Green24

TV farmer Jimmy Doherty promotes revival of rose veal to prevent 'useless' male dairy calves being shot at birth As far as reputation goes, it's up there with foie gras and shark's fin. But a decade after furious protests on the streets of Britain brought a ban on both the controversial live export of calves and on the rearing-in-crates system – veal is back. British rose veal has already won the ethical stamp of approval from the RSPCA and Compassion in World Farming (CIWF) but it remains a niche market in the UK, just 0.1% of the meat we consume each year. Now TV farmer Jimmy Doherty, as part of a new series starting on Channel 4 this week, has persuaded Tesco to start stocking the veal in the hope that it will catch on with British meat-eaters. Doherty and other campaigners claim that persuading British consumers to start eating rose veal – so called because the meat is pink instead of the traditional milk-fed white veal – will go some way to address the "hidden scandal" of our...

New survey shows devastation to farmland birds caused by policies – and experts can see no sign of improvement They have entranced generations with the beauty of their songs and glimpses of their plumage. But today the sound of the linnet and the vision of a turtle dove are becoming increasingly rare experiences for visitors to the European countryside. Indeed, according to a new survey, the chances of encountering any one of the 36 species of farmland birds in Europe – species that also include the lapwing, the skylark and the meadow pipit – are now stunningly low. Devastating declines in their numbers have seen overall populations drop from 600 million to 300 million between 1980 and 2009, the study has discovered. This dramatic decline represents a 50% reduction and is blamed on major changes in farming policies enforced by the EU over the last 30 years. In order to boost food production across Europe, the wholesale ripping up of hedgerows, draining of wetlands and ploughing over...

This has nothing to do with Memorial Day weekend – but it is a very cute video! Watch this red panda playing in the snow with a pumpkin; actually, not so much playing with it as playing on, around, and over it! Enjoy! Related Stories Escapee Penguin Back In Aquarium After 82 Days In Tokyo [...]

by Gina Carroll I am on a new fitness kick and as such, my daughter has convinced me to start taking spinning classes. I prefer to exercise outdoors, but I am finding that I love cycling class. During a recent class, my lungs had an unexpected encounter. On this typical evening, I entered my cycling [...]

Over the next few months thousands of humpback whales are expected to pass along Australia’s east coast during their annual migration, and although they are a curiosity, efforts are being taken again this year to protect them from human activities. After a successful campaign last year, federal and state agents from Australia and New Zealand [...]

Urban astronomers and insomniacs aren’t the only ones affected by light pollution. New research shines a sickly-orange spotlight on the impact our streetlights may have on insect populations and biodiversity. “Insects provide crucial services to humans, such as pollination and decomposition to organic matter,” researcher Thomas Davies told Discovery News. “We are facing an insect [...]

Surfers may have a slacker reputation, but they’re not all obsessed with having the perfect tan and hanging ten. A group of surfers in Santa Cruz recently used their political influence (yes, you read that right) to convert their favorite stretch of beach into a World Surfing Reserve. The surfers, some of whom are city [...]

Scientist Richard Alley is the guy behind “Earth the Operators Manual” on PBS, and he’s one of the best communicators on climate science around. Alley has followed his PBS show up with a new series of short Youtube videos intended to supply social media with something you can share and link to. It’s for those [...]

Dilma Rousseff sends back parts of congressional bill that loosened country's protection of forest Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff has partially vetoed a bill that would have weakened her country's efforts to protect the Amazon and other forests. Environmentalists cautiously welcomed the last-minute decision, which came after the most closely watched political debate of the year in Brazil. But they warned that the battle was not yet over because large parts of the bill will still go through. Last month, legislators in both houses passed a set of revisions to the Forest Code that threatened permanent preservation areas – a key provision in Brazilian environmental legislation – that obliged farmers to keep a proportion of their land as protected forests, particularly on the fringes of rivers and hillsides. This requirement has long been opposed by Brazil's powerful agricultural lobby. Critics warned that the bill would reverse 20 years of struggle to protect the Amazon rainforest....

This week alone, 4 people have died on Mt Everest. Everest stands 8,848 meters (29,029 feet) high, making it the tallest mountain in the world. And every year, both experienced mountaineers and novice climbers with deep pockets make their way up the face of the mountain, either via Tibet or China. And as this week [...]

Scientist have developed a new high-throughput method to identify electrocatalysts for water oxidation.

NOTE: This is a guest blog post from Jennifer Estes, Program Manager for Sea Save Foundation. The Malibu Lagoon, a pristine wetland at the base of Malibu Creek located just north of Los Angeles, California, is a lush ecosystem home to a variety of species of flora and fauna. However, years of urban sprawl and [...]

The maple, pine or oak tree that you regularly take for granted deserves another look.  Trees are the Earth’s lungs and air purifiers.  They supply housing for countless creatures, provide shade, increase real estate value and are correlated with significant health and emotional benefits.  And, as we humans continue to spew out more and more [...]

Electric car charging company Ecotality has filed a lawsuit against California regulators to attempt to halt a deal that includes power company NRG investing $120 million into building an electric car charging network in California, reports the San Jose Mercury News, and we've confirmed with Ecotality.

by Abbie Walston I’m so pleased to announce we are expecting our second child, who is due to arrive in November! It has been almost three years since my first trimester with my son Joshua, and all those early pregnancy symptoms are back and seem to be more extreme than I remember them the first [...]

New Jersey company says it has permission for unique partnership to work toward the holy grail of energy sources A US company and an Iranian university have agreed to collaborate on nuclear fusion, the elusive technology that promises a limitless supply of clean energy. New Jersey-based Lawrenceville Plasma Physics Inc and Tehran's Islamic Azad University will jointly design a fusion machine that "would be affordable to construct in industrializing nations", according to a contract signed last weekend and seen by The Guardian. The partnership comes amid tensions between the US and Iran over allegations that Iran is enriching uranium – a process that is different from fusion – to support a nuclear weapons programme. Sceptics doubt whether US trade sanctions will permit the collaboration. But LPP claimed in a written statement that the pact qualifies as an official US department of treasury exemption "which authorizes collaborating with academics and research institutions on the …...

Amidst the exodus of generalist venture capitalists from cleantech investing, a new planned billion dollar cleantech fund has emerged: Inerjys.

Animal advocates are calling for an investigation after a mountain lion was shot and killed by authorities in Santa Monica, Calif., this week. The mountain lion was first spotted before 6 a.m. walking along Arizona Avenue and was then discovered by a janitor who saw him in an office building’s courtyard, according to the LA [...]

Climate crisis is not caused by lack of options and solutions, but lack of political action, says Greenpeace spokeswoman The latest round of international climate change talks finished on Friday in discord and disappointment, with some participants concerned that important progress made last year was being unpicked. At the talks, countries were supposed to set out a workplan on negotiations that should result in a new global climate treaty, to be drafted by the end of 2015 and to come into force in 2020. But participants told the Guardian they were downbeat, disappointed and frustrated that the decision to work on a new treaty – reached after marathon late-running talks last December in Durban – was being questioned. China and India, both rapidly growing economies with an increasing share of global emissions, have tried to delay talks on such a treaty. Instead of a workplan for the next three years to achieve the objective of a new pact, governments have only managed to draw up a...

Morocco is a country that is bursting with solar power potential -- it gets 3,000 hours a year of sunshine -- but it relies heavily on the import of fossil fuels. That may be turning around with plans for a 500 MW solar complex to include solar PV and concentrating solar installations and a larger goal to reach 2,000 MW of installed solar power capacity by 2020. The complex will be built in Ouarzazate and should be completed by 2015. The first phase will be a parabolic trough facility. When completed, the project will prevent 240,000 tons of CO2 emissions per year, the equivalent of taking 80,000 cars off the road. The large project has been funded by at least partially funded by a $297 million loan from the World Bank. Morocco also has great wind power potential along its coastline with a technical potential of about 10,000 MW, though a lack of transmission infrastructure to get that power into the grid is holding development back. Morocco's plans to install a mix of solar and wind...

The idea behind the V-Pole -- a concept utility pole and art project from the brain of Vancouver-based writer Douglas Coupland -- is basically: make it transparent, design it well and it put it all in one place.

Western North Dakota has had serious growing pains since it became an oil mecca.

The European Environment Agency has ranked every bathing spot in Europe by how clean they are. See how good they are Simon Rogers

Solar powered flight will reach a new milestone this week as the Solar Impulse makes a transcontinental voyage. The solar powered airplane has already completed the first leg of its journey with a 17 hour trip from their base in Switzerland to Madrid. The final destination of this trip is for the plane to fly on to Morocco. Solar Impulse has previously completed a 24 hour flight, but that was done largely by circling in place. The current flight extends the Solar Impulse team's activity to address issues such as logistics and storms in the flight path. All of this is in preparation for the eventual around the world flight planned for 2013. Previously at EcoGeek: The Solar Impulse: Around the World Without Fuel link: Solar Impulse

Mayors who pluck 'facts' from thin air and ministers who don't understand statistics make me despair for cycling That's it. I give up. It's the final straw. I spent years hoping, in the face of the evidence, that one day cyclists in Britain would get a fair hearing by government. I was deluded. I say this, with only very slight exaggeration: I despair. When it comes to cycling policy we are in the hands of dimwits. Exhibit one, and the catalyst for today's realisation: Boris Johnson. Yes, he's mayor only of London, but he remains the UK's best-known cycling politician, perhaps even its most celebrated non-sport cyclist. As such his views on the pursuit carry weight well beyond the capital. Even though many of Johnson's cycling policies have prompted criticism I couldn't shake the feeling that, as someone photographed more or less every day on his bike, he had at heart at least some sense of the cyclist's interest. Seemingly not. At his regular mayor's question time earlier this week,...

Peter Seligmann, the founder of Conservation International, discusses a shift in focus from pure conservation of creatures to linking the needs of nature to the needs of people.

Gizmo's Freeware: Top selections /////////////////////////////////////////// Finds of the Week Posted: 25 May 2012 12:37 AM PDT http://feedproxy.google.com/~r... Here are some treats that editor Rhiannon has located for you this week: - How to Highlight Text Like a Keyboard Ninja - 10+ Special Browsers For Visually Impaired Users - Encyclopedia of Spices - Fix for "Could Not Find This Item" When Deleting in Windows 7 - Another News Photo Blog http://www.techsupportalert.com/content...

Country plans to promote solar and wind power and develop hybrid technologies to cut carbon emissions China plans to spend $27 bn (£17bn) this year to promote energy conservation, emission reductions and renewable energy. The country's finance ministry said it wants to promote energy-saving products, solar and wind power and accelerate the development of renewable energy and hybrid cars. China is the world's biggest emitter of carbon dioxide, followed by the United States. A report by the International Energy Agency (IEA) on Thursday said China spurred a jump in global carbon emissions to their highest ever recorded level in 2011, offsetting falls in the US and Europe. However, its CO2 emissions per unit of GDP, or its carbon intensity, fell by 15% between 2005 and 2011, the IEA said, suggesting the world's second-largest economy was finding less carbon-consuming ways to fuel growth. In the long term, China is targeting to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 40-45% by 2020, compared...