Good Food is First Food. It is not junk food. It is the food that connects nature and nutrition with livelihoods. This food is good for our health; it comes from the rich biodiversity of our regions; it provides employment to people. Most importantly, cooking and eating give us pleasure. …
Tropical cyclones are expected to cause more damage in the United States and Asia but it could be more than a century before insurers can point to climate change as a factor in losses from storms, scientists say. In a study that focuses on the predicted threat to the United …
New government figures for the global climate show that 2010 was the wettest year in the historical record, and it tied 2005 as the hottest year since record-keeping began in 1880. The new figures confirm that 2010 will go down as one of the more remarkable years in the annals …
A survey of bumblebees in North America provides unequivocal evidence that four previously common and abundant species have undergone recent and widespread population collapse. Various explanations remain possible.
Congress should transform the $6 billion a year ethanol tax credit into a program that underwrites the installation of "blender" pumps and pipelines so biofuels are more widely available, the largest U.S. farm group said on Tuesday. The 45-cent a gallon tax credit, which goes to gasoline blenders, expires at …
The best way to manage national parks in the face of the effects of climate change is not to manage at the park level, but to work with landscapes. A new US initiative shows the way. (Editorial)
When the planting season arrives later this year, farmers in the United States will have a new way to safeguard their crops from drought. Last week, DuPont subsidiary Pioneer Hi-Bred International, headquartered in Johnston, Iowa, announced plans to release a series of hybrid maize (corn) strains that can flourish with …
Evidence-based decision-making is critical for implementing conservation actions, especially for human-wildlife conflicts, which have been increasing worldwide. Conservation practitioners recognize that long-term solutions should include altering human behaviors, and public education and enforcement of wildlife-related laws are two management actions frequently implemented, but with little empirical evidence evaluating their success. …
The Gulf coastal ecosystems in Florida are foci of the highest species richness of imperiled shoreline dependent birds in the USA. However environmental processes that affect their macroecological patterns, like occupancy and abundance, are not well unraveled. In Florida the Snowy Plover (Charadrius alexandrinus nivosus) is resident along northern and …
The early stages of biological invasions are rarely observed, but can provide significant insight into the invasion process as well as the influence vectors have on invasion success or failure.
EUROPEANS are notoriously squeamish about genetically modified (GM) crops. In America, however, they reign supreme. Since farmers first planted GM soya in 1996, engineered crops have steadily conquered America
Those who enjoy the wetlands and seafood of New England's coastline may be surprised by who they have to thank: the loggers of the 18th and 19th centuries. In clearing vast tracts of land, those prolific loggers released so much sand and dirt that open-water bays turned into swamps.
Decisions intended to save time and money created an unreasonable amount of risk that triggered the largest offshore oil spill in the US history, a disaster that could happen again without significant reforms by industry and the government, the presidential panel investigating the BP blowout concluded on Wednesday. The commission …
In the past two decades, the green-chemistry movement has helped industry become much cleaner. But mindsets change slowly, and the revolution still has a long way to go.
New Delhi: The US government was advised by its officials to start a military-style trade war against European countries that oppose GM crop cultivation, a new Wikileak release by the UK-based newspaper Guardian has shown. The US embassy in Paris in 2007, when France moved to ban GM corn by …
Nitrous oxide (N2O) is a potent greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change and stratospheric ozone destruction. Anthropogenic nitrogen (N) loading to river networks is a potentially important source of N2O via microbial denitrification that converts N to N2O and dinitrogen (N2). The fraction of denitrified N that escapes as …
The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) was signed into law by President Obama on January 4th, 2011. It aims to ensure the U.S. food supply is safe by shifting the focus of federal regulators from responding to contamination to preventing it. This Act may be cited as the ‘‘FDA …
Cancun has restored the sanctity of multilateral negotiations under the UN climate convention. People had lost faith in it by the end of the Copenhagen meet last year. But what is the cost of the Cancun success? The new deal erases the difference between developed and developing nations. Developed countries …
The Climate Change 101 series provides a reliable and understandable introduction to global climate change, giving policy makers the basic information they need as they face decisions about climate policy. The new 2011 edition incorporates the most recent information on climate change and major developments in the climate field since …
