Thanks to the Clean Air Act, we’ve made great progress in cleaning up air pollution from across the U.S. The State of the Air 2012 shows that the air quality in many places has improved, but that over 127 million people—41 percent of the nation—still suffer pollution levels that are too often dangerous to breathe. […]
By Jeremy Hance25 October 2012 (mongabay.com) – Bushmeat hunting has become a grave concern for species in West and Central Africa, but a new report notes that lesser-known illegal hunting in Africa’s iconic savannas is also decimating some animals. Surprisingly, illegal hunting across eastern and southern Africa is hitting big predators particularly hard, such as […]
By ERIC HANANOKI19 September 2012 (Media Matters) – The Wall Street Journal has published op-eds from 10 writers without disclosing their roles as advisers to Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign. The op-eds attack President Obama and his administration or discuss Romney on a range of topics like the economy, health care, education and foreign policy. According […]
By Jeremy Hance8 October 2012 (mongabay.com) – From 1990 to 2010 almost all palm oil expansion in Kalimantan came at the expense of forest cover, according to the most detailed look yet at the oil palm industry in the Indonesian state, published in Nature: Climate Change. Palm oil plantations now cover 31,640 square kilometers of […]
By Naomi Gilens, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project 27 September 2012 Justice Department documents released today by the ACLU reveal that federal law enforcement agencies are increasingly monitoring Americans’ electronic communications, and doing so without warrants, sufficient oversight, or meaningful accountability. The documents, handed over by the government only after months of litigation, are […]
By Becky Oskin, OurAmazingPlanet Staff Writer23 October 2012 (LiveScience.com) – The relatively small glaciers that drape the planet’s mountains will play an important role in future sea level rise, according to a new study that estimated glaciers’ collective size. Researchers calculated the ice thickness for 171,000 glaciers worldwide, excluding the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, which […]
NIAMEY, 23 October 2012 (Reuters) – Niger said on Monday it will launch a $110 million project to counter the impact of rapid expansion of deserts and increasingly unpredictable rains in one of the world’s poorest countries. “The programme aims to test strategies that will help us integrate climate risk and adapt climate change into […]
24 October 2012 (PhysOrg) – It is tragic whenever any species is lost. Now it appears that the impact of species loss is far-reaching, much more than previously thought. The symbiotic relationships that develop in the environment as a result of high biodiversity make ecosystems more resilient to change. The loss of a species can […]
By Gwen Ackerman 23 October 2012 The Dead Sea is shrinking at a record rate, prompting calls for Israel and Jordan to stop fertilizer makers from siphoning so much of the water whose restorative powers have attracted visitors since biblical times. The salty inland lake bordering the nations dropped a record 1.5 meters (4.9 feet) […]
By Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent, www.guardian.co.uk24 October 2012 The images from the summer of 2010 were undoubtedly gruesome: the carcass of a young sperm whale, decayed and partially eaten by sharks, sighted at sea south of the Deepwater Horizon oil well. It was the first confirmed sighting of a dead whale since the BP […]
