National (U.S.)

"The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) released a long overdue new version of their Plant Hardiness Zone Map yesterday—the first update since 1990."

"How out of date was the 1990 map? It was based on data from 1974 to 1986. That's 26 years ago.

The new map is interactive, which is cool, and based on a much finer data scale than the old one, which is great. And guess what. It shows that things are getting warmer. The USDA managed to pretty much bury that fact in Bureaucratese in their press release ... ."

"The United States must urgently work to find a new central site to house its spent nuclear fuel and probe whether Japan's nuclear disaster has any safety implications for storage at the country's plants, a federal panel said on Thursday."

"Industrial agricultural has significant socioeconomic and environmental costs, although scientists are bringing solutions."

"House Democrats took the political offensive on Keystone Wednesday, seeking to probe connections between the multi-billion dollar project and Koch Industries, the Kansas-based energy conglomerate that has funded many a conservative cause."

"Each day, American municipalities discharge treated wastewater back into natural sources at a rate that would fill an empty Lake Champlain within six months. Growing pressure on water supplies and calls for updating the ancient subterranean piping infrastructure have brought new scrutiny to this step in the treatment process, which is labeled wasteful and unnecessary by a spectrum of voices."

Artificially created wetlands may not really compensate well enough for the loss of natural wetlands they replace.

----

"To many, it’s a familiar scenario: a strip mall suddenly pops up in what was once a desolate quagmire or boggy boondock.

"Despite billions of dollars spent on nanotechnology research and development over the past decade, the human and environmental safety of nanomaterials remains unclear. As a result, a new nanomaterials safety research strategy is needed, and new governmental oversight is required to ensure the essential research is carried out, according to a report released [Wednesday] by the National Research Council (NRC)."

"President Obama will travel to Nevada and Colorado on Thursday to sell the public on the energy proposals he outlined in this week’s State of the Union address."

"UXBRIDGE, Canada -- Hundreds of thousands of shale gas wells are being "fracked" in the United States and Canada, allowing large amounts of methane, a highly potent greenhouse gas, to escape into the atmosphere, new studies have shown. Shale gas production results in 40 to 60 percent more global warming emissions than conventional gas, said Robert Howarth of Cornell University in New York State."