Following a 2005 Congressional mandate, the federal government has finally implemented an increase in the percentage of renewable fuels consumed by vehicles on America’s roadways. The new standards, announced by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator Stephen Johnson last week, require 4.02 percent of all motor fuel—or about 4.7 billion gallons—sold in the U.S. in 2007 to come from renewable sources, primarily agricultural crops.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has been overwhelmed by the response to the federal proposal to list the polar bear as an endangered species. Last Monday marked the end of a 90-day public comment period on the issue, and more than 500,000 Americans chimed in—almost double the number of responses on any previous species listing proposal. The vast majority of comments were in favor of affording protection to America’s beleaguered northern white bear.
SUVs fill the highways, e-waste clogs the landfills, and energy consumption is at record levels. Legislation protecting our air, land and water have been under threat by a pro-industry Bush administration. As the Al Gore-tutorial-documentary An Inconvenient Truth so poignantly warned the world: climate change is an imminent threat for which we are all responsible. To put it simply: the Earth is in crisis and Earth Day (April 22) has taken on huge global significance. It is needed to spur grassroots activism as it did in its first year, inspiring people not only to make changes in their own lifestyles, but to join with others to create an effective movement that can push through legislation and insist on strict environmental standards.
In the struggling industrial city of Brockton, Massachusetts, city officials have opened a tiny utility-scale solar electricity plant on the four-acre site of an abandoned gas plant. The rows of solar photovoltaic panels began generating an average of 425 kilowatts to the grid in September 2006, turning a vacant lot of capped coal-tar residues into the largest utility-scale solar PV facility in the U.S.
Several innovative programs have been launched to find a balance between the bulldozer of growth and preserving environmental and cultural treasures in the Sonoran Desert which straddles the border between southern Arizona and northwestern Mexico. “Geotourism” is the new catch phrase which involves protecting the environment while honoring local people and their customs.
In Baja alone, an estimated 35,000 turtles die in the hands of poachers annually, speared, harvested with long gillnets or caught by hand…
President Bush told reporters last week that his administration is not considering any new action to put mandatory caps on greenhouse gas emissions, despite a U.S. Supreme Court decision mandating the establishment of such regulations.
In its latest global "green" ranking of consumer electronics manufacturers, the nonprofit Greenpeace International crowned a new king of environmental responsibility in Chinese PC maker Lenovo. California’s Apple Inc. qualified as the worst of the bunch for the second year in a row.
In an ongoing effort to protect our drinking water and the national jewel Lake Superior, thousands of northern Michigan residents are expected to turn in old and unwanted pharmaceuticals on Earth Day 2007 as a volunteer environmental army opens free collection sites for the third year in a row. Prescription medication and over-the-counter medicines will be collected across a 400-mile area at about two dozen free drop-off sites across Northern Michigan during the third annual Earth Keeper Clean Sweep on Earth Day 2007.
Environmentalists are vowing to fight a federal proposal to remove endangered species protection from the free-ranging Yellowstone grizzly bear population inhabiting parts of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho. They hope to muster enough support to overturn the plans of a Bush administration intent on saving money by declaring the Yellowstone grizzly a wildlife success story—like the bald eagle and the gray wolf.
