By Johanna Armstrong1 December 2012 BEIJING (NBC News) – With miles of freshly paved roads, little traffic and some seriously avant-garde architecture, the Chinese city of Ordos provides a driving environment most car enthusiasts can only dream of. Yet rich Chinese who have invested in the resource-rich city are now frantically rushing to sell off […]
BEIJING, 29 November 2012 (EIA) – China, emergent superpower and the world’s second biggest economy, is effectively standing on the sidelines as its exponential growth devastates forests in a trade worth billions of dollars a year. In the new report Appetite for Destruction: China’s Trade in Illegal Timber, launched today in Beijing, the London-based Environmental […]
By Jeremy Hance29 November 2012 (mongabay.com) – Runaway economic growth comes with costs: in the case of China’s economic engine, one of them has been the world’s forests. According to a new report by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), China has become the number one importer of illegal wood products from around the world. Illegal […]
By Alister Doyle and Regan Doherty26 November 2012 DOHA (Reuters) – Despite mounting alarm about climate change, almost 200 nations meeting in Doha from Monday are likely to pay little more than lip service to the need to rein in rising greenhouse gas emissions. A likely failure to agree a meaningful extension of the U.N.’s […]
By KARL RITTER 24 November 2012 DOHA, Qatar (AP) – During a year with a monster storm and scorching heat waves, Americans have experienced the kind of freakish weather that many scientists say will occur more often on a warming planet. And as a re-elected president talks about global warming again, climate activists are cautiously […]
By KARL RITTER, with contributions from AP Environment Writer Michael Casey 26 November 2012 DOHA, Qatar (AP) – U.N. talks on a new climate pact resumed Monday in oil and gas-rich Qatar, where negotiators from nearly 200 countries will discuss fighting global warming and helping poor nations adapt to it. The two-decade-old talks have not […]
By Adrienne Mong24 November 2012 RAJA AMPAT, Indonesia (NBC News) – They’ve been described by one scientist as “pandas of the ocean.” “They’re such an iconic species, beloved by divers,” said Andrea Marshall, director of the Marine Megafauna Foundation, who came up with the description during an interview with NBC News. “They’re just amazing.” Unlikely […]
HONG KONG, 16 November 2012 (AP) – Hong Kong customs officers have made their second major seizure of ivory in less than a month after confiscating more than a tonne of the elephant tusks worth $1.4m (£880,000). Officers discovered 569 pieces of ivory on Thursday, weighing 1,330kg (2,930 lbs), in a container shipped to a […]
13 November 2012 (University of South Carolina) – Even the very lowest levels of radiation are harmful to life, scientists have concluded in the Cambridge Philosophical Society’s journal Biological Reviews. Reporting the results of a wide-ranging analysis of 46 peer-reviewed studies published over the past 40 years, researchers from the University of South Carolina and […]
By Fumbuka Ng’wanakilala; Editing by James Macharia and Alistair Lyon31 October 2012 DAR ES SALAAM (Reuters) – Tanzanian police have seized more than 200 elephant tusks hidden in a coffin and in fertilizer bags, pointing to rising poaching in the east African country, officials said on Wednesday. “This is the biggest seizure of elephant tusks […]
