International

"Lord Oxburgh, former non-executive chairman of Shell, will head up a team of leading scientists looking at claims fossil fuels cause global temperatures to rise."

Bisphenol A, an estrogen-mimicking building block of polycarbonate  plastics and food-can coatings, is being found in beach sand and coastal seawater around the world. A Japanese chemist reported the findings, and he suspects the source may be certain resins used in marine paint.

"With climate change transforming the Arctic, biologists are scrambling to understand the impact on gray whales and other creatures living in the region."

Delegates at a meeting in Doha, Qatar, of the parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) neared the March 25 close of the 13-day meeting. They rejected proposals to regulate trade in three shark species, but accepted regulation of a fourth shark species. They held off sales of stockpiled elephant ivory for another three years. They rejected  ban on trade in Atlantic bluefin tuna and polar bears.

"Cruise companies are balking at a proposal to create a low-emissions buffer zone around the United States and Canada, saying it sets arbitrary boundaries based on faulty science that overstates the health benefits."

"Human beings are flushing millions of tonnes of solid waste into rivers and oceans every day, poisoning marine life and spreading diseases that kill millions of children annually, the U.N. said on Monday."

"Global warming has neither stopped nor slowed in the past decade, according to a draft analysis of temperature data by NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies."

Bad water kills more people than wars or earthquakes, UN officials declared, as they prepared to celebrate World Water Week next week.