THE GUARDIAN– Disturbing evidence that honeybees are in terminal decline has emerged from the United States where, for the fourth year in a row, more than a third of colonies have failed to survive the winter. The decline of the country’s estimated 2.4 million beehives began in 2006, when a phenomenon dubbed colony collapse disorder (CCD) led to the disappearance … Read More
CBS– The same week President Barack Obama riled environmentalists with plans for offshore oil drilling, he faces criticism for signaling he will support a Bush-era policy criticized as giving mining companies unlimited access to public lands to dump toxic waste. The administration asked a federal judge Tuesday to dismiss a challenge by environmental and community groups to a rule that … Read More
GUARDIAN– Barack Obama took the Republican slogan “drill, baby, drill” as his own today, opening up over 500,000 square miles of US coastal waters to oil and gas exploitation for the first time in over 20 years. The move, a reversal of Obama’s early campaign promise to retain a ban on offshore exploration, appeared aimed at winning support from Republicans … Read More
LA TIMES– No one was surprised when conservation organizations such as the Natural Resources Defense Council challenged the anti-environmental policies of President George W. Bush. But it’s a shock to many when we part company with the Obama administration. It happens. And it’s happening right now on the question of what to do about commercial whaling and, more specifically, whether … Read More
COMMON DREAMS– The view from space indicates that the oil may be leaking at a rate of 25,000 barrels a day, dwarfing the figure of 5,000 barrels that US officials and the British oil giant BP have used in recent days. A Northern Gannet bird, which is covered in oil from a massive spill in the Gulf of Mexico, pokes … Read More
