environment

Stories 641 - 660 | << Prev   Next >>

Travel to Big Sky Is Killing It
Travel to Big Sky Is Killing It

Travel to Big Sky Is Killing It

(Newser) - Big Sky Country is under siege from the carbon spewed by the planes and cars we use to get there, says Montanan Deirdre McNamer. She remembers the days (the 1950s) when it was not politically incorrect to throw litter into the vastness of the high prairie that she thought could...

Carbon Offsets Are Often Scams
Carbon Offsets Are Often Scams

Carbon Offsets Are Often Scams

Trading on eco-guilt, firms are selling worthless carbon credits

(Newser) - Carbon offsets—the credits gas-guzzling consumers buy to cancel out their carbon production—may do little or nothing more than assuage consciences, a Financial Times investigation concludes. Some companies sell worthless credits; others use them to finance environmental projects they had planned anyway. And consumers have no means to know...

Governator Says He'll Sue EPA
Governator Says He'll Sue EPA

Governator Says He'll Sue EPA

(Newser) - Arnold Schwarzenegger says he'll take the Environmental Protection Agency to court if California doesn’t get a green light for its tough new auto emissions laws within six months. "The clock is ticking. If we don't see quick action from the federal government, we will sue the EPA,"...

Bloomberg Aims to Take NYC Green
Bloomberg
Aims to Take NYC Green

Bloomberg Aims to Take NYC Green

Plan calls for $8 fee to drive into Manhattan

(Newser) - Michael Bloomberg chose Earth Day to launch an ambitious, expensive and politically uncertain campaign to make New York City “the first environmentally sustainable 21st-century city.” The most provocative proposal: charging drivers $8 a day for entering Manhattan below 86th Street.

Conoco Calls For Emissions Cap
Conoco Calls For Emissions Cap

Conoco Calls For Emissions Cap

First American oil company to support nationwide ceiling

(Newser) - ConocoPhillips is the first American oil company to advocate a U.S. emissions cap, positioning itself to help shape potential federal legislation. Acknowledging that fossil fuels contribute to global warming, the company joined a group of corporations drawing up a plan for a nationwide ceiling.

Plug-In Has Power to Spare
Plug-In Has Power to Spare

Plug-In Has Power to Spare

Higher-Capacity Batteries Open PossibilitiesMay Make Motorists Into Energy Traders

(Newser) - A souped-up plug-in hybrid unveiled yesterday has excited talk of a future in which  cleaner-running cars are also profitable. With a new lithium-ion battery that can store up to nine kilowatt/hours of electricity, a hybrid owner could buy electricity at night, store it in the battery, and then sell it...

Sorry, Al: Tree Planting May Speed Warming

Outside the tropics, trees merely trap heat, study shows

(Newser) - Planting trees to offset your carbon footprint not only won't slow global warming, it may worsen its effects, a new study claims. Trees growing outside a small band of tropical zones don't cut the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere by enough to offset the heat their foliage traps,...

British Brides Go Green
British Brides
Go Green

British Brides Go Green

Eco-chic couples walk to the church to exchange vows

(Newser) - British couples are choosing eco-friendly weddings, making recycled  dresses, locally grown flowers, and organic food increasingly the rage, reports Reuters. Those who go green stress it doesn't mean the ceremony has to be hippie-esque. "Green weddings are about eco-chic, not lentils and hessian," said wedding planner Ruth Culver.

Ethanol Could Fuel Recession
Ethanol Could Fuel Recession

Ethanol Could Fuel Recession

Demand for grain triggers shortage

(Newser) - Demand for grain for biofuels like ethanol is spurring global food shortages and sending prices soaring—and could trigger a recession, warns the Wall Street Journal. Food prices are already skyrocketing in economies as diverse as India, China, Germany, the U.K., and South Africa. American consumers are likely to...

Hold the Fries; Just Some Grease Please

Two kayakers drive from Alaska to Chile on local biofuels and fast-food grease

(Newser) - Mexican pig lard, Alaskan fish oil, and lots o' fast food grease powered what two professional kayakers are calling the longest road trip ever made without gasoline. The 21,000-mile trek from Alaska to the tip of South America—in a converted Japanese firetruck—took nine months, with the duo...

It's Not Easy Building Green
It's Not Easy Building Green

It's Not Easy Building Green

Say regulators, utilities are putting the breaks on clean energy

(Newser) - Despite the hype, the cool technologies and the new cachet, building green on a big scale is a very frustrating business, developers in New York tell the Observer. Exciting projects are hobbled by slow-moving regulators and greedy utility companies, they say. Their $100K natural gas "microturbines" are idle because...

UN Report: Climate Change Will Hit Poor Hardest

Poorest will be hit hardest

(Newser) - Expect floods, droughts, fires—and resulting starvation, conflict, and mass migration—as climate change becomes more pronounced, says a U.N. report released today. And expect the poor to get hit the hardest, as deserts get drier, deltas flood more often, and small islands are overwhelmed.

Southwest Water Crisis Looms
Southwest Water Crisis Looms

Southwest Water Crisis Looms

Global warming leading to long periods of severe drought

(Newser) - Permanent drought could strike the Southwest U.S. by 2050, thanks to global warming, and experts predict water wars, as cities and farmers face shortages. Computer models show that the drying has already begun. Jonathan Overpeck, a climate researcher at the University of Arizona, says the data tell “a...

They Pay the Price of Warming
They Pay the Price of Warming

They Pay the Price of Warming

when it comes to global warming, we're not in it together

(Newser) - The obligation of people who live in countries that contribute the most to climate change--the developed nations— to those who will suffer most from it —the poor ones—is the subject of a provocative piece in the New York Times.

Utilities May Profit From Ruling
Utilities May Profit From Ruling

Utilities May Profit From Ruling

Some corporations may profit off tighter greenhouse gas regulations

(Newser) - Some utility  companies may actually benefit financially from the Supreme Court ruling forcing the EPA to crack down on greenhouse gas emissions, the Wall Street Journal reports.  While it will cost them millions in the short-term to meet new requirements, utilities in government-regulated markets—mostly in the Southeast, Great...

EPA Must Regulate Greenhouse Gases
EPA Must Regulate Greenhouse Gases

EPA Must Regulate Greenhouse Gases

Supreme Court ruling a rebuke to Bush's hands-off policy on auto emissions

(Newser) - Carbon dioxide must be regulated by the federal government unless it can provide a scientific reason not to, the Supreme Court ruled Monday. The 5-4 decision, which ordered the EPA to consider CO2 an "air pollutant" as defined by the Clean Air Act, was a blow to the Bush...

School Buses Plug In to Hybrid

Eleven states are rolling out Environmentally Sound fleets

(Newser) - School buses, usually in the slow lane, are passing automobiles by when it comes to converting to plug-in hybrid power, says the Christian Science Monitor.  While plug-in hybrid cars are still a few years off,  the buses are already rolling off assembly lines, and 19 have been ordered...

San Francisco Bans Plastic Grocery Bags

Nation's first law mandating paper or earth-friendly plastic

(Newser) - Plastic bags are history in San Francisco's large grocery and drug stores, after the city's board of supervisors adopted the country's first ban on petroleum-based bags yesterday. The ubiquitous bags don't biodegrade, clog recycling machines, clutter landfills, catch in trees and can injure or poison marine life.

GOP Insiders Nuke Global Warming
GOP Insiders Nuke Global Warming

GOP Insiders Nuke Global Warming

87% of Republicans on the Hill don't believe in climate change. The rest have a solution: nuclear power

(Newser) - The more powerful the evidence for global warming becomes, the more skeptical hard-line Republicans appear to be. Resistance to the case against greenhouse gases is hardening into conservative dogma, Jonathan Chait writes.  Last year, 23 per cent of Congressional Republicans said they believed humanity’s contribution to global warming...

Playwright Finds Times Arrogant on Al Gore

Do we have to read about the VP's weight in every dispatch?

(Newser) - Al Gore is having an astonishing political second act, leading the charge to save the planet, but the supercilious writers at the New York Times can't resist condescending to him, observes playwright Jon Robin Baitz,  doing a little reverse reviewing in his blog. TheTimes, he argues, displays its "...

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