ENN rounds up the most important and compelling environmental news stories of the week. In the news November 20th - 24th: Pesticide use, ocean bottom trawling, mercury in fish, chimp sex, and much more.
Top Ten Articles of the Week
In the news November 20th - 24th: Pesticide use, ocean bottom trawling, mercury in fish, chimp sex, and much more.
1. EPA Exempts Some Pesticide Use
The Environmental Protection Agency announced Tuesday that pesticides can be applied over and near bodies of water without a permit under the federal Clean Water Act. The decision brought immediate criticism from an environmental watchdog group and from a senator involved in environmental issues. They said it would make it easier to pollute the nation's lakes and streams.
2. Global Warming Said to Be Killing Some Species
Animal and plant species have begun dying off or changing sooner than predicted because of global warming, a review of hundreds of research studies contends. These fast-moving adaptations come as a surprise even to biologists and ecologists because they are occurring so rapidly.
3. Fenced in, Kashmir's Leopards, Bears Stalk Villages
A fence along India's disputed border with Pakistan designed to keep out militants is curbing the movement of wild bears and leopards which are now wandering into villages and killing people, officials say.
4. U.N. Drive for Ban on Ocean Bottom Trawling Fails
U.N. negotiators failed to agree Thursday on a measure banning a fishing practice known as high-seas bottom trawling that environmentalists say chews up the ocean floor and depletes fish stocks.
5. World Has Under a Decade to Act on Climate Crisis
The world has less than a decade to take decisive action in the battle to beat global warming or risk irreversible change that will tip the planet towards catastrophe, a leading U.S. climate scientist said on Tuesday.
6. U.K. Soldiers Gun Down Endangered Rhino
British troops fatally shot an endangered white rhinoceros after it charged them while they were lost on military exercises in northern Kenya, a wildlife official said Sunday. "The rhino charged and they had no option but to shoot it," said Connie Maina, spokeswoman for the Kenya Wildlife Service.
7. Consumers Not Warned of Mercury in Fish
Not a single West Virginia grocery store is warning consumers of the possible dangers of mercury in fish, an environmental group says, even though the state and federal governments have been issuing advisories to anglers for at least two years.
8. California to Impose Sweeping Conservation Limits on Ocean Fishing
Flying over California's rugged Central Coast, Mike Sutton pointed to kelp forests and rocky reefs just below the water's surface that will soon be off-limits to fishing under one of the nation's most ambitious plans to protect marine life.
9. Environmental Groups Say Duke Energy's Message to the Justices Was Deceptive
Environmental groups are still angry over an assertion made before the Supreme Court a month ago during arguments in a far-reaching clean air lawsuit.
10. In Chimp World, Males Find Older Females Sexier
Chimpanzee males prefer to have sex with older females, U.S. researchers found in a study published Monday that shows one of the biggest behavioral differences between humans and our closest biological relatives.
Photo: In Burundi, a boys "plays" a handmade recycled can. Photo credit: ©2006 World Food Programme (WFP)/Anthony Razaire, Security Officer (Finalist in WFP staff photo competition. Honourable mention).
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