By ERICA WERNER – Feb 29, 2008 ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday justified blocking California from cracking down on auto emissions by saying the problems of global warming aren't unique to one state.
The EPA denial also blocked more than a dozen other states from implementing the tailpipe emissions reductions sought by California.
» ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5j4TNaA2ck0rw-HHcAv-8THuMzZaAD8V44D600
'Green funerals' feature biodegradable coffins
"It is composting at its best," said Beal, owner of The Natural Burial Company, which will sell a variety of eco-friendly burial products when it opens in January, including the Ecopod, a kayak-shaped coffin made out of recycled newspapers.
Biodegradable coffins are part of a larger trend toward "natural" burials, which require no formaldehyde embalming, cement vaults, chemical lawn treatments or laminated caskets. Advocates say such burials are less damaging to the environment.
» www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/01/03/green.coffins.ap/index.html?eref=rss_latest
Continental Airlines Launches Carbon Offset Program
Continental Airlines has launched a voluntary carbon offsetting program that lets customers view the carbon footprint of their booked itinerary and to make a contribution to Sustainable Travel International to fund the purchase of carbon offsets.
» www.environmentalleader.com/2007/12/04/continental-airlines-launches-carbon-offset-program/
1 in 100 Americans behind bars, report finds
(AP) Associated Press
updated 3:38 p.m. PT, Thurs., Feb. 28, 2008
NEW YORK - For the first time in U.S. history, more than one of every 100 adults is in jail or prison, according to a new report documenting America’s rank as the world’s No. 1 incarcerator. It urges states to curtail corrections spending by placing fewer low-risk offenders behind bars.
» www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23392251
1 million lose power in California storm
(AP) Associated Press
updated 5:44 p.m. PT, Fri., Jan. 4, 2008
SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Howling winds, pelting rain and heavy snow pummeled California on Friday, toppling trees, flipping big rigs, cutting power to more than a million people and forcing evacuations in mudslide-prone areas.
» www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22503465/
Biofuels Deemed a Greenhouse Threat
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
Published: February 8, 2008
Almost all biofuels used today cause more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fuels if the full emissions costs of producing these “green” fuels are taken into account, two studies being published Thursday have concluded.
» www.nytimes.com/2008/02/08/science/earth/08wbiofuels.html?_r=1&ref=business&oref=slogin
Bush signs bill to expand transparency
(AP) Associated Press updated 5:15 AM EST 1/1/08
Excerpt from www.msnbc.com
CRAWFORD, Texas - President Bush on Monday signed a bill aimed at giving the public and the media greater access to information about what the government is doing.
The new law toughens the Freedom of Information Act, the first such makeover to the signature public-access law in a decade. It amounts to a congressional pushback against the Bush administration's movement to greater secrecy since the terrorist attacks of 2001.
» www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22456870/
California sues EPA over greenhouse gas rules
(AP) Associated Press updated 11:42 a.m. PT, Wed., Jan. 2, 2008
SACRAMENTO, Calif. - California sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday for denying its first-in-the-nation greenhouse gas limits on cars, trucks and SUVs, challenging the Bush administration's conclusion that states have no business setting emission standards.
Other states are expected to join the lawsuit, which was anticipated after the EPA on Dec. 19 denied California's request for a waiver, required under the federal Clean Air Act. The lawsuit was filed in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.
» www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22474944/
City sues man for canceling trash service
Jan 29, 2008 3:00 AM (4 days ago) by Tamara Barak Aparton, The Examiner
SAN CARLOS (Map, News) - A man who claims to have reduced his waste to nearly nothing out of concern for the environment now faces a lawsuit from San Carlos for canceling his garbage-collection service.
Eddie House, 53, says he was shocked when he was served with a lawsuit Sunday at his Cedar Street home.
The lawsuit, filed by San Carlos Deputy City Attorney Linda Noeske in San Mateo Superior Court on Jan. 22, seeks a permanent injunction forcing House to maintain garbage service. City officials are also seeking to recoup from House the costs of the lawsuit.
» www.examiner.com/a-1187195%7ECity_sues_man_for_canceling_trash_service.html
Continent-size toxic stew of plastic trash fouling swath of Pacific Ocean
Justin Berton, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, October 19, 2007
Excerpt from the San Francisco Chronicle www.sfgate.com
At the start of the Academy Award-winning movie "American Beauty," a character videotapes a plastic grocery bag as it drifts into the air, an event he casts as a symbol of life's unpredictable currents, and declares the romantic moment as a "most beautiful thing."
To the eyes of an oceanographer, the image is pure catastrophe. In reality, the rogue bag would float into a sewer, follow the storm drain to the ocean, then make its way to the so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch - a heap of debris floating in the Pacific that's twice the size of Texas, according to marine biologists.
» www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2007/10/19/SS6JS8RH0.DTL&type=politics
EU Approves Emissions Plan For Airlines
The European Parliament gave preliminary approval to a global warming control plan that would require, beginning in 2011, that airlines flying to and from Europe offset some of their emissions by buying carbon dioxide allowances on the open market, The New York Times reports.
The move could set up a legal battle with the U.S., a prospect which was raised last year. European airlines oppose the plan too.
» www.environmentalleader.com/2007/11/14/eu-approves-emissions-plan-for-airlines/
Experts list 9 climate 'tipping elements'
MSNBC staff and news service reports
updated 7:00 a.m. PT, Wed., Feb. 6, 2008
Concerned that humans might push Earth into major climate shifts, a team of experts has published a study that lists nine "tipping elements," or areas of concern for policymakers.
Arctic sea-ice and the Greenland Ice Sheet, both of which have shown significant melt, were regarded as the most sensitive tipping elements with the smallest uncertainty.
» www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23011346/
Exxon Mobil Profit Sets Record Again
By JAD MOUAWAD
Published: February 1, 2008
By any measure, Exxon Mobil’s performance last year was a blowout.
The company reported Friday that it beat its own record for the highest profits ever recorded by any company, with net income rising 3 percent to $40.6 billion, thanks to surging oil prices. The company’s sales, more than $404 billion, exceeded the gross domestic product of 120 countries.
Exxon Mobil earned more than $1,287 of profit for every second of 2007.
» www.nytimes.com/2008/02/01/business/01cnd-exxon.html?em&ex=1202101200&en=575e77c5fd8688b0&ei=5087%0A
Haiti’s poor resort to eating mud as prices rise
updated 3:43 p.m. PT, Tues., Jan. 29, 2008
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - It was lunchtime in one of Haiti's worst slums and Charlene Dumas was eating mud.
With food prices rising, Haiti's poorest can't afford even a daily plate of rice, and some take desperate measures to fill their bellies.
» www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22902512/
Heat on EPA after Calif. greenhouse gas denial
(AP) Associated Press updated 4:23 p.m. PT, Thurs., Dec. 20, 2007
WASHINGTON - Congressional Democrats on Thursday announced an investigation of the Environmental Protection Agency’s refusal to let California implement its tailpipe emissions law, the first step in what will likely be a fierce legal and political battle.
» www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22345011/
Hot asphalt tapped for its solar power
(AP) Associated Press updated 11:20 a.m. PT, Mon., Dec. 31, 2007
SCHARWOUDE, Netherlands - If you have ever blistered your bare feet on a hot road you know how asphalt absorbs the sun's rays. Now, a Dutch company is siphoning the heat from roads and parking lots to heat homes and offices.
» www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22444063/
In Bush's Final Year, The Agenda Gets Greener
By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 29, 2007; Page A01
Excerpt from the Washington Post www.washingtonpost.com
For years, Bush bristled privately at what he considered sky-is-falling alarmism by the liberal, elitist Hollywood crowd. The clatter over climate change, according to friends and advisers, seemed to him more like a political agenda than a rational response to known facts.
But ever so gradually, they say, Bush's views have evolved. He has found the science increasingly persuasive and believes more needs to be done, especially after a set of secret briefings last winter. A former aide said Bush's staff even developed models for a market-based cap on greenhouse emissions.
» www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/28/AR2007122803046.html?hpid=topnews
Major sewage spill sullies bay waters near San Francisco
By Paul Rogers and Mike Taugher
Bay Area News Group
Article Launched: 02/02/2008 01:48:05 AM PST
In one of the largest sewage spills into San Francisco Bay in recent years, 2.7 million gallons of sewage poured into the bay during Thursday night's storm after a Marin County treatment plant overflowed.
Most of the sewage - enough to fill 100 backyard swimming pools - was partially treated, having been filtered at a basic level but not disinfected with chlorine.
» www.mercurynews.com/healthandscience/ci_8149175
New Way to Kill Viruses: Shake Them to Death
By Michael Schirber, Special to LiveScience
posted: 05 February 2008 09:27 am ET
Scientists may one day be able to destroy viruses in the same way that opera singers presumably shatter wine glasses. New research mathematically determined the frequencies at which simple viruses could be shaken to death.
"The capsid of a virus is something like the shell of a turtle," said physicist Otto Sankey of Arizona State University. "If the shell can be compromised [by mechanical vibrations], the virus can be inactivated."
» www.livescience.com/health/080205-virus-shattering.html
Olympic Teams Prepare for the Dirty Air in Beijing
By Ariana Eunjung Cha
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, January 24, 2008; Page A01
BEIJING -- American runners are trying out face masks. Dutch cyclists will train in South Korea.
Fearful of the effects of air pollution on their performance, Olympic athletes are taking extreme measures to prepare for this summer's Games in Beijing.
» http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/23/AR2008012303954.html?wpisrc=rss_world
Out of uniform and on the street
(AP) Associated Press
updated 5:37 p.m. PT, Wed., Nov. 7, 2007
WASHINGTON - Veterans make up one in four homeless people in the United States, though they are only 11 percent of the general adult population, according to a report to be released Thursday.
And homelessness is not just a problem among middle-age and elderly veterans. Younger veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are trickling into shelters and soup kitchens seeking services, treatment or help with finding a job.
» www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21678030/
Pardon me, but I've found a way to save the world from flatulent cows
Leo Lewis in Tokyo
A team of Japanese boffins may have accidentally struck gold in the fight against global warming: they believe they have devised a way to neutralise the perilous belches of 1.5 billion cows.
Junichi Takahashi’s discovery could, he says, dramatically reduce the environmental damage caused by the world’s cattle herds, whose collective belching is thought to account for 5 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions.
» http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article3254326.ece
Pharmaceuticals lurking in U.S. drinking water
By Jeff Donn, Martha Mendoza and Justin Pritchard
Associated Press Writers
March 9, 2008
A vast array of pharmaceuticals — including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones — have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, an Associated Press investigation shows.
» www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23503485/
Some Calif. farmers see water as cash crop
(AP) Associated Press
updated 3:22 p.m. PT, Fri., Jan. 25, 2008
FRESNO, Calif. - With water becoming increasingly precious in California, a rising number of farmers figure they can make more money by selling their water than by actually growing something.
Because farmers get their water at subsidized rates, some of them see financial opportunity this year in selling their allotments to Los Angeles and other desperately thirsty cities across Southern California, as well as to other farms.
» www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22846668/
Sundance Film Festival turns deeper green
Reuters
updated 7:56 a.m. PT, Tues., Jan. 22, 2008
PARK CITY, Utah - When former U.S. Vice President Al Gore premiered documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, he inspired not only greater awareness of global warming, but the general greening of this top movie event.
Two years later, almost everything at the key gathering for independent film backed by Robert Redford's Sundance Institute has gone eco-friendly, eco-conscious or just plain eco-crazy.
» www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22757109/
Texas - The CO2 State
By Matthew Philips | Newsweek Web Exclusive
Feb 28, 2008 | Updated: 12:41 p.m. ET
If Texas were its own country, it would be the 48th most populous in the world, right between North Korea and Ghana. In terms of landmass, at 268,000 square miles it would be the 40th-biggest. But when it comes to environmental impact, Texas is on par with some of the largest, most industrialized nations on the planet.
Were the Lonestar State to secede from the union it would be the world's eighth-largest emitter of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, just behind Canada, with 630 million metric tons spewed into the atmosphere in 2005, according to new figures released this week by the U.S. government's Energy Information Administration.
» www.newsweek.com/id/116784
The Unkindest Cut
Feb 14th 2008
From The Economist print edition
Cameroon wants to sell a forest, but conservationists don't want to buy it.
FOR rent: 830,000 hectares of pristine tropical rainforest. Rich in wildlife, including forest elephants and gorillas. Provides a regionally important African green corridor. Price: $1.6m a year. Conservationist tenant preferred, but extractive forestry also considered. Please apply to the Cameroonian minister of forestry.
That, in essence, is what the government of Cameroon has been offering since 2001 in an attempt to make some money from a forest known as Ngoyla-Mintom. The traditional way would be to lease the land to a logging company. But Joseph Matta, the country's forestry minister, would rather lease it to a conservation group. The trouble is, he cannot find one that is prepared to take it off his hands.
» www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10688618
U.N. conference adopts global warming plan
(AP) Associated Press updated 9:58 p.m. PT, Fri., Dec. 14, 2007
BALI, Indonesia - A U.N. climate conference adopted a plan Saturday to negotiate a new global warming pact, after the United States lifted opposition to a call by developing nations for technological help to battle rising temperatures.
The adoption came after marathon negotiations overnight, which first settled a battle between Europe and the U.S. over whether the document should mention specific goals for rich countries' obligations to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
» www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22226310/
Virgin Atlantic to fly a 747 plane on biofuel
(AP) Associated Press
updated 8:03 a.m. PT, Mon., Jan. 14, 2008
LONDON - Virgin Atlantic said Monday it would fly one of its Boeing 747 planes on biofuel during a demonstration flight from London to Amsterdam next month.
Virgin Atlantic Chairman Richard Branson said the test flight, which he called the first of its kind, would yield crucial information on how to reduce aviation's carbon footprint.
» www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22648091/