http://www.enn.com/ ENN RSS News http://www.enn.com/top_stories/article/36444 The Bush administration on Friday proposed keeping potentially oil-rich wetlands in Arctic Alaska off-limits to drilling because of their ecological sensitivity, a reversal of its earlier plan. The Bureau of Land Management proposed a 10-year leasing moratorium for 430,000 acres of wetlands north and east of vast Teshekpuk Lake in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. Environmentalists and local groups hailed the decision. http://www.enn.com/wildlife/article/36437 The U.S. decision to list polar bears as a threatened species has indigenous Alaskans like Aalak Nayakik worried that hunting the animals they rely on for food and warmth could be banned. Standing on the edge of the receding sea ice-shelf offshore from Barrow, some 350 miles north of the Arctic Circle, Nayakik, a member of the Inupiat peoples who have inhabited northern Alaska for centuries, says polar bears are a staple food for his family. http://www.enn.com/ecosystems/article/36427 Governments could save human lives and millions of dollars in crop and income losses for the rural poor through better consideration of the needs of wildlife, according to a new WWF study of conflict between humans and wild elephants in Africa and Asia. Common Ground found the most serious conflict and harm to both human communities and elephants resulted from unplanned and unregulated development. http://www.enn.com/ecosystems/article/36425 Large-scale destruction of mangroves contributed heavily to the damage inflicted by cyclone Nargis in Myanmar last week, says the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Myanmar, home to the eighth largest mangrove area in the world, has lost large swathes of mangroves over the last four decades. FAO estimates from 2005 put the loss at around 70,000 hectares between 1972 and 2005, but 2008 estimates suggest this could be much higher. http://www.enn.com/ecosystems/article/36423 Bonn, Germany--Organizations and scientists from around the world spoke today about their opposition to genetically engineered trees which will be negotiated at the UN Convention on Biological Diversity's Ninth Conference of the Parties (CBD COP-9) beginning next week in Bonn. They are demanding that governments at the UN agree to accept the proposal to suspend all releases of genetically engineered (GE) trees into the environment, due to their extreme ecological and social threats. http://www.enn.com/business/article/36422 Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens has placed an the largest ever order for wind turbines: he ordered 667 wind turbines from GE, each costing $3 million dollars, making the total order $2 billion. Picken plans to develop the world’s largest wind farm in the panhandle of Texas. The $2 billion order is just one quarter of the total amount he plans to purchase. http://www.enn.com/pollution/article/36421 Nissan Motor Co. announced Tuesday it will mass produce electric cars within the next five years, according to NPR. Zero-emission electric cars will be available in two years for government fleets in the U.S. and Japan, Nissan Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn told NPR. By 2012, the cars will be in mass production. http://www.enn.com/pollution/article/36420 The Brazil Greenhouse Gas Protocol Program was launched today and its 12 founding corporate members have voluntarily agreed to report their global-warming emissions. “The program provides options for sound measurement and allows members to take action to reduce their GHG emissions,”� said Thelma Krug, secretary of climate change, Brazil Environment Ministry, at the launch event here in the IBAMA Auditorium. http://www.enn.com/wildlife/article/36417 The world's species are declining at a rate "unprecedented since the extinction of the dinosaurs", a census of the animal kingdom has revealed. The Living Planet Index out today shows the devastating impact of humanity as biodiversity has plummeted by almost a third in the 35 years to 2005. http://www.enn.com/lifestyle/article/36364 It's U.S. National Bike to Work Day on Friday and Americans are facing record high gasoline prices, but most commuters will stick to their cars. The combination of gas near $4 a gallon and the annual campaign to get people to pedal to work may prompt a few more people than usual to commute on two wheels. http://www.enn.com/wildlife/article/36390 World biodiversity has declined by almost one third in the past 35 years due mainly to habitat loss and the wildlife trade, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) said on Friday It warned that climate change would add increasingly to the wildlife woes over the next three decades. http://www.enn.com/wildlife/article/36415 Nearly 200 governments will say next week they are unlikely to meet a target of slowing the rate of extinctions of living species by 2010, a failure which could threaten future food supplies. Up to 5,000 delegates and some heads of state, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, will try to agree at the Convention of Biological Diversity in the German city of Bonn on ways to save plant and animal species. http://www.enn.com/agriculture/article/36414 The black truffle, one of the most exclusive and expensive delicacies on the planet, is under threat from climate change. A mysterious species of underground fungi with reported aphrodisiac and therapeutic properties, the aromatic truffles are also highly fragile and cannot withstand more than three weeks without water. http://www.enn.com/ecosystems/article/36348 China's deadliest earthquake in decades could cut by up to 5 percent the country's supply of carbon offsets under the Kyoto Protocol over the next 12 months, a market China dominates, Lehman analysts estimated on Thursday. Rich countries can meet Kyoto greenhouse gas limits by investing in emissions cuts in developing countries, earning carbon offsets in return. http://www.enn.com/ecosystems/article/36346 A new NASA-led study shows human-caused climate change has made an impact on a wide range of Earth's natural systems, including permafrost thawing, plants blooming earlier across Europe, and lakes declining in productivity in Africa. Cynthia Rosenzweig of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Science in New York and scientists at 10 other institutions have linked physical and biological impacts since 1970 with rises in temperatures during that period. http://www.enn.com/wildlife/article/36345 You might think that stocking the Great Lakes with things like trout and salmon would be good for the herring gull. The birds often eat from the water, so it would be natural to assume that more fish would mean better dining. But a new report published in the April journal of Ecology by the Ecological Society of America says that the addition of species such as exotic salmon and trout to the area has not been good for the birds, demonstrating that fishery management actions can sometimes have very unexpected outcomes. http://www.enn.com/business/article/36344 Sitting in a warm Capitol Hill office building last week, a panel of green-collar job activists attempted to rally support among a room of sleepy Congressional staffers. At the end of the briefing, Van Jones, a civil-rights lawyer-turned-green jobs champion, delivered the message that jolted many audience members out of their afternoon haze. "We are about to enter stagflation," Jones said. "That means people get voted out of office." http://www.enn.com/business/article/36343 The ongoing food crises in 36 countries around the globe are a cause of worry for major institutions such as the World Bank because the problems signal profound problems of disbalance in the world economy. The main reasons behind the high food prices in poor countries are the high oil price and market liberalization shocks. Biofuel crops are hardly a factor. Climate change is something that has played a role for as long as everyone can remember and it's only being recognized now. http://www.enn.com/agriculture/article/36342 The Bush administration has slipped a controversial ingredient into the $770 million aid package it recently proposed to ease the world food crisis, adding language that would promote the use of genetically modified crops in food-deprived countries. The value of genetically modified, or bio-engineered, food is an intensely disputed issue in the U.S. and in Europe, where many countries have banned foods made from genetically modified organisms, or GMOs. http://www.enn.com/pollution/article/36341 Did you know that UPS trucks have a “No Left Turn”� policy on deliveries? The company has taken another step toward energy conservation by ordering 500 more hybrid and compressed natural gas (CNG) delivery vehicles. UPS calls its trucks the Green Fleet, and is expanding from 50 hybrid electric trucks to 250 (the largest commercial order of such trucks by any company). The CNG-run fleet will increase from 800 to 1,100 as well. http://www.enn.com/lifestyle/article/36340 Both sweet and sophisticated, the design of these uber modern reusable totes are reason enough to say no to paper and plastic bags forever! http://www.enn.com/pollution/article/36292 Greenhouse gases are at higher levels in the atmosphere than at any time in at least 800,000 years, according to a study of Antarctic ice on Wednesday that extends evidence that mankind is disrupting the climate. Carbon dioxide and methane trapped in tiny bubbles of air in ancient ice down to 3,200 meters (10,500 ft) below the surface of Antarctica add 150,000 years of data to climate records stretching back 650,000 years from shallower ice drilling. http://www.enn.com/wildlife/article/36296 Polar bears were listed on Wednesday as threatened under the U.S. Endangered Species Act because their sea ice habitat is melting away. But the new protection was not accompanied by any proposals to address either climate change, which environmentalists say causes the deterioration of the bears' habitat, or drilling in the Arctic for the fossil fuels that spur the climate-warming greenhouse effect. http://www.enn.com/sci-tech/article/36274 University of California, San Diego electrical engineers have created experimental solar cells spiked with nanowires that could lead to highly efficient thin-film solar cells of the future. Indium phosphide (InP) nanowires can serve as electron superhighways that carry electrons kicked loose by photons of light directly to the device’s electron-attracting electrode — and this scenario could boost thin-film solar cell efficiency, according to research recently published in NanoLetters. http://www.enn.com/ecosystems/article/36273 In recent years, scarcity and pollution of water have become the paramount environmental woe in China. Numerous reports and books have exposed China's water crisis, depicting a nation suffering in the face of black-running rivers and dried-up waterways. Nationwide, the per capita availability of fresh water is only one-quarter of the world average.