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Germany is successfully limiting the amount of carbon, energy and resources required to grow its economy. Though the public is generally satisfied with the level of environmental quality, the OECD’s Environmental Performance Review of Germany warns that challenges remain in areas like air and water quality, the protection of biodiversity, and de-carbonising energy production. It says that Germany will need more cost-effective policies to achieve its ambitious environmental objectives which, in some cases, go beyond those established in the European Union. Stringent environmental requirements have helped to make Germany a leader in the environmental goods and services sector. Worth up...

A new NASA computer modeling effort has found that additional growth of plants and trees in a world with doubled atmospheric carbon dioxide levels would create a new negative feedback -- a cooling effect -- in the Earth's climate system that could work to reduce future global warming. The cooling effect would be -0.3 degrees Celsius (C) (-0.5 Fahrenheit (F)) globally and -0.6 degrees C (-1.1 F) over land, compared to simulations where the feedback was not included, said Lahouari Bounoua, of Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. Bounoua is lead author on a paper detailing the results published Dec....

The risk of cancer for Hispanics living in Florida is 40 percent higher than for those who live in their native countries, a puzzling new study finds. The finding holds even after researchers corrected for the increase detection rates in the United States. And access to health care did not make things better. "This suggests that changes in their environment and lifestyles make them more prone to develop cancer," said Dr. Paulo S. Pinheiro, a researcher in the Department of Epidemiology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. The results are detailed in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers...

The greater Los Angeles area is emitting more than double the amount of methane than previously estimated, according to a new study. A greenhouse gas 25 times more powerful than carbon dioxide (CO2), most man-made methane (CH4) emission comes from agriculture -- rice paddies, livestock, and biomass burning are all big contributors. As a result studies have largely ignored the methane coming from urban areas, and regulatory agencies have had to rely on guesswork to fill in the gaps. Debra Wunch of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena and a team of researchers measured greenhouse gas emissions in the...

Wal-Mart has just changed the game with respect to environmental issues. Now it doesn't matter whether Congress' new cap-and-trade law meets all its promises, nor whether the G-8 leaders dithered rather than acted on environmental issues. Wal-Mart's unilateral decision to put its purchasing and communication power behind going green also shows that a single company using its unique clout can accelerate public action to reduce greenhouse gases and reverse climate change. By rolling out an environmental labelling program disclosing to consumers the environmental costs of making products sold at Wal-Mart, the $401 billion retail behemoth has transformed green standards from...

Research by TU Delft proves that Dutch power stations are able to cope at any time in the future with variations in demand for electricity and supply of wind power, as long as use is made of up-to-date wind forecasts. PhD candidate Bart Ummels also demonstrates that there is no need for energy storage facilities. Ummels will receive his PhD on this topic on Thursday 26 February. Wind is variable and can only partially be predicted. The large-scale use of wind power in the electricity system is therefore tricky. PhD candidate Bart Ummels MSc. investigated the consequences of using a...

"Block after block of ice is just tumbling and crumbling into the ocean," Ted Scambos, lead scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, said in a telephone interview. "The shelf is not just cracking off and a piece goes drifting away, but totally shattering. These kinds of events, we don't see them very often. But we want to understand them better because these are the things that lead to a complete loss of the ice shelf," Scambos added. Scambos said a large part of the ice shelf is now supported by only a thin strip of ice. This...

Blissfield, Michigan - Michigan’s first platinum-level Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) award has been given to “Burnside’s Inn,” a home designed by Riverbend Timber Framing, Blissfield, and built by Robert Burnside’s Fireside Home Construction, Dexter. The LEED Green Building Rating System™, the nationally accepted benchmark for high-performance green buildings, bases its certifications on sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor environmental quality. The platinum award is its highest level of recognition. “Burnside’s Inn” met the certification’s highest standards using Riverbend’s custom timber frame, along with Structural Insulated Panels (SIPs) and an Advantage™ Insulated Concrete...

BELTSVILLE, Md. -- Unless someone or something stops it soon, the mysterious killer that is wiping out many of the nation's honeybees could have a devastating effect on America's dinner plate, perhaps even reducing us to a glorified bread-and-water diet. Honeybees don't just make honey; they pollinate more than 90 of the tastiest flowering crops we have. Among them: apples, nuts, avocados, soybeans, asparagus, broccoli, celery, squash and cucumbers. And lots of the really sweet and tart stuff, too, including citrus fruit, peaches, kiwi, cherries, blueberries, cranberries, strawberries, cantaloupe and other melons. In fact, about one-third of the human diet...

WASHINGTON — Old toothbrushes, beach toys and used condoms are part of a vast vortex of plastic trash in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, threatening sea creatures that get tangled in it, eat it or ride on it, a new report says. Because plastic doesn't break down the way organic material does, ocean currents and tides have carried it thousands of miles to an area between Hawaii and the U.S. West Coast, according to the study by the international environmental group Greenpeace. This swirling vortex, which can grow to be about the size of Texas, is not far from...

The uncertainty surrounding climate change argues for action, not inaction. America should lead the way FOR most of the Earth's history, the planet has been either very cold, by our standards, or very hot. Fifty million years ago there was no ice on the poles and crocodiles lived in Wyoming. Eighteen thousand years ago there was ice two miles thick in Scotland and, because of the size of the ice sheets, the sea level was 130m lower. Ice-core studies show that in some places dramatic changes happened remarkably swiftly: temperatures rose by as much as 20°C in a decade. Then,...

KEY LARGO, Fla. — Marine scientists hope "test-tube coral babies" will take root to help restore a tract of reef ravaged by a 1984 ship grounding in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. A team of University of Miami marine science researchers is collecting coral eggs and sperm all this week during an annual reproductive ritual, dubbed coral spawning. Looking like an upside-down, underwater snowstorm, most corals in the Keys, Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean release eggs and sperm into the water a few days after the full moon in August. In the wild, eggs and sperm randomly mix...

One way to keep carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere is to put it back in the ground. In the first of two News Features on carbon sequestration, Quirin Schiermeier asked when the world's coal-fired power plants will start storing away their carbon. In the second, Emma Marris joins the enthusiasts who think that enriching Earth's soils with charcoal can help avert global warming, reduce the need for fertilizers, and greatly increase the size of turnips. J. LEHMANN Drop of the black stuff: terra preta contrasts strongly with normal soil in colour (above) and produces much more vigorous crops (below)....

BEIJING — China will rigorously enforce limits on industrial pollution as it seeks to rein in rampant pollution and tame frenetic economic growth, the nation's top environment official said. Zhou Shengxian, head of China's State Environmental Protection Administration, said government efforts to cut sulphur dioxide and other pollutants belching into China's hazy skies were failing, the China Environment News reported on Wednesday. Breakneck economic expansion was instead overwhelming official goals to cut emissions and energy use, he said in a speech to officials on Tuesday. "The central leadership is treating reductions in energy use and major pollutant emissions as two...

FAIRBANKS, Alaska — Environmental consultant Mike Pollen remembers standing on a pile of sewage sludge composting outside the Fairbanks treatment plant on a November day in 1997. The temperature was 40 degrees below zero but his feet were warm. Then sweaty. Then uncomfortably hot inside his insulated rubber boots. "They felt like they were going to melt," he said. He figures there was a 180-degree difference between the compost cooking at his feet and the frosty temperature freezing his head. Prevailing wisdom said sludge composting wouldn't work north of North Dakota. Pollen, the author of several wastewater system training manuals...

By Mick Farmer. A while ago I wrote an article on winches and asked the question as to their viability. In the article, I discussed that unless you were a complete 4wd nutter like myself or working / living in an environment where you are likely to get stuck on a near daily basis then -- pretty much a waste of money. One piece of equipment that is, in my opinion, invaluable is the high-lift jack. There are various makes including "hi-lift", "jack-all", and "black rat" but they all do much the same thing; only some have a higher safe...

BEIJING — China is to auction licences to foreigners to hunt wild animals, including endangered species, a newspaper said on Wednesday. The government would auction licences based on types and numbers of wild animals, ranging from about $200 for a wolf, the only carnivore on the list, to as much as $40,000 for a yak, the Beijing Youth Daily said. The auction, taking place on Sunday in Chengdu, capital of the southwestern province of Sichuan, would be the first of its kind in Chinese history, it added. "Some animals are from the first and second category of national wildlife protection,...

SYDNEY, Australia — Before there were cuddly koalas, hoards of flesh-eating kangaroos, "demon ducks," and marsupial lions roamed Australia's Outback, according to recent fossil discoveries by paleontologists. A team of researchers from the University of New South Wales working in the eastern state of Queensland made the discoveries in three new fossil deposits during a recent two-week dig. Many of the fossils are older than 24 million years; one of the deposits is thought to contain fossils up to 500 million years old, according to Prof. Mike Archer, the university's dean of science. A saber-toothed kangaroo and a giant 10-foot-tall,...

CHARLOTTE, VT. — Dave Matthews Band announced today that it has arranged for NativeEnergy and Clean Air-Cool Planet to offset 100 percent of the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from all of its touring activities since 1991. By offsetting the CO2 pollution that touring activities, such as transporting gear, powering stages and air travel generate, Dave Matthews Band is taking a proactive role in fighting global warming and helping Native America begin to restore sustainable homeland economies in balance with the Earth. This announcement comes at the beginning of Dave Matthews Band 2006 summer tour, which kicked off on May 30th...

Loose lips sink ships I know this was part of the US communication war effort during WWII, but can any explain why it appears every time one posts a comment? Given the prominence fo FR as a home for conservative bloggers, it doesn't really seem to make any sense anymore. Can anyone explain?