Biofuels, not so long ago heralded as the best thing since cheap oil, have become increasingly fought over, with environmental and humanitarian groups criticizing their production for taking away resources from food production or for expropriating land from rain-forests or other habitats for their preferential cultivation. At the recent UN food summit in Rome, Brazilian [...]

The chilling image of a thick, dark cloud reaching from the chimney of a factory owned and operated by Albion Chemicals Ltd. appears to have overstated the effects the accident caused. A week after the event nobody has been reported as injured and no environmental damage is thought to have occurred.
The accident was the result [...]

The Multidrug Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bug was first uncovered in 1961. Anyone who has been within half a mile of a television or a newspaper in the last year will know that the bug is now a serious threat to hospital patients, and that it is now ubiquitously referred to as a ’superbug’ in [...]

From the early 1960’s countries struggling with the challenge of maintaining their levels of food production against population growth embraced emergent technologies, technologies manufactured, for the most part, in developed countries from 1943 onwards.
The result? Swelling yields of basic food stuffs. Wheat yields, for example, grew from below 500kg per hectare to just under 3,000kg [...]

President George W Bush of the US is urging its fellow G8 countries to follow through with their pledge to give $60 billion to help the worst-affected countries fight major diseases such as HIV/AIDS and Malaria.
Bush recently criticised the Group of Eight, who are yet to dispense funds to African countries after an agreement was [...]

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has embraced a significant economic report released last week at the annual Convention on Biological Diversity, an conference organised by the United Nations in Germany.
The report, entitled The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB), was produced as a result of a collaboration between the German government, the G8 and the [...]

The first official state of drought since 1991 has been declared in California after an announcement made on Wednesday by governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. The state has suffered noticeable decreases in rainfall and snowmelt runoffs in the past two years. Officials claimed in a report that snowpack water content is only at 67% of the normal [...]

Habitat loss and wildlife trade has led to a decline of approximately a third in species numbers in the last 35 years, according to the WWF for Nature. Climate change will negatively affect wildlife over the next 30 years.
Animal populations are recorded by WWF’s Living Planet Index. The Index tracks 4,000 species of birds, mammals, [...]

In May 2006 the European Commission launched a public awareness raising campaign against climate change. Today the campaign is entering its final stage that will be collected in Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania and Bulgaria. The campaign, dubbed “You control climate change”, aims to gather young people in a pro-active dialogue based on media [...]

Australia’s environment minister, Peter Garrett, celebrated World Environment Day by announcing three new initiatives to help householders fight climate change while keeping their wallets full. The initiatives include:

a new television labelling scheme to enable consumers to identify the most energy efficient sets at point of sale
a new guide to help householders and in particular renovators [...]