Water at California Beaches Cleanest in Years

Nearly every beach in the Bay Area, and throughout the California state, had dramatically lower levels of bacteria and pollution than last year, according to an annual survey of 650 West Coast beaches by Heal the Bay, a Santa Monica environmental group.

L.A. Approves Ban on Plastic Bags at Checkout

Los Angeles became the largest city in the nation to approve a ban on plastic bags at supermarket checkout lines, handing a hard-fought victory to environmentalists and promising to change the way Angelenos do their grocery shopping.

Flotsam from 2011 Japan tsunami reaches Alaska

It’s been more than a year since a massive quake devastated northeast Japan, and the debris believed to be from that disaster is now washing up more than 4,000 miles away, on Alaska’s shores.

India’s Illegal Sand Mining Fuels Boom, Ravages Rivers

The sand-mining frenzy, as it is happening right now in western India, illustrates one of the most important questions India faces in its march to become a 21st-century economic powerhouse: Can this nation of 1.2 billion people pursue economic growth without destroying its environment?

Green Rights Are Humans Rights : The Chagos Islands Case

chagos-atoll

For too long, despite the close relationship between environmental destruction and human suffering, human rights violations and environmental problems have been regarded as unrelated…Conservationists condemn exile of Chagossians for marine reserve. Greenpeace and other groups say the rights of the islanders, who cannot return to the archipelago, have been violated.