carbon emissions

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Program Tracks Web's CO2 Emissions
Program Tracks Web's CO2 Emissions

Program Tracks Web's CO2 Emissions

Raising consciousness of how the Internet impacts climate change

(Newser) - If you're reading this, you're contributing to climate change. That's the message of two PhD students who have created a widget to calculate how much carbon dioxide Web sites generate. Operators can download and install the free program on their sites and then buy an equivalent amount of carbon offsets,...

Site Ranks Power-Plant Polluters
Site Ranks Power-Plant Polluters

Site Ranks Power-Plant Polluters

Australia tops per capita, America absolute lists

(Newser) - A study of power-plant emissions names Australia as the lead polluter per capita in a field crowded with competition, Mother Jones reports. Aussie power plants produce 11 tons of carbon dioxide per person annually; American plants generate nine. The US produces the most cumulative emissions, though developing giants China and...

Green Activists Bash BA for 'Ghost Flights'

Airline flies empty 747s across Atlantic to keep time slots

(Newser) - Like most airlines, British Airways says it wants to cut carbon emissions to head off global warming. But BA is flying dozens of planes across the Atlantic without any passengers as a tactic to maintain lucrative time slots at London's airport, the Telegraph reports. Environmentalists have bashed the airline for...

Oceans Are Absorbing Less CO2
Oceans Are Absorbing Less CO2

Oceans Are Absorbing Less CO2

(Newser) - Oceans are absorbing half the CO2 they were in the mid-'90s, according to a study that collected more than 90,000 North Atlantic measurements over 10 years. Oceans typically absorb about a quarter of the world’s carbon emissions, but the new data suggest they're becoming “saturated,” which...

In Europe, Cars Go the Way of Cigarettes

Auto advertising to carry warning labels about emissions

(Newser) - Carbon health warnings for cars are coming to Europe. Under a European Parliament plan expected to be approved this week, 20% of the space in print car advertising will have to be devoted to cigarette-style warnings about vehicles' carbon emissions and fuel efficiency. The most polluting vehicles will also face...

CA Tosses Global Warming Suit v. Automakers

Judge dismisses California's charges against carmakers

(Newser) - A federal judge has thrown out California's attempt to hold automakers liable for the environmental implications of vehicle emissions, the LA Times reports. The judge who rejected the much-watched lawsuit Monday called global warming a "political question" for legislators, rather than courts. The suit had blamed carmakers for Sierra...

Earth Flunks Its Annual Physical
Earth Flunks Its Annual Physical

Earth Flunks Its Annual Physical

Most vital signs bad as planet suffers from greenhouse gas

(Newser) - Most of the Earth's vital stats are "pronouncedly bad," according to a research institute that tracks 44 indicators of the world's health. Only six were positive. More wood was harvested this year than ever before, meat production and consumption hit record highs, people ate 156 million metric tons...

Auto-Emission Ruling Boosts States' Rights

Federal judge rules against carmakers on standards for greenhouse gases

(Newser) - Vermont can set its own greenhouse emissions standards to curb gases that contribute to global warming, a federal judge ruled yesterday in a decision that boosts states’ rights. Automakers sued the state after it adopted standards originally made law in California, saying the regulations were impractical and would upend the...

Bill Targets Reps' Gas Guzzlers
Bill Targets Reps' Gas Guzzlers

Bill Targets Reps' Gas Guzzlers

Bid to strip Congress of guzzlers by revoking leasing dollars

(Newser) - The environmental movement might just be trickling up: The House of Representatives has approved an energy bill amendment that would bar members from leasing gas guzzlers with taxpayer money. The proposal still faces some roadblocks, McClatchy reports, including its vague definition of emissions standards and the efforts of a top...

Indian Activists Seek 'Green' Funeral Pyres

Hindu cremation rites consume 50 million trees a year

(Newser) - Indian environmental activists are taking aim at the traditional Hindu funeral pyre, which can burn over 800 pounds of wood while mourners watch the rite that is believed to free soul from body. Now a nonprofit group is peddling a "green cremation system," which uses a raised metal...

Do Carbon 'Offsets' Really Offset Anything?

Inconvenient Truth director says offsets have 'symbolic quality'

(Newser) - Everyone from Al Gore to Coldplay has jumped on the carbon offset bandwagon, but the Los Angeles Times reports that their payments don’t actually make the air any cleaner. Here's how they work: "Offset” companies invest in existing clean energy and win the right to sell “reductions”...

Big Business Fuels Green Boom
Big Business Fuels Green Boom

Big Business Fuels Green Boom

Fear of dot-com-like bust grows as money chases scarce ideas

(Newser) - Greed and idealism are converging as big business propels today’s clean energy industry, CNN reports. Silicon Valley entrepreneurs are pulling in capital for oil and coal alternatives, while across the pond, London financiers swapped more than $30 billion last year in "pollution permits"—credits companies can sell...

Bedbugs Make Bloodthirsty Comeback
Bedbugs Make Bloodthirsty Comeback

Bedbugs Make Bloodthirsty Comeback

Once thought gone for good, pests are on the rebound in US

(Newser) - Despite admonitions about not letting the bedbugs bite, Americans are doing just that, and infestations are being reported across the country. Once thought wiped out by the now-banned pesticide DDT, the insects have been found in hospitals, schools, and even high-end residences, the Times of London reports. "Saturday Night...

Washington: 'Do As I Say, Not As I Do'

Bush asks others to cut back emissions as US bankrolls high-emission projects

(Newser) - While Bush asks others to reduce emissions, Washington is promising to pay for a state-of-the-art oil refinery in India that will pump out 9 million metric tons of carbon dioxide a year. The Los Angeles Times says that this is only some of the smoke covering Washington’s tracks, as...

House OKs Renewable Energy Bill
House OKs Renewable Energy Bill

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...

Meat Can be Tough on the Environment

Steaks do more damage than driving; cow farts also a problem

(Newser) - Four average-sized steaks generate as much greenhouse gas as an ordinary car traveling for 3 hours at 50mph. The meat also chews up 169 megajoules of energy, enough to light a 100-watt bulb for 20 days. These were among the findings of Japanese scientists investigating the effects of beef production...

China's CO2 Output Passes US
China's CO2 Output Passes US

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...

Thinking Green, Obama Cools Toward Coal

New stance on alternative-fuel plan perplexes industry

(Newser) - Caught between his increasingly carbon-conscious party and a major player in his home state, Barack Obama has backed off his support for converting coal into liquid vehicle fuel, the LA Times reports. Global warming is important to Democrats, but coal is important to the Illinois economy, and the senator's shift...

World Bank Will Pay Countries to Spare Trees

$250M pilot program will reward "avoided deforestation"

(Newser) - The World Bank is planning a $250-million fund to pay countries to refrain from cutting down tropical forests. The plan, which won approval at the G-8 summit last week, depends on companies to contribute to the fund, but that's not likely to happen unless rules governing carbon emissions credits are...

Rolling Stone's 'Green' Paper Has Recyclers Seeing Red

Magazine's new stock 100% not recycled

(Newser) - Aging counter-culture arbiter Rolling Stone is discovering it's not easy being green. The Times reports the magazine will soon start printing its wry critique of music and politics on "carbon neutral paper," a unique stock which adds no CO2 emissions to the atmosphere. But none of it is...

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