rainforest

(Newser) - Marriott is making a big environmental push, helping to protect Brazilian rainforests and implementing lower energy consumption and more recycling in many of its hotels worldwide, the Washington Post reports. And although consumer demand is one reason for the changes, the primary drive seems less altruistic. "We've got a...

(Newser) - Biofuels could hurt Earth more than help it, two new studies conclude. Over 30 years, argues one, corn-based ethanol would spout twice the greenhouse gas of regular gasoline; the other notes environmental damage likely to be wreaked by chopping rainforests and other areas for production, the Washington Post reports. The...

(Newser) - Rainforests continue to vanish at "alarming" rates worldwide despite decades of scientific warnings, experts say. Tropical trees are falling at 60 acres per minute—up 10 from a generation ago—accounting for roughly 20% of Earth's carbon emissions. Environmental leaders plan to preserve forests with a carbon trading system,...

(Newser) - Destruction of rainforests is a bigger source of global warming than all the planes, cars and factories in the world, concludes a study reported today in the Independent. It's not just the loss of forests, which absorb CO2, that's the problem. It's the rampant burning of those forests that actually...