An agency spokesman was not immediately available for comment.

The agency’s Cross-State Air Pollution final rule issued in July calls, in part, for much stricter limits on emissions of nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide, or SO2, from coal and natural gas-fired power plants beginning in January.

The changes are expected to allow for emissions increases ranging from 1 percent to 4 percent above the July requirement, depending on the pollutant, the Journal reported, citing the sources.

EPA spokesman Brendan Gilfillan was quoted by the newspaper as saying, “While we don’t have anything to announce at this time, EPA often makes technical adjustments … because data, including data in some cases provided by industry, turns out to be incorrect, outdated or incomplete.”

The air quality rule resulted from a federal appeals court order instructing the EPA to strengthen a similar regulation issued in 2005 by the Bush administration.

Read more at the source: Reuters

Now, Finland has brought its own Kafkaesque twist to such efforts.

In December 2009, Finnish media outlets stunned the nation by publishing disturbing video and photographs from inside 30 pig factory farms, the result of a two-month undercover investigation by the leading Finnish animal rights group, Justice for Animals.

Sights of injured, dead, and dying pigs outraged a country whose factory farmers had always touted their “humane” practices. Members of Parliament and even agribusiness representatives condemned what they saw. Police investigations were promised. There were even calls for the Minister of Agriculture to resign (she didn’t).

Now, almost two years later, the events have taken a truly incredible turn.

Instead of charging a single pig factory farmer with cruelty to animals, Finnish authorities are prosecuting the two activists who made the undercover videos, Karry Hedberg and Saila Kivelä. The charges are “aggravated defamation” of the nation’s pig farmers and “disturbing the peace.”

What makes this prosecution so startling is that not one person has disputed the authenticity of the images, nor claimed that the filming involved break-ins or property damage of any kind. In fact, by their own admission, none of the pig farmers were even aware that any activists had been to their farms until the videos were made public.

But the logic of this prosecution — at least to Finnish authorities — is clear: the conditions at the pig farms, while accurately recorded, are in themselves legal, therefore making their exposure illegal and defamatory.

Read more at the source: Mikko Alanne, Huffington Post

This fall, thousands of people in more than 35 cities across North America will gather for the 2011 Walk for Farm Animals, a series of fun, community-focused events that promote kindness to animals and raise vital funds to support the lifesaving work of Farm Sanctuary, the nation’s leading farm animal protection organization. For more information on the Walk and how to register, please visit walkforfarmanimals.org.

For 25 years, Farm Sanctuary has relied on the Walk to support its mission to protect farm animals from cruelty and inspire change in the way society views and treats farm animals. Thesefamily-friendly events are an opportunity for those concerned with the cruel and horrific practices of factory farming to take a stand in support of compassion for animals and raise awareness about the mistreatment of animals raised for food. Each event will offer its own unique schedule, including such attractions as speakers, live music, delicious food, raffle prizes, face painting, and costume contests.

“When you walk, you give hope to billions of farm animals who suffer appalling cruelty and confinement each year on factory farms,” says Farm Sanctuary President and Co-Founder Gene Baur, who TIME magazine recently called “the conscience of the food movement.” “TheWalk for Farm Animals is a positive way to speak out on behalf of animals who cannot speak for themselves and to make a real difference in their lives.”

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Three Himalaya glaciers have been shrinking over the last 40 years due to global warming and two of them, located in humid regions and on lower altitudes in central and east Nepal, may disappear in time to come, researchers in Japan said on Tuesday.

Using global positioning system and simulation models, they found that the shrinkage of two of the glaciers — Yala in central and AX010 in eastern Nepal — had accelerated in the past 10 years compared with the 1970s and 1980s.

Yala’s mass shrank by 0.8 (2.6 feet) and AX010 by 0.81 meters respectively per year in the 2000s, up from 0.68 and 0.72 meters per year between 1970 and 1990, said Koji Fujita at the Graduate School of Environmental Studies in Nagoya University in Japan.

“For Yala and AX, these regions showed significant warming … that’s why the rate of shrinking was accelerated,” Fujita told Reuters by telephone.

“Yala and AX will disappear but we are not sure when. To know when, we have to calculate using another simulation (model) and take into account the glacial flow,” Fujita said, but added that his team did not have the data to do so at the moment.

Their findings were published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Tuesday.

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Polar bear cubs forced to swim long distances with their mothers as their icy Arctic habitat melts appear to have a higher mortality rate than cubs that didn’t have to swim as far, a new study reports.

Polar bears hunt, feed and give birth on ice or on land, and are not naturally aquatic creatures. Previous reports have noted individual animals swimming hundreds of miles to reach ice platforms or land, but this is one of the first to show these swims pose a greater risk to polar bear young.

“Climate change is pulling the sea ice out from under polar bears’ feet, forcing some to swim longer distances to find food and habitat,” said Geoff York of World Wildlife Fund, a co-author of the study.

York said this was the first time these long swims had been quantitatively measured, filling a gap in the historical background on this iconic Arctic species.

To gather data, researchers used satellites and tracked 68 polar bear females equipped with GPS collars over six years, from 2004 through 2009, to find occasions when these bears swam more than 30 miles at a time.

There were 50 long-distance swims over those six years, involving 20 polar bears, ranging in distance up to 426 miles and in duration up to 12.7 days, according to a paper for presentation on Tuesday at the International Bear Association Conference in Ottawa, Canada.

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Source: EPA

President Obama today announced a historic agreement with thirteen major automakers to pursue the next phase in the Administration’s national vehicle program, increasing fuel economy to 54.5 miles per gallon for cars and light-duty trucks by Model Year 2025. The President was joined by Ford, GM, Chrysler, BMW, Honda, Hyundai, Jaguar/Land Rover, Kia, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Toyota and Volvo – which together account for over 90 percent of all vehicles sold in the United States – as well as the United Auto Workers (UAW), and the State of California, who were integral to developing this agreement.

“This agreement on fuel standards represents the single most important step we’ve ever taken as a nation to reduce our dependence on foreign oil,” said President Obama. ”Most of the companies here today were part of an agreement we reached two years ago to raise the fuel efficiency of their cars over the next five years. We’ve set an aggressive target and the companies are stepping up to the plate. By 2025, the average fuel economy of their vehicles will nearly double to almost 55 miles per gallon.”

Building on the Obama administration’s agreement for Model Years 2012-2016 vehicles, which will raise fuel efficiency to 35.5 mpg and begin saving families money at the pump this year, the next round of standards will require performance equivalent to 54.5 mpg or 163 grams/ mile of CO2 for cars and light-duty trucks by Model Year 2025. Achieving the goals of this historic agreement will rely on innovative technologies and manufacturing that will spur economic growth and create high-quality domestic jobs in cutting edge industries across America.

These programs, combined with the model year 2011 light truck standard, represent the first meaningful update to fuel efficiency standards in three decades and span Model Years 2011 to 2025. Together, they will save American families $1.7 trillion dollars in fuel costs, and by 2025 result in an average fuel savings of over $8,000 per vehicle. Additionally, these programs will dramatically cut the oil we consume, saving a total of 12 billion barrels of oil, and by 2025 reduce oil consumption by 2.2 million barrels a day – as much as half of the oil we import from OPEC every day.

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Some of the world’s most charismatic and beloved species, including rhinos, tigers and elephants, are threatened by organized crime, which thwarts law enforcement to feed the illegal market for wildlife parts, according to a conservationist.

Criminals have managed to prey upon wildlife and transport their black-market goods using sophisticated methods, such as hiding them in special compartments in shipping containers, and rapidly changing smuggling routes and e-commerce locations that are difficult to detect, according to Elizabeth Bennett, a conservationist with the Wildlife Conservation Society.

“We are failing to conserve some of the world’s most beloved and charismatic species,” Bennett said. “We are rapidly losing big, spectacular animals to an entirely new type of trade driven by criminalized syndicates. It is deeply alarming, and the world is not yet taking it seriously.”

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As fears over climate change mount and Western consumption patterns continue to put a strain on the world’s resources, environmentally-conscious citizens are attracted to companies that share their concerns about environmental degradation.

“Consumers are definitely looking for companies who do the right things. Products are no longer enough,” said Tim Mobsby, vice-president for European marketing at Kellogg’s.

Shoppers want details of who manufactured a product and what they believe in, and will choose brands that share their own values, he predicted.

Sustainable production is therefore gaining in importance as customers choose brands that reflect their lifestyles and worldview.

“It is going up the agenda in companies, primarily because consumers are getting more concerned,” Mobsby said.

However, he cautioned that shoppers were only willing to make sacrifices up to a certain point and that price would continue to be the main driver of purchase decisions.

“Companies need to solve their collective problems simultaneously. You’ve got to keep the price down. The challenge is identifying consumers’ needs and wants, and providing them in a way that’s economically viable,” the Kellogg’s boss said.

Social commentators agreed that low prices would remain central to business success, but insisted that modern consumers demanded more than just good value from their favourite brands.

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Record prices for ivory are fueling a sharp increase in poachers killing elephants, even those in protected areas, conservation groups warned Wednesday — the same day that Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki burned five tons of confiscated ivory to highlight the problem.

“We wish to firmly demonstrate to the world our determination to eliminate all forms of illegal trade in ivory,” Kibaki told the crowd, before lighting the 335 tusks. “Poachers and illegal trades in ivory must know that their days are numbered.”

“Let the fire shine a spotlight on this growing crisis and motivate us to take action against the bloody ivory trade,” Shelley Waterland of the Born Free Foundation said in a statement. “No more sales of stockpiled ivory; no more tusks sold for a staggering $1,500 a kilo (2.2 pounds); no more rangers and wardens killed by poachers trying to protect wild elephants; no more ivory orphans.”

“Right now there’s been a flare-up in illegal killings that we haven’t seen in 20 years,” added Iain Douglas-Hamilton, founder of Save the Elephants, as he watched the pile burn. “Over the past two and half years the price of ivory has gone up crazily, evidently fuelled by demand from the far east.”

With the price of ivory doubling in just two years, the killing last week of a matriarch elephant named Khadija added to the urgency raised by activists.

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Cleanup work at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant is proceeding smoothly and the prospects are good for bringing it under control, the head of the U.N. atomic watchdog said Monday after a visit to the crisis-hit plant.

Japan said last week that it was on track with efforts to take control of the Fukushima nuclear plant, more than four months after it was hit by a massive earthquake and tsunami that triggered meltdowns and radiation leaks, but cautioned that a final clean-up of the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl would take many years.

“Looking at the site, work is moving very smoothly,” said Yukiya Amano, the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

“So many people are working with passion, so I felt that the outlook is bright,” the veteran diplomat was shown on public broadcaster NHK as telling reporters.

Amano’s comments were in line with a statement released on Friday, when he said significant progress had been made in efforts to contain Japan’s atomic crisis.

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