Sometime after World War II, the Boiga irregularis, or the brown tree snake, is believed to have hitched a ride on a cargo ship and landed on the Pacifc island of Guam. For the snake, Guam was paradise, home to a large number of prey and no natural predators. By 1970, the snake had colonized the entire island, pushing several bird
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India has launched a new “green” court this week in the latest push from Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh to toughen up the nation’s environmental laws. The National Green Tribunal, as it’s called, will be composed of 20 judiciary and environmental expert members who will hear cases regarding environmental protection and …
As we wrote yesterday, the meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Nagoya has a long agenda. That’s what happens when you convene a global meeting to save wildlife on the planet Earth. But beyond the dire warnings about disappearing animals and emptying seas—and the grand, if fuzzy promises governments will …
Environmentalists can take President Obama to task for more than a few disappointments over the first two years of his Administration—and some of them have—but one area where the White House has fulfilled its green pledges is in auto fuel efficiency. In May 2009 Obama brokered a deal with the auto industry that saw Corporate Average …
These days, environmentalism has become synonymous with the fight against climate change. But good green campaigners know that more immediate environmental challenges still exist.
That reality hit home yesterday when the United Nations said it will send an emergency team to Nigeria, after 200 children died in an outbreak of lead …
Unruly winds were still spreading the fires late into the night on Thursday in San Bruno, California, after an explosion in the San Francisco satellite community set more than 50 homes on fire. People in the area thought they had witnessed a plane crash, hearing a loud rumbling and watching a fireball lift up into the afternoon sky. …
Black tar balls and oil sludge have surfaced this week on the famed beaches of Goa, the small Indian state so beloved by the day-glowed ravers of yesteryear. According to the AP, pudding-like oil deposits some six inches deep have soiled popular beaches like Colva, Candolim and Calangute, the likes of which draw millions of tourists …
Bangladesh’s courts put their foot down (again) this week on shipbreaking, one of the world’s dirtiest and most dangerous industries. The Supreme Court in the capital city Dhaka re-asserted that all ships coming into the nation to be dismantled for scrap metal will now be required to carry proof that they have been …
Carbon cap-and-trade is dead—at least for this political lifetime. And while the circular firing squad among Democrats and greens has already begun, it’s worth taking a deep breath and remembering that there are other tools that can be used to deal with climate change. As TIME’s Joe Klein points out, the Supreme Court ruled more than …
