Environment News

Washington - The lights are dim, the mikes are off, and the television cameras dark in the US House of Representatives. But minority Republicans – sensing traction with voters on the issue of offshore drilling – aren't giving up the floor.

SEOUL (AFP) - A German firm said Wednesday it has signed a deal to extend a South Korean solar energy plant which is already Asia's largest.

CHEYENNE, Wyo. - A federal judge has overturned a Clinton-era ban on road construction in nearly a third of national forests, the latest turn in a long-running dispute over U.S. Forest Service rules for undeveloped land.

(Corrects amount of fine in lead paragraph)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Arizona public utility The Salt River Project will install pollution control equipment and pay a fine of $950,000 for alleged violations of Federal clean air rules at a coal-fired power plant in Arizona in a settlement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the EPA said Tuesday.

Climate change has shifted the boundaries of plant and animal habitats, with some birds in the United States extending their boundaries northward and trees moving farther up mountains, new studies show. Between 2000 and 2005, New York state's Department of Environmental Conservation had thousands of volunteers all over the state observe and report the birds they could identify, creating a Breeding Bird Atlas of the various species' breeding ranges. ...

SYDNEY (AFP) - Huge elephant seals have been recruited to help scientists break through a critical blind spot and chart climate change under the Antarctic sea ice in winter, researchers said Tuesday.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The administration of US President George W. Bush has proposed revisions to the Endangered Species Act (ESA) so that the law can not be used to regulate the emission of greenhouse gases.

GENEVA - The humpback whale, nearly hunted into history four decades ago, is now on the "road to recovery" and is no longer considered at high risk of extinction, an environmental group said Tuesday.

SYDNEY (AFP) - The chance discovery of the remains of a prehistoric giant kangaroo has cast doubts on the long-held view that climate change drove it and other mega-fauna to extinction, a new study reveals.

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Elephant seals swimming under Antarctic ice and fitted with special sensors are providing scientists with crucial data on ice formation, ocean currents and climate change, a study released on Tuesday said.

SAO PAULO (AFP) - Global warming will cause heavy financial losses to Brazil's agricultural sector over the next decade, a government study said Monday.

WASHINGTON - Bitter cold and floating sea ice long frustrated scientists seeking to study the ocean around Antarctica in winter. The solution: Send in the seals. The polar regions are expected to be especially sensitive to climate change, but collecting data has been a problem, especially in the wind-whipped Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Twenty-one US cities, including New York and New Orleans, have announced they will measure their greenhouse gases emissions, in a joint effort to seek ways to halt and reverse global warming.

BEIJING (AFP) - Chinese superstar Yao Ming on Saturday became the UN Environment Program's (UNEP) first ever Environmental Champion, tasked with raising awareness of climate change and energy efficiency.

Amid a growing backlash to federal requirements that ethanol be blended into gasoline, the Environmental Protection Agency denied a request by Texas to waive the mandate.

ROME (AFP) - Global warming and limited access to land and other resources threaten many indigenous peoples, the UN food agency warned Friday.

BANGKOK, Thailand - Thailand on Friday released nine critically endangered deer from a species that vanished from the wild three decades ago, in a bid to bring ecological balance to one of the country's national parks.

RIO VISTA, Calif. - On one side of the gravel road are hundreds of acres of corn. On the other is a different crop that scientists hope will enable farmers to rebuild sinking islands in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, combat global warming and make a profit at the same time.

QUILLABAMBA, Peru (AFP) - Once bleak and lifeless places degraded by years of high-impact farming, Peruvian coffee farms are being transformed by a growing trend for certification schemes offering ethical and environmental guarantees to western consumers.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US and British researchers have confirmed the link between warmer climate and an increase in powerful rainstorms, according to a study released Thursday that underscores one of the challenges of global warming.

LUBBOCK, Texas - The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday denied a request from Texas Gov. Rick Perry to cut the federal ethanol mandate in half for a year.

BEIJING (AFP) - China declared Thursday it was ready to stage one of the greatest Olympics ever, but a new terrorist threat, pollution concerns and human rights controversies hung over final preparations.

Verdiem has just launched a new monitoring application for enabling eco-conscious consumers around the world to proactively control PC energy consumption as well as cut down on household emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2).

BEIJING (AFP) - International Olympic Committee (IOC) chief Jacques Rogge on Thursday hailed Beijing's "extraordinary" effort to cut pollution, despite familiar smog pervading the city on the eve of the Games.

BEIJING (AFP) - Beijing's pollution could hinder athletes during the Olympics, but the long-term dangers to the population of the city are more serious, the head of the World Health Organisation in China told AFP.

Energy Policy: Barack Obama wants a million electric cars on the road by 2015. Where's he going to plug them in? John McCain has the answer -- a renewable energy source called nuclear power.

SEATTLE - Computers are far from being truly clean machines, but Dell Inc. and other PC makers are trying to make their own business operations greener.

JAKARTA (AFP) - Environmental group Greenpeace hung a banner reading "Stop Deforestation" on the Indonesian forestry ministry Wednesday and called for a moratorium on palm oil concessions on forested land.

THE HAGUE (AFP) - A road in the small Dutch town of Hengelo is to be paved with air-purifying concrete in a trial that could lead to a breakthrough in the fight against rising pollution, scientists said Wednesday.

LAGOS (AFP) - E-waste from European, US and Japanese manufacturers is contaminating the environment around the sites where it is dumped for recycling and disposal in Ghana, Greenpeace said in a statement received Wednesday.