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China in particular has long argued that it is too poor to afford the Western luxury of environmental awareness.

China ranks last among 15 nations in its income group (the fifth decile), behind Vietnam. If Colombia, the group's leader, can afford environmental concern, why can't China?

China fares slightly better in protecting its habitat but much worse in measures of industrial ills.

Beijing Olympics

China's environmental

Choked Waters

Scientists from leading European research institutions in the field of solar-to-fuel energy conversion call for unified action and substantial support for novel clean fuel technologies as well as a paradigm change in Europe’s current energy policy

crucial if Europe is to maintain its environmental stability and economic development.

Even small doses provoked large discharges of coral mucous -- a clear sign of environmental stress -- within 18 to 48 hours. Within 96 hours complete bleaching of corals had occurred.

Pesticides, hydrocarbons and other contaminants have also been found to induce algae or coral to release viruses, hastening the bleaching process.

An estimated 4,000 to 6,000 tons of sunscreen are released annually in reef areas, with 25 percent of the sunscreen ingredients on skin released into water over the course of a 20-minute submersion.

n experiments, the cream-based ultra-violet (UV) filters -- used to protect skin from the harmful effects of sun exposure -- caused bleaching of coral reefs even in small quantities, the study found.

But some 60 percent of these reef systems are threatened by a deadly combination of climate change, industrial pollution and excess UV radiation.

The new study, published in U.S. journal Environmental Health Perspectives, has now added sun screens to the list of damaging agents, and estimates that up to 10 percent of the world's reefs are at risk of sunscreen-induced coral bleaching.

According to the American College Dictionary, pollution is defined as:  �to make foul or unclean; dirty.

When it is unfit for its intended use, water is considered polluted.

Point sources of pollution occur when harmful substances are emitted directly into a body of water.

For example, some types of water pollution change the color of the water in a lake or stream, whereas other types are less visible, but both can be equally detrimental to the health of humans and nonhuman animals.

For example, 2,000 years ago, when the Romans smelted silver, lead was released into the environment and carried by the wind over long distances; this lead can still be detected in Scandinavian lake sediments.

Relatively few of these new compounds have been thoroughly tested for possible health or environmental effects.

Green house gases stay can stay in the atmosphere for an amount of years ranging from decades to hundreds and thousands of years. No matter what we do, global warming is going to have some effect on Earth. Here are the 5 deadliest effects of global warming.

As the temperature of oceans rises, so will the probability of more frequent and stronger hurricanes

global warming will exacerbate the conditions and could lead to conflicts and war.

More has been published about the extinction of dinosaurs at the K-T boundary than any other group of organisms. Excluding a few controversial claims, it is agreed that all non-avian dinosaurs went extinct at the K-T boundary. The dinosaur fossil record has been interpreted to show both a decline in diversity and no decline in diversity during the last few million years of the Cretaceous, and it may be that the quality of the dinosaur fossil record is simply not good enough to permit researchers to distinguish between the choices.[54] Since there is no evidence that late Maastrichtian nonavian dinosaurs could burrow, swim or dive, they were unable to shelter themselves from the worst parts of any environmental stress that occurred at the K-T boundary. It is possible that small dinosaurs (other than birds) did survive, but they would have been deprived of food as both herbivorous dinosaurs would have found plant material scarce, and carnivores would have quickly found prey to be in short supply.[35] The growing consensus about the endothermy of dinosaurs (see dinosaur physiology) helps to understand their full extinction in contrast with their close relatives, the crocodilians. Cold-blooded crocodiles have very limited needs of food (they can survive several months without eating) while warm-blooded animals of similar size need much more food in order to sustain their faster metabolism. Thus, under the circumstancies of food chain disruption above mentioned, non-avian dinosaurs died [55] while some crocodiles survived. In this context, the survival of other endothermic animals, such as some birds and mammals, could be due, among other