Greenhouse Gas

At just 26 years-old, Laura Moreno is a tireless crusader for reducing and recycling food waste. As a life scientist at the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Pacific Southwest Regional Office, Moreno is focusing her attention on the Food Recovery Challenge, a new national effort that seeks to reduce the environmental impact of food waste. Moreno works with universities and other organizations, educating them on how they can purchase leaner, thus improving their bottom line through cost savings and reducing...

WAGENFELD, Germany — Germany has one of the most robust green movements in the world, but economic pressures are tempting it to try something that critics say would harm the Earth: shale gas drilling. Motivated by a rapid-fire increase in natural gas production in the United States , business leaders and some politicians in Germany say they need to act quickly to prevent the country's industrial core from departing for places where energy costs just a fraction of the price.

WAGENFELD, Germany — Germany has one of the most robust green movements in the world, but economic pressures are tempting it to try something that critics say would harm the Earth: shale gas drilling. Motivated by a rapid-fire increase in natural gas production in the United States , business leaders and some politicians in Germany say they need to act quickly to prevent the country's industrial core from departing for places where energy costs just a fraction of the price.

The Environmental Protection Agency needs more time and will not meet its one-year deadline to impose the first-ever greenhouse gas limits on new power plants. "We are working on the rule and no timetable has been set," EPA spokeswoman Alisha Johnson wrote in an e-mail Friday. She said the agency was still reviewing more than 2 million comments on its proposal. The EPA is likely to alter the rule in some way in an effort to ensure that it can withstand a legal challenge, according to sources familiar with the matter...

I'm planning a big holiday shindig, and I was going to put out my usual enormous cheese-and-cracker spread. This year I've been wondering: What's the environmental impact of cheese? Cheese is certainly one of life's great pleasures. (The Lantern is with Liz Lemon of "30 Rock" on this point.) But there's no doubt that cheese of any type -- pasteurized or not, made from the milk of cows or goats or sheep -- has a significant impact on the environment compared with other food products.

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II (R) on Tuesday filed paperwork attacking the legal underpinnings of an Obama administration effort to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, joining a crowd of political conservatives and business groups with similar objections. Cuccinelli sent a petition to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, asking the agency to reconsider its finding in December that greenhouse gases pose a danger to public health by contributing to climate change.

The Obama administration is leaning toward revising its landmark proposal to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from new power plants , according to several individuals briefed on the matter, a move that would delay tougher restrictions and anger many environmentalists. The discussions center on the first greenhouse gas limits for power plants, which were proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency nearly a year ago. Rewriting the proposal would significantly postpone any action...

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) announced Thursday that he would pull out of a regional climate pact by the end of the year, delivering a political setback to the fledging effort to curb greenhouse gas emissions linked to global warming. In a news conference, Christie said the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a 2005 accord in which 10 states agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions from power plants 10 percent by 2018, would not be able to meet its goals. The...

The Obama administration is leaning toward revising its landmark proposal to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from new power plants , according to several individuals briefed on the matter, a move that would delay tougher restrictions and could anger many environmentalists. The discussions center on the first-ever greenhouse gas regulations for power plants, which were proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency nearly a year ago. Rewriting the proposal would significantly delay any action,...

Getting around town used to be a pretty straightforward proposition. Those who couldn't (or chose not to) rely on leg power could take public transit, hail a cab or drive their own car. Things are slightly more complicated now. Smartphone-based driver services such as Uber are challenging the traditional cab system. People are buzzing around the city on Segways . Two popular alternatives are scooters and car-sharing services such as Zipcar and Car2Go . Price and convenience are obviously a factor in the...

Getting around town used to be a pretty straightforward proposition. Those who couldn't (or chose not to) rely on leg power could take public transit, hail a cab or drive their own car. Things are slightly more complicated now. Smartphone-based driver services such as Uber are challenging the traditional cab system. People are buzzing around the city on Segways . Two popular alternatives are scooters and car-sharing services such as Zipcar and Car2Go . Price and convenience are obviously a factor in the increasing...

The Obama administration is leaning toward revising its landmark proposal to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from new power plants , according to several individuals briefed on the matter, a move that would delay tougher restrictions and anger many environmentalists. The discussions center on the first greenhouse gas limits for power plants, which were proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency nearly a year ago. Rewriting the proposal would significantly postpone any action and also...

It is true that America needs sustainable, clean, homegrown energy sources, but natural gas is not the answer [" The natural-gas boom ," editorial, Feb. 15]. Our elected leaders are being shortsighted in adopting a fossil fuel that will prove obsolete in just a couple of decades, when instead we should develop our green-energy infrastructure to facilitate the deployment of wind and solar power. Transitioning to a natural-gas infrastructure could cost as much $2 trillion to $3 trillion for an...

Lobbyists for coal-burning utilities such as Southern Co. and Duke Energy are consulting environmental advocates and holding strategy sessions as they seek a role in shaping President Obama's plan to combat climate change. Obama's emphasis on global warming in his inaugural address last month has led power and coal producers, which have fought regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, to begin crafting their own proposed rules. "It was the hope of a lot of companies in this...

There was a make-believe quality to President Obama's second inaugural address , as if all that is required to solve serious problems are the intelligence to produce proper policies and the political grit to get them approved. Perish the thought that there are deep conflicts among the things that Americans want, or the possibility that some problems lack easy, obvious and inexpensive remedies. This isn't the vision Obama was peddling. Take two examples: paying for the retirement of the baby boom, mainly through...

CLIMATE CHANGE is global. Unless enough big-emitting nations stop pumping carbon into the atmosphere, no single country's efforts will matter much. That is why, despite the many unmet deadlines, petty squabbles and dashed hopes, it is still important for world leaders to gather and work toward a climate deal, as they have done many times in the past two decades and as they have been doing in Doha, Qatar, since last Monday . World governments were supposed to have made a big step toward solving the...

The Dec. 6 news story "Report Says 2 Global Programs to Curb Emissions Fall Short" gave the impression that U.S. greenhouse gas emissions rose by several percentage points under President Bush. Yet the analysis did not include the effect of greenhouse gas "sinks," which remove or sequester greenhouse gases. Expanding forests and managing land better can create sinks. Including sinks, the most recent United Nations data show that, while net U.S. greenhouse gas emissions rose steadily from 1990 to 2000, under President Bush, emissions...

At just 26 years-old, Laura Moreno is a tireless crusader for reducing and recycling food waste. As a life scientist at the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Pacific Southwest Regional Office, Moreno is focusing her attention on the Food Recovery Challenge, a new national effort that seeks to reduce the environmental impact of food waste. Moreno works with universities and other organizations, educating them on how they can purchase leaner, thus improving their bottom line through cost savings and reducing...