NewsTrust - Sustainability - Most Recent Stories: News (Mainstream)

Your mail on an electric delivery cart: Postal Service goes greener

Mon, 01 Nov 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Christian Science Monitor - Nov. 01 (News) - The US Postal Service and other government agencies are trying to make their transportation fleets more eco-friendly. ...

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Government agencies make plans to reduce federal carbon footprint in next decade

Wed, 22 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - Sep. 22 (News) -

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Wind vs. Coal: The Fight for a Mountaintop

Sun, 15 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By TOM ZELLER Jr. - Aug. 15 (News Report) - At least one study has shown that a wind project could be a feasible alternative to coal mining here, although the coal industry’s control over the land and the uncertain and often tenuous financial prospects of wind generation appear to make it unlikely to be pursued. That, residents say, would be a mistake.

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Mississippi River pours as much dispersant into the Gulf of Mexico as BP

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0700

The New Orleans Times-Picayune - By Mark Schleifstein, The Times-Picayune - Aug. 11 (News Report) - Every day during the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster, contractors sprayed an average 140,000 pounds of Corexit dispersant onto oil slicks on the surface of the Gulf of Mexico and into the oil being released a mile below.

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Pressure Rises to Stop Antibiotics in Agriculture

Mon, 28 Dec 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Associated Press - By Margie Mason, Martha Mendoza - Dec. 28 (Special Report) - The mystery started the day farmer Russ Kremer got between a jealous boar and a sow in heat. The boar gored Kremer in the knee with a razor-sharp tusk. The burly pig farmer shrugged it off, figuring: "You pour the blood out of your boot and go on."

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UN: Fight climate change with free condoms

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Associated Press - By Maria Cheng - Nov. 18 (News Report) - "As the growth of population, economies and consumption outpaces the Earth's capacity to adjust, climate change could become much more extreme and conceivably catastrophic," the report said.

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Second wolf pack confirmed in Washington

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Seattle Times - Jul. 14 (News Report) - State biologists have confirmed a second wolf pack in Washington state, this time in a remote area of Pend Oreille County.

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Security Forces Crack Down on Defiant Protesters in Iran - washingtonpost.com

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Thomas Erdbrink - Jul. 10 (News Report) - TEHRAN, July 9 -- Anti-government protesters tried to gather outside Tehran University on Thursday, despite a heavy police presence and sharp warnings from the governor of Tehran that the planned demonstration was unauthorized and would be met with a "crushing response."

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Street Farmer - NYTimes.com

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Elizabeth Royte - Jul. 01 (Other) - Can Will Allen make the inner city the next front in the good-food movement? Will Allen, a farmer of Bunyonesque proportions, ascended a berm of wood chips and brewer’s mash and gently probed it with a pitchfork. “Look at this,” he said, pleased with the treasure he unearthed. A writhing mass of red worms dangled from his tines. He bent over, raked another section with his fingers and palmed a few beauties.

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From bush to bike - a bamboo revolution

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

BBC News - By Kieron Humphrey - Jul. 01 (News Report) - On the outskirts of Lusaka, Zambia, next year's crop of bicycles is being watered by Benjamin Banda. "We planted this bamboo last year," he says, "and now the stems are taller than me. When it's ready we'll cut it, cure it and then turn it into frames."

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California farms, vineyards in peril from warming, U.S. energy secretary warns

Wed, 04 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Los Angeles Times - By Jim Tankersley - Feb. 04 (News Report) - California's farms and vineyards could vanish by the end of the century, and its major cities could be in jeopardy, if Americans do not act to slow the advance of global warming, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu said Tuesday. In his first interview since taking office last month, the Nobel-prize-winning physicist offered some of the starkest comments yet on how seriously President Obama's cabinet views the threat of climate change, along with a detailed assessment of the administration's plans to combat it.

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Library use jumps in Seattle area; economy likely reason

Thu, 15 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Seattle Times - By Mary Ann Gwinn - Jan. 15 (Special Report) - A library card has become a hot property in the Seattle region — area public libraries are experiencing a surge in circulation. While busy libraries in one of the nation's most literate cities are nothing new, some librarians credit (or blame) the recession for a dramatic upswing in business. The Seattle area's two library systems, the King County Library System (KCLS) and Seattle Public Library (SPL), each loaned more than a million more items in 2008 than in 2007.

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In California, Hot and Dry Conditions Stir Drought Concerns

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Wall Street Journal - By Stu Woo - Jan. 14 (News Analysis) - The past two days have felt like summer in California, as unseasonable warmth sweeps the state -- possibly presaging a third straight year of drought, a worrisome possibility for a state already hit hard by the economic downturn. Another dry year could mean water rationing for businesses and individuals. It could also slow business expansion and affect the agricultural industry, ski resorts and efforts to keep firefighting costs down, after a year in which state and federal officials spent $1 billion combating wildfires. Temperatures jumped to 90 degrees in parts of California on Monday and Tuesday. With no rain forecast for the next week, the state is on track for one of its driest Januarys ever, said state climatologist Michael Anderson.

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The Energy Challenge - No Furnaces but Heat Aplenty in Innovative ‘Passive Houses’ -

Sat, 27 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Elisabeth Rosenthal - Dec. 27 (Special Report) - The concept of the passive house, pioneered in this city of 140,000 outside Frankfurt, approaches the challenge from a different angle. Using ultrathick insulation and complex doors and windows, the architect engineers a home encased in an airtight shell, so that barely any heat escapes and barely any cold seeps in. That means a passive house can be warmed not only by the sun, but also by the heat from appliances and even from occupants’ bodies.

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Navajo water a wild card in river's future

Sat, 29 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Salt Lake Tribune - Nov. 29 (News Report) - The commission that created the 1922 Colorado River Compact knew that Mexico, the Navajo and other tribes had rights to the river, but when it divvied up the presumed 15 million acre-feet annual flow, it didn't define the claims....Still no mention of Indian tribes, even though an 1850 treaty with the Navajo Nation, reinforced by a 1908 Supreme Court ruling, guaranteed water rights necessary for a permanent homeland

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Shedding Light on Solar

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Wall Street Journal - By Yuliya Chernova - Jun. 30 (Special Report) - The idea of solar power sounds so simple. And it seems like it should be cheap compared to other sources of energy. After all, the sun is there, and it's free. But despite federal and some state government subsidies that have helped push up demand, solar power still accounts for less than 1% of power generation in the U.S. That's because even with subsidies, solar power remains expensive compared with energy based on traditional fuels like coal and natural gas.

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White House Refused to Open Pollutants E-Mail

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Felicity Barringer - Jun. 25 (News Report) - The White House in December refused to accept the Environmental Protection Agency's conclusion that greenhouse gases are pollutants that must be controlled, telling agency officials that an e-mail message containing the document would not be opened, senior E.P.A. officials said last week.

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Why Chipotle Insists on Humanely Raised Meat

Wed, 07 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Newsweek - By Anna Kuchment - May. 07 (Special Report) - A fast-food company is an odd candidate for the title of environmental champion. In 2001, Eric Schlosser's "Fast Food Nation" made chains like McDonald's--which owned Chipotle until a 2006 divestiture--virtually synonymous with animal cruelty and abusive labor practices. Last year Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma" heaped praise on family farms that help preserve the environment while producing a diverse yield of delicious, wholesome products. Consumers have gotten the message by crowding farmers markets and packing supermarket carts with organic food. Ells grew interested in serving more-ecoconscious ingredients after reading about and then visiting Niman Ranch, one of the oldest American producers of humanely raised meat. Since launching what it calls Food With Integrity--part internal mission, part PR campaign--in 2000, Chipotle has been serving sour cream and cheese free of the hormone rBGH, organic beans, and naturally raised pork, chicken and meat. Last month it announced it would buy locally grown produce whenever possible. Up next: dairy products from pasture-raised cows.

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America's Water Shortage Crisis: Another Dust Bowl?

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Reader's Digest - By Joseph K. Vetter - Apr. 12 (News Analysis) - Lake Mead is part of the Colorado River system, which also includes Lake Powell, a second huge reservoir some 150 miles east, on the Utah-Arizona border. Fed by melting snow from the Rocky Mountains, the Colorado system is the main source of water for 30 million people in the Southwest. Millions more in California and Nevada rely on water from the Sierra Nevada. But a stretch of unusually dry years has driven levels in Mead and Powell to near-record lows.

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Hope in the Congo

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

PBS - By Bill Moyers, David Murdock - Apr. 07 (Special Report) - (VIDEO) Bill Moyers Journal takes viewers on the ground in the Democratic Republic of Congo to follow aid workers and local relief efforts that are bringing hope to a forgotten land. "The aid agencies are almost substituting for a social welfare system that hasn't operated in these areas for decades," says Dominic MacSorley, Emergency Director for Concern Worldwide, an international aid organization. Concern is one of only two aid organizations working in some remote regions of the DCR. The other, Doctors Without Borders entitled its March 12, 2008 field report: "Violence spikes and civilians suffer." It is one more harsh report from a country which has suffered through a devastating history -- recent and remote. Filmmaker David Murdock followed the journey of one sack of dried peas-- sack 43 -- on a three-day journey by bicycle into the interior.

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Krill fishing threatens the Antarctic

Sun, 23 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Juliette Jowit - Mar. 23 (Special Report) - The population of krill, a tiny crustacean, is in danger from the growing demand for health supplements and food for fish farms. Global warming has already been blamed for a dramatic fall in numbers because the ice that is home to the algae and plankton they feed on is melting. Now 'suction' harvesting which gathers up vast quantities has been introduced to meet the increased demand. It threatens not just krill, but the entire ecosystem that depends on them, say environmental campaigners. Krill are also believed to be important in removing the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide by eating carbon-rich food near the surface and excreting it when they sink to lower, colder water to escape predators.

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World Bank pledges to save trees... then helps cut down Amazon forest

Sun, 13 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0800

The Independent - By Daniel Howden - Jan. 13 (Special Report) - The World Bank has emerged as one of the key backers behind an explosion of cattle ranching in the Amazon, which new research has identified as the greatest threat to the survival of the rainforest. Ranching has grown by half in the last three years, driven by new industrial slaughterhouses which are being constructed in the Amazon basin with the help of the World Bank. The revelation flies in the face of claims from the bank that it is funding efforts to halt deforestation and reduce the massive greenhouse gas emissions it causes.

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Lawmakers Set Deal on Raising Fuel Efficiency

Sat, 01 Dec 2007 11:03:36 -0800

New York Times - By John Broder, Micheline Maynard - Dec. 01 (News Report) - WASHINGTON -- Congressional negotiators reached a deal late Friday on energy legislation that would force American automakers to improve the fuel efficiency of their cars and light trucks by 40 percent by 2020. The proposal, which would require automakers to achieve 35 miles per gallon on average, is similar to a measure that was passed in the summer by the Senate but was bitterly opposed by the auto companies, who argued they did not have the technology or the financial resources to reach that goal. The auto companies gave up their long-held opposition to fuel- economy increases not long before the Senate version was passed, but proposed a much weaker alternative. In recent weeks, the chief executives of General Motors, the Ford Motor Company and Chrysler visited Capitol Hill in an effort to fend off a stronger measure, but the compromise announced Friday showed those efforts had little effect. The compromise emerged after days of difficult negotiations between House and Senate members and their staffs. The final deal was hammered out by the two main antagonists, the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, and Representative John D. Dingell, the Michigan Democrat who is the auto industry's most effective advocate on Capitol Hill.

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Atlanta Urinals, Fountain Run Dry as UPS, Coke Fight Drought

Thu, 01 Nov 2007 04:05:01 -0700

Bloomberg - By Mary Jane Credeur, Laurence Viele Davidson - Nov. 01 (News Report) - Dry is the goal as United Parcel Service Inc., Coca-Cola Co. and other companies in the Atlanta area rally to cut water use in response to the region's most extreme drought since at least the 1920s. Metropolitan Atlanta, which has added more new residents than any other U.S. city since 2000, may face limits on growth if the shortage persists, business officials said.

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When Balance Sheets Collide With The New Economy

Sun, 09 Sep 2007 11:55:02 -0700

New York Times - By Denise Caruso - Sep. 09 (News Analysis) - Leading business schools are already training students in these new, inclusive valuation methods, and many companies are also busy teaching others how to credibly analyze their own intangible assets. Leading public companies recognized the value of the process some time ago. In April, Fast Company magazine teamed up with the S.V.T. Group and the social investment strategy firm HIP Investor to rate the human and social impact of 21 companies that say they have sustainability practices in place, including Wal-Mart Stores, United Technologies and McDonald's.

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