When talking about pollution, we typically think about greenhouse gases and our carbon footprint. Did you know, however, that small businesses, as well as individuals and, of course, larger corporations, could be pollution in another way – with noise?
Early this month, experts reported that low frequency underwater noise has doubled over the past ten years, and blue whales alone have 90% less communication range and ability. The noise is also damaging tissue in some animals and scaring others, causing them to dive erratically.
Ships and oil drill sites are the main contributor to noise in the ocean, but studies …read more

This week, eBay announced that they’d be banning ivory starting in 2009. Partnering with World of Good, eBay has recently made a number of green and ethical changes, and this is only of the most significant.
Now, I wanted to make an important note that not all ivory items in this world were acquired illegally or inhumanely. Hunting elephants wasn’t also illegal and many of these giant mammal die of natural causes every year. However, there is really no way to know whether the ivory came from a legitimate source or was a result of poaching, so eBay is banning …read more

Last week, the Bush administration has announced that the Department of the Interior would be drastically changing the status of endangered species. And that, my friends, sucks.
The Endangered Species Act currently protects all animals at rick of extinction. Section 7 of this law deals with federal agencies, making them consult the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service before doing anything that could harm a species on the list.
The changes will prevent the ESA from “being used to regulate climate change.” In other words, carbon emissions is no longer enough to prove adverse effects on a species unless a direct …read more

“Popularity. I has it.”
Ok, enough lolcatz captions. In 1993, Tibet and all other parts of China banned the trade or sale of tiger products to help alleviate pressures on this animal’s population numbers. Now, fifteen years later, China is considering lifting the ban.
The ban would only allow captive tigers to be bred and killed (”farmed” essentially) for tiger products like clothing. However, environmentalists fear that this ban would only increase illegal poaching of these beautiful creatures. Currently, there are only an estimated 7,000 tigers in the wild. There are an estimated 9,000 tigers in captivity.
The real problem here is that …read more

Recently, the EU announced a bluefin tuna fishing ban that would affect fisheries all over the continent. The bluefine is an important “cash crop” so to say, but the species is disappearing at an alarming rate.
France is pissed.
According to an interview on the BBC’s Le Journal de Dimanche, French Fisheries Minister Michel Barnier believes that the ban was placed harshly on their country and that it was, overall, not based on facts.
The problem here, in reality, is that thousands of people could be out of jobs, or at least laid off during the bluefin tuna season. It …read more