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Rio Dialogues: Focus on Water

Posted by bchristo on Tuesday, 19 June 2012 in Water Conservation

By Katrin Muff Rio Dialogues offers a public debate on the critical topic “Water”, currently on at Rio Centro. Dialogues is a public direct democratic initiative by the Brazilian government as their contribution to RIO+20. Within the main auditorium I found a highly diverse and young crowd of appro...

France proposes banning pesticide linked to bee collapse

Posted by bchristo on Monday, 04 June 2012 in Animals

By Jeremy Hance Following research linking neonicotinoid pesticides to the decline in bee populations, France has announced it plans to ban Cruiser OSR, an insecticide produced by Sygenta. Recent studies, including one in France, have shown that neonicotinoid pesticides likely hurt bees' ability to...

A Sherpa's View of the Mount Everest Traffic Jam

Posted by bchristo on Friday, 01 June 2012 in Ecotourism

By ANDREW C. REVKIN Pemba Janbu Sherpa has been on 16 expeditions and reached Mount Everest’s summit in 2010 and 2011. Last week, he abandoned his only 2012 summit attempt with a client and rescued an American climber instead. Even before reaching the American, Pemba had already rescued others alon...

Rio Dialogues Part I: WHY Should I Even Care?

Posted by bchristo on Thursday, 31 May 2012 in General Environment

by Elischia Fludd In the big lead up to Rio+20, the community concerned about sustainable development is all a-buzz. There is talk of PrepCom, side-events and dialogues at the Rio+20 conference. Despite all the momentum, critics note that the level of civil society input lacks luster. There must be...

DNA Evidence Shows That Marine Reserves Help to Sustain Fisheries

Posted by bchristo on Monday, 28 May 2012 in Forestry

Researchers reporting online on May 24 in the Cell Press journal Current Biology present the first evidence that areas closed to all fishing are helping to sustain valuable Australian fisheries. The international team of scientists applied a forensic DNA profiling approach to track the dispersal pat...

Big Oil's Big in Biofuels

Posted by bchristo on Friday, 25 May 2012 in Biofuels

BP (BP) has invested $7 billion in alternative energy since 2005. ExxonMobil (XOM) is spending $600 million on a 10-year effort to turn algae into oil. And Royal Dutch Shell (RDS/A) has invested billions of dollars in a Brazilian biofuels venture, buyin...

Scientists can now talk like dolphins

Posted by bchristo on Thursday, 24 May 2012 in Sustainable Development

A new dolphin speaker device could one day help us talk with these remarkably intelligent life forms, scientists say. Dolphins live in a world of sound far beyond our own. They can distinguish very small differences in the frequency or pitch of sound waves, and can hear and generate low-frequency s...

Algae fuel potential greater than thought

Posted by bchristo on Wednesday, 09 May 2012 in Biofuels

For algae to power our cars and planes, production needs to be low carbon and cost effective, which means working with natural processes, not against them, say scientists. Algae could become an important source of sustainable biofuel, as production doesn't compete with food crops for land. ...

Strong effort of conservation groups helps limit budget cuts

Posted by bchristo on Wednesday, 02 May 2012 in Wildlife Conservation

At some point in our lives most of us have been offered this advice: If you keep expectations low, you won't be disappointed. Photos by Michael E. EsteySmall, isolated wetlands like these produce 70 percent of the ducks in the critical prairie pothole region of North Dakota and South Dakota. Foll...

The Pros and Cons of Algae Bio Fuel

Posted by bchristo on Thursday, 12 April 2012 in Biofuels

Algae–based biofuel is a new energy source that has been getting a lot of attention lately. Certain types of algae contain natural oils that can be readily distilled into a vegetable oil or a number of petroleum-like products that could serve as drop-in replacements for gasoline, diesel, and jet fue...

Earth Day 2012 - Mobilize the Earth

Posted by bchristo on Sunday, 01 April 2012 in Peace

As the 42nd Anniversary of Earth Day approaches, people are becoming frustrated with the failure of governments to take any steps toward protecting and preserving the environment. The Earth Day 2012 campaign is designed to provide people with the opportunity to unite their voices in a call for a sus...

Arctic Ocean Drilling

Posted by bchristo on Saturday, 24 March 2012 in Fossil Fuels

As the Obama administration prepares to issue final permits for exploratory oil drilling on the outer continental shelf off Alaska's Arctic coast this summer, the public is hearing some familiar promises from industry and government -- the risk of a catastrophic oil spill is small, best avai...

Water prospects in the 21st century

Posted by bchristo on Wednesday, 29 February 2012 in Water Conservation

Access to water is one of the pressing global issues of the 21st century. As our global population grows and becomes wealthier, the demand for water will greatly increase. At the same time, water availability and quality are also under growing stress from climate change, energy scarcity, land use de...

The New Tesla, making SUV's Electric with Style

Posted by bchristo on Thursday, 09 February 2012 in Transportation

Elon Musk said Thursday his luxury electric car company is in compliance with terms of its loans from the federal government, and on schedule to launch two new models by the end of next year. "We have a lot of cash in the bank," Mr. Musk said in an interview ahead of the scheduled unveiling...

China’s Blood-Stained Coal

Posted by bchristo on Thursday, 02 February 2012 in Fossil Fuels

If you want to understand China’s reform-era growing pains you can do a lot worse than dig into the coal industry. Coal powers China’s industry, pollutes its environment, and is the site of conflict for the state and private entrepreneurs – each eager to monopolize control of a precious re...

Obama Stands up to Big Oil and Polluter Politicians

Posted by bchristo on Saturday, 21 January 2012 in Fossil Fuels

President Obama stood up to Big Oil and its puppets in Congress and denied a permit for the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline yesterday. This is encouraging news for the communities whose air and water would have been directly threatened by this pipeline, from Canada to Nebraska to the Gulf Coast. And ...

Sumatran rhinos find each other

Posted by bchristo on Tuesday, 17 January 2012 in Wildlife Conservation

Puntung is a Sumatran rhino, one of roughly two hundred left in the world. Captured in a Borneo forest on Christmas Day, she is the latest addition to Malaysia's Borneo Rhino Sanctuary -- and experts say she may also be one of the last hopes for a species on the brink of extinction. Veterinarians ...

Worst Year Yet for Elephants as Thousands are Slaughtered

Posted by bchristo on Friday, 30 December 2011 in Earth Violators

Large-scale tusk smuggling has reached a record high this year, with at least 2,500 dead elephants used for ivory.Organised criminals - particularly Asian syndicates - are increasingly involved in the illegal trade, according to environmental agency Traffic.Experts believe it has been the worst year...

Listen to the People archbishop of Goa

Posted by bchristo on Friday, 30 December 2011 in Sustainable Development

PANAJI: Against the backdrop of public apprehensions over the Regional Plan (RP) 2021, the archbishop of Goa, Filipe Neri Ferrao, on Thursday reminded Goa government leaders including chief minister Digambar Kamat and cabinet ministers of "the duty to tend the earth and to be responsible s...

Turkey-free Thanksgiving in Balboa Park

Posted by bchristo on Tuesday, 22 November 2011 in Food

No roast turkey with cracklin’ brown skin graced the groaning boards. Nor was there a pat of butter in sight to slather on the rolls, or a poof of whipped cream to dot the pumpkin pie. Yet, none of these trimmings were missed among the The more than 200 people who partook of the vegan vic...