environment

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Recycled 'E-Waste' Can Be Toxic

Old TVs, PCs can pollute developing countries

(Newser) - Recycling old computers, cell phones, and TVs may sound like a good idea—but be sure you know the destination before you dump such material, USA Today advises. While such “e-waste” recycling programs are springing up everywhere these days, some pose a threat. Often, the materials end up in...

'Predatory' Funeral Industry Comes Under Fire

Big industry players take advantage of the bereft, says watchdog

(Newser) - The funeral industry preys on bereft customers, artificially raising prices and taking custody of bodies it has no right to handle, argues a watchdog group. The Funeral Consumers Alliance aims to push fair and environmentally friendly death-care practices, Newsweek reports. “Funeral corporations use predatory sales tactics and aggressive marketing...

Orangutans In Trouble as Forests Shrink

Loggers, plantations bring great ape close to extinction

(Newser) - Illegal loggers and palm oil plantations may make the orangutan the first great ape to become extinct, scientists warn. In Indonesia, a mere 6,600 of the apes remain, while on Malaysia’s Borneo Island, the population has fallen 10% to 49,600, the Telegraph reports.

Uno: Cooler Than Segway
 Uno: Cooler Than Segway 
Jul 1, 2008 3:12 PM CDT

Uno: Cooler Than Segway

One-wheeled 'motorcycle' goes green with electricity—and stylish to boot

(Newser) - Looking like a tricked out motorbike, the Uno is electric personal transportation with style, the Chicago Tribune reports. Designed by 19-year-old inventor Ben Gulak, the device employs no throttle or brake, relying on its rider's leanings to guide it, and is so intuitive an 8-year-old picked it up instantly at...

Polluting Pentagon Rebuffs EPA Orders

Pentagon challenges agency's right to order toxic chemical clean up

(Newser) - The Pentagon is holding out on an Environmental Protection Agency order to clean up pollutants from three military bases where chemicals have become an "imminent and substantial" threat to the public health and environment, the Washington Post reports. The Defense Department also won’t sign contracts to clean up...

Five Problems With Environmental Reporting

Columbia Journalism Review assesses field's common trouble spots

(Newser) - If you’re flummoxed by ever-shifting information on climate change and the environment, just think what the folks who report it must be going through. Deadline pressures and conflicting scientific papers have reporters struggling to provide editors with sellable stories, the Columbia Journalism Review reports, and the results don’t...

Fuel Crisis a Boon for Rickshaw Business

Banned in some areas, the throwback vehicle attempts a comeback

(Newser) - New Delhi had fallen out of love with rickshaws. Here, as in many modernizing Asian capitals, the bicycle-drawn cabs are seen as embarrassing, street-clogging third-world throwbacks. They’ve even been banned from the city’s older, walled section—but with gas at $7 a gallon, rickshaw peddlers are touting their...

Britons: New Trash Laws Are Rubbish

Controversial UK measures get tough on waste

(Newser) - In the midst of a garbage overload, the UK is cracking down on trash with strict new rules, sparking a backlash among Britons, the New York Times reports. Many areas now pick up trash only biweekly, and accept only regulation amounts. Some reject recycling bins tainted with garbage. In response,...

Fla.'s Crist Works Across the Eco-Lines

Guv backs alternative energy, but open to more oil drilling

(Newser) - Florida Gov. Charlie Crist is walking an environmental tightrope between encouraging conservation and alternative energy, and promoting oil exploration off the state’s coast, the Wall Street Journal reports.  Recent moves include the purchase of 300 square miles in the Everglades—a deal that shuts down the nation’s...

Warming Will Kill 66% of Calif. Plants Within Century

Flora won't have time to migrate if emissions continue at current rate

(Newser) - If California’s climate warms significantly in the next 100 years the consequences could be grave for the majority of the state’s native plants, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. A team of scientists from UC Berkeley and Duke found that up to 66% of the state’s plants wouldn’...

Not So Easy to Green a Dem Convention

Organizer can't find hats that are organic and union

(Newser) - You can pledge to make your Dem convention “the greenest…in the history of the planet” (as Denver’s mayor recently did), you can hire a Director of Greening—but it’s still no small task to throw a sustainable presidential nominating conference. That's what the Journal discovered in...

White House Ignored EPA Pollutants Email

Bush & Co. refused to open report mandated by Supreme Court

(Newser) - The White House didn’t like the findings in a Supreme Court-mandated report on pollutants from the EPA—so it simply refused to open the email, the New York Times reports. Instead, the administration has successfully pressured the agency into releasing a watered-down, recommendation-free report. Among the omitted sections: analysis...

Florida Buys Sugar Land to Save Everglades

State will acquire 175,000 acrose

(Newser) - Florida plans to buy 187,000 acres of land from the nation's biggest sugar company in what both state officials and environmentalists are hailing as a landmark deal to save the Everglades, the St. Petersburg Times reports. Under the deal, which may not be finalized until November, Florida will pay...

Overfishing Oceans Leads to 'Rise of Slime'

Depleted stocks throw ecosystems out of whack

(Newser) - Overfishing results in more than just the depletion of one species—it can mean the degradation of entire ecosystems. As the populations of large, predatory fish such as sharks and tuna decline, their prey flourishes, with sometimes-devastating results. The Christian Science Monitor looks at the problem of the world's increasingly...

Wash. State Bans Some Dishwasher Detergents

Officials worry about phosphorous runoff

(Newser) - Washington state will soon begin phasing in a ban on some big-name dishwater detergents because they contain too much phosphorus, the Bellingham Herald reports. Detergents such as Cascade and Electrasol, which contain more than 0.5% phosphorous, will be banned in Whatcom and Spokane counties July 1 and in the...

How Fair Is the 'Third Term' Jab?
 How Fair Is the
 'Third Term' Jab? 
ANALYSIS
Jun 17, 2008 9:06 AM CDT

How Fair Is the 'Third Term' Jab?

McCain offers some differences, but largely agrees with Bush

(Newser) - With President Bush posting record disapproval ratings, Democrats have gleefully dubbed a John McCain presidency a "third Bush term." The claim is at least partially justified, reports the New York Times in an analysis of the "McBush" charge—McCain agrees with Bush on taxation, health care, the...

Consumers Rattled by 'Green Overload'

Too much information overwhelming even the best intentions

(Newser) - Inundated with reports on how best to save the environment, many consumers are left confused and suffering from an information overload the New York Times dubs “green noise.” Many eco-facts are contradictory and options are puzzling (is it better, for example, to get a used car, or a...

Planet Green a 'Waste of Energy'
 Planet Green a
 'Waste of Energy' 
tv review
Jun 12, 2008 6:10 PM CDT

Planet Green a 'Waste of Energy'

New network turns Earth into "lifestyle accessory"

(Newser) - Our era of eco-chic has borne bitter fruit: Watching the new cable network Planet Green is “an unforgivable waste of energy,” writes Troy Patterson in Slate. The Discovery Channel spinoff reduces environmentalism to a status symbol and bludgeons the viewer with inane condescension. “Eco-tainment” is king, with...

Summer Tips for Greener Kids
 Summer Tips
 for Greener Kids 
Jun 12, 2008 10:14 AM CDT

Summer Tips for Greener Kids

Going outside would be a good first step

(Newser) - Summer is the perfect season to turn your rugrats into ecomaniacs, as warm weather and school vacations collide. Grist lists some basic steps to green up your family’s summer:
  1. Get outside: The best way to commune with nature is to experience it first-hand, but the time kids spend outdoors
...

To Fix US Energy Policy, Start Over
To Fix US Energy Policy, Start Over
OPINION
Jun 10, 2008 6:28 PM CDT

To Fix US Energy Policy, Start Over

Activist argues for multipronged strategy on climate change

(Newser) - The US must overhaul its environmental strategy, alternative-energy advocate Denis Hayes writes in Yale Environment 360, and here's how:
  • Cap carbon at its source—coal mines, oil fields, pipelines—not where it leaves the atmosphere.
  • Promote renewable energy and buy photovoltaic devices in bulk to drive prices down.

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