Halifax, Nova Scotia and bits of California have banned the wearing of fragrances in some public places. The next step after tobacco and alcohol bans?

It's always fascinating to see new, if worrying, points on the road towards global water scarcity. According to this Scotsman article the Chinese are really serious about creating rain, "using aircraft, rockets and even anti-aircraft guns to seed the clouds...

A scary 'Fortune' article on how rapidly our environment, and everything else we know, could soon be changing.

Yoz links to a Guardian article about Asda, a UK supermarket chain, running its trucks on used cooking oil: "the biggest boost yet for the legal use of recycled cooking oil on Britain's roads."...

Described in the April edition of Future Survey as "the authoritative global document for the moment", the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Third Assessment Report has parts available online. The Synthesis Report (8Mb PDF) and its Summary for Policymakers (300Kb...

Richard A. Muller writes in last month's Technology Review about how we can survive this century's projected global population peak of 10 billion without running out of everything. We simply have to increase our rate of energy conservation from 1...

Adjacent headlines at the Environmental News Network: After years of debate, U.S. Congress approves sending nation's nuclear waste to Nevada and Russia wins aid to clean up nuclear waste. Please bring your own irony to this post....

An Observer article on an imminent World Wildlife Fund (WWF) report which says, as so many do, that humans are destroying the Earth faster than previously thought. The article quotes a WWF spokesman saying "If all the people consumed natural...

I'm a bit behind, but the January 2001 edition of Future Survey contains a fascinating summary of Volcanoes in Human History: The Far-Reaching Effects of Major Eruptions (Amazon US, UK) which is a reminder of how devastating wild card events...

A few good stories on ENN... First, New York City is "susdpending" its plastic and glass recycling programmes for one and two years respectively. Mayor Bloomberg insists this is while the City works out if there's a more efficient way...

Andrew Kenny claims that global cooling is more likely than global warming. Why don't we hear about it? Because, unlike global warming, there's no one we can blame for geological-scale cooling. With greedy companies and corrupt governments as targets, "global...

I've been wondering for some time whether campaigners will make headway in their campaigns to limit human light and sound pollution. The Czech Republic has become the first country to introduce a law forbidding outdoor lighting that spills out above...

Having heard a lot about cars using alternative fuels, I've often wondered about planes, given how much fuel they burn. 35 European organisations coordinated by Airbus are looking into liquid hydrogen planes in their Cryoplane project (or you can read...

A report from the University of California-Santa Cruz, USA, suggests that global warming and population increases could have a disastrous effect for the already dry US state over coming decades. Maybe green roofs and porous paving would help. Oh, and...

I've been reading the United Nations Environment Programme's Global Environment Outlook 3 which was released last week. It looks at the state of our world right now and what it might be over the next thirty years (the summary is...

I'm intrigued by people thinking about light and sound pollution. Lighting engineer Nancy Clanton is working on a project for the California Energy Commission, looking at reducing the use of outdoor lighting without reducing its effectiveness. Some interesting points about...

A brief discussion of the potential effects on how building and city design might change following the destruction of the World Trade Center by terrorists. It would be interesting to read something more in depth on this (jump to the...

I've posted at least once in the past about fledgling attempts to create noise-free zones. Aside from noise, humans create another kind of non-noxious pollution - light pollution. The government in Ontario, Canada, has created the world's first sky preserve,...

The USA's National Center for Environmental Research is looking for grant applications for futures-related work. Lots of money for educational and non-profits apparently available for futures research in Natural Sciences and Socio-Economics. (via Haddock)...

Adshel, the street furniture company, is planning a system of bikes free for loan in Cardiff, UK, similar to a current system in Rennes, France. Each user has a card that identifies them when they check a bike out of...

A report on Frog Design's system based around a golf-cart-sized electric car. Talks about neighbourhood hubs for delivery and collection of goods ordered online and links to a number of international car-sharing schemes....

A look at the "L.A. School" of urban theorists who see Los Angeles as an alternative look at the future of urban development. Contrary to the usually cited course of events, the city is not de-industrialised, but re-industrialised and many...

A good discussion about different techniques of growing plastic in plants. The benefit is less of the traditional petrochemical processes. The downside that it can take more energy to extract this new biodegradable plastic from the plants than it does...

An illustration of the effects on people's lives of the increasing shortage of water in China. Poor harvests, demonstrations and an expanding desert that could reach Beijing in 35 years at current rates....

Supplies of fresh water are, of course, disappearing rapidly. Canada has 40 per cent of the world's supply and this article looks at the position the country will be in when it controls so much of a scarce commodity. (via...

Biscayne National Park (Florida, USA) is to establish a "soundscape preservation plan," the first of its kind. So far it appears to be a study of the non-natural environmental sounds, rather than any restrictions, so it's not yet up to...

Demand for power has risen dramatically throughout the USA, leading some firms to source their own supplies. New electronic systems use a surprising amount of power, and according to this Risks List posting the costs of power are rising dramatically....

Aside from being a great roundup of environmental events around the world, this diary/map recounts a fight between monkeys and humans in Kenya. The area is suffering from drought and when water tankers arrived thirsty monkeys chased the humans away...

A press release from the United States Geological Survey listing the demands being placed on the world's resources. Nothing surprising in themselves, but a good round-up of problems: Safe, clean water; natural hazards; urban growth; emerging infectious diseases; biological invaders;...

Set up under the United Nation's Global Environmental Facility, this agency is charged with coming up with a plan to combat the increasing lack of fresh water on the planet. The site has information about the causes and issues of...

The Welsh Centre for Alternative Technology is constructing a...

A description of Monsanto's plans to expand its business providing water in a world where safe water is becoming increasingly scarce. Looks ahead to 2025 "when the supply of water in India will be 700 cubic kilometres per year while...

A report from the United Nation's World Commission on Water for the 21st Century says half the world's freshwater rivers are threatened. Last year the number of environmental refugees (25 million) outnumbered those displaced by war for the first time....

Biotech could produce plants which lose less water, so they need much less to survive....

Biotech could produce plants which lose less water, so they need much less to survive....

"The Canadian government yesterday introduced legislation to ban the export of water from the Great Lakes and other boundary waters ... The move is a response to growing domestic fears that Canadian fresh water may be turned into commercial goods...

An increase in freshwater flows due to global warming could disrupt the ocean conveyor built which brings warm southern water to North Western Europe, keeping its temperatures above average for such latitudes....

The Japanese are beginning a project to drill for methane beneath the ocean floor. Estimates of when commercial use will occur vary from 18 months to 10 years. Mistakes when drilling can be catastrophic with the methan expanding to 160...

US atronomers have the first visual confirmation after watching a planet pass in front of a distant star. It confirms that calculations about such planets are correct....

Three Dutch scientists are developing a method of mass producing meat without animal suffering. Samples of animal cells are cultivated on a matrix of collagen....

Deposits of methane gas beneath the ocean floor are the planet's largest untapped energy reserves. However, global warming or poor drilling methods it could let the methane loose, and with one cubic metre of this methane hydrate converts into 164...

The Intelligent Autonomous Systems group at the University of the West of England, Bristol, UK, have developed a robot which kills slugs. It can identify the slugs and captures them at the rate of ten a minute. When it's full,...

The World Wide Fund for Nature says 116 GM tree trials have taken place since 1988 and these trees can cross pollinate with native trees over a distance of 400 miles. "Other GM modifications under trial raise the prospect of...

Article about a report by Greenpeace, European Wind Energy Association and the Forum for Energy and Development that says it's technically possible over the next 20 years to install enough wind-power generators to satisfy 10% of global electricity needs....

Report on a United Nations Population Fund report saying the world's population will be about 8.9 billion in 2050. This is down from an earlier prediction of 9.4 billion; a third of this gap is due to HIV/Aids which is...

NASA is starting a $600,000 project to turn astronaut waste into a power source using pyrolysis - breaking matter down by heating it without oxygen. Pyrolysis can result in liquids or gases, depending on the temperature of burning and these...

Jeremy Rifkin on how we should approach the use of biotech. "It needs to be stressed that it's not a matter of saying yes or no to the use of technology itself and never has been ... Rather, the question...