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Embassy dispatches show America used spying, threats and promises of aid to get support for Copenhagen accord

WASHINGTON, Jun 2, 2010 (IPS) - The resources society derives from nature have been horribly mismanaged and this will lead to the children of the world's poorest people remaining in poverty, according to Paul Collier. The easiest of these resources to regulate is fish, but we have not even managed to get that right, he said.

July 1, 2007 - An Ohio State University entomologist affiliated with the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center has recommended a new, innovative and chemical free variety of pest control, in the form of nematodes. The microscopic pest-killing nematodes aim to execute the same functions as traditional chemical pesticides, but minus the potential hazardous pollution. According to the scientist, nematodes also promise to be animal, human, and environmentally friendly.

Greenhouse gas emissions increased by a record amount last year, to the highest carbon output in history, putting hopes of holding global warming to safe levels all but out of reach, according to unpublished estimates from the International Energy Agency.

Oil and natural gas companies have drilled almost 120,000 wells in the West since 2000, mostly for natural gas, and nearly 270,000 since 1980, according to industry records analyzed by Environmental Working Group. Yet drilling companies enjoy exemptions under most major federal environmental laws. Oil and natural gas operations have industrialized the Western landscape, punching thousands of wells on pristine lands, injecting toxic chemicals, consuming millions of gallons of water, clawing out pits for their hazardous waste and slashing the ground for sprawling road networks. Every well carries with it the potential for serious environmental degradation.

Millions of tonnes of plastic debris dumped each year in the world's oceans could pose a lethal threat to whales, according to a scientific assessment to be presented at a key international whaling forum this week. A review of research literature from the last two decades reveals hundreds of cases in which cetaceans - an order including 80-odd species of whales, dolphins and porpoises - have been sickened or killed by marine litter. Entanglement in plastic bags and fishing gear have long been identified as a threat to sea birds, turtles and smaller cetaceans. For large ocean-dwelling mammals, however, ingestion of such refuse is also emerging as a serious cause of disability and death, experts say. Grisly examples abound.

ScienceDaily (July 4, 2011) - After evaluating twin pairs in which at least one child has autism or autism spectrum disorder (ASD), researchers suggest that the shared environment may play a more substantial role in development of the condition than shared genes do, according to a report published Online First by Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

The oceans are in a worse state than previously suspected, according to an expert panel of scientists.