Last week, NPR took a deeper look at the natural gas boom in the U.S. The special series, “The Fracking Boom: Missing Answers,” questions what the gas boom is doing to the air and water in communities where fracking has become a household name…
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Biodiversity
Transitioning to a Green Economy Holds the Answers to Today’s Critical Challenges
Worldwatch Institute
05-18-2012
Critical environmental issues are too often pushed aside in pursuit of short-sighted economic goals. But to effectively address the ongoing economic crisis, environmental concerns must take center stage…
In case it somehow slipped off your calendar, today is Endangered Species Day. Last year we celebrated by launching a blog series called “Can’t Live Without ‘Em” to highlight critters small and large that contribute to keeping our planet healthy…
The impacts of the Deepwater Horizon are being felt in—you guessed it—Minnesota. White pelicans that winter in the Gulf of Mexico and have lived in an oiled Gulf have migrated to far away places such as Minnesota to lay eggs…
Regulations for chlorothalonil were set by EPA using studies based on ingesting the chemical, even though the agency considers chlorothalonil ingestion to be “slightly toxic to non-toxic” when ingested and “highly toxic or acutely toxic” when inhaled…
Because of their role in insect control, pollination and seed dispersal, bats are a key part of the interconnected web of life that makes growing food possible. Even their nitrogen-rich poop makes good fertilizer. Bats do so much…
Airgun noise is loud enough to mask whale calls over thousands of miles, destroying their capacity to communicate and breed; it can drive whales to abandon their habitat and cease foraging, and closer in it can cause hearing loss and death…
New World Bank President Needs Infrastructure Strategy that Prioritizes the Poor
International Rivers
05-16-2012
The World Bank needs to start prioritizing projects that directly address the needs of the poor. Decentralized approaches have a better track record of reducing poverty than the top-down projects of the past…
More Than One Million People Urge White House to Stop Shell’s Arctic Drilling
Center for Biological Diversity
05-15-2012
More than 1 million people called on President Obama today to save the Arctic from oil drilling. Petitions with more than a million signatures were delivered to the White House, where citizens are gathering to ask the president…
The City and County of Honolulu is the last of Hawaii’s counties to enact a ban on plastic bags at the point of sale. Maui and Kauai counties already have plastic bag bans in place while Hawaii County passed an ordinance that will take effect next year…
Captain Paul Watson was arrested on May 12 in Germany for extradition to Costa Rica. The German police have said that the warrant for Captain Watson’s arrest is in response to an alleged violation of ships traffic in Costa Rica…
UN Global Compact Turns a Blind Eye to Corporate Malpractices
Friends of the Earth International
05-14-2012
Corporate lobbying within UN negotiations has managed to block effective solutions for global problems related to climate change, food production, poverty, water and deforestation. Instead, false…
Increase in Cancers and Fertility Problems Linked to Household Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals
European Environment Agency
05-11-2012
The link between some diseases and EDCs is now accepted. For example, exposure to oestrogen or to oestrogenic EDCs is an accepted risk factor for breast cancer, endometriosis, fibroids and polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) in women…
Report Shows that Great Lakes Remain Vulnerable to New Wave of Mining
National Wildlife Federation
05-10-2012
So-called “sulfide mining” seeks to extract precious metals from sulfide rock formations—a process that produces mine waste that turns water into battery acid, devastating water resources and fish and wildlife habitat…
Plastic Trash Is Altering Ocean Habitats in Unexpected Ways
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
05-10-2012
Such an increase, documented for the first time in a marine invertebrate (animal without a backbone) in the open ocean, may have consequences for animals across the marine food web, such as crabs that prey on sea skaters and their eggs…
Removing protections for speckled hind and Warsaw grouper likely means continued overfishing of two species that are already in critical condition. Populations of Warsaw grouper—a southeast giant at up to 8 feet long…
Delaware Riverkeeper Urges Action to Protect Emerging Amphibians from Pipeline Debacle
Delaware Riverkeeper Network
05-09-2012
The Delaware Riverkeeper Network’s Monitoring Director, Faith Zerbe, discovered the wetlands teaming with wood frogs, American toads and red spotted newts on a site visit to monitor the ongoing failure of restoration by…
Report: ‘Weight of Evidence’ Links Pesticides to Colony Collapse Disorder
Pesticide Action Network
05-09-2012
It’s called the ‘tobacco strategy’ because the pesticide industry is taking a page straight from the PR handbook of the tobacco industry. They deliberately sow doubt to confuse the public and delay policymaker action. It is high time we…
The misnamed Wildlife Services is a carpet bomber of the West because of the scale of indiscriminate killing of native wildlife. If Congress is serious about saving money, this is where they should start…
Recent efforts by the federal government and its backers in media and industry front groups like Ethical Oil to demonize and silence legitimate organizations ignore the important role charities play in Canada…
Greenpeace today released shocking photos that show graphic evidence of the destruction done to endangered sea life in the Gulf by the 2010 BP oil disaster. The photos, just received via a Freedom of Information request filed in…
USDA Quarantines Second California Farm in Mad Cow Disease Investigation
Beyond Pesticides
05-07-2012
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has quarantined a second California farm as part of its ongoing investigation into a confirmed incidence of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), first reported on April 24…
Environmental Groups Launch Major Campaign to Defend Nature and Democracy in Canada
Pembina Institute
05-07-2012
Known as Black Out Speak Out (or Silence, on parle!, in French) the campaign will invite organizations, businesses and citizens from across Canada to darken their websites on June 4, and speak out against changes introduced in the…
Study: Natural Gas Development Linked to Wildlife Habitat Loss
Wildlife Conservation Society
05-07-2012
A study by the Wildlife Conservation Society documents that intense development of the two largest natural gas fields in the continental U.S. are driving away some wildlife from their traditional wintering grounds…
To all brothers and sisters who hold the dream in their hearts of a future world in which humans and all other beings live in harmony and mutual support—a world of sustainability, stability and confidence…
Appeals Court Rules Federal, State Agencies Illegally Approved Controversial NC Highway
Southern Environmental Law Center
05-05-2012
In a landmark ruling that has national implications, the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on May 3 that the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) and Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) illegally failed to consider and disclose the potential sprawl-inducing impacts of a 20-mile highway bypass near Charlotte…
There’s nothing wrong with encouraging trade. But let’s do it right. A fair global trading system should improve the quality of life for all parties; it must include meaningful and enforceable environmental and labor standards…
Author and biologist Carl Safina has won the 2012 Orion Book Award for The View from Lazy Point: A Natural Year in an Unnatural World, in recognition of the book’s success in addressing the human relationship with the natural…
That means adopting a “biocentric” view that recognizes we are part of and dependent on the web of life that keeps the planet habitable for a demanding animal like us…
So skip work, flip a bird at the Capitol, commit your deepest love and solidarity to the young whose lives are being gambled away, feed the hungry, take a long look at how beautiful our planet still is, find your way into solidarity and people power, and dream big about other futures…
Wildlife Services liberally distributes sodium cyanide booby traps and shoots tens of thousands of native carnivores such as coyotes and wolves from helicopters and airplanes on public lands, including in wilderness areas in violation of federal law…
