less plastic but still require large amounts of energy to make...

Airplanes Emit More CO2 Than Thought

Jets will put 1.5B tons into the air by 2025 — half of EU's current emissions total

(Newser) - Bad news on the climate-change front: Airplanes are emitting 20% more carbon dioxide than anyone thought. According to a newly disclosed report, they could release 1.5 billion tons a year by 2025—compared to 3.1 billion tons a year now released by all the citizens of the EU,...

Pittsburgh Joins LA as US' Most Polluted

Steel City is first outside California to top Lung Association's annual list

(Newser) - Pittsburgh has gone Hollywood—but not in a good way, Reuters reports. For the first time, a city outside California has topped one of three most-polluted lists in an annual “State of the Air” report, Pittsburgh ranked as the US city with the worst short-term particle pollution; Los Angeles...

Canada Declares Polar Bears 'At Risk'

Bears not quite endangered but still require protection

(Newser) - Canada has classified polar bears as a species of “special concern” requiring legislative protection, the BBC reports. While the panel of experts stopped short of declaring the bears endangered, it said that melting ice and hunting problems had put the bears in jeopardy. Canada is home to 15,000...

EPA Scientists Rip Political 'Interference'

Survey finds agency 'under siege' from meddling officials

(Newser) - Hundreds of Environmental Protection Agency scientists say they have come under political pressure to fudge their findings, the Los Angeles Times reports. More than half the scientists who responded to a survey said they had experienced interference over the last five years. The report from a nonprofit scientists' group describes...

Florida Moves to Stop Piping Sewage Into the Ocean

Bill to change sewage system crawling through state legislature

(Newser) - Florida has been dumping sewage into the ocean for over 60 years, but is moving towards cleaning up its act, Reuters reports. Florida’s Senate recently passed a bill that would replace the system, which pumps 300 million gallons of partially treated waste into the Atlantic daily. Passage in the...

Climate Killing Medical Hopes
 Climate Killing Medical Hopes 
Apr 23, 2008 1:53 PM CDT

Climate Killing Medical Hopes

UN conference highlights the dangers of fading biodiversity

(Newser) - The loss of biodiversity on Earth will seriously hamper efforts to cure human disease, AFP reports. Researchers at the UN-backed Business for the Environment conference highlighted undiscovered cures for pain, infections and even cancer that risk being lost forever if humans fail to reverse the widespread extinction of thousands of...

Strawberry Fields Forever, Sir Paul Pleads

Former Beatle extols vegetarianism as cure for global warming

(Newser) - If you want to fight global warming, drop the hamburger, Sir Paul McCartney advises. “The biggest change anyone could make in their own lifestyle would be to become vegetarian,” said McCartney, himself a longtime herbivore. Livestock is a big contributor to global warming, the ex-Beatle says, because of...

Live It Up While Going Green

10 luxury ways to cut carbon waste

(Newser) - You don't have to give up the high life to be green. Forbes finds 10 luxurious ways to reduce your carbon footprint:
  1. Wear cashmere at home so you can turn down the thermostat.
  2. Buy carbon offsets for your private jet.
  3. Drive a hybrid Cadillac Escalade SUV.
  4. Use occasional perfumed candles
...

SF Bay Area Businesses Face Penalties for Pollution

Fines would range from $1 to $195K per year

(Newser) - San Francisco Bay Area businesses could face major fines—the first ever imposed by a local government—based on the amount of climate-changing emissions they produce annually, the New York Times reports. The move, which the Bay Area Air Quality Management District could make official May 21, would skirt plodding...

Trash Fouls World's Beaches
 Trash Fouls World's Beaches 
Apr 15, 2008 8:27 PM CDT

Trash Fouls World's Beaches

Environmental group reports 6M tons picked up in one-day effort

(Newser) - One day of beach cleanup last year netted 6 million pounds of trash worldwide, an environmental group says. Volunteers in 76 countries collected an average of 182 pounds per mile of beach; the US weighed in at 390 pounds per mile, the AP reports. "We're the bad guys,"...

Melting Empties Chile Lake
 Melting Empties Chile Lake 
Apr 11, 2008 3:58 PM CDT

Melting Empties Chile Lake

Initial swelling causes 'river tsunami'; global warming blamed

(Newser) - Melting ice in a remote Chilean lake caused it to swell and suddenly empty, creating a “river tsunami,” the AP reports. Water from a melting glacier filled the lake and tunneled through the ice, emptying into a nearby river.

Slow Down! Autobahn Hits a Limit

Germany rolls out first 75mph speed limit

(Newser) - The German autobahn is one of the world's last stretches of open road where a driver can learn how it feels to coax a Porsche to 200 mph and beyond—legally. But those days are numbered. the German state of Bremen has imposed a 75 mph speed limit and others...

Roadblocks Zap Electric Carmakers' Momentum

Infighting and broken promises mar ambitious companies

(Newser) - The more than two dozen startups racing to produce viable electric cars face a bumpy road, the Los Angeles Times reports, as they navigate infighting, skyrocketing costs, and lack of mass-production know-how. Meanwhile, a successful car would face serious competition from several major automakers working on innovations of their own....

EPA's New Rules Allow Wetlands Trade-Offs

Developers can destroy if they create others elsewhere; environmentalists dismayed

(Newser) - The Environmental Protection Agency today issued new wetlands-protection rules with a focus on “mitigation banking”— creating marshes elsewhere in compensation for those destroyed by development, the AP reports. The EPA argues that mitigation banking ensures the most overall wetlands protection because wetlands are often irrevocably damaged by construction,...

Antarctic Ice Chunk Collapses
 Antarctic Ice Chunk Collapses 
Mar 25, 2008 5:40 PM CDT

Antarctic Ice Chunk Collapses

Sudden break fuels climate change concerns

(Newser) - A mammoth chunk of ice has collapsed in Antarctica, leaving an ice shelf the size of Connecticut "hanging by a thread" and providing more evidence of global warming, scientists say. The sudden collapse of the 160-square-mile piece of ice threatens the Wilkins ice shelf, which has been in place...

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