Europe

"Almost 90 percent of Austrian glaciers  shrank in 2009, some by as much as 46 metres (150 feet), the Austrian Alpine Association (OeAV) said Friday."

"Energy firms taking part in a North Sea boom for offshore wind farms will have to watch out for remains of Stone Age villages submerged for thousands of years, an expert said on Tuesday."

"After his governing conservative party took a pounding in regional polls on Sunday, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France has dropped a key environmental goal: setting up a carbon tax to limit the growth of emissions and spur the development of renewable fuels."

A deliberately caused oil spill of some 660,000 gallons in Northern Italy snaked down the Po River and reached the province of Parma raising fears of contamination in a farm district that produces Italy's famed prosciutto and parmesan cheese.

"Poland's Bialowieza National Park is home to some of the most impressive trees in Europe. Old growth oak, ash, spruce, hornbeam, linden, lime, and pine tower out of sight, their trunks dripping with luscious moss. For millennia these trees (some of which are more than 600 years old) have harbored legions of top carnivores, rare bugs, birds, and plants. Three packs of wolves range the park's wilderness, along with bison, lynx, wild boar, roe and red deer, otter, cranes, storks, three kinds of eagle, and four owl species." The park faces a number of threats, especially logging."