In July 2006, Brazil's biggest soy traders enacted a two-year moratorium on soybeans grown in newly deforested areas of the Amazon. It was groundbreaking for the way in which it was accomplished--rather than Brazil's government enforcing the ban, it was NGOs and giant soybean buyers that pressured the change. Now, a new report says the market approach seems to be working. Researchers found no soybeans in large areas of the Amazon cleared between August 2006 and August 2007--which means, at a broad glance, that more rainforest isn't being cut down to grow soybeans.

The presence of black carbon, a component of soot, in the atmosphere is holding in more solar energy than any other air pollutant besides carbon dioxide, according to new research. This new estimate says the heating potential of black carbon is three to four times greater than prevailing estimates.

To thank Kenyans for leaving wildlife safe amidst the nation's eruption of violence after the December 27 national elections, Kenya's national parks are offering free admission to children for the next month. The gesture is nice, but the more interesting question it raises is why wildlife preservation during wartime is noteworthy, or even the exception to the rule. In fact, in diverse war settings in places around the world, wildlife numbers have dwindled due to fighting. Animal casualties in these wars are understandably overshadowed by towering numbers of human deaths--in Kenya, more than 1,000 have died from the fighting. But for already endangered species, like Rwanda's mountain gorillas, the pressure of war can be a life or death situation.

Illegal animal trade, once a high-profile environmental concern, has largely taken a back seat to climate change, habitat destruction, and pollution as a threat to biodiversity. Despite being out of the spotlight, however, so-called wildlife trafficking is a big business. The U.S. Department of State estimates that black-market trade in illegal ivory, snake skins and venoms, live birds, primates, tiger parts, rhino horns, and other wildlife and wildlife products generates between 10 and 20 billion dollars per year. China is the number one destination for such products; the U.S. is number two.

A new study of Hawaii's rainforests finds that more trees aren't always better. According to the study, published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, certain species of trees are actually destructive to the biodiversity that is the hallmark of tropical rainforests. Not only do non-native trees crowd out other trees, but they alter the ecosystem as a whole, changing soil fertility, available sunlight, and hospitability to other plants and animals.

No-till farming has been around since the 1960s, when it was developed to reduce erosion of valuable topsoil from cropland. Since then, the realization of the method's other benefits--reduced need for irrigation, less labor for farmers, increased soil quality--has encouraged its adoption across the U.S. and around the world. In recent years, however, interest in no-till has risen due to its greenhouse gas benefits, which have farmers seeing another kind of green: cash.

Ethanol's climate benefits, already assailed by many environmentalists, have become even more troubled in the past week. A study published online in Science magazine last Thursday indicates that, over a 30 year span, ethanol from corn nearly doubles the greenhouse gas emissions of the equivalent amount of gasoline, while ethanol produced from switchgrass increases emissions by 50 percent.

To mark this year's World Wetlands Day, which falls annually on February 2nd, leaders of the Republic of Congo have designated four of the country's wetlands as protected Ramsar sites, including one that is the second largest in the world.

With the Congo's first protected wetland designated in 1998, this brings the Congo's total up to five Wetlands of International Importance. Worldwide there are over 1700 of these protected wetlands under the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands.

Anyone who's ever seen a cow pasture would likely recognize some of the most immediate environmental impacts of large-scale livestock farming--trampled ground, eroded stream banks, lots of manure. However, a less visible but equally worrisome effect appears thousands of miles from the Midwest's muddy cow pastures, in the tropical waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Amidst increasing concern for the growing 'dead zone' where the Mississippi River flows into the Gulf, livestock farming practices are increasingly coming under scrutiny. In fact, the FAO says, the livestock sector is the major driver of increasing water pollution in most geographical areas.

In the swarm of ideas for new energy technologies, one that sounds like science fiction is getting a more serious look from the U.S. Defense Department. Space solar power, or SSP, has been studied for over 40 years but has recently resurfaced in the climate change discussion, and was the subject of a 75-page study released by the Pentagon in October. The technology would generate electricity from solar panels attached to an orbiting satellite and convert it into microwaves for transmission to Earth, where it would then be transformed into direct-current electricity.