Recently religious leaders gathered at a interfaith conference in Taipei to address the issue of water quality. The conference, called The Spiritual and Ecological Significance of Water drew praise from the Acton Institute's Rev. Gerald Zandstra, who had this to say: "These people are to be congratulated. Religious leaders who are serious about the social demands of the Gospel ought to be concerned about how our water delivery systems are wasting this valuable resource through corroded and leaky pipes. There is a cost-effective way to address this issue and it is something that most of us already make use [...]

Is scattered opposition to biotech crops slowing down the growth of this promising technology? Apparently not, as global acreage devoted to such crops jumped 15% in 2003 – the seventh straight year of double-digit growth. According to The Washington Post, a million more farmers adopted the crops worldwide, raising the total to 7 million. Indeed, some of the world's largest countries, including Brazil and India recently embraced the technology, and there are millions of small, peasant farmers in China now growing biotech cotton. Even though these GM seeds can cost twice as much as conventional ones, the massive benefits [...]

Mercury and fish.  It's been making headlines for months now, ever since the FDA warned pregnant women to severely limit their intake of fish and seafood.  But according to science writer Steven Milloy of FOXNews.com, the FDA's fishy alarm is hardly seaworthy when it comes to the hard science.  For starters, Harvard's School of Public Health could find no specific health complaints associated with higher levels of mercury, and even regular consumers of large species like swordfish had no mercury-related health effects.  Since no adverse effects were also found from pre- or post-natal exposure, it's little wonder Milloy suggests [...]

As an increasing number of states are demanding more use of renewable energy, conservationists are beginning to take a closer look at how this is impacting the natural world. Nowhere is this seen more dramatically than in West Virginia and Pennsylvania, where the erection of large wind turbines is spelling doom for thousands of bats. According to a recent article in the Washington Post, researchers estimate as many as 4,000 red and eastern pipistrelle bats have been killed at the Backbone Mountain facility alone in West Virginia. This has had a profound ecological impact, as these bats are starting [...]

Would laws to eliminate mercury emissions from power plants cause more harm than good? Well according to Bob Ferguson of the group Frontiers of Freedom, the answer is "yes," as such rules would help eliminate an important source of fuel for our economy – namely coal. Comments Mr. Ferguson: "A recent study suggests that eliminating coal-fueled power in the U.S. could reduce household incomes by as much as $225 billion, increase unemployment by 4.5 million workers, and induce up to 25,000 premature deaths from high energy costs. Minorities and the poor would be the most greatly impacted. So it [...]

Recently, thousands of pounds of Dungeness crabs were dumped into the San Francisco bay as fishermen were unable to find processors to handle the glut. Unfortunately, this wasteful use of our natural resources is all too common, as our oceans are overharvested due to a lack of private incentives. But now there's a new free-market solution called individual fishing quotas, or IFQ's which are being looked at by the White House Ocean Policy Committee. IFQ's would give fisherman the right to catch certain quotas, established scientifically, and thus remove the problem of overharvesting. Already a success in Alaska, many [...]

Everyone knows that air pollution, with all the new cars on the road, is getting worse and worse, right? Well, not exactly, at least according to new EPA data which show that levels of air pollution in our major cities continue to improve. Indeed, 2004 had the lowest ozone smog levels since states began measuring it back in the 70s. Based on preliminary data from around the country, days exceeding EPA's tough new 8-hour ozone standard declined an average of about 50 percent below 2003, which was itself a record year. With major cities like Los Angeles, Denver, and [...]

When international delegates gathered in Montreal recently for a United Nations conference on global warming, they were greeted by a group of U.S. college students representing the Collegians For A Constructive Tomorrow who played a mock hockey game to illustrate flaws in the Kyoto process.  Comments student activist and game participant Nick Pongratz: "We staged our hockey game between the Rogue nations and the Kyoto Heroes, to draw attention to the fact there is not convincing scientific evidence underlying Kyoto, that the treaty itself is ineffective in addressing climate concerns, and that it is having its most severe impact [...]

Small and stocky with a partial black face described as a bandit's mask, the Hawaiian bird known as the po'ouli has peaked scientists interest since it was first discovered in 1973. Known only to exist near the slopes of the Haleakala volcano in Maui, the bird's numbers have always alarmed conservationists, and now, tragically, the species seems destined for extinction. The demise of the po'ouli can be attributed to predators like rats and mongoose, as well as diseases being spread by mosquitos. Efforts to save the last three po'ouli were dashed when one died in captivity and the other [...]

Some activists have long hoped that scientists could come up with evidence to link environmental factors like chemical exposure or electromagnetic fields near power lines to incidences of breast cancer. But according to a recent article in the New York Times, they have failed to find such a smoking gun. One major study involving more than 32,000 nurses found no evidence that DDT or PCBs increase breast cancer risk, while another Harvard study found no link to any chemical exposure whatsoever. More recently, an $8 million study by the National Cancer Institute failed to link pesticides or exhaust fumes [...]

Could the same fields that yielded massive amounts of oil be the very place to store unwanted emissions from the burning of oil? Well the answer may be yes, through a process known as carbon sequestration, that puts CO2 back into the ground rather than releasing it into the air. According to PlanetArk.com, a University of Texas team successfully pumped 1,600 tons of CO2 into briny reservoirs of water more than 5,000 feet underground, and did it near the same underground reservoirs that triggered the Texas oil rush more than a century ago. Indeed, these porous rock formations extend [...]

While many are hoping that hydrogen will one day replace fossil fuels as a primary source of energy, producing it cheaply remains a major obstacle. But according to a recent article in the New York Times, researchers at a national laboratory in Idaho and a ceramics company in Utah have found a way to produce hydrogen using far less energy than other methods. The process involves a new kind of nuclear reactor that can run electricity through water at a very high temperature, and use a ceramic sieve to separate the oxygen from the hydrogen. Such a reactor could [...]

Efforts to put aside vast areas of land for environmental preservation continue to stir up controversy, but none more so than the impact on impoverished people in developing nations. A classic example is the island of Madagascar, where a pledge was recently made to increase protected areas from 4 million to nearly 15 million acres. But according to PlanetArk.com, this is having a profound effect on many of the island's 17 million people who live on less than a dollar per day, and rely on firewood from the wild forests, or burn sections in which to plant rice. Government [...]

Would it surprise you to learn that large buildings are actually one of the biggest energy guzzlers around, gobbling up two-thirds of America's electricity and one-third of our total energy use each year? Probably so. But that's why there's so much buzz about new Green architecture that can consume up to one-half less energy than conventional buildings. According to The Economist magazine, Toyota built a 625,000 square foot office complex in California that uses solar cells to meet 1/5 of its energy needs, while in Pittsburgh, a new convention center recently opened that is the largest building ever to [...]