environment

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Town Buys Livestock to Go Green, Save Dough

Charlotte, Vermont, replaces mowers with goats and sheep

(Newser) - Want to cut back on grass-cutting costs and go green at the same time? Buy a few sheep and goats to chomp on your lawn. That's been the solution in one Vermont town that wanted to save money without letting its cemeteries become overgrown with grass and weeds, NPR...

Bring Green Movement Back to the Suburbs

Revive environmentalism by making climate change a local issue: Essay

(Newser) - This month marks the 50th anniversary of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring—but these days, the environmental movement seems to have lost its steam. Pollution ranked as the No. 1 problem in the US in a 1970 survey; today, it hardly ever makes the top five. Writing in the New ...

Islands to Be Built in India ... and Towed to Maldives

Dutch design features private islands, golf course with underwater club

(Newser) - Many of the islands that comprise the Maldives could soon be submerged—so replacements are under way. A Dutch firm is designing artificial islands to join some 1,192 islands that sit an average of five feet above sea level, making the Maldives the world's lowest country. Now, the...

UN Scientist: Blame Extreme Weather on Climate Change

Dire warnings heard at first congressional hearing in two years

(Newser) - Get used to droughts, hurricanes, heat waves, and wildfires, scientists warned Congress today, because the extreme weather is a result of global warming. The comments were made to the Senate's environmental committee during the first hearing on the subject in more than two years, reports the Guardian . "There...

To Fight Climate Change, Dump Iron in Water?

Old theory gains traction following experiments

(Newser) - Algae growing around Antarctica is short on iron. For decades, scientists have theorized that iron dumped in the oceans there could help fertilize the algae—and that algae could in turn absorb carbon dioxide, thus battling global warming. While tests have shown that iron can, in fact, fuel algae blooms,...

New Concern: Fracking Under ... Graveyards?

But some families eager to cash in: gas firms

(Newser) - Activists are already furious about the environmental impact of hydraulic fracturing; now some are adding spiritual concerns to their list of grievances. Energy companies are extracting gas from deep below US cemeteries from Texas to Pennsylvania. The fracking occurs far below ground, with companies citing depths of 7,000 to...

New Environmental Worry: Ancient Gas

Researchers now able to distinguish new, old sources of methane

(Newser) - There are huge quantities of methane locked in ice sheets around the world, threatening to speed up climate change as they get released in melting ice. But determining which methane is the ancient kind and which is much younger and hails from, say, plant life that has decayed in lakes...

Environmentalists Fear New Biotech Corn

Dow's 'Enlist' resists powerful herbicide

(Newser) - Debate is raging over a new biotech corn engineered by Dow Chemical. The corn, called "Enlist," is intended to solve farmers' struggle against tough weeds; that's because it's resistant to a powerful herbicide, also made by Dow. But environmentalists fear that wind, heat, and humidity would...

Oceans Acidifying at Highest Rate in 300M Years

Columbia researchers warn of dangers to marine life

(Newser) - Industrial emissions are causing the oceans to acidify at a fast rate—the fastest in 300 million years, say researchers from Columbia University. That could spell danger for sea creatures. In the last century alone, the pH of the oceans dropped by 0.1 units. That's 10 times faster...

Mining Company: Those 2-Headed Fish No Big Deal

Images of two-headed trout tucked into appendix of safety study

(Newser) - If you reel in your fishing line in southern Idaho to find a two-headed trout staring back, it's ... no big deal? The New York Times explains: The JR Simplot Company wants the federal government to allow higher levels of the mining byproduct selenium to appear in local waterways. The...

Hey, GOP: Bring Back Our 2nd Party

 Hey, GOP: 
 Bring Back 
 Our 2nd Party 
Thomas Friedman
Feb 12, 2012 1:17 PM CST

Hey, GOP: Bring Back Our 2nd Party

GOP as useless as 7 vowels in Scrabble, needs new letters

(Newser) - Just like you get to throw in your tiles when Scrabble gives you seven useless vowels, so too do Republican voters keep picking again—and coming up with the same useless tiles, says Thomas Friedman in the New York Times . That's because the GOP is an out-of-date "captive...

Things Congress Talks About: Caribou Sex

Texas' Louie Gohmert says Alaskan pipeline is hot date meet-up

(Newser) - A Texas Republican congressman is adamant in his backing of the trans-Alaska pipeline, but not because of silly energy independence. No, we must keep the oil flowing for the sake of ... caribou romance. So argued Rep. Louie Gohmert, tongue perhaps in cheek, during a meeting of the House Natural Resources...

Greenhouse Gases Surging: US Report

Carbon dioxide emissions take biggest jump on record

(Newser) - Carbon dioxide, methane, and other greenhouse gases continued to build in the atmosphere last year, a federal report finds: Between 2009 and 2010, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s yearly index of greenhouse gases—which measures said gases' combined heating effect—jumped 1.5%, to 1.29. It has...

Grand Canyon Killed Bottle Ban After Coke Balked

Company is a big donor, and it sells Dasani water

(Newser) - Visitors to the Grand Canyon can still bring plastic water bottles into the national park, and they might thank Coca-Cola for the privilege. The New York Times explains: The park came thisclose to instituting a ban this year to cut down on trash. But the top US parks official killed...

A Challenge From a Planet About to House 7B People

Time to change the way we think about prosperity: Joel Cohen

(Newser) - The world’s population is set to hit 7 billion within a week, according to UN estimates, and we’re looking at 10 billion people by century’s end. And that raises a new challenge for Westerners, who must must "shake off, at last, the view that large and...

Environmental Strategy of GOP: 'Too Dirty to Fail'

They protect polluters on the false pretext of saving jobs: EPA chief

(Newser) - House Republicans claim that to create jobs, we need to loosen environmental regulations. To that end, they’ve “averaged roughly a vote every day” in session to weaken the rules—and have already cut back the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and other laws, writes EPA chief...

Starbucks: Coffee Faces Climate Risk

Farmers already hit by hurricanes, new rainfall patterns

(Newser) - Melting ice caps, unpredictable weather, and ... no more coffee? Starbucks says climate change could put your morning joe in jeopardy. Global warming creates "a potentially significant risk to our supply chain, which is the Arabica coffee bean," the company's sustainability director tells the Guardian . Coffee farmers are...

Poop-Powered Bike to Tour Japan

Driver's feces to fuel 600-mile jaunt

(Newser) - Calling it “clean” fuel would be a bit of a stretch: Japan’s top toilet maker has built a bike that runs on human excrement. TOTO’s Toilet Bike Neo has a seat that looks like a toilet, and it’s powered by bio-gas from the driver’s own...

Island Nation Creates Largest Shark Sanctuary

Protected area size of Mexico

(Newser) - A Mexico-size chunk of the Pacific will soon be a haven for sharks—and they have a tiny island nation to thank. The Marshall Islands’ government is declaring its waters off-limits to commercial shark fishing and the trade of shark products, the BBC reports, providing the creatures with 750,000...

Gore to Launch 24-Hour Assault on Climate Skeptics

Multimedia presentation will cross 24 time zones

(Newser) - For those who just can't get enough Al Gore, this might be overkill even for you: The former vice president will attempt to take over the globe this week, by way of a 24-hour worldwide multimedia presentation aimed at winning over climate-change skeptics. "24 Hours of Reality" will...

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