Damage by elephants not illegal loggers in the Congo rainforest

Illegal logging threatens Congo's forests, global climate

Despite government and World Bank assurances to the contrary. a new report from Greenpeace finds that illegal logging is rampant in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The report, Carving up the Congo, reveals that in spite of a 2002 moratorium on new logging, over 15 million hectares of rainforest have been concessioned to loggers with little regard to the environmental impact or compensation to affected communities.

Sunset in Honduras

ConocoPhillips becomes first U.S. oil major to call for CO2 limits

This week ConocoPhillips became the first major U.S. oil firm to call for a legally-binding emissions cap. The Houston-based company said it would join the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), a coalition of corporations seeking to influence future climate policy.

Could global deforestation fight climate change?

While many climate change mitigation schemes rely on reforestation schemes to sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, those located in temperate regions may actually be warming the planet, worsening global change, reports a new study published in the April 9-13 online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Surprisingly, the research suggests that global-scale deforestation would produce a net cooling effect, but that forest preservation efforts and reforestation in the tropics is more effective in cooling the planet.

Indonesia and Australia sign deforestation pact

Indonesia and Australia have agreed to reduce deforestation in southeast Asia according to Malcolm Turnbull, the Australian Minister for the Environment and Water Resources. Turnbull was in Jakarta meeting with the Indonesian Minister for Forestry, M. S. Kaban, and the Minister for the Environment, Rachmat Witoelar.

Looking up the trunk of a giant Ceiba tree in Panama

Rainforest site for kids now in Danish, Hindi, Marathi, Swedish

The beta version of the rainforest information site for students and teachers is now available in Danish (thanks to Mette Engelbrecht), Hindi (A Pillai), Marathi (A Pillai), and Swedish (Helena Tsiparis). I still need help with German, Greek, Japanese, Norwegian, and Vietnamese.

Desert canyon near the Grand Canyon

Climate change could turn Southwest into 'Dustbowl'

Global warming threatens to create a dustbowl in the American Southwest according to a new study published in the journal Science. The researchers predict that the drier climate will be "unlike any climate states that exist on record for the area" -- a forecast that does not bode well for one of the fastest growing population centers in the United States.

Little Colorado River

Nuclear power plants are financially risky given high costs

Nuclear power plants are risky investments given rapidly rising costs of construction of nuclear fuel, reports a new study by researchers from Georgetown University, Stanford University and UC Berkeley.

Photo by Rob Roy

Wildlife conservation plan moves forward in southern Sudan

A leading conservation group announced that it has signed two agreements with the Government of Southern Sudan (GoSS) to launch a conservation strategy for the region's wildlife. The New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society says that southern Sudan may have some of the richest wildlife in Africa.

Palm oil is not a failure as a biofuel

The Associated Press (AP) recently quoted Marcel Silvius, a renowned climate expert at Wetlands International in the Netherlands, as saying palm oil is a failure as a biofuel. This would be a misleading statement and one that doesn't help efforts to devise a workable solution to the multitude of issues surrounding the use of palm oil. While I don't know the context of Mr. Silvius's remark (such comments are often taken out of context) and recognize him as an excellent tropical ecologist and writer, his quote as it stands in the AP article, makes it easier for critics to dismiss environmental arguments on oil palm development in southeast Asia. Palm oil is quite obviously not a failure as a biofuel--it is derived from perhaps the most productive energy crop on the planet. A single hectare of oil palm may yield nearly 6,000 liters of crude biodiesel. In comparison, soybeans and corn generate only 446 and 172 liters per hectare, respectively. The problem with palm oil is not its yield, but how it is produced. Presently much of the world's palm oil is coming out of the forests of southeast Asia--increasingly in the biodiverse rainforests of Indonesia.

Sunset over the Kazinga Channel near the Congo-Uganda border

Supreme Court rebukes Bush Administration on global warming

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the Bush Administration in a landmark case with global warming implications. In Massachusetts v. EPA, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that (1) state governments and environmental groups have the right to sue the EPA, and (2) the EPA has the right to regulate CO2 emissions as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act. On a third point, where the EPA can choose not to regulate CO2 emissions, the Supreme Court directed the agency to "reconsider its refusal based on the factors set forth in the law."