deforestation

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Biofuel Laws Make No Sense: Scientists

Kyoto Protocols actually encourage harming the environment

(Newser) - Biofuel laws around the world actually encourage harming the environment, prominent scientists argue in the latest issue of Science. Under the Kyoto Treaty, in laws throughout Europe, and in the bill that passed the US House, biofuels count as carbon-neutral, on the theory that the plants the fuel is made...

Let's Pay People Not to Cut Down Trees
Let's Pay People 
Not to Cut Down Trees 

analysis
Sep 25, 2009 2:42 PM CDT

Let's Pay People Not to Cut Down Trees

A deal could curb greenhouse gas emissions by 18%

(Newser) - Deforestation releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, so how about paying people to keep trees standing? A pilot project in Brazil has paid families to do just that, and aroused the interest of world leaders who plan to negotiate a climate deal in Copenhagen in December, the Economist reports. But...

Warming Earth Down to Its 'Last Chance': Charles

Prince warns of catastrophe if world continues to balk at taking action

(Newser) - Prince Charles warned yesterday that the world's unwillingness to take action on climate change means disaster is looming, the Daily Telegraph reports. The prince, addressing the Nobel Laureates Symposium, said that although a "mercifully small—if vociferous—number" of people still reject the science of climate change, a far...

EPA Eyes Crackdown on Not-So-Green Biofuels

Turns out, it's greener to burn plants than to make ethanol

(Newser) - Plants consume carbon dioxide, so growing corn to produce ethanol should be at worst a zero-sum game, emissions-wise, right? Wrong, says the EPA. There's another factor involved: Turning food crops into fuel drives up their prices, which raises demand for farmland worldwide. In places like Brazil, that means chopping down...

Save the Rainforest? Nature May Have It Covered

New jungle in the tropics might outpace deforestation

(Newser) - With all the talk of how much primeval rainforest disappears every year, it might come as a surprise to hear that much more new forest is springing up to replace it. Although new jungle taking over abandoned or destroyed farms in tropical nations is good for the planet—the UN...

Half of Amazon Could Be Gone in 20 Years
Half of Amazon Could Be Gone in 20 Years
opinion
Jun 19, 2008 6:58 PM CDT

Half of Amazon Could Be Gone in 20 Years

Lust for beef, ethanol drives deforestation; nations must act now

(Newser) - An "unprecedented" combination of ills is threatening the Amazon, and if nothing is done to ease the pressure on the world’s largest rainforest, more than half of it could be gone or withered in 20 years, Rhett Butler writes for Yale Environment 360. After a three-year decline, forest...

What Happened to the Paperless Office?
 What Happened to
 the Paperless Office? 
ANALYSIS
May 28, 2008 2:33 PM CDT

What Happened to the Paperless Office?

Still, huge financial incentives to cut down have wheels in motion

(Newser) - More than 30 years after Xerox guru George Pake predicted a "paperless office" by 1995, the dream is as elusive as ever. That's because the very computers that made paper theoretically obsolete, BusinessWeek notes, also brought us printers and copiers on practically every desktop. "The decision to print...

Organic Meat Is Climate Culprit

Livestock raised indoors is better for environment, reports say

(Newser) - The gas production, need for space, and food requirements required by organic and free-range livestock hurt the environment more than their traditional counterparts, the BBC reports. Organic poultry can heat the earth some 45% more than indoor poultry, one group said; and a UN division found that farm animals heat...

Brazil Targets Amazon Loggers
 Brazil Targets Amazon Loggers 
Mar 21, 2008 9:33 AM CDT

Brazil Targets Amazon Loggers

Government cracks down as deforestation rises sharply

(Newser) - Brazil is launching a new crackdown against the loggers who are destroying the Amazon rainforest at alarming rates, the Washington Post reports. After several years of decline, deforestation is surging as cattle ranchers clear land and loggers cut down trees for charcoal to fuel steel mills abroad. But Brazil will...

Rainforests Still Fall at Shocking Rates

Summit proposes financial rewards for conservation efforts

(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,...

Despite Laws, Amazon Jungle Disappearing

Even president's tough new measures may not halt rapid deforestation

(Newser) - The deforestation of the Amazon jungle is speeding up, and Brazil may be unable to stop it, Time magazine reports. Over the last five months an estimated 2,700 square miles of forest have been cleared—more than twice the size of Rhode Island. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva...

Climate Reps at Odds Over Deforestation

Rich countries balk at paying poorer nations to stop hacking trees

(Newser) - The triumph of the Bali summit may be its plan to stop deforestation, but rich and poor nations are still clashing over details, the Washington Post reports. A dozen developing countries want incentives to stop tree-cutting, but some developed nations wince at paying them for actions not taken. "The...

Katrina Death Toll: 320M Trees
Katrina
Death Toll: 320M Trees
Nov 16, 2007 12:53 PM CST

Katrina Death Toll: 320M Trees

Hurricane's impact on forests leads to massive CO2 release

(Newser) - Hurricane Katrina killed 320 million trees in Mississippi and Louisiana, and the die-off is affecting the atmosphere as well as the landscape. Decaying trees will release about 367 million tons of carbon dioxide, equal to the amount released in a whole season of US forest fires, the LA Times reports....

75% of Bear Species at Risk
75% of Bear Species at Risk
Nov 12, 2007 7:15 PM CST

75% of Bear Species at Risk

Asia's sun bear now the fifth of eight bear species endangered worldwide

(Newser) - Southeast Asia's sun bear is now the sixth of eight bear species facing extinction worldwide, the Telegraph reports. Experts admit they know little about the bear, but blame deforestation, hunting, and fearful villagers for menacing the species. "We estimate that sun bears have declined by at least 30 per...

UN Report Paints Grim Portrait of Planet's Future

Environmental decline spurs poverty, disease

(Newser) - A major UN report says the health and wealth of millions of people around the world are at risk because of worsening environmental problems, BBC reports. The UN report cited deforestation, overfishing, shortages of drinking water, and rising greenhouse gas levels among the biggest problems. And it criticized a "...

Indian Activists Seek 'Green' Funeral Pyres

Hindu cremation rites consume 50 million trees a year

(Newser) - Indian environmental activists are taking aim at the traditional Hindu funeral pyre, which can burn over 800 pounds of wood while mourners watch the rite that is believed to free soul from body. Now a nonprofit group is peddling a "green cremation system," which uses a raised metal...

Deserts Eat Up China's Usable Land
Deserts Eat
Up China's Usable Land
Aug 16, 2007 5:03 PM CDT

Deserts Eat Up China's Usable Land

In arid provinces, farms and families feel pinch of policy gone awry

(Newser) - With China's deserts spreading another 950 square miles each year, the government is evicting families and replanting farms to stem the tide, the Christian Science Monitor reports from Gansu province. With 20% of the world's population but 7% of its arable land, China's decades-old problem has worsened due to overfarming,...

World Bank Will Pay Countries to Spare Trees

$250M pilot program will reward "avoided deforestation"

(Newser) - The World Bank is planning a $250-million fund to pay countries to refrain from cutting down tropical forests. The plan, which won approval at the G-8 summit last week, depends on companies to contribute to the fund, but that's not likely to happen unless rules governing carbon emissions credits are...

Burning Forests Heat Globe
Burning Forests Heat Globe
May 14, 2007 8:56 AM CDT

Burning Forests Heat Globe

Rainforests absorbe CO2, but burning them pumps out 25% of all greenhouse gasses

(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...

UN's Take On Climate Change Grows Sunnier

Some measures may enhance global GDP

(Newser) - Policy and behavior changes can help limit greenhouse-gas emissions and slow climate change, say experts at a UN conference in Bangkok—and at a reasonable price. Some curbs on emissions may even enhance global GDP, but time is short. Within 10 to 20 years, global emissions should begin dropping to...

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