Currents

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.

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.

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.

In a major move to protect public lands, Obama’s Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced last week that his agency was cancelling 77 contentious oil and gas drilling leases across 130,000 acres of remote Utah canyon country.

Believe it or not, it’s possible to eat locally—and vegan—in the wintery Northeast.

No one will be holding up former President George W. Bush as an example of a great conservationist. But one of his last presidential acts may stand the test of time as a key move in the conservation of marine ecosystems.

As though making up for lost time, the federal government has initiated a whirlwind of activity over greening the economy since Inauguration Day just two weeks ago.