Environmental News Network

Coral flourishing at Bikini Atoll atomic test site
CANBERRA (Reuters) - Coral is again flourishing in the crater left by the largest nuclear weapon ever detonated by the United States, 54 years after the blast on Bikini Atoll, marine scientists said on Tuesday. A team of research divers visited Bravo crater, ground zero for the test of a thermonuclear weapon in the remote Marshall Islands on March 1, 1954, and found large numbers of fish and coral growing, although some species appeared locally extinct. >> Read the Full Article
Sea Salt Worsens Coastal Air Pollution
Air pollution in the world's busiest ports and shipping regions may be markedly worse than previously suspected, according to a new study showing that industrial and shipping pollution is exacerbated when it combines with sunshine and salty sea air. In a paper published in the journal Nature Geoscience, a team of researchers that included University of Calgary chemistry professor Hans Osthoff report that the disturbing phenomenon substantially raises the levels of ground-level ozone and other pollutants in coastal areas. >> Read the Full Article
Congress Pushes for True Shark Finning Ban
Washington, D.C. -- A recent decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has prompted Congress to introduce the "Shark Conservation Act of 2008." This legislation would close loopholes exposed in the court decision by improving existing laws, originally intended to prevent shark finning. The Act would require sharks to be landed with their fins, improving current laws that only require fins and carcasses to be landed in a specific ratio. >> Read the Full Article
Bangladesh faces climate change refugee nightmare
DHAKA (Reuters) - Abdul Majid has been forced to move 22 times in as many years, a victim of the annual floods that ravage Bangladesh. There are millions like Majid, 65, in Bangladesh and in the future there could be many millions more if scientists' predictions of rising seas and more intense droughts and storms come true. >> Read the Full Article
Halt in U.S. Pacific salmon fishing urged
SEATTLE (Reuters) - West Coast fisheries managers recommended on Thursday to halt virtually all commercial and sport salmon fishing in coastal waters off California and most of Oregon to preserve collapsing Chinook salmon stocks. The Pacific Fishery Management Council recommended what would be the strictest limits ever imposed on salmon fishing on the West Coast following a sharp decline on California's Sacramento River Chinook salmon run, typically one of the region's most abundant runs. >> Read the Full Article
Mideast can avert impending water crisis: World Bank
RABAT (Reuters) - The Middle East is overusing limited water resources and the amount of water available per head will halve by 2050, leading to social strains as more people quit the countryside, the World Bank said on Thursday. But a crisis can still be averted if governments seize the opportunity to repair water networks, build new infrastructure including desalination plants and educate people not to waste limited resources, according to a report by the bank. >> Read the Full Article
Farm Bill is Loaded with Pork and Environmentally Disastrous Provisions
f you've ever driven through the southern end of California's Central Valley in September, you're familiar with the grids of lint-strewn cotton fields that blur by for nearly 2 1/2 hours. You might even have pondered the wisdom of planting such a thirsty crop as cotton on a million acres -- an area larger than Yosemite National Park -- in a state facing a water crisis. Then again, you might ask a similar question about the half a million acres of rice, a grain adapted to the monsoons of Asia, on the valley's northern end. >> Read the Full Article
Regulators urge halt in U.S. Pacific salmon fishing
SEATTLE (Reuters) - U.S. West Coast fisheries managers recommended on Thursday to halt virtually all commercial and sport salmon fishing in coastal waters off California and most of Oregon to preserve collapsing Chinook salmon stocks. The Pacific Fishery Management Council recommended what would be the strictest limits ever imposed on salmon fishing on the West Coast following a sharp decline on California's Sacramento River Chinook salmon run, typically one of the region's most abundant runs. >> Read the Full Article
Canada logging may ignite "carbon bomb": Greenpeace
VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Reuters) - Canada threatens to ignite a "carbon bomb" that could drastically worsen global warming if it continues heavy logging in areas of its vast northern forest, Greenpeace warned in a report on Thursday. Logging and other developments in the boreal forest release the carbon that the trees have trapped from the atmosphere over decades, potentially producing more greenhouse gases than from burning fossil fuels, the environmental group charged. >> Read the Full Article
In Brazil, Violence Looms at the Forest Edge
On Monday, Blairo Maggi was in need of some help. Known as the "Soybean King," Maggi is a former soy plantation owner and now governor of the western Brazilian state of Mato Grosso, in the heart of the Amazon rainforest. He is considered one of Brazil's most powerful men, but with tensions rising in the region, he recently turned to Daniel Nepstad, an Amazon-based U.S. ecologist, for advice. >> Read the Full Article