Environment

Rare plant in danger from logging at Boy Scout camp in California

Susanne Rust, The Center for Investigative Reporting — Wed, 22 May 2013 23:25:47 GMT

Expulsion from the Boy Scouts of America is a dishonor few Scouts endure. But that was the punishment imposed on Kim Kuska, a self-taught naturalist and former biology teacher who had been with the organization for more than 50 years.His crime: an obsession with the rare, and unfortunately named, Dudley’s lousewort.Since the 1970s, the Eagle Scout and adult Scout leader-turned-whistle-blower has w...

'Upsets': Chemical releases disrupt lives but rarely result in punishment

Kristen Lombardi and Andrea Fuller — Tue, 21 May 2013 18:36:58 GMT

BATON ROUGE, La. — Shirley Bowman noticed the smell after 8 a.m. on June 14, 2012, her 61st birthday. In Baton Rouge, where the petrochemical industry dominates the landscape, foul odors resembling burnt rubber or propane are perennial. But this odor, caustic and potent, seemed especially foul — “like some sort of chemical,” she recalls.Bowman found her daughter crying over a migraine. Her neighbo...

Fracking boom triggers water battle in North Dakota

Ernest Scheyder — Mon, 20 May 2013 15:44:56 GMT

WATFORD CITY, N.D. -- In towns across North Dakota, the wellhead of the North American energy boom, the locals have taken to quoting the adage: "Whiskey is for drinking, and water is for fighting."It's not that they lack water, like Texas and California. They are swimming in it, and it is free for the taking. Yet as the state's Bakken shale fields have grown, so has the fight over who has the righ...

Buggy hordes of cicadas sighted in Virginia ... but New York? Not yet

Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News — Sat, 18 May 2013 21:30:19 GMT

There's been a groundswell of 17-year cicadas in Virginia and other southern states, as revealed by a fresh wave of photos and eyewitness reports. In some areas, the outbreak has been accompanied by the insects' loud chorus call. And that's music to the ears of University of Connecticut entomologist John Cooley."That's where I'm heading," Cooley told NBC News. The weather is still too cool in New ...

Cicadas ramping up for East Coast invasion

Science — Fri, 17 May 2013 09:54:49 GMT

By Megan GannonLiveScienceCicada nymphs have been starting to crawl out of the ground in droves across the East Coast, and the highly anticipated emergence of the 17-year-old insects has been ramping up in the Mid-Atlantic in recent days.Nymph sightings have been reported as far north as Connecticut, according to citizen science projects such as Radiolab's Cicada Tracker and Magicicada. But farthe...

Melting glaciers contribute to rising ocean levels

Fri, 17 May 2013 07:15:37 GMT

Food supply under assault as climate heats up

Bill Briggs — Thu, 16 May 2013 08:29:37 GMT

American eaters, let’s talk about the birds and the bees: The U.S. food supply – from chickens injected with arsenic to dying bee colonies – is under unprecedented siege from a blitz of man-made hazards, meaning some of your favorite treats someday may vanish from your plate, experts say. Warmer and moister air ringing much of the planet – punctuated by droughts in other locales – is threatening t...

Feds: 500 fewer firefighters to face West's heightened risk this summer

U.S. News — Mon, 13 May 2013 23:47:33 GMT

WASHINGTON - Shrinking budgets mean fewer firefighters will be available this summer even as unusually dry weather has increased the risk of fire in much of the West, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack warned Monday."As a result of sequester and across-the-board cuts we will have about 500 fewer firefighters at the Forest Service than we would otherwise have," said Vilsack.Cuts known as sequest...

Florida's citrus industry battles potent foe: a disease with no cure

LIZETTE ALVAREZ — Mon, 13 May 2013 12:22:39 GMT

AVON PARK, Fla. — Florida’s citrus industry is grappling with the most serious threat in its history: a bacterial disease with no cure that has infected all 32 of the state’s citrus-growing counties. Although the disease, citrus greening, was first spotted in Florida in 2005, this year’s losses from it are by far the most extensive. While the bacteria, which causes fruit to turn bitter and dr...

Giant sheets of ice creep onto Minnesota shore, surge toward houses

Daniel Arkin, Staff Writer, NBC News — Mon, 13 May 2013 12:22:38 GMT

Minnesotans saw scenes reminiscent of a Hollywood sci-fi spectacle this weekend when massive waves of ice surged out of the water and crept onto the shore like some fast-moving glacier.Powerful gusts of wind drove giant sheets of ice toward townhouses hugging the southern lip of Lake Mille Lacs at the northwest end of the state.Amateur video footage captured at the scene shows 2-foot blocks of win...

Scientists issue dire warning about global warming

Mon, 13 May 2013 12:22:38 GMT

17-year-old cicadas are kicking off 'Swarmageddon' in North Carolina

Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News — Fri, 10 May 2013 08:11:16 GMT

People are getting all twitchy about the bugs that are coming out in New York and New Jersey after a 17-year buildup, but when it comes to cicadas, Billy Tesh is seeing the real deal in North Carolina."I was so excited," Tesh told NBC News from Greensboro, where he runs a company called Pest Management Systems. "I've never seen so many in one location in my life. They were on almost every blade of...

Time-lapse map chronicles decades of global change as seen from space

Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News — Fri, 10 May 2013 02:30:16 GMT

Satellite imagery can serve as a time machine, revealing dramatic change in just a few seconds — but can you imagine documenting almost three decades' worth of all that change, across most of our planet's land mass? A team of imaging experts, computer scientists and journalists did. Now they've unveiled the result: a global database of zoomable, animated satellite views known as Timelapse."We beli...

Roadside ignition was source of Springs Fire: Officials

By Reggie Kumar and Jason Kandel, NBCLosAngeles.com — Thu, 09 May 2013 08:07:19 GMT

An undetermined roadside ignition in grass and debris off the Ventura Freeway in Southern California sparked the Springs Fire, officials said on Sunday.Officials are calling it an "undetermined roadside ignition of grass and debris" that started the region's largest wildfire so far this year that scorched nearly 44 acres along the Ventura and Los Angeles county lines.Now that firefighters hav...

Hawaii fishermen want humpback whales off endangered list

Audrey McAvoy — Thu, 09 May 2013 08:07:19 GMT

A group of Hawaii fishermen is asking the federal government to remove North Pacific humpback whales from the endangered species list, saying the population has steadily grown since the international community banned commercial whaling nearly 50 years ago.Hawaii Fishermen's Alliance for Conservation and Tradition Inc., a coalition of fishing clubs and groups from across the islands, filed a pet...

Beekeeper removes 60,000 honeybees from Utah cabin

Paul Foy, Associated Press — Thu, 09 May 2013 08:07:18 GMT

SALT LAKE CITY -- It was the biggest beehive that that Ogden beekeeper Vic Bachman has ever removed — a dozen feet long, packed inside the eve of a cabin in Ogden Valley. "We figure we got 15 pounds of bees out of there," said Bachman, who said that converts to about 60,000 honeybees. Bachman was called to the A-frame cabin last month in Eden, Utah. Taking apart a panel that hid roof rafters, he...

Deadly giant snail found in Houston

Andrew Rafferty, Staff Writer, NBC News — Thu, 09 May 2013 08:07:18 GMT

Residents of a Houston neighborhood are being warned to stay away from giant African land snails after a woman found one in her garden and snapped a photo of it.The snails, researchers warn, are potentially dangerous to touch, in part because they can carry meningitis. Scientists have warned anyone who comes in contact with them to wash their hands thoroughly."They also carry a parasitic disease t...

Air conditioners banned as Pakistan prepares for sweltering summer

World News — Thu, 09 May 2013 08:07:16 GMT

ISLAMABAD -- Pakistan's prime minister has decided to ban the use of air conditioners by government offices to help cope with the country's pervasive energy shortages.A statement issued Wednesday from Prime Minister Mir Hazar Khan Khoso's office says the ban will go into effect on May 15 and will continue until the energy situation improves.Pakistan faces serious shortages of electricity and natur...

Criteria for 'Red list' of endangered ecosystems released

Science — Thu, 09 May 2013 08:07:16 GMT

By Becky Oskin, OurAmazingPlanetWith many of the world's ecosystems threatened or endangered by human activities like logging and urbanization, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) published its criteria for a new "Red List" of endangered ecosystems Wednesday in the journal PLOS ONE.The list, which measures an ecosystem's risk of collapse, will be similar to the group's aut...

'Long, hot, incendiary summer': Early wildfires bode ill for California

Matthew DeLuca, Staff Writer, NBC News — Sun, 05 May 2013 03:24:25 GMT

Record-setting temperatures, erratic winds and a parched landscape spell a dangerous fire season for California, experts said on Friday as firefighters fought to control several large blazes of a kind that usually would not raise thick plumes of smoke over the horizon until late fall.“This is definitely a preview of a long, hot, incendiary summer,” said William Patzert, a climatologist at the Jet ...

General Motors: Fighting climate change good for business

Joseph Szczesny — Fri, 03 May 2013 22:22:32 GMT

General Motors is the first major U.S. automaker to sign a “Climate Declaration,” asserting that responding to climate change is good business.“We want to be a change agent in the auto industry,” said Mike Robinson, GM vice president of Sustainability and Global Regulatory Affairs. “As our world faces issues like congestion and climate change, we are at the forefront in transforming the way we mov...

'A very fragile situation': Leaks from Japan's wrecked nuke plant raise fears

Arata Yamamoto and Ian Johnston, NBC News — Wed, 01 May 2013 08:18:02 GMT

TOKYO — Like the persistent tapping of a desperate SOS message, the updates keep coming. Day after day, the operators of the wrecked Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant have been detailing their struggles to contain leaks of radioactive water.The leaks, power outages and other glitches have raised fears that the plant — devastated by a tsunami in March 2011 — could even start to break apart dur...

Flood of radioactive wastewater is latest crisis at crippled Japan nuclear plant

Martin Fackler, The New York Times — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 22:27:08 GMT

TOKYO — Two years after a triple meltdown that grew into the world’s second worst nuclear disaster, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is faced with a new crisis: a flood of highly radioactive wastewater that workers are struggling to contain.Groundwater is pouring into the plant’s ravaged reactor buildings at a rate of almost 75 gallons a minute. It becomes highly contaminated there, befor...

Invasive predator fish that can live out of water for days to be hunted in Central Park

Tracie Strahan, NBCNewYork.com — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 08:52:45 GMT

Environmental officials are planning to survey a Central Park lake this week to search for an invasive type of toothy predator fish that threatens to disrupt the ecosystem.The northern snakehead fish, native to China, Russia and Korea, has been spotted in Queens in recent years, and one was quietly observed in Harlem Meer several years ago.The fish eats frogs and crayfish and has the ability to br...

Europe bans class of pesticides thought to be cutting bee populations

David Jolly, The New York Times — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 01:05:42 GMT

PARIS — The European Commission will enact a two-year ban on a class of pesticides thought to be harming global bee populations, the European Union’s health commissioner said Monday.“I pledge to do my utmost to ensure that our bees, which are so vital to our ecosystem and contribute over €22 billion annually to European agriculture, are protected,” Tonio Borg said in a statement from Brussels, whe...