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Biodiversity Future 'Battlegrounds' for Conservation Biologists have developed a series of global maps that show where projected habitat loss and climate change are expected to drive the need for future reserves to prevent biodiversity loss. These future battlegrounds differ widely from those of the past. >Story >Related Blogs Invasive Species Can Produce Biodiv Gains When exotic species invade new territory, they often present a major threat to the other plants and animals living there—that much is clear. But researchers now show that, in addition to their destructive tendencies, invasive species can also have a surprisingly “creative” side and can actually do more ecological good than harm in certain cases. >Story 1 >Story 2 >Related Blogs Integration of Development and Conservation Consistent with Ecosystem Based Management The preservation of coastal ecosystem services such as clean water, storm buffers or fisheries protection does not have to be an all-or-nothing approach, a new study indicates, and a better understanding of how ecosystems actually respond to protection efforts in a “nonlinear” fashion could help lead the way out of environmental-versus-economic gridlock. >Story >Related Blogs New Predator-Based Ecosystem Paradigm Predators have considerably more influence than plants over how an ecosystem functions, according to a recent study published in Science. >Story >Related Blogs Species Watch Sea Lions Massacred in Galapagos Scientists Find Hibernating Fish In Antarctic Kiribati's Phoenix Islands to be World’s Largest Protected Area Great Apes Threatened by Germs Carried by Eco-Tourists Invasive Giant Pythons Menace America Pet Hamsters Banned in Vietnam Hawaii Seeks to Import Wasps to Control Invasive Pests New Monkey Species Found in Remote Amazon Norway Keeps Whaling Quota, Draws Ire Starfish Die Off in Britain Trade in Tiger Parts Unrelenting in Sumatra Cougars Under Threat in US Northwest 5000 Mile Tiger Corridor Planned Bhutan to Burma King Penguin Faces Extinction Due to Climate Change Yellowstone's Rabbits Have Vanished Business
Corporations and Finance Business Contradictions on Climate Change A recent survey of executive opinions on climate change found that the majority regard it as a strategically important issue - but more than a third said it is seldom or never considered when actually developing strategy. >Story >Related Blogs African Development Bank to Fund Congo Forest The African Development Bank Group is planning to invest US$814 million in biodiversity conservation and natural resources management in Central Africa's Congo Basin, the group's president announced. >Story >Related Blogs Merrill Lynch: Turning Trees into Money The Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), a consortium of 315 top institutional investors assessing industries about their CO2 emissions, announced Sunday a new partnership to extend its global initiative to companies and suppliers. >Story >Related Blogs Alstom and Partners to Capture CO2 Alstom, together with its US partners the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and We Energies, launched a pilot project based in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin, that uses chilled ammonia to capture carbon dioxide (CO2) from coal-fueled power plants. >Story >Related Blogs Climate EPA Reports Economic Analysis of Climate Security Act (Lieberman-Warner) This congressionally mandated study finds virtually no difference in US economic growth through 2030 if a carbon cap is imposed as laid out in the bill (S. 2191 of 2007) >Report (pdf) >Related Blogs Tipping Elements in the Earth's Climate System A comprehensive study of climate tipping elements (a.k.a. points) creates a global risk and severity prioritized list for purposes of mitigation and adaptation policy formulation. >Story >Related Blogs Climate Influence on Deep Sea Populations Scientists describe a mechanism of interaction across ecosystems showing how a climate-driven phenomenon originated in shelf environments controls the biological processes of a deep-sea living resource. >Story >Related Blogs Warming May Cause Arctic Tundra to Burn Research from ancient sediment cores indicates that a warming climate could make the world’s arctic tundra far more susceptible to fires than previously thought. The findings are important given the potential for tundra fires to release organic carbon – which could add significantly to the amount of greenhouse gases already blamed for global warming. >Story >Related Blogs Sequestration, Mitigation, and Treaty Watch Compost Can Turn Agri-Soils Into Carbon Sink Tenaska Proposes First CO2 Storage Coal Plant MIT Expert: How to Toughen Up Environmental Treaties Extraordinary Frameworks for CO2 Capture Proposal for Seabed CO2 Storage New Material for Capturing CO2 From Smokestacks US Ready for 'Binding' Reductions of Greenhouse Gases: Official Method for Reducing Bovine Methane Automotive Tailpipe Carbon Capture Energy and
Transportation Biofuel Blending Is Often Inaccurate When testing fuels listed as 20 percent biodiesel (commonly known as B20), study finds that the actual percentage of biofuel ranged from as little as 10 percent to as much as 74 percent. Only 10 percent of all the samples tested met the specifications for biofuel blends. >Story >Related Blogs Global Wind Power Capacity Reaches 100,000MW >Story >Related Blogs Canadians Wonder Whether New US Energy Bill Disallows Oil-Sands Exports to US A clause in the recently passed U.S. energy bill could be interpreted to prevent the U.S. from sourcing fuel from Canada's oil sands. Section 526 of the Energy Independence and Security Act prohibits the U.S. government from purchasing alternative fuels with higher lifecycle greenhouse-gas emissions than conventional petroleum. It's a descriptor that seems to fit oil sands, which have traditionally been classified as an alternative fuel and can produce up to five times more carbon emissions than conventional oil production. >Story >Related Blogs Is Nuclear for Fossil a Viable Option? Nuclear energy production must increase by more than 10% each year from 2010 to 2050 to meet all future energy demands and replace fossil fuels, but this is an unsustainable prospect. According to a new report, such a large growth rate will require a major improvement in nuclear power efficiency otherwise each new power plant will simply cannibalize the energy produced by earlier nuclear power plants. >Story >Related Blogs Solar Watch More Efficient Parabolic Trough Solar Collectors Organic Polymer Solar Cell Created Solar Cells with 60% Efficiency? Nano Flakes Could Revolutionize Solar Cells World Record for Solar-to-Grid Conversion Efficiency: 31.25% V-Shaped Cells For Better Efficiency Look at Pollution from Solar Cell Manufacture Inflatable Concentrators Below Cost of Conventional Power Forests and
Agriculture
World Fertilizer Prices Surge 200% in 2007 This, as farmers sought to maximize corn production for ethanol, according to the International Center for Soil Fertility and Agricultural Development (IFDC). Poor African farmers were hardest hit by the increase. Nevertheless, enough fertilizer will be produced in the next five years to cover world demand and support higher levels of food and biofuel production, according to a report released today by the United Nations agricultural agency. >Story A , B >Related Blogs New Carbon Calculator Aims To Conserve Forests Conservation International's calculator is a quick and easy way to calculate carbon footprints, learn about ways to reduce emissions, and contribute to one of the least addressed and most important ways to combat climate change -- protecting existing tropical forests. >Story >Related Blogs Land Cover Change 2002–2005 in Borneo and the Role of Fire Derived from MODIS Imagery Satellite tools provide an invaluable insight into global forest conditions. Here, data from MODIS underlines that fire is the major driver for forest degradation and deforestation. >Story >Related Blogs 20-Year Study of Warming on Tropical Tree Communities Upsets Conventional View These new results do not support the hypothesis that fast-growing species are consistently increasing in dominance in tropical tree communities experiencing warming conditions. >Story >Related Blogs Agriculture and GM Watch Qatar Plans Law to Check Entry of GM Products UN: Virulent Wheat Fungus Spreads to Iran, Threatens Asia Lowdown on Dirt: It's Disappearing Scientists Unveil 'Supercarrot' Uganda: GMO Cotton Trials Approved Benefits Outdo Risks From Genetically Modified Plants EU Lawyers Take Action Against Poland Over GMO Ban Scientists Use Isotopic Discrimination to Detect Syn-Fertilizers Mitigation Potential and Costs for Global Agricultural GHGs Fossils Show Insect Assaults on Foliage Increase With Warming Rediscovering the Forgotten Crops Development of Transgenic Food Staples Slow: World Bank Is Transgenic Cotton More Profitable? 'No Clone' Hard to Enforce in Food Supply Germany: Green Light to 'GM Free' Foods Label Consequences of GM Crop Contamination 'Are Set to Worsen' Nutrition, Health, and
Wealth Life Expectancy Rises for the Educated While Less-Educated Reap No Benefit It's no secret that over the last few decades, life expectancy in the United States has been rising. However, recent data shows that not everyone has benefited from this encouraging trend. New findings from Harvard Medical School and Harvard University demonstrate that individuals with more than 12 years of education have significantly longer life expectancy than those who never went beyond high school. >Story >Related Blogs We Are Losing the Battle to Feed the World: UN The United Nations warned that it no longer has enough money to keep global malnutrition at bay this year in the face of a dramatic upward surge in world commodity prices, which have created a "new face of hunger". >Story >Related Blogs | |
