Environment

A worker pours a bucket of pesticide into a machine to be sprayed on almond trees at Del Bosque Farms Inc. in Firebaugh, Calif., on April 6, 2015. California and Washington already have adopted, through state regulation, many of the rules that the EPA now

EPA Announces New Rules To Protect Farmworkers From Pesticides

6:09pm September 28, 2015

by Dan Charles

The federal government is requiring farmers to keep more records on exactly when and where they used specific pesticides. And no children under the age of 18 will be allowed to handle the chemicals.

ShellNo flotilla participants float near the Polar Pioneer oil drilling rig during demonstrations in May against the presence of the first of two Royal Dutch Shell oil rigs in the Port of Seattle.

Shell Oil Abandons Controversial Drilling Off Alaska's Shore

12:09pm September 28, 2015

by Bill Chappell

Shell announced the move late Sunday, describing what the company called "a clearly disappointing exploration outcome" in the Chukchi Sea, which is part of the Arctic Ocean.

Fall Brings No Relief To The West As Wildfires Worsen

12:56pm September 27, 2015

by Kirk Siegler

Even as fall has arrived, the number of homes and businesses destroyed by wildfires keeps going up in the drought-stricken West.

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Before The World's Most Powerful, Pope Delivers Environmental Message

1:51pm September 26, 2015

by Sylvia Poggioli

Pope Francis issued a call for social justice in a speech to world officials gathered at the United Nations on Friday. Degradation of the environment, he argued, hits the poor the hardest.

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Obama And Xi Emerge From Meeting With Big-Ticket Promise On Climate

8:09pm September 25, 2015

by Christopher Joyce

Chinese President Xi Jinping and President Obama agreed on at least one thing this week: They need to coordinate action to lower greenhouse gas emissions to combat climate change.

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Some 15 percent of the seafood that's wasted in the U.S. is lost en route from sea to consumer, often because it spoils or is discarded as scraps.

We Leave Half Of All Our Seafood On The Table (And In The Trash)

7:55pm September 25, 2015

by Alastair Bland

Each year American consumers buy and then never eat 1.3 billion pounds of fish and shellfish, according to a new study. Fishermen, retailers and processors waste a lot of fish, too.

#NPRreads: Lying About Sept. 11, And California's Drought-Stricken Levees

3:39pm September 25, 2015

by Kirk Siegler

Also this week: What Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath teach us about the true nature of America.

Diesel car engines like this one in a 2012 Volkswagen Golf are among those that include software that circumvents EPA emissions standards for certain air pollutants.

How A Little Lab In West Virginia Caught Volkswagen's Big Cheat

1:59pm September 25, 2015

by Sonari Glinton

Arvind Thiruvengadam and colleagues at WVU got excited when they won a grant in 2012 to test emissions on a few diesel cars. He figured the data might result in some papers a few people might read.

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President Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping hold a joint press conference in the Rose Garden at the White House on Friday.

U.S., China Unveil Plan To Curb Greenhouse Gases

12:47pm September 25, 2015

by Scott Horsley

The proposal includes a nationwide cap-and-trade system beginning in 2017. China and the United States are the No. 1 and No. 2 emitters of heat-trapping carbon pollution.

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault was opened on Feb. 26, 2008. Carved into the Arctic permafrost and filled with samples of the world's most important seeds, it's a Noah's Ark of food crops to be used in the event of a global catastrophe.

Syrian Civil War Prompts First Withdrawal From Doomsday Seed Vault In The Arctic

4:03pm September 24, 2015

by Laura Wagner

Researchers in the Middle East have requested the first-ever withdrawal from the "final backup" seed bank because of destruction caused by the Syrian civil war.