In case you’ve been under a rock, the big news on the street is the incredible new Heinz Ketchup Packet which will apparently revolutionize french fry enjoyment for the 21st century. The packet contains a larger amount of ketchup than the traditional sachet and opens in two ways — the traditional "squeeze" and the newfangled "dip." Blogs and other media are aflutter with excitement, and Heinz's corporate communications department is no doubt popping the champagne at a veritable coup d'etat of publicity.

The idea of imposing a broad cap-and-trade system to cut America's greenhouse gas emissions is dead and will be replaced with a new approach, an influential Republican senator said on Tuesday. Lindsey Graham, one of three senators working against daunting odds to produce a compromise climate bill, has recently turned against imposing the kind of cap-and-trade system used in Europe, which involves companies buying and selling pollution permits.

An investigation by The Ecologist reveals that three-quarters of London councils giving out wrong advice on the safe disposal of mercury-containing compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) The majority of local authorities in London are advising residents to throw compact fluorescent lightbulbs in their general waste, despite the hazard posed by their mercury content.

President Barack Obama's top environmental adviser urged the natural gas industry on Tuesday to disclose the chemicals it uses in drilling, warning that the development of massive U.S. shale gas reserves could be held back otherwise. Joseph Aldy, special assistant to the president for energy and the environment, said concerns about water contamination from drilling chemicals could lead to states requiring disclosure and that could deter additional investment.

Last week, the Gowanus Canal, a 1.8-mile, 100-foot wide waterway in northwest Brooklyn which empties into Upper New York Bay, was added to the National Priorities List (NPL) otherwise known Superfund by the Environmental Protection Agency. The new designation means that the EPA will now move ahead to clean up this derelict canal and to compel PRP's (principal responsible parties) to perform the cleanup or reimburse the government for EPA-led action. The EPA is now locked in to what may be a tough and perhaps a long dragged-out process of restoring the Gowanus, while forcing cooperation from PRP’s and catering to often sensitive local community interests.

The Environmental Protection Agency chief fought back on Monday against Senate attempts to challenge the agency's authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, saying delaying action would be bad for the economy. President Barack Obama has long said the EPA would take steps to regulate greenhouse gases if Congress failed to pass climate legislation. The bill faces an uncertain future in the Senate amid opposition from fossil fuel-rich states.

In a new study conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), every single fish tested from 291 freshwater streams across the United States was found to be contaminated with mercury. "This study shows just how widespread mercury pollution has become in our air, watersheds and many of our fish in freshwater streams," said Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.

The Obama administration will give small businesses a break on coming carbon dioxide emissions rules but big emitters like coal-fired power plants will face a crack-down, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson said on Wednesday. President Barack Obama has pushed the EPA to begin regulating gases blamed for warming the planet, in part to force polluters to support the climate change bill. The legislation is his preferred method of climate control, but it is stalled in the Senate.

Investors want oil giants to answer questions on their involvement in the environmentally damaging extraction of oil from tar sands Shareholders at BP and Shell will get the chance to vote at upcoming AGMs on whether to force oil giants to come clean on their Canadian tar sands involvement. Institutional investors including The Co-operative Asset Management and Rathbone Greenbank have co-signed a 'special resolution,' which would force the two companies to fully disclose and justify their involvement in Canadian tar sands.

Two senior Democrats in the U.S. House filed a resolution to block the Obama administration from regulating greenhouse gases on its own if a climate change bill fails to pass Congress soon. The resolution of disapproval, filed on Thursday, is identical to a controversial resolution by Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski. Both resolutions offer a fairly quick way to overturn Environmental Protection Agency proposals to regulate emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases blamed for global warming.

A giant oil slick threatened wildlife, fishing grounds and tourist spots Thursday as it moved down the Po, Italy's longest river, towards the sea, defying all efforts to stem its progress. Environment Minister Stefania Prestigiacomo called the spill, blamed on saboteurs who broke into a disused refinery and opened valves, "a true attack on the environment and on citizens' health," the ANSA news agency reported. Several kilometers (miles) long, the slick was halfway between the cities of Cremona and Mantua late Thursday, having covered about 200 kilometres (125 miles) since it was released into a tributary of the Po early Tuesday.

Fishermen are furious a pesticide normally used for agriculture ended up in the Bay of Fundy and may have contributed to the death of hundreds of lobsters. Dead lobsters first appeared last November in Grand Manan's Seal Cove, and five days later a fisherman 50 kilometres away in Pocologan found more dead lobsters in his traps. Soon after that discovery, another 816 kilograms of weak or dead lobster were discovered in Deer Island's Fairhaven Harbour.

Children from several Latin American countries have traces of the pesticide DDT in their blood, according to a study coordinated by the Pan American Health Organization. The children studied belong to 11 rural communities in Mesoamerica (Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama). In all but Guatemala, the researchers found exposure to DDT.

Most people are familiar with automobile air emissions. Perhaps one day there will only be electric cars and no car air emissions. But there are many on other engines in use by commercial and industrial operations that may cause air emissions. In general these are called reciprocating internal combustion engines (RICE). On February 17, 2010, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a final rule that will further reduce emissions of toxic air pollutants from existing diesel powered stationary reciprocating internal combustion engines.

The President remains committed to advancing his stalled legislative agenda. Addressing the Democratic National Committee in Washington last Saturday, Obama insisted he is not going to let go of his aspirations for America. "I'm not going to walk away from the American people," he said. "I'm not going to walk away on any challenge." However, Senators from Red States, Coal States, and Rust Belt States are concerned about job losses and increased costs associated with a climate bill. Many lawmakers are also concerned about controlling the emissions of rapidly developing nations like India and China.

Why are some wells contaminated and some are not? All wells are not equally vulnerable to contamination because of differences in three factors: the general aquifer chemistry, groundwater age, and paths within aquifer systems that allow water and contaminants to reach a well. More than 100 million people in the United States receive their drinking water from public groundwater systems, which can be vulnerable to naturally occurring contaminants such as radon, uranium, arsenic, and man made compounds, including fertilizers, septic-tank leachate, solvents and gasoline hydrocarbons.

We live in a strongly climate-oriented era, where each one of us is called to choose between sides; are we among the "believers" or the "infidels" of the "Global Warming?". Two decades ago, a part of the scientific community started engaging in intense discussions around the "unusual" temperature trends which, for the northern hemisphere, had been going undoubtedly uphill. The first serious counter arguments regarding the validity of these findings targeted the inherited errors that all observational tools possess. New observations and improved algorithms started to appear fairly quickly, a fact that partially appeased debates and concerns. Skeptics of the global warming theory try to find other kinds of evidence to second-guess the mainstream CO2 increase and steer away from anthropocentric related theories. And suddenly, along came a cloud...

Biodiesel refers to a vegetable oil or animal fat based diesel fuel consisting of long chain alkyl is typically made by chemically these oils with an alcohol. Biodiesel is meant to be used in standard diesel engines and is thus distinct from the vegetable and waste oils used to fuel converted diesel engines. Biodiesel can be used alone, or blended with petrodiesel. There was a recent White House’s announcement calling for expanded production of biofuels (36 billion gallons by 2022 to be exact). But more biofuels is only part of the equation when it comes to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and our reliance on petroleum carbon based fuels. Vehicles must be ready and sometimes converted to this usage. Enterprise Holdings just announced that it will convert its entire fleet of Alamo Rent A Car, Enterprise Rent-A-Car and National Car Rental airport shuttle buses to biodiesel by spring of this year. That’s more than 600 buses throughout more than 50 North American markets.

A fresh coat of paint can change a room from dreary to divine. Stains, sealants, caulks, and adhesives help you build everything from a new bathroom to a bookcase. But all these useful products can also introduce unhealthy chemicals into your home and your body. Low-VOC paint The biggest culprit is VOCs, or "volatile organic compounds," a large class of chemicals that readily evaporate at room temperature. If you walk into a room and notice that new-paint smell, you’re breathing VOCs. Paints, stains, sealants, caulks, and adhesives release the highest levels of VOCs when wet. But even when they feel dry to the touch, they may keep releasing these gases for days, weeks, months, even years. Meanwhile your upholstery, carpets, and drapes act like sponges, absorbing VOCs and releasing them over time. While not everyone may be bothered by exposure to these gases, they can be a serious health risk for people with chemical sensitivities, asthma, or other respiratory conditions.

A new Chinese government survey of the country's environmental problems has shown water pollution levels in 2007 were more than twice the government's official estimate, largely because agricultural waste was ignored. The data, presented by Vice Environment Protection Minister Zhang Lijun, revives persistent questions about the quality of Chinese official statistics and the effectiveness of a government push for cleaner growth after decades of unbridled expansion.