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Economics. Transport. Turkey. Images. Animals. Planet. China's great green leap forward? The hypersonic plane designed to reach Australia in under five hours. Circle of Blue: Reign of Sand. "More than one billion poor and vulnerable people [are] living in the world's drylands, where efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals face particular challenges and thus have lagged behind," UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said last month on World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought.

Circle of Blue: Reign of Sand

Roughly 24 million live with the relentless wind, rugged cold, and ragged sand storms of China's Inner Mongolia, one of the largest grasslands on the planet. Some 400 million Chinese who live in other regions also are affected by the worsening spring sand storms and brutal water pollution caused by the government's aggressive work to recruit new industries to the dwindling sea of grass. Drought decimated 4.5 million hectares in eight provinces in northern China in early 2009, according to McKinsey & Co. In August of the same year, drought caused the destruction of 10 million hectares of crops and dried up the drinking water of seven million people in Central and Northern China. Seed: Cribsheet #7: Extinction. Scientific issues and innovations are figuring into everyday conversation more than ever before.

Seed: Cribsheet #7: Extinction

Recognizing that we could all use some brushing up, Seed offers its Cribsheet. Extinction Recently, China’s white dolphin was declared functionally extinct; it looks as though we’ll never see another ivory-billed woodpecker; and the administration has now proposed listing polar bears as threatened. 16,000 species are currently identified as facing extinction. Turf War: Books. In 1841, Andrew Jackson Downing published the first landscape-gardening book aimed at an American audience.

Turf War: Books

At the time, Downing was twenty-five years old and living in Newburgh, New York. He owned a nursery, which he had inherited from his father, and for several years had been publishing loftily titled articles, such as “Remarks on the Duration of the Improved Varieties of New York Fruit Trees,” in horticultural magazines. Article: Visualize This! - WiserEarth. China suspends key hydropower projects. The fate of a 200-billion yuan investment in eight hydropower stations along the upper reaches of the Yangtze River is in question, as the national environmental watchdog has blocked it citing environmental concerns.

China suspends key hydropower projects

The Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) yesterday suspended approval for hydropower projects along the middle reaches of Jinsha River, after finding that two dams had been illegally constructed on it. The Ludila hydropower project by Huadian Power, and the Longkaikou project by Huaneng Power, both located in Lijiang, Yunnan province, blocked the river for the construction effort in January, without reviewing their environmental impact, Tao Detian, the ministry's spokesman said. The MEP has ordered the country's two largest power producers to stop building the dams immediately and ensure the safety of cofferdams in the coming flood season. The MEP said it would further debate the environmental and ecological risks of building hydropower stations along the river. Pan Yue, China's green champion sidelined. Pan Yue Photograph: NATALIE BEHRING/Natalie Behring.

Pan Yue, China's green champion sidelined

Congressional Outlook For 2010. Architect of the Capitol Related Stories Topics Covered Outlook , Congress , 2010. Thoughts on Van Jones’ resignation. Van Jones had to resign.

Thoughts on Van Jones’ resignation

It became inevitable when Gibbs offered no support. RealClimate - Environmental reporters ought to be more responsible too. Environment 2008. Before hailing the close of the Bush administration’s eight-year attack on the environment and scientific integrity, and celebrating Barack Obama’s takeover, let us pause to imagine an alternative future with John McCain and Sarah Palin in the White House.

Environment 2008

Even a grizzly bear shudders to think of it. During the 2008 presidential campaign, McCain and Palin displayed a callous disregard for scientific research, while attempting to make light of wasteful government spending. On the stump, McCain ridiculed a major grizzly bear study, charging that the taxpayers had spent millions to study DNA of bears in Montana and joking, “I don’t know if that was a criminal issue or a paternal issue.” Never mind that McCain himself voted to fund the totally legit study, which assessed the federally protected species’ distribution in a 12,000-square-mile area in and around Glacier National Park.

E.P.A.'s Doctor No. Yale Environment 360. New Report Lays Out Potential Implications of Global Warming Carbon Allowance Proposals on Consumers and Power Companies. Press contact: Peyton Fleming, Ceres, 617-247-0700 x20 or fleming@ceres.org; Eric Young, NRDC, 202-289-2373 New Report Lays Out Potential Implications of Global Warming Carbon Allowance Proposals on Consumers and Power Companies Reports Details Rising CO2 Emissions from 100 Largest U.S.

New Report Lays Out Potential Implications of Global Warming Carbon Allowance Proposals on Consumers and Power Companies

Power Companies; Company-by-Company Exposure to Proposed Greenhouse Gas Limits Before Congress WASHINGTON (May 1, 2008) -- A new report released today shows that carbon allocation scenarios under Congressional legislative proposals to limit global warming pollution will have dramatically different financial impacts – with billions of dollars at stake – on power companies and consumers.

Under both Senate proposals, some free allowances would be allocated to power companies based on their historic CO2 emissions. "Billions of dollars in allowances are at stake under the proposals to cap and reduce global warming pollution," said Dan Lashof, science director at the NRDC Climate Center.