Environmental groups, BP and the U.S. Coast Guard reached tentative agreement on Friday on measures to prevent sea turtles from being incinerated alive in controlled burns of spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico. The deal would settle a lawsuit accusing BP of violating the U.S. Endangered Species Act and terms of its lease with the federal government for the deep-sea well that ruptured on April 20, unleashing the worst offshore spill in U.S. history.

Keeping goats contained can be a challenge, but with just a little ingenuity and room in your budget, you can furnish the ideal setup for keeping your goats. Find out the pros and cons of raising goats in a goat barn or on pasture in this excerpt from Laura Childs' "The Joy of Keeping Farm Animals," a practical, thorough guide for anyone interested in having a backyard barnyard.

(Reuters) - A Kyoto Protocol scheme may be encouraging projects to emit more greenhouse gases because of incentives to earn carbon offsets from subsequently destroying these, a U.N. report said. The projects under investigation are the most lucrative under Kyoto's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and account for more than half carbon offsets sold under the scheme. Limiting their output could impact carbon prices.

The dark deeps of the ocean has always been mysterious because they are dark (of course) as well hard to visit and see what is down there. For example the Coelacanth, long thought extinct, lives down deep and was only discovered in 1938 as well the elusive giant squids of legend. A study of the occurrence of fishes in the ocean's deepest reaches (the hadal zone, below 20,000 feet)has provided evidence that some species of fishes are more numerous at such depths than experts had thought. The authors of the study, which is published in the July/August issue of BioScience, observed 10 to 20 snailfish congregating at a depth of 25,000 feet around a baited video lander in the Japan Trench. The observation period lasted only five hours, so the occurrence of so many snailfish was a surprise.

The reporting of greenhouse gas emissions by major sources of these pollutants is gaining momentum. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is finalizing requirements under its national mandatory greenhouse gas (GHG) reporting program for underground coal mines, industrial wastewater treatment systems, industrial waste landfills and magnesium production facilities. The data from these sectors will provide a better understanding of GHG emissions and will help EPA and businesses develop effective policies and programs to reduce them. Methane is the primary GHG emitted from coal mines, industrial wastewater treatment systems and industrial landfills and is more than 20 times as potent as carbon dioxide at warming the atmosphere. The main fluorinated GHG emitted from magnesium production is sulfur hexafluoride, which has an even greater warming potential than methane, and can stay in the atmosphere for thousands of years.

June 30, 2010 – MillerCoors, a leader in brewing industry sustainability practices, released its 2010 Sustainable Development report yesterday in which the company announced that it had exceeded its 2015 waste reduction goals 5 years early, and has achieved "zero waste" at two of its brewing facilities.

This fall, stores in the Chicago will start sending used cups to a Green Bay, WI, paper mill, where a Georgia Pacific facility will turn them into napkins. The program will start small but is a significant step to address the company’s devouring of 3 billion paper cups and 1 billion plastic cups annually. Starbucks wants recycling at all of its stores by 2015 and the company's leadership is focusing on two approaches: first, recycling bins at all of its stores, and second, finding a market for all those dirty cups that otherwise end up in a landfill.

For the past 16 years the state of Texas has been issuing air quality permits to refineries and other major sources that permitted emissions caps on facilities, and allowed facilities to comply with the caps in a manner that gave them some operating flexibility while not exceeding the overall facility cap specified in the permit. This approach, also used in other states, is generally applauded by companies, regulatory agencies, and also by environmental groups. It is a win-win for everyone. So why did EPA void the program? First, state programs operate under authority delegated by USEPA, so EPA does have the right to disapprove a state program it deems to be inadequate under the federal Clean Air Act. A major problem with the EPA action disapproving the Texas permitting program is that there are existing sources in Texas permitted under the program that are relying on the permit terms in their existing permits and have based their business decisions on an existing established permitting program that has been in place since 1995.

From lowered cancer risks to a sharper memory, more studies are showing that coffee is good for you - but why? Regular coffee drinkers have a 39 percent decreased risk of head and neck cancer, according to a new study published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention. Those who drank an estimated four or more cups a day had significantly fewer cancers of the mouth and throat than non coffee drinkers, the study found. Scientists are still trying to determine exactly what it is about coffee that gives it its disease-fighting properties, but recent research is getting closer to unlocking the mysterious power behind the energizing brew.

According to a new study of large companies using telepresence technology, U.S. and U.K. businesses that substitute some business travel with telepresence can cut CO2 emissions by nearly 5.5 million metric tons in total – the greenhouse gas equivalent of removing more than one million passenger vehicles from the road for one year – and achieve total economy-wide financial benefits of almost $19 billion, by 2020.

Concern over its ability to pay the rapidly escalating cost of the worst spill in U.S. history continued to weigh on its shares, however, sending its London stock to a 14-year low and further hitting its credit profile. BP said in a statement on Friday the first of two relief wells had successfully detected the MC252 well and would continue to a target intercept depth of 18,000 feet, when "kill" operations would begin. As concern grows that bad weather could hamper clean-up operations, BP said 37,000 people, 4,500 vessels and 100 aircraft were helping the response effort, and that almost 850,000 barrels of oil and "oily liquid" had been captured or burned off the sea.

ENN is a media sponsor of the Robert Bateman "Get to Know" contest. Now, the National Forest Foundation is offering Robert Bateman's new print Family Hike to benefit More Kids in the Woods which provides grants to nonprofits that take kids beyond four walls and into their backyard – be it a county park, National Forest, or other wild place – an effort to ensure that today’s children know what it is to grow in the open air. It's summertime, which for many of us means that it's time to lace up our boots and head for the hills. Or perhaps it's time to roll out the tent, pack up the marshmallows, and re-acquaint ourselves with a favorite campsite. Unfortunately, too many children today don’t have the opportunity for these outdoor adventures. You’ve heard of Nature Deficit Disorder, Electronic Overload, and any number of other catchy phrases. Call it what you will, the message is the same: kids don’t spend enough time outdoors.

Earthquakes are often imagined as opening up large gaps in the land, sinking islands and the such. It is much harder in real life to see this change. NASA has recently released the first ever airborne radar images of the deformation in Earth's surface caused by a major earthquake -- the magnitude 7.2 temblor that rocked Mexico's state of Baja California and parts of the American Southwest on April 4, 2010. The data reveal that in the area studied, the quake moved the Calexico, Calif., region in a downward and southerly direction up to 31 inches.

Our interactive Vegetable Garden Planner provides help with garden design, plant placement, planting times, crop rotations and more. Garden planning just got easier!

Make a coffee table from a tree stump and a slab of wood to give your space a one-of-a-kind elegance. Nothing adds more warmth and charm to a home than the simple beauty of natural wood, and with this project from the book "Tree Craft: 35 Rustic Wood Projects That Bring the Outdoors In," you can tap the splendor of the outdoors in a practical, creative way.

It is getting more and more difficult to deny that global warming is occurring. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released a report recently about the state of the global climate, and the results were not pretty. It turns out the combined global land and ocean surface temperatures set a record in May. In fact, from March to May, it was the hottest spring on record. Furthermore, the whole first half of the year, from January to May was also the warmest on record.

NOAA has opened more than 8,000 square miles of previously closed fishing area in the Gulf of Mexico, because the agency has not observed oil in the area. The most significant opening is an area due south of Mississippi which was closed Monday, June 21. Additionally, some smaller areas were opened off the Louisiana and central Florida coasts.

Green builder Don Ferrier has built a zero energy home in north Texas using a classic design, structural insulated panels (SIPs) and recycled materials. The casita's location, combined with Ferrier's unique design, create a one-of-a-kind green building that creates all of the energy it uses.

It's been a hot topic for a few years now. And certainly the potential for incorporating algae as a key feedstock for future biofuel production is massive. But the sobering fact is that we're at least a good eight to ten years from seeing any kind of real, commercially-ready product… At least at the volumes that could allow for meaningful market penetration. So where does that leave us in the meantime?

Clearing forests in the Amazon helps mosquitoes thrive and can send malaria rates soaring, U.S. researchers reported on Wednesday. They found a 48 percent increase in malaria cases in one county in Brazil after 4.2 percent of its tree cover was cleared. Their findings, published in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, shows links between cutting down trees, a rise in the number of mosquitoes and infections of humans. "It appears that deforestation is one of the initial ecological factors that can trigger a malaria epidemic," said Sarah Olson of the University of Wisconsin, who worked on the study.