China to hold local leaders responsible for air quality
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China to hold local leaders responsible for air quality

China has pledged to hold local government leaders responsible for improving air quality, officials say, after heavy smog nationwide earlier this year stoked social discontent. The State Council of the People’s Republic of China, the equivalent of its Cabinet, announced the move along with a range of other policies aimed ...

Insecticides pit trees against bees

| Jun 16, 2013

Insecticides pit trees against bees

by Winifred Bird

“That’s where they’re going to spray.” Organic farmer Naoki Tachikawa, 43, is standing on the edge of one of his tiny rice fields in the Shiga district of Matsumoto, central Nagano Prefecture, pointing at two low hills that embrace the upper reaches of the ...

Jun 12, 2013

Planet on course for 5 C warming at current rate

Global emissions of carbon dioxide from energy use rose 1.4 percent to 31.6 gigatons in 2012, setting a record and putting the planet on course for temperature increases well above international climate goals, the International Energy Agency said in a report issued Monday. The ...

Jun 12, 2013

More pests resistant to GM crops, study says

More pest species are becoming resistant to the most popular type of genetically modified, insect-repellent crops, but not in areas where farmers follow expert advice, a study showed Monday. The paper delves into a key aspect of so-called Bt corn and cotton — plants ...

Jun 12, 2013

Quarter of NYC 'could be flood zone by 2050s'

By the 2050s, more than 800,000 New York City residents could be living in a flood zone that covers a quarter of the city’s land, with New Yorkers sweating out as many 32 Celsius days as is now normal for Birmingham, Alabama, as effects ...

Jun 12, 2013

Heartland produces 80% of CO₂ emissions

China’s lesser-developed heartland is responsible for 80 percent of carbon dioxide emissions related to goods consumed along the wealthier coast, international researchers said Monday. China is the world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide, and has vowed to reduce such emissions per unit of gross ...

Gray wolf to lose U.S. endangered species status

Jun 9, 2013

Gray wolf to lose U.S. endangered species status

The government moved Friday to end endangered species protections for gray wolves in the lower 48 states, contending that the population of the apex predator has recovered from decades of hunting that drove it to virtual extinction. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) ...

Puffins in peril as food supply falters

Jun 9, 2013

Puffins in peril as food supply falters

by Clarke Canfield

The Atlantic Puffin population in North America is at risk, and there are signs the seabirds are in distress in other parts of the world. In the Gulf of Maine, the comical-looking pelagic seabirds known to science as Fratercula arctica have been losing body ...

Europe floods raise warming fears

| Jun 7, 2013

Europe floods raise warming fears

Less than three months after being battered by snow and ice, Central Europe now finds itself fighting floods — and some scientists are pointing the finger at human interference with the climate system. Leading the charge is the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research ...

Jun 6, 2013

To save coral reefs, save the forests: study

Conservationists fighting to save coastal coral reefs should think first about combating local deforestation rather than attacking the wider peril of global warming, suggests an unusual study published Tuesday. Sediment washed downriver by tree-depleted land can cripple near-shore corals, as it clouds the water ...