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News articles on Environment

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Mongabay.com news articles on environment in blog format. Updated regularly.

Guidelines to ensure biofuels production won't hurt the environment
(8/30/2007) Environmentalists have long seen biofuels as a means to improve the sustainability of transportation and energy use since they are a renewable source of energy that can be replenished on an ongoing basis. Further, because biofuels are generally derived from plants, which absorb carbon from the atmosphere as they grow, biofuel production offers the potential to help offset carbon dioxide emissions and mitigate climate change. Nonetheless, in recent years, there has been considerable backlash against biofuels, which are increasingly viewed as a threat to the environment. Green groups now point to large-scale land conversion for energy crops, higher food prices, and a spate to studies that suggest net emissions from corn ethanol are little better than those from fossil fuels, to caution that biofuels can cause more problems than they address.


Business has to lead the Clean Up of the Enviroment
(8/30/2007) Though the next two and-a-bit years will remain in a sort of ecological standstill, the remaining century is going to be the boiling point for earth. Will it crumble in to a roiling mass of disaster or will we finally manage to remove such a deep imprint as we have made over the past 30 years in the next 10.


Future Ice Age Put on the Back Burner
(8/30/2007) Dr Toby Tyrrell of the University of Southampton's School of Ocean and Earth Science at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton has published a report in the latest edition of New Scientist magazine laying out his research that future ice-ages -- an evolutionary imperative for the planet earth -- could be pushed back some half a million years.


Largest-ever Endangered Species Act lawsuit filed
(8/29/2007) An environmental group plans the largest ever legal action in the history of the Endangered Species Act.


Environmental, safety concerns mount over China's Three Gorges Dam
(8/29/2007) Environmental problems are worse than anticipated at China's massive Three Gorges Dam, reports the The Wall Street Journal. A year after its completion, there are rising concerns of pollution, landslides, and flooding.


The other side of carbon trading
(8/29/2007) Planting trees in Uganda to offset greenhouse-gas emissions in Europe seemed like a good idea - until farmers were evicted from their land to make room for a forest.


"Extinct" baiji river dolphin spotted alive in China
(8/29/2007) An "extinct" baiji has been spotted alive in the Yangtze River, reports Chinese state media.


Meeting seeks to save Sumatra's tigers and elephants from extinction
(8/29/2007) Over 100 wildlife experts and government officials will meet in Indonesia Wednesday to draft an action plan to save Sumatran elephnts and tigers from extinction, reports Reuters.


NGOs should use palm oil to drive conservation
(8/29/2007) Environmentalists view the expansion of oil palm plantations in southeast Asia as one of the greatest threats to the region's forests and biodiversity. Campaigners say oil palm is driving the conversion of tens of thousands of hectares of peatlands and lowland forest in Indonesia and Malaysia, putting wildlife at risk, increasing the vulnerability of the forests to fires, and triggering large emissions of greenhouse gases. Pressure from these groups have in recent months convinced European policymakers to reconsider sourcing energy crop production to the region.


Northwest Passage Nearly Open, reports NASA
(8/28/2007) The fabeled Northwest Passage is nearly open, with implications for trade and natural resource exploitation, reports NASA.


UPS finds environment a top concern among customers, pushes paperless billing
(8/28/2007) UPS recently surveyed its customers to find out what would make them change billing methods to paperless PDF invoices. Surprisingly, the shipping giant found the primary motivating factor -- cited by 40 percent of those polled -- was concern for the environment.


Ozone Hole makes Early Appearance in 2007
(8/28/2007) The Antarctic ozone hole was discovered in 1985 by British scientists Joseph Farman, Brian Gardiner, and Jonathan Shanklin of the British Antarctic Survey. Though called a hole, it is rather a location in the ozone shield -- a layer that keeps ultra-violet rays from affecting us directly -- that is substantially lacking in ozone concentration.


Greenhouse gases made 2006 2nd-warmest year on record for U.S.
(8/28/2007) Greenhouse gases likely accounted for over half of the widespread warmth across the continental United States in 2006, report scientists writing in the September 5th issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters.


New poison frog species discovered in Colombia
(8/28/2007) Scientists have discovered a previously unknown species of poison frog in a remote mountainous region in Colombia. The tiny frog has been dubbed the "golden frog of Supata" and lives only in a 20 hectare area in Colombia's Cundinamarca region.


Global warming causes increase in tropical rainfall
(8/27/2007) Climate change appears to be resulting in higher levels of rainfall in the tropics, reports NASA.


U.S. grazing lands at risk due to rising CO2 levels
(8/27/2007) Rising carbon dioxide levels could cause significant changes to open grazing lands and rangelands around the world, reports a study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).


Wall Street looks at energy efficiency to boost profits
(8/27/2007) Today the Wall Street Journal featured a special section on energy efficiency. The paper reports that business is increasingly looking at reducing energy use as a way to improve the bottom line.


Indonesia to push carbon-credits for peatlands conservation
(8/27/2007) Indonesia plans to seek carbon credits for protecting its carbon-rich peatlands, a forestry official said on Monday.


Scientists meet in Hungary to discuss saving dying frogs
(8/27/2007) Scientists are meeting this week in Budapest, Hungary to discuss last-ditch efforts to save the world's most threatened frogs from extinction.


Scientists demand Brazil cease Amazon colonization project
(8/27/2007) A group of prominent scientists has called on Brazil to declare an immediate moratorium on a proposed forest colonization project that threatens one of the world's largest and long-running ecological experiments.


U.S. to spend $27M on possibly extinct bird
(8/26/2007) The U.S. government plans to spend $27 million on the recovery efforts for a bird species that may already be extinct, reports the Associated Press.


European blood-sucker falls victim to global warming
(8/26/2007) Europe's only known land leech may be on the brink of extinction due to shifts in climate, report researchers writing in the journal Naturwissenschaften. The findings are significant because they suggest that "human-induced climate change without apparent habitat destruction can lead to the extinction of populations of cold-adapted species that have a low colonization ability," according to the authors.


Iceland halts whaling
(8/24/2007) With stagnant demand for whale meat nearly a year after ending its ban on commercial whaling, Iceland said it would not issue new whale-hunting quotas until it gets an export license from Japan, reports Reuters.


With Corn ethanol more costly than oil, is Jatropha a better biofuel?
(8/24/2007) Jatropha may be a more economic biofuel than corn-based ethanol, reported the The Wall Street Journal on Friday, citing research from Goldman Sachs.


Iron boosts carbon sequestration by the ocean
(8/23/2007) Wind-blown iron contributes significantly to the biological productivity of the Southern Ocean near Antarctica, researchers report in this week's issue of the journal Science.


Animal trafficking at Miami International airport
(8/23/2007) Wildlife Inspector Carlos Pages vividly remembers the times when he opened a crate of imported animals only to discover that not all of them were still in the cloth bags that serve as their shipping cages. Those are the moments when his speed trumps their speed.


Groups demand AES withdraw from Panama dam projects
(8/23/2007) More than 50 green groups demanded Thursday that AES Corporation withdraw from three controversial hydroelectric projects that are threatening La Amistad International Park in Panama. Environmentalists say the dams threaten to displace wildlife and local communities -- the Naso and Ngobe people -- in the World Heritage site.


Photo: newborn mountain gorilla born in Congo
(8/23/2007) Conservationists announced the birth of a critically endangered mountain gorilla in the Democratic Republic of Congo's Virunga National Park. The newborn marked a positive development for the embattled apes in the park -- nine out of its 100 gorillas have been killed this year by poachers, including five last month.


Imported LNG could have 35% higher GHG emissions than coal
(8/23/2007) A team of Carnegie Mellon University researchers report that the choices U.S. officials make today could limit how the nation's future energy needs are met and could cost consumers billions in idle power plants and associated infrastructure systems.


U.S. military attacks illegal wildlife trade in Afghanistan
(8/22/2007) The U.S. military has teamed with the Bronx Zoo-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) to attack the illegal wildlife trade in Afghanistan, according to a statement from the Department of Defense.


China to miss pollution goals for 2007
(8/22/2007) China has managed to cut emissions of sulphur dioxide, an acid-rain causing pollutant, during the first half of 2007 but is likely to miss reduction targets for the year, reports the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA).


U.S. firms driving pollution in China
(8/22/2007) U.S. firms are helping drive environmental degradation in China, putting the health of millions of Chinese at risk, reports The Wall Street Journal. The paper says that by demanding ever lower products for goods, manufacturers are forced to reduced environmental safeguards in order to compete.


Court rebukes Bush Administration on global warming report
(8/22/2007) Tuesday the Bush Administration was ordered to publish an updated research plan and national assessment on climate change. By law the White Hosue is required to publish such a report every four years, yet the current administration has failed to do so since it took office. The last National Assessment was issued in late 2000 under the Clinton administration, but environmental groups say the Bush Administration had tried to surpress its findings and recommendations.


'New continent' and species discovered in Atlantic study
(8/18/2007) A scientist from the University of Aberdeen is leading a team of international researchers whose work will continue our understanding of life in the deepest oceans, and contribute to the global Census of Marine Life.


July 2007 was the 15th warmest July on record for the U.S.
(8/18/2007) July 2007 brought record and near-record warmth to the western United States, while much of the eastern and southern U.S. experienced cooler-than-average temperatures, according to scientists at NOAA's National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C.


Lake Superior may hit record low levels this fall
(8/18/2007) NOAA hydrologists indicate that Lake Superior is nearing record lows for the month of August, a trend that if continued could break past record lows for the months of September and October. NOAA's Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory is able to forecast lake levels 12 months in advance using current hydrological conditions combined with NOAA's long-term climate outlooks.


Sony launches consumer electronics recycling program
(8/17/2007) Sony has launched a recycling program for consumer electronics.


NASA admits to error in global warming data
(8/17/2007) NASA has admitted to a data error that skewed temperatures since 2000.


Group seeks salvation for 189 endangered bird species
(8/15/2007) BirdLife International has launched an appeal to save 189 endangered bird species over the next 5 years. The U.K.-based conservation group is seeking to raise tens of millions of dollars through its Species Champions initiative, by finding "Species Champions" among individuals, private foundations, and companies who will fund the work of identified "Species Guardians" for each bird.


Emerging (disease) markets
(8/15/2007) Instead of attacking wild birds for our new disease problems, a far more cost effective approach should focus on keeping wild animals separate in the places where they often commingle: in wildlife markets and international trade, according to wildlife health experts from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in a recent issue of the prestigious Journal of Wildlife Diseases.


Humans worsening the spread of forest-killing disease in California
(8/15/2007) The spread of Sudden Oak Death, a disease that is rapidly killing forests in the western United States, is being worsened by human activities, report studies recently published in the Journal of Ecology and Ecological Applications.


Arctic sea ice shrinks to record low in 2007
(8/15/2007) Arctic sea ice has shrunk to a record low according the Japan Aerospace Exploration agency.


Conservation more effective than biofuels for fighting global warming
(8/15/2007) Conserving forests and grasslands may be a more effective land-use strategy for fighting climate change than growing biofuel crops argues a new paper published in the journal Science. Comparing emissions from various fuel crops versus carbon storage in natural ecosystems, Renton Righelato and Dominick Spracklen write that "forestation of an equivalent area of land would sequester two to nine times more carbon over a 30-year period than the emissions avoided by the use of the biofuel."


Elephants get Photo IDs for Protection
(8/15/2007) Asian elephants don't carry photo identification, so scientists from the Wildlife Conservation Society and India's Nature Conservation Foundation are providing the service free of charge by creating a photographic archive of individual elephants, which can help save them as well.


Islands to face water problems as sea levels rise, populations grow
(8/15/2007) Islands in the tropical Pacific may face water problems as sea levels rise and populations grow, warns research published in Vadose Zone Journal.


Climate change reducing Lake Tahoe's water clarity
(8/15/2007) Lake Tahoe in Northern California is losing is characteristic water clarity due to pollution and climate change, reports a new study by the University of California at Davis.


Geoengineering cure for global warming could cause problems
(8/14/2007) Proposed geoengineering schemes to reduce global warming may do more harm than good, warns a new study published in Geophysical Research Letters.


Low deforestation countries to see least benefit from carbon trading
(8/13/2007) Countries that have done the best job protecting their tropical forests stand to gain the least from proposed incentives to combat global warming through carbon offsets, warns a new study published in Tuesday in the journal Public Library of Science Biology (PLoS). The authors say that "high forest cover with low rates of deforestation" (HFLD) nations "could become the most vulnerable targets for deforestation if the Kyoto Protocol and upcoming negotiations on carbon trading fail to include intact standing forest."


Failing water supply destroyed lost city of Angkor Wat
(8/13/2007) The ancient city of Angkor in Cambodia was larger in extent than previously thought and fed by a single water system, according to a new map published by an international team of researchers. The study, published in the early online edition of the journal Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Sciences, suggests that the urban settlement sustained an elaborate water management network extending over more than 1,0000 square kilometers.


Amazon deforestation in Brazil falls 29% for 2007
(8/13/2007) Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell 29 percent for the 2006-2007 year, compared with the prior period. The loss of 3,863 square miles (10,010 square kilometers) of rainforest was the lowest since the Brazilian government started tracking deforestation on a yearly basis in 1988.



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