Here’s a wrap up of today’s green news:
Plants on death row. Rapid climate change could spell the end for many southern hemisphere plants, a study of 11,000 species suggests.
The Sydney Morning Herald reports that researchers found most plants – except weeds – have failed to shift to new habitats despite millions of years of evolution, meaning they would struggle to survive if their current habitats shrink or change due to global warming.
Regulating carbon dioxide emissions. The Environmental Protection Agency is set to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions in the United States for the first time, the New York Times reports. The story says a decision to act by the EPA would impact on transportation, manufacturing and the generation of power, and could even accelerate the progress of climate change legislation.
The report claims:
The environmental agency is under order from the Supreme Court to make a determination whether carbon dioxide is a pollutant that endangers public health and welfare, an order that the Bush administration essentially ignored despite near-unanimous belief among agency experts that research points inexorably to such a finding.
Earth’s cracks emit gas. A small study has found that cracks in the earth’s surface could release greenhouse gases on a level that may affect global warming, msbnc says. While admitting their study was too small to draw such a conclusion definitely – the team of scientists only examined one crack – they said the results have the potential to be important globally.
Turning oil rigs into luxury hotels. Rather than blowing up decommissioned oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico – potentially with severe ramifications for aquatic life – why not turn them into luxurious offshore hotels?
That’s the ambition of the Morris Architects’ Hotelier at Sea project, which wants to create an “American Dubai”, according to Gizmodo.
