Countries Agree to Form Earth Observation Framework Delegates from 44 nations and 26 international groups agreed this weekend to form a global environmental observation system by 2014, to be called -- in what we can only assume is a tribute to Douglas Adams' "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" -- the Global Earth Observation System of Systems, or GEOSS. Officials attending the Earth Observation Summit in Tokyo said that standardized measurements from satellites, buoys, and weather balloons around the world will help people predict meteorological phenomena like El Nino, understand and respond to outbreaks of disease like West Nile, and make …

Upcoming Climate-Change Disaster Movie Provokes Silliness "The Day After Tomorrow," a big-budget climate-change disaster flick directed by Roland Emmerich (creator of such visionary fare as "Independence Day" and the 1998 "Godzilla" remake), is due for release on May 28, and it's got folks on both sides of the global-warming debate all atwitter. Fearing that the scenario in the movie -- wherein climate change, to the dismay of some Cheney-esque politicians, all of a sudden causes blizzards, tsunamis, and much bad acting -- might provoke a panicked public to question why the Bush administration isn't doing more to address climate change, …

Venture Capital Investment in Clean Technology Grows Clean tech is hot. Research and development of eco-friendly technologies in water purification, agriculture, transportation, manufacturing, recycling, air quality, and renewable energy such as solar, wind, and hydrogen is drawing a larger and larger share of venture capital. In 2003, total venture capital spending fell by 14 percent to $18.2 billion, but investment in clean technologies rose by 8 percent to $1.2 billion. Though some investors are wary, recalling trendy-but-fruitless spending on solar and wind technology in the 1980s and hydrogen power in the 1990s, many believe that a perfect storm of disparate …

Abandoned Oil Wells Vex Southern California Oil wells run dry, and when they do -- as many have in Southern California -- the looming question is, what do you do with them? The once-booming California oil business hit its peak in 1985, and since then much of the oil has gradually dried up and the value of land for "surface development" has skyrocketed. There are 70,000 oil and gas wells in the state, and of those about 20,000 are either "shut-ins" that produce only periodically or "orphans" that lack responsible operators. Old wells present a variety of safety and environmental …

Golf Courses Aren't So Green Though the golf industry says it's been striving to lighten its ecological impact, golf courses are increasingly flashpoints of environmental controversy. According to the Worldwatch Institute, the U.S. is home to some 18,000 golf courses -- more than half the world's 35,000 -- covering 1.7 million acres and using 4 billion gallons of water every day. Strict grooming requirements lead to heavy pesticide and herbicide use, which can pollute groundwater and pose health hazards to course employees and nearby residents. Particularly in the West, where drought conditions have created severe water shortages, enviro and community …

Report Finds Endangered Species Act Failing Over the first two decades the U.S. Endangered Species Act was in effect, from 1973 to 1994, 114 species went extinct or missing, "sacrificed to bureaucratic inertia, political meddling, and lack of leadership," said Kieran Suckling of the Center for Biological Diversity, which released a report on the ESA yesterday. Suckling said the species could have been saved if the act had been "properly managed, fully funded, and shielded from political pressure." The report documents a history of problems under numerous administrations, but the center reserved its harshest criticism for the current Bush administration, …

Bush Wetlands Initiative Less Ambitious Than It Appears Attempting to neutralize John Kerry's criticisms of his environmental record, President Bush traveled on Earth Day to Maine, a crucial swing state, and announced a wetlands initiative that aims to restore or protect some 3 million acres of wetlands over the next five years. Enviros, though, knocked the plan as nothing more than a bundle of already-existing voluntary programs. Ed Hopkins of the Sierra Club said, "this initiative pales in comparison with the damage the Bush administration is doing to wetlands" by not protecting them more vigilantly under the Clean Water Act. …

The Pacific Coast of Colombia, a narrow slice of jungle between the Andes and the ocean, is rich with plant and animal life. It's also home to about a third of Colombia's 10.6 million Afro-Colombians, descendants of black slaves emancipated in the mid-1800s. In recent years, this isolated area has been hit hard by logging, gold mining, industrial agriculture, and Colombia's civil war. Grueso. Photo: David Lent. Social worker Libia Grueso, a native of the Pacific Coast, is a cofounder of the Process of Black Communities (PCN), a civil-rights group that advocates for Afro-Colombians. In the early 1990s, she and …

U.K. Report Warns of Rising Flood Dangers and Costs The U.K. government marked Earth Day with characteristic British cheer, releasing a report warning that much of the country is going to experience flooding in coming decades. According to an expert government panel, the cost of physical and psychological damage from floods in the U.K. is likely to rise from $1.8 billion a year now to some $35.5 billion a year over the next century, thanks to climate change. Lest optimistic enviros be allowed some hope, the report points out that even if substantial international efforts are made to curtail greenhouse-gas …

Earth Day Prompts Flurry of Electoral Rhetoric; Public Yawns Earth Day during a big election year inevitably prompts a flurry of earnest talk about the environment and which candidate is better for it, and today is no exception. President Bush touted his love of wetlands in Maine; John Kerry blasted Bush's environmental record in Houston, Texas. A coalition of three national enviro groups -- the League of Conservation Voters, Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund, and Friends of the Earth Action -- unveiled a new Environmental Victory Project, which will try to use environmental issues to sway voters in swing states …