Thursday, March 27, 2008

ENN: What 'Going Green' Means, Arctic Oil Drilling, Monsanto's Dirty Secret and Much More


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Thursday, March 27, 2008
News of Note

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - Ribbon seals, which depend on floating sea ice that is growing scarce in a warming Arctic, will be considered for listing under the Endangered Species Act, a U.S. government agency said on Wednesday.

Top Stories

More than half of the Arctic Ocean was covered in year-round ice in the mid-1980s. Today, the ice cap is much smaller. Alarming evidence of this warming trend was released last week when the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) released satellite evidence that perennial Arctic ice cover, as of February, rests on less than 30 percent of the ocean. "The rate of sea-ice loss we're observing is much worse than even the most pessimistic projections led us to believe," says Carroll Muffett, deputy campaigns director with Greenpeace USA. For the first time in recorded history, this past summer the entire Northwest Passage between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans was ice-free, according to scientists.

These unusual, onion-shaped towers are designed for Precinct 4, or the Putrajaya waterfront in Malaysia (30 kilometers south of Kuala Kumpur). The design, by Studio Nicoletti Associati, was inspired by ship sails and traditional Islamic architecture. The towers are efficient and green: they are permeable structures with terraces, sunshades, natural ventilation and integrated green space.

New York state dairy farmer John Bunting doesn't use an artificial bovine growth hormone on his cows for one key reason. He doesn't want them getting sick. "I care about my cows," he said, "I like my cows." The growth hormone in question is made by the Monsanto Company. The current debate about Monsanto's hormone involves labels. The multinational agricultural biotech company seems to be getting nervous about the prospect of telling consumers what's in their milk - or rather, what's not in their milk.

ENN Spotlight

We hear it all the time - Green this, Green that. So let's face it, green is the newest black and everybody loves to feel like they're taking part. It's the latest trend. It's marketable. And it's not slowing down. Trust me, if Corporate America can make money on "green efforts," you can count on them digging in. So what does 'going green' really mean?

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TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese consumer electronics maker Sharp Corp said on Thursday it would spend 72 billion yen ($729 million) to build a new solar cell plant in Sakai, western Japan. Sharp said in July it would build the world's largest solar cell plant by March 2010, along with a 380 billion yen liquid crystal display (LCD) panel plant, but it did not disclose the size of capital investments for the solar cell factory.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Reuters) - British Columbia dealt a potential death blow on Wednesday to a proposed hydro-electric project that highlighted the environmental costs of going green. The government of the West Coast Canadian province will oppose a proposal to adjust a park boundary to allow Run of River Power Inc to run transmission lines to its proposed project on the scenic Pitt River near Vancouver.

Parts of Asia are losing more than 28,000 square kilometers (10,800 square miles) of forest every year, a trend that must to be reversed immediately to fight climate change, a United Nations report said on Thursday. Deforestation accounts for about 20 percent of global greenhouse gases -- trees soak up carbon dioxide when they grow and release it when they rot or are burnt.

Elephants Without Borders :Scientists Track Elephants by Satellite

"Elephant populations have been increasing in Botswana and Tanzania since the late 1980s, when protection measures banned the international ivory trade," says Curtice Griffin of the department of natural resources conservation. "But human populations are also rising. Elephants graze in areas used by cattle and some raid farm fields, where they do a lot of damage in a short time. People have been killed when they try to chase elephants away or encounter them unexpectedly at night." Additional researchers include doctoral student Alfred Kikoti, a native of Tanzania and Mike Chase of Botswana, who completed his doctorate at UMass Amherst in 2007.

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Member Press Releases
By: International Fund for Animal Welfare
(Yarmouth Port, MA - March 27, 2008) The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) announced today the launch of its new space, IFAW Island, in the virtual world called Second Life. IFAW Island will serve as a virtual meeting ground for those interested in animal welfare issues. By: Center for Biological Diversity
Conservation and health groups are seeking to end unsustainable commercial harvest of freshwater turtles in four southern states and to stop the export of contaminated turtles to international food markets. By: The National Audubon Society
The National Audubon Society and Toyota today launched TogetherGreen, a nationwide Audubon program to fund conservation projects, train environmental leaders, and offer volunteer opportunities to significantly benefit the environment. By: Rainforest Alliance
A new Rainforest Alliance study has found that forest concessions managed in compliance with Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification standards have seen fewer wildfires and less deforestation compared with protected and other areas within the Maya Biosphere Reserve, an area of tropical forest in Guatemala's northern Petén region that the government set aside to conserve its unique natural and cultural patrimony. By: Center for Biological Diversity
The Center for Biological Diversity notified the National Marine Fisheries Service Friday of its intent to file suit against the agency for missing the first deadline in the Endangered Species Act listing process for the ribbon seal, imperiled by global warming and the melting of its sea-ice habitat in the Bering Sea off Alaska. By: Low Impact Living, Inc.
LOS ANGELES (March 20, 2008)— Low Impact Living.com, the largest green home improvement site online, has launched a groundbreaking new Household Environmental Impact Calculator and rating system. These tools will help Americans understand their environmental impacts and chart a course to a more eco-friendly home and lifestyle. (Please see the calculator at www.lowimpactliving.com) By: African Wildlife Foundation
KENYA--The African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) is pleased to announce the opening of Satao Elerai Camp, a luxury lodge set on 5,000 acres of communally conserved lands in southern Kenya. The camp is owned by the Entonet/Elerai Maasai community, which planned and created the enterprise with strategic support from AWF. Southern Cross Safaris, a leading private company, will operate the lodge and the conservancy as a single high-quality, highly efficient enterprise. By: the Jane Goodall Institute
Dr. Jane Goodall is coming to Chicagoland to celebrate the first anniversary of the Roots & Shoots Great Lakes Regional Office and to laud the community service efforts of Roots & Shoots groups across the Great Lakes region. Attendees at the event will include local dignitaries, the principal of the Richard J. Daley Academy and local Roots & Shoots members from the Chicago area.

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