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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...

Off-the-Grid Living in Brooklyn

Posted by Aaron on Monday, 04 June 2012 in Solar

By RONDA KAYSEN As the standards for environmentally friendly construction rise, a Brooklyn developer has a new goal: renovate an apartment building so it generates as much energy as it uses. When the developer, Voltaic Solaire, finishes a $1 million rehabilitation of a 19th-century brownstone at ...

How to destroy the planet from the comfort of your own home; Part 1

Posted by Angel on Saturday, 02 June 2012 in Sustainable Development

By: Matt Grocoff IS NATURE SAFE FROM OUR HOMES? Homes exist to shelter us from storms, protect us from the elements, and keep us safe from nature. But, is nature safe from our homes? Henry Pollack, author of “A World Without Ice” and who with his colleagues on the International Panel on Climate C...

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...

About the Rio+20 Conference

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

At the Rio+20 Conference, world leaders, along with thousands of participants from governments, the private sector, NGOs and other groups, will come together to shape how we can reduce poverty, advance social equity and ensure environmental protection on an ever more crowded planet to get to the fut...

Memo to Rio+20: 'green economy' doesn't mean monetising nature

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

by Hannah Griffiths Official support for marketising nature to stop its destruction means the practical action at Rio+20 will be at People's summit The 1992 Rio Earth summit established "sustainable development" firmly in the global political lexicon – even though the term meant, and continues to ...

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...

Separate the trash and get it right

Posted by Aaron on Wednesday, 30 May 2012 in Recycling

With the approval of the National Plan on Solid Waste (PNRS) in 2010, Brazil expects municipalities to raise awareness about the importance of separating trash at home. The National Plan on Solid Waste requires municipalities to take measures to ensure environmentally-friendly disposal of waste by 2...

Brazil World Environment Day Host Country

Posted by ep-admin on Wednesday, 30 May 2012 in Peace

Brazil, a country with one of the fastest growing economies in the world, will host World Environment Day 2012 (WED) on 5 June. Brazil had previously hosted WED in 1992, on the eve of the first Earth Summit, when world leaders, government officials and international organizations met to refocus, re...

Sequoias, earth's oldest life, smothered by smog

Posted by bensor on Tuesday, 29 May 2012 in Forestry

'If this is happening in a national park that isn't even close to an urban area, what do you think is happening in your backyard?' By TRACIE CONE On a clear day, the view from Beetle Rock in Sequoia National Park extends west for 105 miles across the patchwork of crops in California's agricultural...

Green Power Sources & Baby Products are Winners at UCD

Posted by Wolf on Monday, 28 May 2012 in Green Products/Services

"The biggest bang in this year's UC Davis business plan competition came from the S2E Energy founder who touted a thin, clear window like material said to conduct the sun's power more cheaply and efficiently than existing solar technology." The biggest bang in this year's UC Davis business plan com...

Global Warming and Changes We Can Already See In The World

Posted by amir on Monday, 28 May 2012 in Climate Change

Photograph by Paul Nicklen Over the last 100 years, global temperatures have warmed by about 1.33 degrees Fahrenheit (0.74 degrees Celsius) on average. The change may seem minor, but it's happening very quickly — more than half of it since 1979, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate C...

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...

Hawaii Bans Plastic bags

Posted by plantitfilm on Monday, 28 May 2012 in Sustainable Development

The Big Island of Hawaii is joining the islands of Maui and Kauai and banning the use of plastic bags. The bill won't take effect until next year and gives businesses and additional year to adjust to using paper bags. Plastic shopping bags are a complicated issue. One one hand, they're much...

Apple data center to run entirely on clean energy

Posted by plantitfilm on Monday, 28 May 2012 in Clean Technology

Apple’s massive 500,000 square-foot Project Dolphin data center in Maiden, N.C., is taking clean energy to a new level. Apple has confirmed its commitment to environmentally responsible business practices with the announcement that the facility will be powered completely by clean, renewable energy b...

An LED Bulb That Lasts 20 Years

Posted by Wolf on Monday, 28 May 2012 in Green Products/Services

A new LED (light-emitting diode) from Philips promises to last 20 years – more than 25 000 hours. The LED light bulb was launched commercially in stores on Earth Day. For more than one hundred years, Thomas Edison’s incandescent light bulb has been on the market. Though providing excellent light qu...

California Expands Rooftop Solar-Power Subsidies

Posted by Wolf on Monday, 28 May 2012 in Solar

California regulators approved a plan Thursday to expand a subsidy for rooftop solar power generated by homeowners and businesses, handing a victory to the solar industry. The plan, adopted by the California Public Utilities Commission, allows more homeowners and businesses that install their own s...

The Phase out of the Plastic Bag

Posted by Angel on Sunday, 27 May 2012 in Sustainable Development

Plastic bags are perhaps the largest source of waste from our modern consumer culture. Stores give them out without question for all products big and small. Later, they can be found littered on the sides of roads and highways, hanging from tree branches, floating in rivers and clogging up our landfi...

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...

China Energy: a greener shade of grey

Posted by amir on Thursday, 24 May 2012 in Solar

New report says renewables’ share of China’s energy use will rise, but predicts coal consumption up 35% and carbon emissions up 43% this decade. A new report, China energy: a greener shade of grey, from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) highlights China’s expansion of renewable energy, but says...