Emission targets set to clean up rural China

Posted Fri, 01 Apr 2011 12:10:00 GMT by Laura Brown

Pollution levels in China's rural areas to be cut by 2015. China's rapid industrial growth over the last generation has come at a cost. Air pollution causes an estimated 400,000 deaths a year along with 75 million asthma attacks. This year the Chinese government announced an ambitious programme to cut the country's pollution, embarking on a programme beginning in 2011 until 2015.

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Minorities and the poorest not hit by emissions trade schemes says study

Posted Wed, 30 Mar 2011 20:15:00 GMT by Colin Ricketts

Critics feared that emissions trading schemes would lead to the export of pollution to areas where the poor and minority communities lived but a new study says that's not the case, although poor education may be a better indicator of living with pollution.

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Marine life under threat because of our dependence on plastic

Posted Thu, 24 Mar 2011 15:44:01 GMT by Laura Brown

Plastic is flooding the world's oceans, damaging sea-life. The stomach contents of a young sea-turtle found dead off the Argentinian coast were examined by scientists. It was found to contain hundreds of small pieces of plastic detritus. More than half of the 90 sea-turtles found dead of the coast of Brazil were found with similar shards of plastic in their guts or faeces.

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Public Workshops Scheduled by EPA on Housatonic 'Rest of River' Cleanup

Posted Wed, 23 Mar 2011 05:56:00 GMT by Kirsten E. Silven

New public workshops have been announced by the EPA that will address the cleanup efforts made necessary from years of pollution in Massachusetts' Housatonic River. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced that it will sponsor a series of public workshops for local citizens who want to be involved in the ongoing analysis surrounding the Housatonic River's clean up efforts

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EPA Warns of Illegal, Harmful Pesticide Sales Online

Posted Tue, 22 Mar 2011 02:00:00 GMT by Kirsten E. Silven

Ant control substance Fast Ant Bait, sold online at fastpestcontrol.com was found by the EPA to contain the harmful pesticide mirex, which was banned in the late 1970s. More than 2,800 online shoppers across the US have been warned by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) about potentially serious risks that are linked to a banned substance found in an ant killing product that has been sold online at fastpestcontrol.com.

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Stricken ship threatens environmental disaster, putting endangered wildlife at risk

Posted Mon, 21 Mar 2011 22:17:00 GMT by Helen Roddis

The wreckage of a cargo vessel that has grounded off a South Atlantic Island is causing an impending environmental disaster, threatening one of the world's most endangered penguins. 1500 tonnes of heavy crude oil has spilled into the sea, posing a major hazard to the island's tens of thousands of pairs of penguin, as well as the economically-important rock lobster fishery.

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Can green gloop make nuclear waste safe?

Posted Fri, 18 Mar 2011 14:59:00 GMT by Martin Leggett

Nuclear power not only poses risks from catastrophic failure, its waste products pose health risks for millions of years. But a special type of green rust may help in keeping that hazard locked up longer, if a scientist from the University of Copenhagen is right. That could help future generations avoid the dangers of long-lived neptunium dumps.

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Dame Helen Mirren against 'super sewer' plans

Posted Wed, 16 Mar 2011 22:27:00 GMT by Louise Saunders

Dame Helen Mirren has joined a campaign against a ''super sewer' being built over her local park in London. The Oscar winning actress has backed the fight to save King Edward Vll Memorial Park in Wapping, East London, close to her £2 million home.

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Marine creatures trapped by toxic plumes with effects on genetic diversity

Posted Fri, 11 Mar 2011 07:20:00 GMT by Colin Ricketts

Marine pollution does demonstrable harm to sea creatures and new research suggests it also acts as a barrier to movement and makes major changes in the genes of affected populations. The dirtiest outpourings of US land livers are sewage from municipal treatment plants and urban runoff from highly modified river basins. In these toxic water sources you'll find: heavy metals, chlorinated hydrocarbons, petroleum hydrocarbons, nutrients, and bacteria, which have shown to be toxic to marine life. Filed in environmental issues: marine life/pollution.

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New centers will examine pollutant mix

Posted Tue, 08 Mar 2011 17:35:00 GMT by Colin Ricketts

We all know chemicals in the air can harm us but new research centers in American universities are getting government cash to examine how pollutants interact. Scientists in American universities will receive money from the US Environmental Agency to investigate how pollution in the air affects us by examining how pollutants act together when mixed. Each of four new centers will receive $8million dollars over the next five years to examine how possibly harmful chemicals interact with each other.

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Tibetan Plateau soot damage driving stronger monsoons

Posted Sun, 06 Mar 2011 12:00:00 GMT by Colin Ricketts

Researchers have found that the effect of soot - rising from the newly industrialised economies of Asia - could have an even more damaging effect on the climate than CO2 in the Himalayas. Researchers at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, the Universityof Michiganand NOAA looked at the effect of soot on the Tibetan Plateau in the Himalayasand found that soot is a worse offender in climate change than CO2.

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Plastic Contamination in the Atlantic Ocean

Posted Sun, 06 Mar 2011 08:29:00 GMT by Kirsten E. Silven

Discusses the problem of plastic 'islands' in the ocean and what we can do to correct it. It is a tragic fact the Atlantic has large amounts of plastic contamination which is cluttering up the ocean and causing problems with sea life and marine birds. The plastic containers come in all shapes and sizes take practically forever to biodegrade due to their chemical makeup

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Beijing air pollution levels off the scale

Posted Tue, 01 Mar 2011 23:12:01 GMT by Lucy Brake

As China heads towards revealing a major plan to reduce air pollution, residents of Beijing are suffering from some of the worst air conditions to date. Beijing air quality levels were recorded by the U.S. Embassy staff based in the city as exceeding the standard levels. The maximum level of the air quality charts is 500 API (Air Pollution Index), but in Beijing the recordings soared to a massive 595 API.

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Chernobyl 25 years on

Posted Sat, 26 Feb 2011 20:07:07 GMT by Michael Evans

Plants near the devastated Chernobyl nuclear reactor thrive in radioactive soil. On 26 April 1986, at 1.23 am local time, reactor number 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant 62 miles from Kiev in the Ukraine, suffered a massive explosion to its core. The results were catastrophic. Within a few months 28 of the 134 severely exposed emergency workers were to die from acute radiation syndrome and 19 more later died from different causes.

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Scott's Antarctic work lives on in new carbon survey

Posted Thu, 24 Feb 2011 17:17:00 GMT by Colin Ricketts

Tiny Antarctic organisms are growing more quickly because of an increase in carbon say scientists who used the polar legend's century's old collections. Scientists have been examining tiny creatures called bryozoans. These sea-bed dwellers feed on microscopically small marine plants called phytoplankton, which need carbon dioxide to survive.

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Now you can check your nitrogen footprint too

Posted Wed, 23 Feb 2011 18:22:00 GMT by Colin Ricketts

Excess nitrogen is responsible for marine dead-zones, global warming and smog, and now two scientists want us all to measure our nitrogen footprints. Scientists at the University of Virginia have produced a 'nitrogen footprint' calculator to raise awareness of an environmental problem little known outside specialist circles.

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