progress
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Starbucks addresses water wastage following tabloid indictment
As John Edwards always said, never underestimate the power of a tabloid. Following the revelation in British rag-mag The Sun that constantly running dipper wells waste a humongous amount of water, a Starbucks spokesperson confirms, “Stores will be instructed to switch off the dipper well tap and will wash spoons after use.” And the plot […]
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Feds will designate critical habitat for polar bears
The U.S. government will designate critical habitat for polar bears off Alaska’s coast as part of a partial settlement of a lawsuit brought by Greenpeace, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Center for Biological Diversity. The Interior Department declared polar bears a threatened species in May, but neglected to make any stipulations for habitat […]
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E.U. will no longer export mercury
Hold on to your thermometers: The European Union will ban exports of mercury as of March 2011. The 27-nation bloc stopped mining mercury in 2001, but its exports of the metal account for up to a quarter of global supply. The export ban will require mercury that’s no longer of service to be put into […]
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EPA puts kibosh on wetland-destructive Army Corps project
The U.S. EPA has vetoed a giant, expensive plan to build the world’s largest water pump in the Mississippi River delta. The so-called Yazoo Pump flood-control project would have sucked 6 million gallons of water a minute from 67,000 acres of wetlands along the Yazoo River. The scheme, proposed by the U.S. Army Corps of […]
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Colleges forgo cafeteria trays to save water and energy
Colleges around the country are ditching cafeteria trays to lower water and energy use and to prevent wasted food. “If a college is looking to go ‘green,’ they need to start looking in the dining facility,” said Sodexo spokeswoman Monica Zimmer; the food-service company expects 230 of the 600 colleges it serves to stop using […]
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Some big whales no longer in trouble
There’s bad news and good news from the world of marine megafauna. The bad: Almost a quarter of the 80 types of whales, dolphins, and porpoises are in trouble, with nine listed as “endangered” or “critically endangered” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Entanglement in fishing gear poses the main threat. The good: […]
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Canada protects B.C. caribou habitat
A giant tract of land in southeastern British Columbia will become protected habitat, the Canadian government and Nature Conservancy Canada announced Thursday. The so-called Darkwoods area, purchased from a private forester, adds up to 550 square kilometers of mountains, valleys, and wetlands (that’s 212 square miles, for metric-system hatas). The area is home to endangered […]
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Ontario protects gigantic forest area
The Canadian province of Ontario will permanently protect a gigantic swath of boreal forest in what green group ForestEthics says is the largest conservation deal in Canada’s history and one of the top three forest protection initiatives anywhere, evah. Some 225,000 square kilometers of trees — that’s more than 86,800 square miles in American — […]
