Latest Natural environment Stories

Sustainable water use, climate change impacts on international markets, restoration of Chicago ecosystems among research projectsHow do humans and their environment interact, and how can we use knowledge of these links to adapt to a planet undergoing radical climate and other environmental changes?To answer these and related questions, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded 14 grants to scientists, engineers and educators across the country to study coupled natural and human...

Humanity needs to act now to avoid threats to human well-being caused by irreversible damage to the Earth, its climate, species and life-supporting systems.Scientists say it has become essential to define what levels of such human-caused change are "˜safe' and which are "˜unsafe', and to stay within these boundaries.The call comes from 28 of the world's most eminent environmental scientists, published today in the world's leading science journal, Nature.The researchers propose an upper...

Geoengineering techniques aim to slow global warming through the use of human-made changes to the Earth's land, seas or atmosphere. But new research shows that the use of geoengineering to do environmental good may cause other environmental harm. In a symposium at the Ecological Society of America's Annual Meeting, ecologists discuss the viability of geoengineering, concluding that it is potentially dangerous at the global scale, where the risks outweigh the benefits."The bigger the...

While policymakers across of the globe are relying on environmental restoration projects to fuel emerging market-based environmental programs, an article in the July 31 edition of Science by two noted ecologists warns that these programs still lack the scientific certainty needed to ensure that restoration projects deliver the environmental improvements being marketed.Markets identify the benefits humans derive from ecosystems, called ecosystem services, and associate them with economic...

A rare April freeze in 2007 provided researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory with further evidence that climate change could have negative effects on stream and forest ecosystems.As warm weather arrives sooner in many parts of the nation, forest plants and trees on the banks flourish, shading the stream from sunlight and causing an overall decrease in productivity in the late spring and summer. A research paper published in this month's issue of Global Change...

U.S. scientists say global warming might have a greater influence on some plants' annual growth cycles than previously thought. Researchers led by Heidi Steltzer of Colorado State University's Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory said their findings suggest accelerated snowmelt caused by desert dust blowing into mountainous areas changes how alpine plants respond to seasonal climate changes. Current mountain dust levels in Colorado's alpine valleys are five times greater than they were before...

MANILA, Philippines, July 2 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Over 100 citizens, delegates and politicians were part of the groundbreaking shift in San Fernando, Philippines since they chose one of the greatest green energy products ever to be invented, The Biosphere MKV invented by Dr. Christopher McCormack Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive officer of Global Environmental Energy Corporation (OTC Bulletin Board: GEECF). In his speech during the ground breaking ceremony of the Pilot...

MANILA, Philippines, July 2 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- In his speech during the groundbreaking ceremony of the Pilot Biosphere Gasification Facility in the City of San Fernando in Pampanga, Mayor Oscar Rodriguez declared that the Biosphere Gasification Facility to be established in this City would eventually set the trend for a better world. With about a hundred people in attendance, composed of officials both from the local and national government, Spectrum Blue Steel Corporation and True...

MANILA, Philippines, April 21 /PRNewswire/ -- The Biosphere Pilot Facility in the Philippines is set to be installed within a one hectare portion of the existing landfill in the City of San Fernando, Pampanga. The plan was disclosed by Ruth P. Briones, Chief Executive Officer of Spectrum Blue Steel Corporation, during the management committee meeting of the City of San Fernando Biosphere Gasification Project held on April 18, 2009. The site has been officially turned-over to Spectrum...

For those who think of nature as a wild, unspoiled Eden that preserves the natural flora and fauna free from human interference, global warming has a nasty surprise in store, according to University of California, Berkeley, biologist Anthony Barnosky.In his new book, "Heatstroke: Nature in an Age of Global Warming" (Island Press, 2009), Barnosky says that because of climate change, wilderness left to its own will no longer look like the natural areas we see today. Our conservation...