More than 40,000 people have joined two Girl Scouts’ campaign on Change.org calling for the organization’s popular cookies to be made without palm oil. The two Michigan 16-year-olds, Madison Vorva and Rhiannon Tomtishen, want Girl Scouts USA to stop using unsustainable palm oil, the production of which reportedly causes deforestation, endangers species, and contributes to human rights abuses and climate change. Environmental Headlines encourages its readers to check the ingredients of products they use and 1. stop buying products made with palm oil, and 2. encourage makers of those products to stop using this ingredient, which is inherently environmentally destructive.

Spotted salamanders exposed to contaminated roadside ponds are adapting to their toxic environments, according to a Yale paper in Scientific Reports. This study provides the first documented evidence that a vertebrate has adapted to the negative effects of roads apparently by evolving rapidly. “This adaptation is certainly encouraging for conservation,” said Steven Brady, the study’s author and a doctoral student at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. “But our modern footprint is fundamentally changing species in ways we don’t understand and, critically, we don’t know if these adaptive responses will keep pace with environmental change.”

CFE and Save the Sound are proposing that the legislature engage in initiatives that would educate home buyers, renters and property owners about energy efficiency; encourage more investment in building energy efficiency; increase bi-state coordination between Connecticut and New York state legislators on Long Island Sound policies; create jobs and protect clean water through collaborations with Connecticut Marine Trades Association and the Clean Water Investment Coalition; support Clean Water Fund FY 2012 authorizations; ensure investments are made in new transit services and promote federal funding for rail and bus transit; promote the role of natural landscapes in mitigating the effects of floods and major storms; and defend against bills that seek to weaken or roll back environmental protections. Click on this environmental headline for the complete news from CFE.

“The recent Vermont Yankee court decision said the State of Vermont can’t trump the federal government when it comes to issues of nuclear safety. But the same ruling affirmed Vermont’s continuing authority for oversight of other Yankee issues, like enforcement of the Clean Water Act. That’s good, because when your next-door neighbor is a nuclear power plant, their bad housekeeping is more than just a nuisance.” David Deen, Upper Valley River Steward for the Connecticut River Watershed Council writes. Click on this environmental headline for more of this opinion piece on the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant.

Leading local environmental activist Remy Chevalier shares a lifetime of research at his wonderful environmental library – The Aquarium, 10 Knight Street, Norwalk, Conn. Todd Tracy reports on blog.ctnews.com.

Verdant Power has been awarded a 10-year license for a tidal wave energy plant in New York City’s East River. Verdant has tested six turbines there in the tidal strait between New York Harbor and Long Island Sound. The power produced by that demonstration project powered a Gristedes supermarket and a parking garage on Roosevelt Island. Click on this environmental headline for more on this story.

Think of a person, non-profit, or company who has made a real difference to our environment. It could be through a volunteer effort to protect our water sources. Improve air quality. Safeguard farmland. Or improve wildlife habitat. You’ll find all the criteria at the link inside. Click on this environmental headline for more information.

CEQ has released its recommendations for legislation, highlighting the need to step up land conservation, both in the amount of land preserved and in the state’s strategy for selecting land for preservation. Ideas for “no-cost” preservation are included. The recommendations also call for more training for members of municipal inlands wetlands agencies, for continued funding of the state Clean Water Fund, and for a financial analysis of how much money will be needed to control pollution from runoff in developed areas of the state. For more about the recommendations and links to all the details, click on this environmental headline. Don’t forget … you can click on the donate button over there on the right hand side to support this website :o) Thanks!

After finding the descendants of a species of giant tortoises believed extinct from the Galapagos Islands for 150 years, Yale researchers are hoping to save the species.

Light pollution has serious health and environmental consequences, and it just might wreak some philosophical havoc as well. These issues are explored in entertaining and insightful fashion in the new documentary “The City Dark,” that opened in New York Jan. 18.

CJ May has been a part of the Yale community since 1988, when he started as a student at the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies; since 1990 he has coordinated Yale Recycling. He dresses like a cross between a recycler and office employee: his dark blue pants are constricted at his ankle by a
[continue reading...]

While we applaud the President’s decision, we realize that the fight against destructive tar sands extraction is far from over. Although this announcement is a big step forward, we fully expect TransCanada and their allies in Congress to attempt to resurrect this project. As such, we will continue to work to make sure the President follows through on his commitment to evaluate new pipeline proposals on their environmental and social impacts. — Colin Bennett, 350ct.org