environment – News Stories About environment - Page 31

Aug 22, 2007 2:25 PM CDT

5 Last-Ditch Plans to Save Earth

Crank up your ingenuity and combat climate change the MacGyver way

(Newser) - If reducing emissions was Plan A to save the earth from global warming, these plans from Popular Science would be more like Plan ... Z:

Make more Arctic ice—out of saltwater.
Cool the oceans, which feed storms with warm water, by sucking up cold water from the ocean floor with

...

Global Warming Protesters B-r-r All on Glacier

Aug 19, 2007 10:39 AM CDT

Global Warming Protesters B-r-r All on Glacier

(Newser) - Hundreds of naked people bared all on a Swiss glacier to protest global warming yesterday. The arresting demonstration was photographed by New York artist Spencer Tunick, known for his photos of nude gatherings, as temperatures hovered around 50 degrees.

Deserts Eat
Up China's Usable Land

Aug 16, 2007 5:03 PM CDT

Deserts Eat Up China's Usable Land

In arid provinces, farms and families feel pinch of policy gone awry

(Newser) - With China's deserts spreading another 950 square miles each year, the government is evicting families and replanting farms to stem the tide, the Christian Science Monitor reports from Gansu province. With 20% of the world's population but 7% of its arable land, China's decades-old problem has worsened due to overfarming,...

Great Lake Getting Less Superior

Aug 15, 2007 4:45 PM CDT

Great Lake Getting Less Superior

(Newser) - Water levels in Lake Superior are down a whole foot this year, and scientists say man is to blame. The world's largest body of fresh water by surface area has suffered an on-and-off drought for four years, but levels may reach an all-time low this summer. Climate change is partially...

10-Year Model Predicts Record Temperatures

Aug 10, 2007 12:17 PM CDT

10-Year Model Predicts Record Temperatures

Global warming to surge in 2009, new study says

(Newser) - A new 10-year model of climate change forecasts several years of record temperatures between 2009 to 2014, the BBC reports. Most global warming predictions see significant climate changes over a century; the new model, developed by British meteorologists using present-day observations, offers shorter-term predictions of event such as El Nino...

Climate Change Deniers
Still Impeding Progress

Aug 7, 2007 5:06 AM CDT

Climate Change Deniers Still Impeding Progress

Americans lost in haze of contradictory information

(Newser) - Scientists thought they'd convinced the world it was getting warmer, but a powerful, flush campaign of cynics is still successfully sowing doubt, Newsweek reports—and hobbling efforts to stave off disaster. From its humble beginnings ridiculing any warming, the "denial machine" has picked up funding from big oil and...

Destroy Earth: 10 Easy Methods

Aug 6, 2007 9:34 AM CDT

Destroy Earth: 10 Easy Methods

Get your evil on with these surefire ways to obliterate the planet

(Newser) - Destroying life on earth is one thing; obliterating the planet entirely is quite another. Bring out your inner supervillain with any of these 10 strategies.

Hurl the earth into the sun.
Release a Von Neumann machine beneath the earth's crust.
Smash something large (such as Mars) into the earth.
Eject

...

House OKs Renewable Energy Bill

Aug 5, 2007 1:55 PM CDT

House OKs Renewable Energy Bill

Legislation faces likely presidential veto

(Newser) - The House passed a broad-based clean energy bill yesterday that redirects $16 billion in tax incentives from big oil and gas companies to renewable energy sources like wind and solar power. Democrats hailed the legislation as the first big step toward making the US a more environmentally friendly nation, but...

Ethanol More Mean Than Green

Jul 31, 2007 2:54 PM CDT

Ethanol More Mean Than Green

How biofuel steals from the hungry and hurts the environment

(Newser) - Far from the solution to America’s energy crisis, corn ethanol is “one if the great political boondoggles of our time,” Rolling Stone says in a scathing broadside. The “dangerous” and “delusional” hype over the corn biofuel raises the price of food for the needy because...

Pesticide Exposure May Increase Autism Risk

Jul 30, 2007 6:05 PM CDT

Pesticide Exposure May Increase Autism Risk

Limited study posits link between disorder and environmental factor

(Newser) - Certain pesticides may be partially responsible for causing autism, a small study reveals. The autism rate among the children of 29 women living near California fields sprayed with organochlorine pesticides was six times higher than that in kids of women living farther away, the LA Times reports. But researchers warn...

Crikey! Croc Hunter Honored With Reserve

Jul 23, 2007 7:14 AM CDT

Crikey! Croc Hunter Honored With Reserve

Aussies buy $6M land to pay tribute to Irwin's conservation legacy

(Newser) - The late croc hunter Steve Irwin will be remembered with a new wildlife reserve in the Australian Outback established in his honor, the Sydney Morning Herald reports. The 135,000 hectares filled with endangered animals and dotted by fragile ecosystems, purchased by the government for $6 million, will be managed...

Eco-Vandals Trash Hummer

Jul 18, 2007 2:46 PM CDT

Eco-Vandals Trash Hummer

Attack on $38K gas-guzzler called a 'hate crime'

(Newser) - A 32-year-old man in Northwest DC woke to find his dream car—a $38,000 Hummer—with slashed tires, smashed windows, and a message carved into its body: "FOR THE ENVIRON." In a green-friendly neighborhood dominated by hybrids, two masked eco-extremists decided to punish Gareth Groves by mutilating...

Barn Owls Are Peace Envoys

Jul 16, 2007 9:36 AM CDT

Barn Owls Are Peace Envoys

Israeli, Jordanian collaboration bodes well for Mideast prospects

(Newser) - The border between Jordan and Israel is not easy for citizens of either nation to cross. But it doesn't exist for the barn owls Israeli farmers use to keep rats from eating their date palm trees; they fly into nearby farms in Jordan all the time, and were being killed...

Paris Gears Up For Pedal Power

Jul 16, 2007 5:10 AM CDT

Paris Gears Up For Pedal Power

City hopes shared bikes will make a dent in ze car traffic

(Newser) - Paris began offering free bikes at stations throughout the city yesterday in a new initiative to ease car traffic. Cyclists can use any of 20,000 heavy-duty bikes parked at 750 locations around the capital by swiping a transportation card that costs $1.36 for the day and up tp...

Don't Think Pink: Factory Threatens Flamingo Species

Jul 12, 2007 5:17 AM CDT

Don't Think Pink: Factory Threatens Flamingo Species

Endangered lesser flamingos breed in only one lake in eastern Africa

(Newser) - An Indian company's plans to build a plant to harvest soda ash, or sodium carbonate, from Lake Natron in northern Tanzania could spell the end for the endangered lesser flamingo, the smallest of the six flamingo species. The lake is the only major breeding site, and half a million of...

Snakehead Shake Up Fishermen

Jul 8, 2007 10:30 AM CDT

Snakehead Shake Up Fishermen

Invasive species could be ecological disaster or next big thing in angling

(Newser) - It's ugly, it's mean, and it's seductively hard to hook. The Snakehead fish, a native of East Asia and recent immigrant to the Potomac River watershed, has divided those wary of its potential environmental impact and those who see it as the next big thing in sport fishing. Some entrepreneurial...

Polluted
Fish Swamp Great Lakes

Jul 6, 2007 4:23 PM CDT

Polluted Fish Swamp Great Lakes

Industrial chemicals raise contaminant levels into range unsafe for eating

(Newser) - Industrial chemicals contaminate many species of fish that populate the Great Lakes, making them too hazardous for safe human consumption, says a Canadian conservation group. "The lakes continue to be polluted to such an extent that human health is threatened," says a report released yesterday that lists industrial...

Oil Spill Worsens Floods

Jul 3, 2007 2:30 PM CDT

Oil Spill Worsens Floods

Malfunction at Kansas factory unleashes gallons of crude into water torrents

(Newser) - The floods overwhelming the Midwest worsened today as 42,000 gallons of crude oil accidentally released from a refinery on Sunday made its way farther downstream. A malfunction at a plant in Coffeyville, Kan., on the Oklahoma border, contaminated flood waters with a thick, pungent layer of sludge that threatens...

Eagle Flies Off 'Threatened' List

Jun 28, 2007 3:32 PM CDT

Eagle Flies Off 'Threatened' List

After 40 years, national symbol returns from brink of extinction

(Newser) - The national bird is no longer threatened with extinction, an achievement the Interior Department celebrated today by letting a bald eagle frolic in the skies above the Jefferson Memorial. Thanks in large part to conservation laws, the number of nesting pairs has grown more than 20-fold since 1963; the bird...

China's CO2 Output Passes US

Jun 20, 2007 5:25 AM CDT

China's CO2 Output Passes US

Building two power stations a week

(Newser) - China has overtaken the US as the world's biggest CO2 emitter. A Dutch study says China is coughing up 9% more fossil fuel into the air than last year, compared with a 1.4% increase from the superpower across the Pacific. And the trend is up: China's industry is growing...