By David Biello11 June 2013 (Scientific American) – Here’s the scam. A Chinese company manufactures hydrofluorocarbons, the refrigerant gases responsible for the ozone hole and climate change. The gases can efficiently be turned into cash, either by using them in products like refrigerators or air conditioners or, more lucratively, by destroying them. In the early […]
[But see: China greenhouse gas cuts: Who is fooling who when it comes to combating climate change?] RANCHO MIRAGE, 8 June 2013 (AFP) – The United States and China agreed to mount a joint effort to combat climate change Saturday, committing to work to cut hydrofluorocarbons (HFC), or “super greenhouse” gases. In a statement issued […]
10 June 2013 (Deutsche Welle) – The International Energy Agency (IEA) says the world’s carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel usage have risen to a record level. It warns that despite increased renewables usage climate change will “not go away.” Global carbon dioxide emissions hit a new record in 2012, standing at 31.6 billion tons, […]
By Wang Wen and Zheng Xin 18 May 2013 (China Daily) – A senior official from the Civil Aviation Administration of China said on Friday that the country disapproved and “will not accept any unilateral and compulsory market measures”, after the European Union threatened Chinese carriers with fines for non-compliance with its Emissions Trading System, […]
By IAN AUSTEN17 May 2013 WINDSOR, Ontario (The New York Times) – Assumption Park gives residents of this city lovely views of the Ambassador Bridge and the Detroit skyline. Lately they’ve been treated to another sight: a three-story pile of petroleum coke covering an entire city block on the other side of the Detroit River. […]
10 May 2013 (mongabay.com) – Dozens of elephants have been slaughtered in the Dzanga Bai World Heritage Site in the Central African Republic just days after conservationists warned about an impending threat from the movement of 17 heavily armed poachers. The massacre occurred at a site renowned as “village of elephants”, where tourists and scientists […]
By ANDREW JACOBS4 May 2013 BINGZHONGLUO, China (The New York Times) – From its crystalline beginnings as a rivulet seeping from a glacier on the Tibetan Himalayas to its broad, muddy amble through the jungles of Myanmar, the Nu River is one of Asia’s wildest waterways, its 1,700-mile course unimpeded as it rolls toward the […]
By Gwynn Guilford30 April 2013 (The Atlantic) – China might be cracking down on luxury spending in watches, cars, banquets and really foul liquor. But the market for pricey fish parts continues relatively unabated. US border officials recently busted a ring smuggling bladders of an endangered fish used for medicinal Chinese soups (here are some […]
25 April 2013 (mongabay.com) – Poachers have likely killed off the last rhinos in Mozambique’s Limpopo National Park, according to a park official who spoke with Portugal News. Park director António Abacar said that no rhinos have been sighted in Limpopo National Park since January, “which means that the ones that lived in the park […]
By MARTIN FACKLER24 April 2013 YAKUSHIMA, Japan (The New York Times) – A mysterious pestilence has befallen this island’s primeval forests, leaving behind the bleached, skeletal remains of dead trees that now dot the dark green mountainsides. Osamu Nagafuchi, an environmental engineer with a passion for the island and its rugged terrain, believes he […]
