Demonstrators with the Animal Welfare Institute hold a rally to save the vaquita, the world's smallest and most endangered porpoise in Washington, DC, on July 5, 2018. SAUL LOEB / AFP / Getty Images
Scientists announced Thursday that only 10 vaquita porpoises likely remain in the world and that the animal's extinction is virtually assured without bold and immediate action.
Orange grove in Polk County, Florida.jmsilva / iStock / Getty Images
Advocates from public-health and environmental groups delivered more than 45,000 petition signatures to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Wednesday asking the agency to deny a proposal that would expand spraying antibiotics on citrus fields.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reported last week that in 2018 it issued so-called "emergency" approvals to spray sulfoxaflor—an insecticide the agency considers "very highly toxic" to bees—on more than 16 million acres of crops known to attract bees.
Drone footage of new border wall in New Mexico shows that the Trump administration's border militarization is already damaging ecosystems and wildlife. Trump waived 25 laws that protect clean air, clean water, public lands and endangered wildlife to speed construction of 20 miles of new walls.
The video, taken by the Center for Biological Diversity and available for media use, shows the 18-foot-tall bollard-style barrier constructed in the remote Chihuahuan Desert. The wall replaced waist-high vehicle barriers that allowed wildlife to move back and forth across the border.
The San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area in Arizona is a biodiversity hotspot. Bureau of Land Management
Conservation groups filed a lawsuit Thursday challenging the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' approval of a permit that allows a huge master-planned sprawl development project near Benson, Arizona to proceed. The Villages at Vigneto would transform 12,167 acres of largely undeveloped habitat into 28,000 residences, 3 million square feet of commercial space, four golf courses, fountains, lakes and a resort.
A monarch butterfly before migration to Mexico on Oct. 21, 2018 at the Mobile Botanical Gardens in Alabama. patricia pierce / CC BY 2.0
The yearly count of monarch butterflies overwintering in Mexico, released Wednesday, shows an increase of 144 percent from last year's count and is the highest count since 2006. That's good news for a species whose numbers had fallen in recent years, but conservationists say the monarch continues to need Endangered Species Act protection.
The count of 6.05 hectares of occupied forest is up from 2.48 hectares last winter. The increase is attributable to favorable weather during the spring and summer breeding seasons and during the fall migration. Monarchs have lost an estimated 165 million acres of breeding habitat in the U.S. to herbicide spraying and development.
A retired Concorde supersonic passenger jet on the roof of the Auto & Technik museum in Sinsheim, Germany. Gilbert Sopakuwa / Flickr
The return of supersonic airplanes would result in 96 million metric tons of carbon pollution per year, according to a new study released Wednesday by the International Council on Clean Transportation.
"In our era of runaway climate change, swapping fuel efficiency for speed is a devil's bargain," said Clare Lakewood, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. "The aviation industry should be reducing its massive carbon footprint, not enlarging it with exorbitant luxuries for the super-wealthy. Supersonics are catastrophic for the climate."
On Thursday more than 600 environmental groups called on the U.S. House of Representatives to pursue ambitious climate legislation that matches the scale and urgency of the climate crisis.
Arches National Park. Chris Dodds / Flickr / CC BY-SA 2.0
On Tuesday the Trump administration offered more than 150,000 acres of public lands for fossil-fuel extraction near some of Utah's most iconic landscapes, including Arches and Canyonlands national parks.
Lunch in the COP24 food court on Dec. 3. Walker Institute / @WalkerInst
New analysis from the Center for Biological Diversity, Farm Forward and Brighter Green Sunday finds that the meat-heavy menu at the United Nations' Framework Convention on Climate Change conference COP24 could contribute more than 4,000 metric tons of greenhouse gases to the climate crisis.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has refused to ban M-44s, commonly known as cyanide bombs, which cause agonizing deaths for thousands of animals every year.
