This Week at ENN. Leading Financial Instittutions Project the Green Market to hit $1 Trillion by 2030, A Q&A with E-Magazine's Readers, Coral Reefs, Hyrbid Cars and More, Brazil Joins Hands with Non-governmental Groups to Stop Amazonian Deforestation by 2015, U.S. Gets Bad "Report Card" on Arctic Warming, India to Face Chronic Deseases with Growing Consumption, and Much More.
$1 trillion green market seen by 2030 October 19, 2007 10:05 AM - Reuters
Global sales from clean energy sources like wind, solar and geothermal power and biofuels could grow to as much as $1 trillion a year by 2030, U.S. bank Morgan Stanley has estimated.Global population growth and soaring prices for fossil fuels are driving the market, along with dropping costs in clean energy and concern about energy security and climate change, the bank said in a research note issued on Wednesday.
Reader's Q&A: Coral Reefs And Hybrid Cars October 18, 2007 12:32 PM - , E Magazine
According to marine scientists, the world’s coral reefs—those underwater repositories for biodiversity that play host to some 25 percent of all marine life—are in big trouble as a result of global warming. Data collected by the international environmental group WWF (formerly World Wildlife Fund) show that 20 percent of the world’s coral reefs have been effectively destroyed and show no immediate sign of recovery, while about 50 percent of remaining reefs are under imminent or long-term threat of collapse.
Pact to end deforestation launched in the Amazon October 18, 2007 12:24 PM - WWF
WWF-Brazil joined eight other Brazilian non-governmental organizations to launch a pact to reduce deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon to zero by 2015.
The pact proposes to reduce deforestation by adopting a system of reduction targets through economic mechanisms, mainly based on the payment for environmental services. It also aims to establish a wide-ranging commitment between different sectors of the government and the Brazilian society to conserve the Amazon.
Three Gorges official defends environmental impact October 18, 2007 11:40 AM - Reuters
Western media have exaggerated the landslides and deterioration in water quality that followed the start-up of China's $25 billion Three Gorges dam, a senior government official said on Thursday. "I was surprised when I read overseas reports of possible environmental catastrophes caused by the project," said Li Yong-an, deputy director of the Three Gorges Project Construction Committee.
Bleak U.S. "report card" finds warming Arctic October 17, 2007 07:16 PM - Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A bleak "report card" on global warming's Arctic impact released on Wednesday found less ice, hotter air and dying wildlife, and stressed that what happens around the North Pole affects the entire planet. The report, issued by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, also found that weird winds blowing warm air toward the North Pole and unusually persistent sunshine added to the warming trend. Unlike previous years, when there have been hot spots and cold spots at different times in the Arctic, "winter and spring, the temperatures are all above average throughout the whole Arctic and all at the same time," said James Overland of NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle.
Israel's Mediterranean: a "septic tank" October 17, 2007 09:44 AM - Tova Cohen, Reuters
TEL AVIV (Reuters) - The Mediterranean is often called the world's most polluted sea and the waters around Tel Aviv offer a reason why. Heavy metals and pesticides are discharged into the sea under government licenses, environmentalists say, and the company responsible for the sewage of the area's 2.5 million people is the biggest polluter in the eastern Mediterranean. "The state of Israel's coastal waters is appalling," the environmental group Zalul said in its State of the Sea Report for 2007.
Loggerhead sea turtles threatened by small-scale fishing operations October 17, 2007 09:33 AM - Public Library of Science
Washington, DC. Ocean Conservancy Scientist, Wallace J. Nichols and University of California-Santa Cruz researcher Hoyt Peckham found surprising results in a recent peer-reviewed loggerhead sea turtle study that Nichols and Peckham conducted over the course of 10 years. The full study will be published on October 17 in the online, open-access journal PLoS ONE.
Leaded lipsticks a concern for young, frequent users, expert says October 16, 2007 04:17 PM -
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - A Purdue University expert says a recent study discussing levels of lead in lipstick should empower consumers with information to take more personal responsibility for their health. The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics said tests on 33 brand-name red lipsticks by a California testing group found that 61 percent had detectable lead levels of 0.03 to 0.65 parts per million. Wei Zheng, (pronounced Way Zsheng) a professor and university faculty scholar in Purdue's School of Health Sciences, studies the toxic effects of heavy metals on the brain. "It is interesting to me that cosmetics companies considered these relatively small amounts," Zheng says. "Other recent studies have shown that there really is no such thing as a safe level of lead in the blood."
Most complete new giant dinosaur found in Patagonia October 16, 2007 08:35 AM - Andrei Khalip -Reuters
Brazilian and Argentine paleontologists have discovered the largely complete fossil of a new species of giant dinosaur that roamed what is now northern Patagonia about 80 million years ago. The herbivorous Futalognkosaurus dukei measured an estimated 105 feet to 112 feet from head to tail and was as high as a four-storey building. It is one of the three biggest dinosaurs yet found in the world.
In India, Chronic Diseases Grow With Consumption October 15, 2007 07:59 AM - , Worldwatch Institute
Over the next decade, India’s burgeoning consumer class is likely headed for an onslaught of chronic diseases, including diabetes, hypertension, cancer, and HIV/AIDS. A new report from the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers predicts that the proportion of deaths nationwide from long-term maladies will skyrocket from 53 percent in 2005 to nearly 67 percent by 2020.
