News stories by Julio Godoy* - Tierramérica, page 2

A century ago, when the Danube was still blue, it teemed with beluga sturgeon, as did the Rhine with salmon. But industrialisation and the construction of canals and dams have destroyed the habitat of both species of fish.

Exotic tree seedlings grow next to native species in the southeastern German village of Laufen, at a site where researchers are experimenting with ways to restore forests lost to the effects of global warming.

At first glance, the Riswick farm is just another modern agricultural facility: in the middle of broad cultivated fields stand recently built barns, similar to so many other farms across Europe.

With the chance for a global climate change treaty on hold, a tax on greenhouse gases could be an effective alternative for discouraging the activities that create emissions, say economists and environmentalists.

In the decades since 1972, when Nobel laureate economist James Tobin (1918-2002) first proposed it, the idea of a tax on currency speculation has resurfaced and disappeared many times, according to the economic tides.

On the Danish island of Samsø, a model of energy self-sufficiency, even cow's milk helps reduce emissions of climate changing gases.

The capture and underground storage of greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide, is a dubious method of effectively reducing the pollution that causes global warming, experts warn.

Ringed seals in the Baltic Sea are finding fewer and fewer ice caves in which to raise their young. Rising global temperatures are the problem, and in turn are depleting the main food source of the giant polar bear, say scientists.

When the European Space Agency (ESA) designed the original CryoSat ice-monitoring satellite, not all scientists accepted global warming as an urgent threat.