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Prowling Europe’s last lowland old growth forest

While in Poland recently for work, I took a couple days out to see the old growth forest located on the country’s eastern border with Belarus. It’s an incredible place, thick with massive oaks and a myriad of other broadleaf deciduous trees, plus boars, bison, lynx, roe deer, martens, and three packs of wolves running […]

Bad air stripping months off Mexicans’ lives, says study

Once upon a time in Mexico, a study estimated that residents would live 2.4 months longer on average if the air they breathe wasn’t so smoggy. According to the research, published Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, cleaning up Mexicans’ drinking water and household fuels as well could increase their life expectancy […]

60 Minutes on T. Boone Pickens

60 Minutes takes a look at T. Boone Pickens:

Endangered status of Northern Rockies gray wolves still in question

The fate of gray wolves in the Northern Rockies is up in the air again, as the Bush administration will open yet another period of public comment on whether the wolves should be kicked off the endangered species list. The wolves, which were delisted in March and relisted in September, are probably just hungry for […]

Up to seven endangered orcas feared dead

A group of 90 orcas that was declared endangered in 2005 may have lost up to seven of its members — the group’s biggest decline in about a decade. Some researchers said the drop is likely tied at least in part to large declines in the orcas’ favorite food: chinook salmon.

Enviro-crimes predicted to rise with effects of climate change

Take a bite out of climate. Photo: A Hermida. McGruff, the police dog that takes a bite out of crime, might soon be biting off more than he can chew thanks to an expected rise in crimes related to climate change: The Australian Strategic Policy Institute pinpoints the risk of carbon market fraud, an increase […]

But most of our products aren’t splitting apart and crashing to the ground!

“Other turbines owned by that customer and our other customers at various locations in the U.S. are operating without interruption.” — India’s Suzlon Energy Ltd., the world’s fifth-largest wind turbine manufacturer, on news that a 140-foot-long blade on one of its turbines in Wyanet, Illinois, had split apart, flown off, and crashed to the ground, […]

Friday music blogging: Jamey Johnson

There was a time when I, like all right-thinking people, rejected country music unconditionally, in all its forms, in whole and in part, with passion and righteous fury. My cautionary tale traces a familiar arc. It all began with “alt-country” — you know, some Wilco, a little Whiskeytown. No harm, right? It was country by […]

One more communique dribbles in from the gamma quadrant

You don’t see super-wingnutty stuff like this very often in the mainstream media any more. This was my favorite bit: But didn’t the Nobel Peace Prize go last year to Al Gore and the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, for their eco-warnings? Yes. And the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded by a committee of […]

Snippets from the news

• Potent greenhouse gas more prevalent than thought. • Environmental activists were “suspected of involvement in terrorism.” • Toys containing banned substances are still on the market. • Asian beetle threatens three New England industries. • India shops for coal in Appalachia. • Must-see green American landmarks. • Many mass transit systems plagued by too […]