"Negotiators at the COP15 conference in Copenhagen didn't see eye to eye on much last month, but almost everyone agreed on one thing: To protect the planet we need to save its forests."
"Illegal charcoal production in the Congo is threatening mountain gorilla habitat, but an elegant solution in the form of hand-operated biomass briquette presses may help gorilla populations rebound."
"Eleven year-old Austin Foreman has already had a very lucky 2010. He was in his back yard on Saturday evening gathering firewood when his golden retriever, Angel, came in between him and a charging cougar."
"Rich nations must contribute more to a climate change fund and help fight deforestation, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said at a conference Thursday on saving the world's forests - a key defense against global warming."
Direct experience of extreme weather events increases concern about climate change and willingness to engage in energy-saving behaviour, according to a new research paper published in the first edition of the journal Nature Climate Change this week.
In particular, members of the British public are more prepared to take personal action and reduce their energy use when they perceive their local area has a greater vulnerability to flooding, according to the research by Cardiff and Nottingham Universities.
"Take, for example, the Caribbean nation of Belize. A recent analysis by several of my colleagues concluded that the country's coral reefs contribute the equivalent to 10 to 15 per cent of the nation's GDP, primarily through tourism and fisheries. Likewise, the avoided damage to buildings and infrastructure that reefs provide by serving as a "speed bump" for tropical storms equates to the same GDP percentage."
Preserving a species of weed-eating fish may be the key to saving the world's coral reefs from being engulfed by weed as human and climate impacts grow.
A new study by the Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (CoECRS) has found that weed-eaters like parrotfish and surgeonfish can keep coral reefs clear of weed up to a point.
"A new study from the Center for the Built Environment at the University of California, Berkeley, confirms what everyone probably knew intuitively: If you give people control of their own environment they use less energy. According to the New Scientist, by installing individual vents and controls for each worker (which automatically turn off when the desk is vacant) instead of cooling the whole office to one temperature, it can cut the energy consumed for cooling in half.
It was particularly effective in hot, humid climates; they modeled it on Singapor and concluded that 'In an environment like Singapore, it's pretty clear that these systems would pay for themselves in energy savings.'"
"In addition, it says there are huge environmental benefits: "New Yorkers emit 23 million tons less carbon dioxide per year than they would if they drove as much as the average U.S. urban resident," according to the report."
"That amount of waste reduction is the equivalent of simply not producing 15 million pairs of shoes. And Nike's overall use of recycled polyester, like for the World Cup jersey, doubled between 2009 and 2010, and has now taken 82 million plastic bottles out of landfills and back into the product stream."
""The declines of species were so dramatic, widespread and so recent. I wish I could have seen what the country was like in 1800s with all this wildlife," Karanth says"
"[Forests] reduce the effects of floods, prevent soil erosion, regulate the water table and assure a high-quality water supply for people, industry and agriculture," said the Forestry Department Assistant Director General, Eduardo Rojas-Briales, with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). "Forests are part of the natural infrastructure of any country and are essential to the water cycle."