The West Nile virus, which was first discovered in New York City in 1999, has infected 26,000 people in North America and killed 962. It has become a very virulent scourge. Why do you think we are seeing an outbreak of West Nile now, and what is its potential in human hosts?
A coalition of environmental groups and individual states cheered last week when a federal appeals court overturned a decision by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to weaken limits on smog pollution generated by large power plants and factories in urban areas across the country.
The fact that nuclear waste is the most toxic substance on the planet may be lost on those who vehemently call for the country to pour its resources into creating more plants. And the U.S. currently has no viable near-term storage options for nuclear waste which continues to pollute for generations.
In what many environmentalists consider an about-face on both endangered species and global warming, the Bush administration last week announced that it would recommend listing America’s polar bears as threatened under the nation’s Endangered Species Act.
A new report by the international nonprofit WWF details how scientists have uncovered dozens of species of plants and animals formerly unknown to science in the jungles and coastal waters of the Indonesian island of Borneo. Scientists working under the auspices of WWF’s Heart of Borneo program report discovering 30 unique fish species, two tree frog species, 16 ginger species, three tree species and one large-leafed plant species.
The nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity filed suit in federal court last week calling on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to designate coastal waters off southwest Alaska as critical habitat for dwindling numbers of sea otters. If the court sides with environmentalists, the federal government would have to limit or ban oil drilling and other industrial activities in the area that could harm the long-term survival of the marine mammals, which were listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 2005 following declines of up to 90 percent.
When Chiquita Brands started selling bananas with "Rainforest Alliance Certified" stickers in European stores last year, some people suspected that Chiquita, with a documented history of worker abuse and environmental damage, was participating in a little "greenwashing."E recently toured two Chiquita plantations in Costa Rica and found that the company has taken major steps to improve the environment. However, some Costa Rican workers still feel they are treated unfairly by the banana giant.
Sixty years ago, it carried 45 billion cubic feet of fresh water and powered a hydroelectric plant. Today, only 3.5 billion cubic feet flow down the lower Jordan River—and of this, about half is sewage or salt water. Some stretches are so dry, you’d have to portage a kayak. While deterioration on this scale is appalling anywhere, it’s especially so when the body of water, flowing through Israel and Jordan, has such deep resonance in human culture.
Worldwide development of hydrogen as the transport fuel of the future is growing exponentially, with Europe a dynamic center of hydrogen activity. A new Europe-wide coalition of carmakers and oil companies proclaimed, "Now is the time to move forward
to pave the way for the introduction of hydrogen-based mobility in Europe."
A new study by the international environmental group WWF released last week reported that two-thirds of the forests in Africa’s Congo River Basin could disappear within 50 years if logging and mineral exploitation continues unabated.
