Wednesday, February 27, 2008

ENN: New deforestation threat, China reconsiders GMA, pulpwood and palm oil plantations and much more...

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Wednesday, February 27, 2008
News of Note

OSLO (Reuters) - Deforestation in a single Indonesian province is releasing more greenhouse gases than the Netherlands, and the loss of habitats is threatening rare tigers and elephants, the WWF conservation group said on Wednesday.

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BEIJING (Reuters) - Rising food prices and concerns over grains security have caused a shift in Chinese regulators' attitude towards genetically modified crops, a prominent Chinese researcher and GMO advocate said on Wednesday.

While we have fixated on our little local worries over the past week, the biggest news story of the year passed unnoticed in the night. The Brazilian government was forced to admit that the destruction of the Amazon rainforest has returned to ecocidal levels. An area the size of Belgium, taking thousands of years to evolve, was destroyed in the past year alone. Some 20 per cent of the forest has now been trashed, with a further 40 per cent set to be slashed in my lifetime. This is steadily happening to all the rainforests on earth.

While liquid hydrogen is denser and takes up less space, it is very expensive and difficult to produce. It also reduces the environmental benefits of hydrogen vehicles. Widespread commercial acceptance of these vehicles will require finding the right material that can store hydrogen gas at high volumetric and gravimetric densities in reasonably sized light-weight fuel tanks.

They may not be on most people’s list of most attractive species, but bats definitely have animal magnetism. Researchers from the Universities of Leeds and Princeton have discovered that bats use a magnetic substance in their body called magnetite as an ”˜internal compass’ to help them navigate.

ENN Spotlight

How can I discuss the profound experience of visiting Antarctica in a way that hasn’t already been done? Libraries are filled with books that describe travels to the continent, but most seem to describe it as a place to be conquered, or at least survived. Practically a whole subgenre of literature concerns the incredible survival stories from the early and not-so-early explorers; names like Scott, Mawson, Byrd, Ross, Amundsen, and of course, Shackleton, are embedded in our collective consciousness as men who challenged the continent — and who sometimes paid the ultimate price. Fortunately, however, Antarctica is being seen more recently as something greater than just a savage world to be survived.

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Pekanbaru, Sumatra: Turning just one Sumatran province's forests and peat swamps into pulpwood and palm oil plantations is generating more annual greenhouse gas emissions than the Netherlands and rapidly driving the province's elephants into extinction, a new study by WWF and partners has found.

LONDON (Reuters) - Ceramic Fuel Cells said on Wednesday it had secured the first big order for its energy efficient fuel cells, and a source close to the situation said it expects similar orders in the next 12 months.

Shares in Ceramic rose 10 percent to 21p after it announced the five-year deal with Dutch energy firm and utility partner Nuon, worth between 75-100 million pounds ($147-197 million).

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By: American Honda Motor Co., Inc.
Recognizing Honda's application of fuel efficient and alternative fuel technologies, four Honda vehicles earned recognition from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) as the "greenest vehicles of 2008" with the Civic GX natural gas car taking the title of the greenest vehicle for the fifth consecutive year, American Honda Motor Co., Inc., announced today. In the 11th annual ACEEE's "Green Book® Online" ranking of environmentally responsible vehicles (available at www.greenercars.org), the natural gas-powered Civic GX ranked first with the gasoline Civic, Fit and Civic Hybrid joining the list of the 12 most environmentally-conscious vehicles available to the public. By: the Center for Biological Diversity
Center for Biological Diversity staffer Lydia Millet's new novel How the Dead Dream tells the story of an ambitious young California real estate developer who, in the wake of a personal crisis, becomes obsessed with rare and vanishing animals and starts breaking into zoos at night to be close to them. By: SeaWeb
SeaWeb, a global, non-profit organization, is offering travel scholarships for media to attend the world's preeminent summit on coral reef science and management. At this year's International Coral Reef Symposium in Fort Lauderdale, Florida from July 7 to 11, the media will have access to leading ocean experts from around the world and to press briefings on the latest scientific findings, as well as a field trip to see firsthand the threats to coral reefs. By: the GLOBE Foundation of Canada
A report by Environmental Defence, a Toronto-based environmental research group, says exploitation of Alberta's Tar Sands is Canada's most serious environmental liability. By: the Center for Biological Diversity
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced the removal of wolves from the Endangered Species Act's list of endangered and threatened species in a vast area of the northern Rocky Mountains and adjoining regions Thursday. The move will strip wolves of federal protections throughout all of Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana and portions of Utah, Oregon, and Washington. Officials from both Idaho and Wyoming have made clear that they intend to dramatically increase the numbers of wolves that are shot and killed. By: GUARD Colorado
It is a topic that is both controversial and illuminates the passion on both fronts. Both sides armed with information to convince you that they are in the right. It's in newspapers, town meetings; resolutions are circulating and being passed, and people standing up and getting involved in their communities. A true battle has begun in Northern Colorado. All of this in the name of the proposed uranium mining. By: the Center for Biological Diversity
The Center for Biological Diversity and Western Watersheds Project reached a settlement this week with the U.S. Sheep Experiment Station in eastern Idaho to resolve a lawsuit filed last summer. The settlement requires the U.S. Sheep Station to analyze the environmental effects of the sheep grazing under the National Environmental Policy Act and to consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service regarding the impacts of the sheep grazing on threatened and endangered species. The Sheep Station is part of the Agricultural Research Service within the U.S. Department of Agriculture. By: Wildlife Trust
In a paper published by the leading scientific journal Nature, scientists at the Consortium for Conservation Medicine (CCM) Wildlife Trust New York, the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), Columbia University (New York) and the University of Georgia have announced a major breakthrough in the understanding of what causes diseases like HIV/AIDS and SARS to emerge, and how to further predict and prevent future devastating pandemics by plotting a global map of "Emerging Disease Hotspots."

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