ENN: Today's News

More risk assessment studies are needed to understand what exactly defines toxicity due to nanoparticles, and what kind of regulations the sector needs, said Hermann Stamm, head of nanotechnology and molecular imaging at the Institute for Health and Consumer Protection in the European Commission's Joint Research Council.

With animal feed and fertilizer prices at record highs, Japan's food recycling industry is seeing greater demand than ever before for pellets for pigs and poultry made from recycled leftovers. Japan disposes of some 20 millions tonnes of food waste a year, five times as much as world food aid to the poor in 2007. The leftovers used to be dumped in land fills where they decomposed and produced the greenhouse gas methane.

The European Commission adopted proposals on Wednesday to ban the import of pelts from seals that have endured excessive suffering while being killed, risking possible trade conflicts with hunting nations. While stopping short of calling for a total ban, the EU's executive body said products from the 900,000 seals hunted each year should be accepted in the EU only with guarantees that the seal has been killed as humanely as possible.

Missouri's a pretty tough place to grow most crops. But there's one thing they've got plenty of: wind. So a small town, Rock Port, has decided to use the powerful breezes to its advantage, building four wind turbines to provide power to their town.

An organization called the Sustainable Investment Research Analysts Network has just issued a report that says more than half of America’s largest publicly traded companies now report on their sustainability effort. Over a third integrate elements of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) sustainability reporting guidelines. The GRI guidelines establish a standard for what should be in a sustainability report.

As wind energy continues to expand across the U.S. heartland, rural America is likely to experience a revitalization not experienced since the homestead land grabs of the 19th century. Green jobs - high-quality employment for environmentally sustainable industries - and related spin-off opportunities are proliferating across West Texas. Local leaders predict that the economic growth has only just begun.

Improved management of tropical forests can substantially reduce global carbon dioxide emissions and should be given high priority in negotiations for the 2009 Copenhagen Climate change agreement, write Francis E. Putz and colleagues in PLoS Biology.

Awareness is low, but 63 percent of those who had a view on it favor a California ballot measure that would require half the state's electricity to come from renewable sources by 2025, a Field poll issued on Tuesday shows. Voter awareness of Proposition 7 on the November ballot is extremely low -- 82 percent of those interviewed said they did not know of the measure. Phone interviews of 672 likely voters were conducted last week, Field Research said. Voters were asked opinions on several issues on the statewide ballot this November. On the renewable energy measure, 24 percent said they were likely to vote against it and 13 percent said they were undecided.

Nissan Motor Co has formed a partnership with Tennessee to study the infrastructure needed to support the roll-out of electric cars starting in 2011, Nissan Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn said on Tuesday. "We are forming a partnership with the state of Tennessee to promote zero-emission mobility," Ghosn said at the opening of the Japanese automaker's new headquarters in Nashville.

Spain's Industry Minister Miguel Sebastian buoyed hopes in the country's solar power industry on Monday just days after announcing a dramatic cut in subsidies.

Oil prices will hit $300 a barrel in 10 years if the United States fails to reduce its dependence on foreign imports, billionaire oil investor T. Boone Pickens said on Tuesday.

New database of the world's soils will help better map agricultural output and storage and sequestration of heat trapping carbon dioxide (CO2), one of its creators, the United Nations' food agency FAO, said on Monday.

Want to watch a video comparing the fuel economy of a Prius and a Smart Car? Arnold Schwarzenegger answering questions about his climate policies? How about a children’s video illustrating the importance of recycling?

In May 1998, at the urging of the state's coal industry, the Illinois Legislature passed a bill condemning the Kyoto global warming treaty and forbidding state efforts to regulate greenhouse gases. Barack Obama voted "aye."

Brazil will launch a satellite in 2011 to monitor deforestation and urban expansion around the world, it has been announced. Amazônia-1 will carry a UK-made high resolution camera. The United Kingdom—Brazil collaboration was announced last week (14 July) at the 60th Annual Meeting of the Brazilian Society for Progress in Science.

Deforestation, a major contributor to climate change, is still rampant globally and European Union countries are guilty of compounding the problem according to a new WWF report. Almost one-fifth of wood imported into the European Union in 2006 came from illegal or suspected illegal sources, with Russia, Indonesia and China being the main sources according to the report - Illegal Wood for the European Market.

At least 30 hungry bears have trapped a group of geologists at their remote survey site in Russia's far east after killing two of their co-workers last week, emergency officials said on Tuesday. Rampant fish poaching in the empty tundra of Russia's farthest reaches sends hungry bear populations into populated centers every year, attracted to the food-rich garbage humans leave behind.

The Nature Conservancy is going public with its Voluntary Carbon Offset Program, offering individuals the opportunity to offset part of their own carbon footprints by contributing funds to set aside private lands that would othwerwise lay idle and degrade for conservation and forest regeneration. The first project on the Conservancy’s carbon offset slate is protecting and regenerating part of Louisiana’s Tensas River Basin, an ecologically key 47-acre tract of currently unproductive farmland that will soon form part of 3,600 acre conservation management system within the Lower Mississippi Valley.

Inciting the rhetoric of FDR during the days of the Great Depression, several economists, politicians, and environmentalists in the UK have made news recently with the proposal of the Green New Deal, an ambitious plan to fight the triple threats of the credit crunch, high gas prices, and climate change that are factoring to degrade life and the world as we know it.

Beijingers breathed easier on Sunday as traffic restrictions and factory closures came into effect in a last ditch attempt to turn the often smoggy Chinese capital into a pollution-free venue for next month's Olympics.