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Archive for March 4th, 2011
GE Trees: ArborGen goes down
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 4th, 2011
Rainforest News: ArborGen had requested permission from the USDA to plant GE eucalyptus trees in commercial plantations across the southern U.S., involving as many as 260,000 trees planted at 29 sites during the next few years. Much smaller lots of the genetically altered trees have been growing in some of the states for years and we recently learned that the USDA turned them down. 17,500 people signed a petition or sent in comments to the USDA opposing GE eucalyptus trees. While this is not a permanent victory,...
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World’s sixth mass extinction may be underway
Posted by Agence France-Presse: Richard Ingham and Laurent Bangue on March 4th, 2011
Agence France-Presse: Mankind may have unleashed the sixth known mass extinction in Earth's history, according to a paper released by the science journal Nature.
Over the past 540 million years, five mega-wipeouts of species have occurred through naturally-induced events.
But the new threat is man-made, inflicted by habitation loss, over-hunting, over-fishing, the spread of germs and viruses and introduced species, and by climate change caused by fossil-fuel greenhouse gases, says the study.
Evidence from fossils...
Brazilian beef: Greater impact on the environment than we realize
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 4th, 2011
ScienceDaily: Increased export of Brazilian beef indirectly leads to deforestation in the Amazon. New research from Chalmers and SIK in Sweden that was recently published in Environmental Science & Technology shows that impact on the climate is much greater than current estimates indicate. The researchers are now demanding that indirect effect on land be included when determining a product's carbon footprint.
"If this aspect is not taken into consideration, there is a risk of the wrong signals being sent...
“Profound” plant water cycle changes add new wildcard to climate change .
Posted by Science a Gogo: Kate Melville on March 4th, 2011
Science a Gogo: Botanists from Indiana University (IU) and Utrecht University (Netherlands) have discovered that rising carbon dioxide levels over the last 150 years have reduced the density of the pores (known as stomata) that plants use to breathe by 34 percent, dramatically lowering the amount of water vapor the plants release to the atmosphere. Writing about their findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, the researchers hypothesize that continually increasing CO2 levels could reduce plant...
Lawyers: No plan yet to go after Chevron money
Posted by Associated Press: Larry Neumeister on March 4th, 2011
Associated Press: Lawyers say Chevron can finish appeals in Ecuador before they try to collect over $9 billion
Lawyers for Ecuadoreans who won a $9.5 billion judgment against Chevron Corp. for decades-old damage to the country's rain forest said Tuesday that they won't try to collect the award until the oil giant completes the appeals process.
The Monday ruling by Ecuadorean Judge Nicolas Zambrano against the U.S. oil company was expected and Chevron has vowed to appeal in Ecuador. The ruling says the award...
Protecting forests can cut water filtration costs
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 4th, 2011
Mongabay: Protecting forests can cut water filtration costs
Clean water doesn't come cheap. Communities and businesses often rely on expensive water filtration infrastructure to ensure their clean water supplies. But communities around the world have been protecting upstream forests instead of building new, costly water treatment infrastructure. Can this strategy work in the US south?
Water treatment is expensive business, and cities around the world -- from Denver in North America to Zapalinamé in Latin...