Climate change 'will cost Andes US$30 billion'

The effects of climate change could cost the Andean countries' economies around US$30 billion, researchers predict.

Protecting Polar Bears Must Include Mitigating Global Warming, Group Argues

Following a three-year legal battle to protect the polar bear from extinction due to global warming, three environmental groups won protection for the species with the announcement May 14 that...

Monitoring Aftershocks in China

Texas Tech geophysicist Hua-wei Zhou touched down in Beijing just 40 minutes before the devastating Sichuan province earthquake struck. He and his colleagues were planning to embark on a project...

Global Warming Has Little Impact In Tropical Storm And Hurricane Numbers, NOAA Reports

A new model simulation of Atlantic hurricane activity for the last two decades of this century projects fewer hurricanes overall, but a slight increase in intensity for hurricanes that do...

Ancient deep-sea coral reefs off southeastern US serve as underwater 'islands' in the Gulf stream

Largely unexplored deep-sea coral reefs, some perhaps hundreds of thousands of years old, off the coast of the southeastern U.S. are not only larger than expected but also home to...

Marine Metropolis

NASA Team Studies Pollutants' Effect on Arctic Climate Change

Airborne, space-based sensors will show pollutants' impact on the Arctic.

Western Experts Monitor China’s Nuclear Sites for Signs of Earthquake Damage

China’s main centers for making and storing nuclear arms lie in the earthquake zone, leading Western experts to look for signs of any damage that might allow radioactivity to escape.

Los Angeles Eyes Sewage as a Source of Water

Persistent drought and the threat of tighter water supplies prompted Los Angeles’s plans to begin using heavily cleansed sewage to increase drinking water supplies.

Scientists Aim To Unlock Deep-sea 'Secrets' Of Earth's Crust

Scientists will use robots to explore the depths of the Atlantic Ocean to study the growth of underwater volcanoes that build the Earth's crust. During the five-week expedition they will...

Ireland to hunt nightmare fishing nets in north Atlantic

Ireland is to tackle the growing problem of so-called "ghost nets" that are destroying fish stocks in the northeast Atlantic Ocean, the Irish Sea Fisheries Board said Sunday.

Feature: Population - the lost priority

Australian authorities on population growth warn that it is the fundamental sustainability priority being perilously overlooked. Graeme O’Neill reports.

Excessive Reactive Nitrogen in Environment Alarms Environmental Scientists

The problem of excessive reactive nitrogen in the environment is little-known beyond a growing circle of environmental scientists who study how the element cycles through the environment and negatively alters...

Biofuels must not deprive poor of food: EU official

Biofuels must not deprive the world's poor of food, a senior European official said, as he proposed a greater focus on second-generation biofuels that would be more environmentally friendly.

Claim: Obese people cause global warming

LONDON, May 17 (UPI) -- Some British experts say fat people are contributing to global warming more than those who are thin because they require more food and...

Plastic bag policy 'a diversion'

Plans to tackle use of plastic bags are a diversion from the real environmental issues, a government adviser says.

Study Warned of China Quake Risk a Year Ago

The Sichuan quake's epicenter was practically pinpointed in a decade-long fault study, which warned last July that the region was ripe for a shock.

Wildlife numbers plummet globally: WWF

The world's wildlife populations have reduced by around a quarter since the 1970s, according to a major report published Friday by the WWF conservation organization.

New clean air rules may endanger parks

WASHINGTON, May 16 (UPI) -- National parks and wilderness areas may soon have neighboring power plants under a proposed set of air quality rules from U.S. officials, scientists...

China Quake Zone Jolted by Strong Aftershock

A 5.5.-magnitude tremor set off landslides Friday near the epicenter of this week's massive quake, while the search for survivors took on an added urgency.

Italian Satellites Monitor Earthquake Damages In Sichuan

COSMO-SkyMed, the Italian satellite system for Earth observation, is being used to help the Chinese areas hit by the devastating earthquake of May 12. By request of the Chinese Government,...

Pioneering landscape-scale research releases first findings

The May issue of the Canadian Journal of Forest Research presents the preliminary findings of 23 scientists involved in one of the first landscape-scale experiments on how forest management affects...

Agri-biotech firms committing 'intellectual property grab'

Agri-biotech firms are seeking patents on 'climate crops', which could hinder developing country farmers, says a report.

Huge project to restore Everglades to be suspended

(AP) -- Construction on a huge reservoir meant to help restore the Everglades will be put on hold over a lawsuit brought by a group that fears the water...

Earth from Space: A blooming North Sea

This Envisat image captures the green swirls of a phytoplankton bloom in the North Sea off the coast of eastern Scotland.

El Niño May Have Been Factor In Magellan's Pacific Voyage

Archaeologists show that Ferdinand Magellan's historic circumnavigation of the globe was likely influenced in large part by unusual weather conditions -- including what we now know as El Niño --...

Shorebirds "Defy Gravity" to Eat, Study Says

Scientists have unlocked the secret of how shorebirds called phalaropes use fluid dynamics to direct water up their long, slender beaks and into their mouths.

El Niño may have aided first global voyage

The El Niño phenomenon that has puzzled climate scientists in recent decades may have assisted the first trip around the world nearly 500 years ago.