Serengreenity

Failure to confront hard decisions about emissions puts humanity in a box. But we have a way out. Call in the geoengineers. Part three of four.

China awoke to climate change with a storm in late January 2008. This was the worst storm in decades--and was an illustration of what a changing climate may herald for the future. As such, it was a tipping point in the country’s environmental awareness.

As the world climate summit closes in, scientists monitoring the impact of global warming in the far north have grown frustrated by public apathy and disbelief about the extent of the problem.

To avoid an energy crisis, the IEA says the world needs to spend about $10.5 trillion in extra money from 2010 to 2030 to foster new low-carbon energy sources. Expensive, yes. But if the IEA is right, the alternative is far worse.

The Army Corps of Engineers must consider the effects of climate change as it draws up plans for flood control, navigation and other water projects under a new agency policy.

A decade of drought is parching landscapes, devastating farmers, killing gum trees, and forcing a new definition of conservation into the continental nation's colorful lexicon. Could Australia see a day when a bottle of water is worth more than a bottle of Shiraz?

After nearly 40 years of struggling for survival, the brown pelican is coming off the endangered species list. The pelican’s recovery is largely due to a 1972 ban on the pesticide DDT, and conservation groups' efforts to protect its nesting sites and monitor its population.

The brown pelican, listed as an endangered species even before the 1973 U.S. Endangered Species Act existed, is officially back from the brink of extinction, the Interior Department said on Wednesday.

Nearly 40 years after it was pushed to the edge of extinction by pesticide use, habitat loss and hunting, the brown pelican Wednesday was taken off the endangered species list, US Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar said.

Most of the Republican candidates for Illinois governor flatly reject the idea that human activity contributes to global warming, a position that contradicts the overwhelming consensus among climate scientists.

Vietnam will be one of five nations most affected by climate change. As millions are displaced and the potential for vector-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue to spread grows, health and human rights have become concerns closely related to climate change.

Ocean acidification, caused by rising CO2 levels, is affecting not only coral reefs, but coastal ecosystems by changing everything from the ability of oysters to adhere to the riverbed to the extent of dead zones along the U.S. Pacific coast.

Low-lying and impoverished Asian coastal cities such as Dhaka, Manila and Jakarta are vulnerable to "brutal" damage from climate change without global action, environmental group WWF warned Thursday.

Analysts say the Tata Motors' Nano could rock the international auto industry and put millions of new Indian drivers on the road. Many are concerned about an increase in emissions, but the company claims that Nano is still environmentally friendlier than any other car.

Royal Dutch Shell might seem a strange candidate for a front-row seat at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen in a few weeks' time. But James Smith, the company's UK chairman, sees no contradiction between big oil and a green future.

North America’s boreal forest contains nearly twice as much carbon per hectare as tropical forests and more carbon than any land-based ecosystem on the planet, says a new report by Canadian and American researchers.

A new report says that if people cut meat from their diet for just two days a week - adopting "flexitarianism" - that will be enough to stop global warming.

One of the world's top energy experts says that despite climate change, there is a strong future for the backbone of the Australian economy - coal.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton today called U.N. climate talks in Copenhagen a "steppingstone" toward a global, legally binding climate agreement, and spelled out U.S. priorities for the talks.

Last month, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar issued an order coordinating Interior Department efforts on climate change and forming a Climate Change Response Council to bring global warming concerns into policy making.

Mexico City's Metrobus system received an award from Harvard University on Thursday, and the country has announced plans to build more such transit systems.

Should the drive-through lanes at Tim Hortons, a doughnut and fast-food chain, be part of an anti-idling ordinance in Kingston, Ontario?

A coalition of conservation groups is urging global climate negotiators not to forget the northern boreal forests of Canada, Scandinavia and Russia.

Seventh Generation, the green household cleaning products manufacturer, takes on federal regulations governing toxic substances with an ambitious marketing campaign.

A forum in Washington on Tuesday echoed the division that are likely to animate, and perhaps stall efforts next month to hammer out a new climate treaty.

A water heater made by General Electric is believed to be the nation's first commercially available smart appliance. But its smartness is ahead of its time.

With the approach of a conference on a new global climate treaty, discord rules the day. Green Inc. asked business leaders, lobbyists and government officials for their thoughts on the likely outcome.

A new report suggests that British consumers unnecessarily discard $20 billion worth of food and drink every year.

A study by an Icelandic bank assesses the potential for geothermal power development in the United States.

Why the G.O.P. loves nuclear energy and other energy and environment news from around the Web.

With the help of federal grants, universities around the country are turning to geothermal energy for heating and power as they try to cut their carbon footprint.

Zambia and Tanzania are requesting a reclassification for their African Elephant populations to enable legal sales of ivory.

An Oregon State University professor sees the oil industry as a potential model for making groundwater resources last.

A debate over the connection between large-scale concentrated animal feeding operations and the spread of the H1N1 virus is spilling into the mainstream.

The Brazilian government will soon hold its first wind-only energy auction, as the nation tries to diversify its energy portfolio beyond hydropower.

An expedition this year made by 32 leading conservation photographers has resulted in a portfolio of hundreds of images that show the natural beauty and conservation challenges facing the Yucatán peninsula in Mexico, an area known as the heart of the ancient Mayan civilisation

Cast your votes for the decade's greatest eco-hero

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Near downtown Portland, Leftbank Project is looking to build a viable community.

An investment fund focused on energy efficiency launches.

Human health impacts could soon play a bigger role when sizing up building projects.

Green building experts bring EcoDistricts to the West Coast.

Version 2.0 of the Living Building Challenge is launching.

Seattle designer Lucia Athens pinpoints emerging trends in green building.

Seattle plans to test software that creates home-efficiency scores.

A new pre-fab manufacturer opens a California factory.

NASA hoping to create a test bed of cleantech and green building innovation.

A LEED-Platinum building for sale in Portland aims to finance more projects.

A group of Colombian farmers has filed a lawsuit against the oil company BP, claiming that construction of a 450-mile pipeline in the mid-1990s has caused landslides, permanently damaging soil and crops and harming livestock. In the suit filed in a London court, 95 farmers claim that BP Exploration Company ignored evidence that the pipeline would damage the […]

The brown pelican, a bird once prized by hunters for its feathers and later imperiled by rampant pesticide use, has “fully recovered” and no longer requires federal protection, the U.S. Interior Department announced. Populations of the bird — a fixture in Florida, the Gulf Coast states and along the Pacific coast — have reached more than 650,000 in North and […]

Long a ubiquitous part of modern life, plastics are now in everything from diapers to water bottles to cell phones. But given the proven health threats of some plastics — as well as the enormous environmental costs — the time has come for the U.S. to pass a comprehensive plastics control law. BY JOHN WARGO

Extreme weather events caused by a warming climate pose a growing threat to China’s Yangtze River basin, which encompasses Shanghai and some of the most productive agricultural land in the nation, according to a new study. The basin, which cuts through the center of China, has already seen a spike in floods, heat waves, and drought over the last two decades, […]

Exposure to high levels of bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical found in thousands of everyday plastics, appears to cause sexual problems for males, according to a new study. In the study published in the journal Human Reproduction, researchers followed 634 male workers exposed to BPA at four Chinese factories. Over the course of five years, those men were four tim […]

The melting of Antarctic ice has allowed large blooms of tiny marine phytoplankton to flourish, creating a significant new biological sink for carbon, according to a new study by the British Antarctic Survey. Over the last five decades, retreating glaciers around the Antarctic Peninsula have opened about 24,000 square kilometers of open water that has been c […]

The British government has approved 10 new sites for nuclear power stations in England and Wales, calling nuclear power a “proven and reliable” energy source that will help the UK reduce its carbon emissions and become more energy-independent. Just a year after the government lifted a moratorium on new nuclear power generation, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband c […]

The loss of nitrogen from arid soils caused by a warming climate could make the world’s deserts even more inhospitable to plant life, according to a new study by researchers at Cornell University. Using highly sophisticated instrumentation that measures nitrogen in the parts per trillion — and using dark covers to remove sunlight as a factor in the measureme […]

A UK-based renewable energy company has received a $61 million grant from the Australian government to build the world’s first utility-scale wave power project. Ocean Power Technologies will begin construction of the 19-megawatt project in the waters off Victoria in 2010. The project will provide enough electricity to power 10,000 homes. Wave technology uses […]

The solar power boom in Germany, Spain, and parts of the United States has been fueled by government subsidies. But now some U.S. states — led by New Jersey, of all places — are pioneering a different approach: issuing tradable credits that can be sold on the open market. So far, the results have been promising. BY JON R. LUOMA

The Philippine government plans to approve 19 new contracts to develop the nation’s massive geothermal energy resources in the next five months. A top energy official said financial incentives for the development of renewable energy projects could attract more than $2.5 billion in private dollars from domestic and international companies. “Incentives for ren […]

About half of 36 fish stocks in the northwest Atlantic Ocean have shifted north over the last four decades as ocean temperatures have warmed, according to a new U.S. study. Comparing data for dozens of fish stock from 1968 to 2007 — and using ocean temperature records from the same period — researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ( […]

Over the last century, the intensive use of chemical fertilizers has saturated the Earth’s soils and waters with nitrogen. Now scientists are warning that we must move quickly to revolutionize agricultural systems and greatly reduce the amount of nitrogen we put into the planet's ecosystems. BY FRED PEARCE

A 35-mile seismic crack that formed over a few days in 2005 in the Ethiopian desert is evidence of a new ocean in the making, scientists report in a new study. The abrupt formation of the rift, which is 20 feet wide in places, is similar to the shifting that occurs on the ocean’s floor, according to the study in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. Usin […]

Despite growing pessimism that a global climate treaty will be signed in Copenhagen next month, Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, believes a flurry of last-minute negotiations may lead to an agreement, although the U.S. may not initially be a part of it. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, Pachauri expresses […]

With skepticism growing about the chances of reaching a climate agreement next month in Copenhagen, Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, says he is “cautiously optimistic” that a treaty can still be signed. But in an interview with Yale Environment 360, Pachauri says the global community may have to move ahead without […]

With just a month remaining before the Copenhagen climate summit, delegates from 192 countries are meeting in Barcelona to attempt to lay the groundwork for a climate treaty, with some influential figures saying the U.S. must be prepared to make firm greenhouse gas reduction commitments if Copenhagen is to be a success. Connie Hedegaard, the Danish minister […]

Glacial ice atop Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania continues to melt at an accelerated rate, shrinking 26 percent since 2000, and about 85 percent since 1912, according to a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study’s lead author, Ohio State University glaciologist Lonnie G. Thompson, said melting of this level has not occurred on K […]

Passage of climate change legislation in the U.S. Senate appears increasingly unlikely in the face of divisions among Democrats and stiff opposition by Republicans, the Washington Post reports. Top Democrats have been unable to enlist key Republican lawmakers to support the bill, which would create a cap-and-trade system and gradually cut the level of carbon […]

The European Space Agency (ESA) has launched a 315 million Euro ($465 Million) satellite that will monitor soil moisture, plant growth, and the salt content of sea water, all of which will be useful in tracking environmental changes as the planet warms. The satellite, called SMOS — Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity — has the capacity to measure the water cont […]