Currents

The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), a groundbreaking nonprofit activist group working to save endangered species, launched the Climate Law Institute.

Representatives from more than 140 countries signed onto a new United Nations agreement which calls for coordinated global cuts in the use and release of mercury.

March of 2009 marks the 30th anniversary of the accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant, which reduced support for the industry to an atomic level—until now.

It’s not only among humans that obesity is a major health problem. In Bijilo Forest Park in The Gambia, it is the green monkeys who are piling into the fast food and risking early-onset diabetes. What amounts to poison for animals is being handed to them by the very people who pay to see them living in their natural environment—tourists.

According to a new report by the nonprofit National Audubon Society, nearly 60% of the 305 species of birds found in North America are on the move—shifting their ranges northward by an average of 35 miles—as a result of global warming.

Internet giant Google announced last week the beta launch of a new free web application called PowerMeter designed to provide users who already have so-called "smart" electricity meters in place to track exactly how their homes are consuming energy.

In an effort that environmentalists hope will spur interest around the world in saving marine ecosystems, Google has released a new version of its free Earth software (5.0) with greatly expanded coverage of the world’s oceans.