News Forum Archives: December 2005
His Car Smelling Like French Fries, Willie Nelson Sells Biodiesel
By Danny Hakim
The New York Times
December 30, 2005
Willie Nelson drives a Mercedes.
But do not lose faith, true believers. The exhaust from Mr. Nelson’s diesel-powered Mercedes smells like peanuts, or French fries, or whatever alternative fuel happens to be in his tank.
Continue Reading His Car Smelling Like French Fries, Willie Nelson Sells Biodiesel
One Man’s Trash Doesn’t Necessarily Become Another Man’s Treasure
Combating the Heaps of E-Waste Responsibly
By Charlotte Sector
ABC News
Dec. 26, 2005
Ah, the smell of bright, shiny new plastic as you unwrap that hot little iPod nano on Christmas morning. Hard to believe that a year from now, when you outgrow it and ask Santa for a new one, it could end up as part of a mountain of stinking castoff electronic gadgets, polluting someone’s drinking water on the other side of the world.
Continue Reading One Man’s Trash Doesn’t Necessarily Become Another Man’s Treasure
Mexican Park Rangers Protect Butterflies
By Ioan Grillo
Associated Press WriterFri Dec 16, 9:00 PM ET
With assault rifles over their shoulders and body armor strapped to their chests, Roberto Paleo and his 17 officers are among the world’s most heavily armed park rangers. Yet they guard one of nature’s most delicate creatures — the monarch butterfly.
The rangers say they need the weapons to protect the winter nesting grounds of millions of orange and black winged butterflies from armed gangs of illegal loggers in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve.
Continue Reading Mexican Park Rangers Protect Butterflies
EMPTY SKIES: World’s Birds at Risk
Janet Larsen
Earth Policy Institute
December 7, 2005-6
Even before canaries were brought into coal mines to alert miners to the presence of poisonous gas, birds were giving us early warning calls signaling the earths deteriorating environmental health. Worldwide, some 1,212 of 9,775 bird speciesone out of every eightare threatened with extinction. Destruction and degradation of habitat is the number one danger, threatening 87 percent of these vulnerable birds.
As an ever-expanding human population has altered natural places around the globewetlands, grasslands, and forestsbird numbers have fallen. Global bird populations have shrunk by up to 25 percent since pre-agricultural times, largely because of conversion of habitat to farms. Over the past 300 years, farmland has expanded from 6 percent of the earths surface to nearly a third.
Continue Reading EMPTY SKIES: World’s Birds at Risk
New turf for science: suburbia
Ecologists Studying Role of Lawns, Pesticides
By Glennda Chui
San Jose Mercury News
Fri, Dec. 09, 2005
Suburbia may be familiar turf, but it’s one of the last frontiers for scientists trying to understand how ecosystems work and how people are changing the natural world.
From the woodsy suburban enclaves of Vermont to sprawling Chico, Livermore and Gilroy, researchers are starting to probe the role of lawns in global warming, how garden fertilizers and pesticides affect wildlife and how storm water running from roofs, roads and driveways undermines the health of streams.
“The suburban landscape is large, and it’s growing,’’ said Jennifer Jenkins of the University of Vermont, one of the scientists reporting their findings this week at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. “There’s this enormous land surface that’s falling through the cracks.’‘
Continue Reading New turf for science: suburbia
Scientists cook up cure for cow flatulence
Reuters
Friday, December 2, 2005
Cows belching and breaking wind cause methane pollution but British scientists say they have developed a diet to make pastures smell like roses, almost.
“In some experiments we get a 70 per cent decrease (in methane emissions), which is quite staggering,” biochemist Dr John Wallace told Reuters.
Continue Reading Scientists cook up cure for cow flatulence
On Climate Change, a Change of Thinking
By Andrew C. Revkin
The New York Times
December 4, 2005
In December 1997, representatives of most of the world’s nations met in Kyoto, Japan, to negotiate a binding agreement to cut emissions of “greenhouse” gases.
They succeeded. The Kyoto Protocol was ultimately ratified by 156 countries. It was the first agreement of its kind. But it may also prove to be the last.
Continue Reading On Climate Change, a Change of Thinking
Do It Yourself
A worried mother discovers the secrets of pesticide testing
By Audrey Schulman
Grist Magazine
01 Dec 2005
Three years ago, while my extended family was vacationing at my dad’s cranberry farm, he mentioned that one of his fields would be sprayed that evening. There were five children under 10 in the house, and I was eight months pregnant. The field was 100 feet away. I asked my dad about the pesticides, but he said, “Don’t worry. The government runs tests on the chemicals. They make sure they’re safe.”
Continue Reading Do It Yourself