Last updated: 9/4/2010 1:22:59 AM GMT

Demand for food is costing the Earth
Posted on August 28, 2010
The fight is on over how to solve the global crisis in resources, says Rose Prince. 
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    • A new dawn for agriculture
    Posted on August 27, 2010
    Decoding of genome hailed as most significant breakthrough in wheat production in 10,000 years. The breakthrough could result in new breeds of disease resistant crops which could be producing higher wheat yields in as little as five years' time, raising the prospect of lower bread prices and greater food security in a more populated world.
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    Now Atlantic is found to have huge 'garbage patch'
    Posted on August 20, 2010
    A huge expanse of floating plastic debris has been documented for the first time in the North Atlantic Ocean. The size of the affected area rivals the "great Pacific garbage patch" in the world's other great ocean basin, which generated an outcry over the effects of plastic waste on marine wildlife.
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    BP oil spill: scientists find giant plume of droplets 'missed' by official account
    Posted on August 20, 2010
    Scientists have mapped a 22-mile plume of oil droplets from BP's rogue well in the depths of the Gulf of Mexico, providing the strongest evidence yet of the fate of the crude that spewed into the sea for months. The report offers the most authoritative challenge to date to White House assertions that most of the 5m barrels of oil that spewed into the Gulf is gone.
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    Journalist Exposes How Private Investigation Firm Hired by Chevron Tried to Recruit Her as a Spy to Undermine $27B Suit in Ecuadorian Amazon
    Posted on August 17, 2010
    An exposé in The Atlantic magazine reveals how one of the world’s largest private investigation firms, Kroll, hired by oil giant Chevron, tried to recruit an American journalist to undermine a massive $27 billion lawsuit against Chevron brought by the residents of the Ecuadorian Amazon.
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    • More than half of Britain's wind farms have been built where there is not enough wind
    Posted on August 17, 2010
    It's not exactly rocket science – when building a wind farm, look for a site that is, well, quite windy. But more than half of Britain’s wind farms are operating at less than 25 per cent capacity. In England, the figure rises to 70 per cent of onshore developments, research shows. Experts say that over-generous subsidies mean hundreds of turbines are going up on sites that are simply not breezy enough. 
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    Taiwan zoo fined after birth of 'ligers'
    Posted on August 16, 2010
    TAIPEI — A private zoo in Taiwan has become the first on the island to see the birth of "ligers", hybrids of lions and tigresses, with the owner facing a fine for violating wildlife rules, officials said Monday. The three cubs were born Sunday at the "World Snake King Education Farm" in the south, but one of them died almost immediately, the farm's owner Huang Kuo-nan told AFP.
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    • Dirtiest coal power plants win government reprieve
    Posted on August 16, 2010
    The coalition is watering down a commitment to tough new environmental emissions standards, raising the possibility of dirty coal-fired power stations such as Kingsnorth going ahead. Green groups are aghast that a flagship policy called for in opposition by both Lib Dems and Tories, and which they last year tried to force on the Labour government, will now not be implemented in the coalition's first energy bill to be published this year.
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    Russians fear worst as fires reach Chernobyl fallout zone
    Posted on August 12, 2010
    Radiation levels near Chernobyl could rise and pose long-term health dangers as deadly forest fires spread to land contaminated by the world's largest nuclear-reactor disaster, Russian environmentalists said yesterday.
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    • Portugal Gives Itself a Clean-Energy Makeover
    Posted on August 10, 2010
    LISBON — Five years ago, the leaders of this sun-scorched, wind-swept nation made a bet: To reduce Portugal’s dependence on imported fossil fuels, they embarked on an array of ambitious renewable energy projects — primarily harnessing the country’s wind and hydropower, but also its sunlight and ocean waves. Today, Lisbon’s trendy bars, Porto’s factories and the Algarve’s glamorous resorts are powered substantially by clean energy. Nearly 45 percent of the electricity in Portugal’s grid will come from renewable sources this year,up from 17 percent just five years ago.
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    Pollution reaches new high as smog smothers Moscow
    Posted on August 8, 2010
    A suffocating smog from wildfires hung over the Russian capital on Saturday, raising the concentration of dangerous pollutants to a new high as residents donned masks and dozens of flights were delayed at the city's airports. 
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    Russian wildfires: 'Even the road seemed to be on fire. It was like descending into hell'
    Posted on August 5, 2010
    The hottest summer in living memory has sparked devastating blazes across Russia 
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    • BP oil spill mostly cleaned up, says US
    Posted on August 4, 2010
    White House says 75% of oil captured, burned off, evaporated or broken down as 'static kill' operaion shows signs of working
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    BP begins 'static kill' of oil well
    Posted on August 4, 2010
    Oil giant BP has said the so-called "static kill" operation to inject drilling mud and cement into the blown-out oil well in the Gulf of Mexico is finally under way.
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    Drought Hits Europe's Crops
    Posted on August 3, 2010
    The scorching temperatures and dry skies threatening Russia's wheat harvests have also been beating down on Western Europe, which is forecasting lower output of crops from French wheat to Italian tomatoes. Russia's Agriculture Ministry Tuesday cut its forecast for the country's 2010 grain output to between 70 million and 75 million metric tons, down from earlier estimates of as much as 90 million tons.
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    Gulf of Mexico Has Long Been Dumping Site
    Posted on July 31, 2010
    HOUMA, La. — Loulan Pitre Sr. was born on the Gulf Coast in 1921, the son of an oysterman. Nearly all his life, he worked on the water, abiding by the widely shared faith that the resources of the Gulf of Mexico were limitless. As a young Marine staff sergeant, back home after fighting in the South Pacific, he stood on barges in the gulf and watched as surplus mines, bombs and ammunition were pushed over the side.
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    Heat Wave Batters Russia
    Posted on July 31, 2010
    RYBKHOZ, Russia — This is a country that knows how to handle the cold, swaggering about during the most brutal of winters. But the heat is another story. And there has never been heat like this. Here is how extreme it has become: Oymyakon in Eastern Siberia is considered one of the coldest places on Earth, with winter temperatures dropping to as low as minus 90 degrees. On Thursday, the thermometer also read 90 degrees. Plus 90. In the evening.
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    • 3,000 Chinese barrels of explosives a threat to Russia
    Posted on July 29, 2010
    Containers of an explosive liquid from a chemical plant in northern China have been washed into a river. If the chemical leaks, it may cause an environmental disaster both in China and Russia. The barrels, numbering at least 3,000, contain liquefied methyl chloride – a toxic and highly-flammable gas.
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    • No end in sight as Russia dries up in heat wave
    Posted on July 25, 2010
    The unprecedented Russian heat wave continues to rage on, with July already the hottest month on record. Fountains have become bathtubs with people taking every opportunity to escape from the searing heat of the capital. Other Muscovites have taken more risky dips in the river, the result of which has led to three hundred people drowning this week alone.
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    • Trafigura fined €1m for exporting toxic waste to Africa
    Posted on July 24, 2010
    The oil trader Trafigura has been fined ¤1m (£840,000) for illegally exporting tonnes of hazardous waste to west Africa. It is the first time the London-based firm has been convicted of criminal charges over the environmental scandal, in which 30,000 Africans were made ill when the toxic waste was dumped in Ivory Coast.
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    Toxic legacy of US assault on Fallujah 'worse than Hiroshima'
    Posted on July 24, 2010
    Dramatic increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukaemia in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, which was bombarded by US Marines in 2004, exceed those reported by survivors of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, according to a new study.
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    • Deepwater Horizon alarms were switched off 'to help workers sleep'
    Posted on July 24, 2010
    Vital warning systems on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig were switched off at the time of the explosion in order to spare workers being woken by false alarms, a federal investigation has heard.
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    Vietnam's forgotten war victims
    Posted on July 23, 2010
    When Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, visited Vietnam on Thursday she extolled the country's "unlimited potential" and strong trade relations with the US. But the words must have rung hollow for Ngyuen Ngoc Phuong, who has seen his potential destroyed by American chemical poisoning. The Vietnam war ended 35 years ago, but children are still being born with birth defects from chemical poisoning allegedly caused by defoliants sprayed by the US military.
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    China's worst-ever oil spill threatens wildlife as volunteers assist in clean-up
    Posted on July 23, 2010
    Oil from Dalian pipeline explosion threatens marine animals, sea birds and water quality as slick spreads to 430km sq
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    • Japan's Shark Fin Capital
    Posted on July 18, 2010
    Dead in their hundreds on the dock, the sharks who have been slaughtered so their fins can be used  for soup
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