Yale Environment 360: A litany of environmental threats, from forest fragmentation and logging to climate change and disease, are wiping out the world’s biggest trees, according to a published report. In forest ecosystems worldwide, research shows that giant trees have become particularly vulnerable to a changing environment, ecologist and [...]
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Yale Environment 360: At the Detroit Auto Show early this month, I sat down with some Nissan executives who were celebrating the sale of the 10,000th Leaf battery car in the U.S. (and 20,000th worldwide). Behind them on the company’s stand was the eNV200, a plug-in version of one of [...]
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Toronto Star: An Arctic duck is at risk because polar bears have developed a newfound appetite for their eggs, scientists say.
The eider populations in Nunavut and Nunavik, Que., are declining partly because the bears have been eating more of their eggs, which are laid on the southern coasts of Baffin [...]
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Associated Press: FirstEnergy Corp. said Thursday that new environmental regulations led to a decision to shut down six older, coal-fired power plants in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Maryland, affecting more than 500 employees.
The plants, which are in Cleveland, Ashtabula, Oregon and Eastlake in Ohio, Adrian, Pa. and Williamsport, Md., will be [...]
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New York Times: When the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future was established two years ago, after the Obama administration killed a proposed repository for nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, one of the items on its agenda was to determine whether spent nuclear fuel was in fact [...]
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Guardian: Advisers to Japan’s nuclear safety agency have said power plant stress tests do not prove that a nuclear plant is safe, as the country faces the prospect of a summer without a single nuclear reactor in operation.
Last year, the Japanese government ordered the nuclear authorities to conduct tests on [...]
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Ford reported its best annual earnings since 1998 on Friday, making 2011 the second most profitable year in the company’s 109-year history.
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United Press International: British government climate change reports suggest Scotland’s fisheries sector and other vital assets could be under threat, the government said.
The British government in its Climate Change Risk Assessment determined that changes in water temperatures could result in a relocation of some fish stocks, a key source of [...]
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Business Green: The US installed nearly 7GW of new wind energy capacity in 2011, a 31 per cent increase on the previous year, according to industry figures.
New figures from the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) show the US installed 6,810MW of new capacity last year, 3,444MW of which came in [...]
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Reuters: EU law is enough for now to regulate shale gas exploration, although changes might be needed to protect the environment once Europe enters the development phase, a study commissioned by the EU has found.
Shale gas exploitation in the United States has transformed the global supply-demand balance.
In Europe, however, development [...]
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Guardian: This week, the government lost its appeal against a judge’s ruling that its move to change the rates for solar feed-in tariffs before the official consultation has ended was “legally flawed”.
The high court ruling is a real victory for the solar industry and for those households, businesses and community [...]
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Reuters: Japan will be able to avoid power cuts this summer even if the nation’s last few nuclear reactors cease operating due to public safety fears after the Fukushima crisis, the government said on Friday.
Until the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, nuclear energy provided a third of Japan’s power. But [...]
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Calgary Herald: Environmental groups are raising concerns about possible logging on Flores Island in Clayoquot Sound.
The issue surfaced after Iisaak Forest Resources Ltd. applied to the B.C. Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations for heli-drop zones.
Although those applications were received, as of January 25 the ministry had not [...]
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Christian Science Monitor: Like the oil drilling rig that became an icon of the Industrial Age, the giant, spinning wind turbine has become a global image of clean power. No longer a futuristic dream of environmentalists, wind power has become a big business: Since the signing of the Kyoto [...]
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Anti-nuclear movement growing in Asia
Christian Science Monitor: Heonseok Lee has a simple way of describing how public sentiment toward nuclear power has changed in South Korea since the disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant last March 11.
“Before 3/11, I’d post an article criticizing the nuclear power industry, and right away there’d be [...]
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