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Former French prez launches foundation to preserve biodiversity

Former French President Jacques Chirac has launched a foundation aimed at preserving cultural and natural diversity that humans seem intent upon obliterating. The Chirac Foundation will provide funds to improve access to water and medicines in developing countries, fight deforestation and desertification, and preserve languages and cultures that are on the verge of dying out. […]

Green groups sue feds to protect polar bears from oil-drilling effects

Two green groups are suing the Interior Department over its refusal to limit the impacts of drilling on polar bears, which were listed as threatened last month. The Bush administration has tried its darnedest to ensure that listing the bears wouldn’t limit oil and gas exploration in their Alaskan habitat, but Pacific Environment and the […]

Snippets from the news

• G8 nations vow to cut oil use. • Churchgoers grow less enamored with environmental regulation. • Farting livestock stymie New Zealand’s goal to be carbon neutral. • U.K. tries out waterless washing machine. • Dozens of dolphins stranded in both England and Madagascar. • World Naked Bike Ride was Saturday. • Celebs want to […]

E.U. has trash problem; Hamburg has trash solution

The European Union is running out of landfill space and faces a looming trash problem. All member nations have been directed to reduce landfill-bound trash 35 percent of 1995 levels by 2020, but many nations have slim chances of meeting that target; Italy, Spain, Greece, and Britain currently send more than 60 percent of their […]

NPS considers returning half of Badlands National Park to Oglala Sioux

The National Park Service is considering returning the southern half of Badlands National Park in South Dakota to the Oglala Sioux tribe. Under the proposal, the northern half would remain a national park, but the 133,000-acre southern half would be returned to the tribe. The land was seized from the Oglala Sioux by the military […]

High oil prices affecting consumer goods, nearly everything else too

Oil prices surged $11 on Friday, hitting a new record high of $138.54 a barrel. Over the weekend the average price of regular unleaded gasoline around the U.S. also surged to new high of $4 a gallon. Unsurprisingly, folks in rural areas are taking the largest hit to their incomes from gas prices due to […]

Anti-immigrant groups hide agenda behind environmental concerns

Via Feministing, it appears a group of anti-immigration organizations are trying to cloak their agenda in environmental concerns. They took out this half-page ad in The New York Times last week (click for larger version): Alien Nation Here’s the text: Americans spend a lot of time in their cars. Not because they want to. But […]

Caribbean monk seal is extinct

The Caribbean monk seal is extinct, U.S. officials declared Friday. The seals, also called West Indian seals, have been on the endangered-species list since 1967; the last confirmed sighting of one was in 1952. The Caribbean monk, native to the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico, is the only seal that has gone extinct directly […]

Snippets from the news

• Toyota develops new fuel-cell hybrid. • Yucca Mountain safety plan is “doomed.” • British eco-town plan could be cut from ten to five. • Three air pollutants decline in China. • Report on oil-sands pollution yanked from website. • Drought makes Old Faithful less faithful.

Vermont-sized area of Amazon may be protected

Brazil’s president has unveiled plans to protect a large area of the Amazon rainforest, after weeks of mutterings that the country has insufficient protections in place. The proposal by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva would create three protected reserves for a total area the size of Vermont; the plan still has to be approved […]