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. …
Hydraulic fracturing technologies, developed over the last 65 years, have only recently been combined with horizontal drilling to unlock oil and gas reserves previously deemed inaccessible. While these technologies have dramatically increased domestic oil and natural gas production, they have also raised concerns for the potential contamination of local water …
The World Trade Organization (WTO) has ruled against India in a dispute with the United States over its solar power program, Indian business newspaper Mint reported on Wednesday. Mint quoted an unnamed official from the Indian commerce ministry as saying the country planned to appeal the decision, made after the …
A planned Pacific regional trade pact and a tariff-free deal between African nations and the United States should help to discourage wildlife poaching in Africa, a senior U.S. official said on Wednesday. Speaking in Gabon at the start of a conference on the African Growth and Opportunities Act (AGOA), U.S. …
Despite a devastating four-year drought that has forced strict water conservation measures across California, most Los Angeles County supervisors still have their cars washed two or three times a week, a local newspaper reported. The multiple weekly car washes carry on despite Governor Jerry Brown's admonitions to Californians to take …
Wildfires burning across several arid states in the U.S. Northwest on Wednesday have blanketed much of the region with unhealthy, smoky air, prompting warnings from officials. Parts of Washington state, Oregon, Idaho and Montana were under air quality alerts, according to the National Weather Service, as thousands of firefighters battled …
A spike in plague cases has been recorded in the US in the last three months, the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention said. Eleven cases of plague have been recorded since April, with three of them fatal, said the Center, with the average number of plague cases across …
An internal government investigation has found that federal and state regulators underestimated the potential for a blowout from a Colorado mine, documents released Wednesday show. Investigators concluded the federal Environmental Protection Agency and state regulators underestimated how much water pressure had built up inside the inactive mine before a government …
Droughts will likely become more frequent, greater in magnitude and longer in duration in the future due to climate change. Already in the present climate, a variety of drought events may occur with different exceedance frequencies. These frequencies are becoming more uncertain due to climate change. Many methods in support …
Anecdotal accounts regarding reduced US cropping system diversity have raised concerns about negative impacts of increasingly homogeneous cropping systems. However, formal analyses to document such changes are lacking. Using US Agriculture Census data, which are collected every five years, we quantified crop species diversity from 1978 to 2012, for the …
Officials from China and the United States have taken a major step towards an agreement to advance “clean coal” technologies that claim to reduce the fuel’s contribution to climate change — and could offer a potential lifeline for an industry that has seen its fortunes fade. The agreement between the …
Exxon Mobil Corp's $225 million settlement with the administration of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie of a longstanding environmental pollution case won approval on Tuesday from a state judge, over the objections of critics who called the accord a sellout. Judge Michael Hogan of the State Superior Court called the …
A startup in the U.S. West Coast city of San Francisco has developed a shower head that creates a mist by atomizing water, instead of making it rain down. The concept is not new, but engineers with Nebia, the San Francisco firm, claim to have reinvented and maximized the device's …
An American solar firm has launched a new liquid technology that turns regular windows into solar panels which could be up to 50 times more productive than regular roof-based photovoltaics. The solar windows, designed for skyscrapers, are created by applying ultra-thin layers of liquid coatings on to glass and flexible …
The Australian government has obtained information from US environmental regulators on the impact of fracking upon water supplies to help inform a new set of guidelines it is preparing on the controversial activity. The US’s Environmental Protection Agency has supplied the Australian Department of the Environment with the details of …
Stretches of Waikiki’s white sands and blue waters were deserted on Tuesday after officials warned that heavy rains had triggered a sewage spill of half a million gallons (1.9m liters) near Hawaii’s best-known tourist district. Dozens of tourists still waded into the water, and young parents carried their toddlers into …
A food safety advocacy group sued an arm of the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Tuesday, saying it illegally withheld public information on genetically engineered crops. The lawsuit, brought by the Center for Food Safety (CFS) against the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), claims the regulator has …
Researchers say mercury and other chemicals that were found in Lake Powell have moved downstream and are now being found in fish and aquatic plants in the Grand Canyon. The Arizona Daily Sun reports (http://bit.ly/1JjPj1D) no consumption advisories have been issued for fish in the study area that was researched …
An unusually high number of cases of human plague have been recorded by US health authorities since April—11 in all, with three of them fatal, officials said Tuesday. "It is unclear why the number of cases in 2015 is higher than usual," the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention …
President Obama unveiled on Monday a package of programmes to help America switch to cleaner energy, including $1bn in loan guarantees to boost 'innovative' technologies, like smart grids and solar rooftops. The funding will also go towards installing solar panels on military housing and helping low-income families become more energy-efficient …
The West Coast may be in danger of sea level rise. Researchers have found that the uplift rates across the Pacific Coast of the U.S. and northern Mexico have been overestimated by an average of more than 40 percent. Factors other than tectonics contribute to local sea-level change, and one …
