Latest News | Environment News Service (ENS)

Germany’s G7 Puts Climate Infrastructure Front and Center

June 26, 2022 News Editor Comments Off

SCHLOSS ELMAU, Bavaria, Germany, June 26, 2022 (ENS) – At a century-old retreat in a Bavarian Alpine nature reserve, the world’s seven largest and wealthiest liberal democracies today formally launched
the Partnership for Global Infrastructure to mobilize “hundreds of billions of dollars and deliver quality, sustainable infrastructure” to support climate action and improve cybersecurity, gender equality and health care. […]

Massachusetts Drinking Water Polluted With Firefighting Foam

May 25, 2022 News Editor Comments Off

BOSTON, Massachusetts, May 25, 2022 (ENS) – State Attorney General Maura Healey today sued 13 manufacturers of poly- and perfluoroalkyl, PFAS, the so-called forever chemicals used in firefighting foam. They include some of the biggest firms in the country, such as 3M of St. Paul, Minnesota, which makes fluorochemicals. […]

U.S. Capital Bus Fleet Under Public Pressure to Decarbonize

May 20, 2022 News Editor Comments Off

WASHINGTON, DC, May 20, 2022 (ENS) – Coming together as the Metro Electric Bus Coalition, public health, environmental, and faith groups are pressuring the new Board of Directors of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, WMATA, to scrap the plan the previous board approved last June in favor of electric buses. […]

Siberian Wildfires Doubly Dangerous to Distracted Russia

May 20, 2022 News Editor Comments Off

KRASNOYARSK, Russia, May 20, 2022 (ENS) – Early season wildfires in Siberia this spring threaten yet another record-breaking fire season in Russia, while the Russian government continues to pour resources into its ongoing war in Ukraine. […]

Extreme Storms May Protect Beaches Against Sea-level Rise

May 17, 2022 News Editor Comments Off

SYDNEY, New South Wales, Australia, May 17, 2022 (ENS) – Climate change is making storms more intense and destructive, but the impact of extreme storms is not wholly negative, an international team of researchers has learned. Sand movements stirred up by extreme weather events could help protect beaches from the impact of sea-level rise by bringing in new sand from deeper waters or from nearby beaches. […]

Wastewater Recycling Sends Microplastics Back to Soil, Ocean

May 16, 2022 News Editor Comments Off

CARDIFF, Wales, UK, May 16, 2022 (ENS) – Farmlands across Europe are becoming the largest global reservoir of microplastics due to the high concentrations found in fertilizers derived from sewage sludge, new research from Cardiff University demonstrates. […]

Interpol Finds Organized Crime’s Fingerprints on Gold Mining

May 2, 2022 News Editor Comments Off

LYON, France, May 2, 2022 (ENS) – A new analysis for law enforcement by Interpol, the international police force, shows “the clear involvement of organized criminals in illegal gold mining, taking advantage of surging gold prices and leaving severe environmental degradation in their wake.” […]

New Enzyme Can Gobble Plastic Waste by the Billions of Tons

April 28, 2022 News Editor Comments Off

AUSTIN, Texas, April 28, 2022 (ENS) – An enzyme variant created by engineers and scientists at the University of Texas at Austin can break down environment-strangling plastics that typically take centuries to degrade in a matter of hours to days. […]

Lions, Tigers, Bears, Apes Rescued from Ecopark Under Fire

April 27, 2022 News Editor Comments Off

KHARKIV, Ukraine, April 27, 2022 (ENS) – The evacuation of the Oleksandr Feldman Ecopark in the bombed city of Kharkiv is still going on – the animals are being removed from the line of fire, even as shelling continues. […]

Humans Shown to Have ‘Surprising’ Nutritional Wisdom

April 26, 2022 News Editor Comments Off

BRISTOL, UK, April 26, 2022 (ENS) – Pioneering research by a British-led team has shed new light on what drives people’s basic food preferences. It shows that our choices may be smarter than previously understood – that we make choices driven by the need for specific nutrients, rather than by the need for calories alone. […]

XPRIZE Awards 15 Winners $1M Each for CO2 Removal Know-How

April 22, 2022 News Editor Comments Off

LOS ANGELES, California, April 22, 2022 (ENS) – In celebration of Earth Day, 15 teams have been designated as million-dollar Milestone winners in the $100 Million XPRIZE Carbon Removal competition. XPRIZE, a non-profit that hosts competitions to accelerate breakthroughs that benefit humanity, and the Musk Foundation announced the winners today. […]

150 Clean Cookstoves Change Lives In Guatemala

April 22, 2022 News Editor Comments Off

SANTA CRUZ DEL QUICHE, Guatemala, April 21, 2022 (ENS) – “Before, it wasted a lot of firewood and it’s very expensive. We don’t have jobs to get our wood,” a mother in the rural village of San Pedro II in the highlands of Guatemala explained to me. […]

Coal Mine Expansion Authorized in India’s Tribal Forest

April 21, 2022 News Editor Comments Off

JAIPUR, Rajasthan, India, April 21, 2022 (ENS) – State governments in India have approved two giant new coal projects on the land of the Adivasi Indigenous people, defying a determined and outspoken Adivasi resistance movement. The unique Hasdeo Forest in the state of Chhattisgarh, home to 20,000 Adivasi people, wild elephants, endangered species and medicinal plants, is at risk for a big increase in coal mining. […]

Africa Starves Under The Blazing Sun

April 21, 2022 News Editor Comments Off

DUBLIN, Ireland, April 21, 2022 (ENS) – Trucking water into communities who are somehow surviving the drought gripping the East African country of Somalia, has got Ireland’s largest aid organization Concern Worldwide ringing loud alarm bells – warning that hundreds of thousands of Somali residents could die without urgent humanitarian intervention. […]

Green Means Planet-Healing Investment to EarthDay.org

April 20, 2022 News Editor Comments Off

WASHINGTON, DC, April 20, 2022 (ENS) – “This is the moment to change it all – the business climate, the political climate, and how we take action on climate. Now […]

Solar, Wind, and Hydro Power in New York City’s Future

April 19, 2022 News Editor Comments Off

ALBANY, New York, April 19, 2022 (ENS) – To deliver clean, renewable solar, wind and hydroelectric power from upstate New York and Canada south to fossil-fuel powered New York City, the State Public Service Commission has approved contracts with Clean Path New York LLC for its Clean Path NY project and H.Q. Energy Services Inc. for its Champlain Hudson Power Express project. […]

Humanity Can Halve Climate Emissions by 2030: UN Panel

April 17, 2022 News Editor Comments Off

GENEVA, Switzerland, April 17, 2022 (ENS) – In a rare encouraging climate report, the UN’s scientific Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, has recognized “increasing evidence of climate action” and held out hope, finding that, “We have options in all sectors to at least halve emissions by 2030.” […]

Bird Flu Infects Chickens, Turkeys Worldwide, Millions Killed

April 1, 2022 News Editor Comments Off

WASHINGTON, DC, April 1, 2022 (ENS) – Highly infectious outbreaks of bird flu in 23 states since January have led to the killing of more than 17 million chickens and turkeys, according to state and federal officials. The outbreaks are part of ongoing Eurasian H5N1 bird flu activity… […]

South Africa Inflates Value of Trophy Hunts to Conservation

March 29, 2022 News Editor Comments Off

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, March 29, 2022 (ENS) – The High Court of the Western Cape Friday ruled against South Africa’s Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment on its 2022 hunting and export quotas for leopard, black rhino and elephants. […]

Coal Waste Reimagined as ‘Ecofriendly’

March 29, 2022 News Editor Comments Off

WASHINGTON, DC, March 29, 2022 (ENS) – Turning coal waste from power plants into fire-resistant, strong, lightweight building materials is a project the U.S. Department of Energy is supporting, investing another $2.2 million this month as part of a wider effort … […]