ENN rounds up the most important and compelling environmental news stories of the week. In the news February 5th - 9th: Eco shopping, the mercury trade, churches go green, sea birds decline, and much more.
Top Ten Articles of the Week
In the news February 5th - 9th: Eco shopping, the mercury trade, churches go green, sea birds decline, and much more.
1. Bush Proposes Large Increase for Parks Leading up to 100th Birthday Bash
National parks would get extra money next year to prepare for a big birthday bash -- their own. President Bush's 2008 budget, unveiled Monday, would give the National Park Service its largest-ever funding increase in preparation for the park system's 100th birthday in 2016. In all, Bush allots $2.4 billion for the National Park Service for 2008, $230 million more than he requested last year.
2. Food Miles May Be Green, but Are They Fair?
Supermarkets are scrambling to capture the millions of "green" pounds spent by increasingly environmentally aware shoppers. Farmers' markets across the country are buzzing with conscientious customers buying locally grown knobbly carrots and leeks pulled straight from the soil.
3. Oil-Rich Venezuela's Leader Takes Up the Energy Conservation Cause
His ambitious social programs are built on Venezuela's petroleum wealth, but President Hugo Chavez is increasingly talking up environmental causes and urging the world to cut back on oil use to fight global warming. He wants to use some oil revenues in a venture to manufacture solar panels and has begun doling out millions of energy-saving fluorescent light bulbs to homes nationwide.
4. Environmentalists Demand Curbs on Mercury Trade
Industrialised nations should agree binding rules to cut use of the toxic heavy metal mercury and speed up plans to curb exports to the developing world, environmental activists said on Monday. The United States and the European Union have substantially cut their use of mercury - used in processes ranging from mining to electronics, plastics and chemicals manufacturing - but other countries are using it more and more.
5. Wildlife Preservation Efforts Focus on Private Land
Historically, conservation has focused on public lands. But 70 percent of land in the United States is privately owned. Many states are working with private groups such as Audubon and Ducks Unlimited to survey species, work with landowners and develop education and management plans.
6. World's Churches Go Green and Rally to Cause
Dire warnings from top scientists that mankind is to blame for global warming set off alarm bells everywhere -- but many of the world's churches have already "gone green" in the race to save the planet. For Christians, Jews and Muslims, the message is the same -- mankind has "stewardship" of the earth which it has a duty to protect for future generations.
7. Sea Bird Tied to Logging Fight Dwindles
The marbled murrelet, a threatened sea bird whose rare trait of nesting in old-growth forests made it a factor in logging battles in the U.S. Northwest, is also declining dramatically in Alaska and Canada, where most of the birds live, according to a U.S. government review.
8. Northern Fur Seal Pup Estimates Decline
America's northern fur seal pup population continues a marked decline this decade, federal biologists reported Friday. The number of pups born between 2004 and 2006 in Alaska's Pribilof Islands, home of the world's largest rookeries, fell by 9 percent from the previous two year estimate, according to researchers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
9. House Bill Promotes Technology to Get Biofuels to Consumers
Determining how best to speed ethanol and other alternative fuels from refinery to gas pump would rest with the government under legislation the House passed Thursday. President Bush is promoting such fuels as a way to reduce dependence on foreign oil and cut air pollution. But their widespread use has been hampered by problems with the current system of transporting and storing the fuels.
10. Eco-Friendly Home Projects Can Be Cheap, and Also Stylish
Going green is going mainstream these days in environmentally conscious California. Record numbers of people here are moving toward an eco-friendly, sustainable lifestyle. The number of residential installations of solar panels in the state has doubled over the past five years, according to the California Energy Commission.
Photo: Adult Black-footed male ferret at the National Black-footed Ferret Conservation Center. Photo credit: Paul Marinari/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
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