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The EnviroLink News Service compiles the most relevant news stories of interest to the global environmental community from sources around the Internet.
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No one is testing seafood to tell whether it has absorbed the toxic compounds found in the nearly 1.8 million gallons of dispersants BP has poured into the water to break up the oil.
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Ten countries worldwide, including five African nations, are at "extreme risk" because of limited access to clean, fresh water, according to a new global water security index. And the effects of climate change and population growth will exacerbate the stress on these water supplies, potentially threatening stability in many regions, according to the analysis by Maplecroft , a UK-based consulting group.
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In perhaps the most significant development since BP's runaway well began spewing oil in the Gulf of Mexico 85 days ago, crews placed a tight-fitting cap over the leak Monday evening designed to give the company its greatest chance so far at stopping the flow of oil into the sea.
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From heat stress to sewage overflows, climate change promises to bring extreme weather that can throw our nation's ill-prepared public health infrastructure 'back to the 1890s,' according to experts.
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Interior Secretary Ken Salazar issued revised rules on Monday for a six-month moratorium on deepwater oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, replacing an earlier one that had been declared invalid by federal courts.
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Termites are a group of social insects usually classified at the taxonomic rank of order Isoptera. Along with ants and some bees and wasps which are all placed in the separate order Hymenoptera, termites divide labor among gender lines, produce overlapping generations and take care of young collectively. They live in giant mounds in Africa. Scientists have discovered that the size and distribution of termite mounds in South Africa can be used to predict ecological shifts from climate change. The research is published in the advanced online edition of Nature Communications.
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For regions with adequate space and little recycling infrastructure, disposing of bottles in landfill generates a lower carbon footprint than recycling or incineration...
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The Potomac, which runs through the heart of the United States Capital, has suffered centuries of environmental degradation. Water quality has declined steadily as more humans have populated its watershed. However, according to new research, the river is beginning to benefit from restoration efforts that have improved water clarity and reduced nutrient overload. The result has been a ten-fold increase in native submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV). This SAV consists of plant life below the water surface which is an important habitat for fish and other marine life.
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San Rafael Falls, Ecuador's tallest waterfall, is threatened by a Chinese-funded hydroelectric project, reports Save America's Forests, an environmental group. The 1,500 megawatt Coca-Codo Sinclair Hydroelectric Project will divert water flow away from the 480-foot San Rafael Falls, leaving it "high and dry." Worse, the project, which is scheduled for completion in 2016, will put pressure on the Sumaco Biosphere Reserve, an area renowned for its biodiversity...
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The world should safeguard coral reefs with networks of small no-fishing zones to confront threats such as climate change, and shift from favoring single, big protected areas, a U.N. study showed.
"People have been creating marine protected areas for decades. Most of them are totally ineffective," Peter Sale, a leader of the study...
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The Greenland ice sheet is a vast body of ice covering 660,235 square miles, roughly 80% of the surface of Greenland. It is the second largest ice body in the World, after the Antarctic Ice Sheet. The ice sheet is almost 1,500 miles long in a north south direction, and its greatest width is 680 miles at a latitude of 77°N, near its northern margin. Scientists investigating the geophysical and hydrological conditions beneath the Greenland ice sheet say their analysis will be vital for helping understand how the massive ice sheet will respond to climate change.
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Modeling for climate change is an extremely complex process because Earth's climate is so complex. It is an interrelated system that involves the atmosphere, biosphere, land, and oceans. A change in one can cause a chain reaction in all the others. By studying ancient climate change patterns, scientists are better able to predict what might happen in future events. However, one factor that remains far from understanding is the role of clouds — how they will react to and influence a changing climate.
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ScienceDaily (Sep. 3, 2010) — ESA's (European Space Agency) Envisat satellite has been tracking the progression of the giant iceberg that calved from Greenland's Petermann glacier on 4 August 2010. A new animation shows that the iceberg, the largest in the northern hemisphere, is now entering Nares Strait -- a stretch of water that connects the Lincoln Sea and Arctic Ocean with Baffin Bay.
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With Jewish New Year (Rosh Hashana) around the corner, certain traditional foods are expected to appear at the table. There are many different recipes, but there are several which are universal, including honey cake and certain fruits. One of these fruits, originating in the Middle East, is the pomegranate.
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Tropical Storm Hermine slammed into northeastern Mexico near the Texas border on Monday, dumping heavy rain on a region still recovering from Hurricane Alex's visit in June.
Hermine, the eighth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, was expected to weaken as it moved ashore but could trigger deadly flooding and tornadoes, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.
Authorities in Tamaulipas state where the storm made landfall evacuated 3,000 people from high-risk areas but had no immediate reports of damage or injuries.
The storm's forecast path kept it away from major oil and natural gas installations in the Gulf of Mexico, and energy...
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Increasingly erratic rainfall patterns related to climate change pose a major threat to food security and economic growth, water experts said on Monday, arguing for greater investment in water storage.
In a report by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), experts said Africa and Asia were likely to be hardest hit by unpredictable rainfall, and urged policymakers and farmers to try to find ways of diversifying sources of water.
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Sunny Delight Beverages Company’s recently released 2009 Sustainability Report outlines the company’s accomplishments over the past year, the most significant being the achievement of their Zero Waste to Landfill Goal by all U.S. and Spanish manufacturing plants more than 3 years ahead of schedule.
The zero waste goals were achieved at...
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At least 18 people were killed in Guatemala on Saturday, including a dozen on a bus that was buried in a landslide, as heavy rains lashed the Central American nation and southern Mexico.
A dozen people died when the bus they were traveling on was suddenly engulfed by mud around 8 a.m. on...
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The United States reiterated on Friday that it was committed to cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 even though the Senate has failed to pass legislation.
"I am in no sense writing off legislation over time. And I'm quite sure the president isn't," U.S. climate envoy Todd Stern told a news conference during...
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The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) today reopened to commercial and recreational fishing 5,130 square miles of Gulf waters stretching from the far eastern coast of Louisiana, through Mississippi, Alabama, and the western Florida panhandle. The Mariner Energy oil platform just had an explosion is about 250 miles from today's reopening. The fire on a Mariner Energy Inc. oil and natural-gas platform in the Gulf of Mexico has been extinguished in an event that may prolong the U.S. drilling moratorium imposed after BP's record crude spill.
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A reinterpretation of the fossil record suggests a new answer to one of evolution's existential questions: whether global mass extinctions are just short-term diversions in life's preordained course, or send life careening down wholly new paths. Some scientists have suggested the former. But according to the calculations of Macquarie University paleobiologist John Alroy, that's just not the case.
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Every state government has their own agency for the protection of the environment which they operate in conjunction with federal laws and statutes. When those state laws do not match up with their federal counterparts, the potential for conflicts increase. A recent example of this is the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality's (TCEQ) clean-air permitting program. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has declared that certain aspects do not meet federal Clean Air Act requirements.
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On August 16, the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) issued a report (CEQ Report) summarizing the findings of a thirty-day review of the U.S. Department of Interior (DOI) Minerals Management Service's (MMS)[1] environmental polices for oil and gas exploration and development in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). CEQ found that MMS’s reliance on the "tiering process" (where prior programmatic environmental reviews are incorporated into later site-specific analyses) was not transparent and led to confusion and concern regarding whether MMS sufficiently evaluated and disclosed environmental impacts.
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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will roll out more regulations on greenhouse gases and other pollution to help fight climate change, but they will not be as strong as action by Congress, a senior administration official said.
The agency "has a huge role to play in continuing the work to move from where we are now to lower carbon emissions", said the official, who did not want to be identified as the EPA policies are still being...
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Hurricane Earl is still a powerful category four hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Scale as it approaches the North Carolina coast September 2. NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite observed the high rates rain was falling within Earl in some areas more than 2 inches per hour. Hurricane Earl became the most powerful hurricane of the 2010 Atlantic season early on September 2 when its sustained winds reached 120 kts (~138 mph). It was still intensifying when the TRMM satellite passed near its location on 2 September 2010. The TRMM Microwave Imager data were used in the rainfall analysis...
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Bjørn Lomborg may not be a household name around here, but that's through no fault of his. In November 2001, this Danish environmental author and economics professor was selected "Global Leader for Tomorrow" by the World Economic Forum. Controversy may as well have been his middle name, especially after his book The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World came out in 2001. However, Lomborg has a new book entitled Smart Solutions to Climate Change: Comparing Costs and Benefits in which he proposes an aggressive $100 billion annual fund specifically targeting global warming solutions...
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According to Agence France Presse (AFP), the French government will launch next month a tender for contracts of 10 billion euros ($12.6 billion) to build 3,000 MW of offshore wind capacity. 600 wind turbines will be implemented within five to ten sites in Normandy, Brittany and the regions of Pays de la Loire and Languedoc. They are scheduled to start producing electricity by 2015.
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U.S. government officials urged residents of a Wyoming farming community near natural gas drilling sites not to use private well water for drinking or cooking because of chemical contamination.
"Sample results indicate that the presence of petroleum hydrocarbons and other chemical compounds in groundwater represents a drinking water concern," the Environmental Protection Agency said in a statement about tests of 19 water wells around the town of Pavillion.
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The geography of Indonesia is dominated by volcanoes that are formed due to subduction zones between the Eurasian plate and the Indo-Australian plate. Some of the volcanoes are notable for their eruptions, for instance, Krakatau for its global effects in 1883, Lake Toba for its supervolcanic eruption estimated to have occurred 74,000 Before Present which was responsible for several years of cold of volcanic winter, and Mount Tambora for the most violent eruption in recorded history in 1815. Indonesia's Mount Sinabung has recently erupted, two days after it sprang back into life after over 400 years of inactivity.
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The signs are all around. Many places in the world show degradation of the air, water, and soil. Species becoming extinct as natural habitats are being destroyed. The emissions of greenhouse gases that can alter the planet's climate are unacceptable. All the environmental issues put together amount to a very serious threat to human welfare. Yet at the same time, all accepted measures of well-being show that, on average, quality of life is improving around the globe. How does an environmentalist call society into action under such conditions?
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News - Environmental 
