Green News Round-Up | Thursday, June 12

Reuters reports that General Motors (GM) is working to build new hydrogen stations. The company is partnering with Clean Energy Fuels Corp on a new station in Los Angeles, hopefully the first of many. Fuel cell-powered vehicles run on hydrogen and emit only water vapor. The goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, thereby reducing America’s dependency on crude oil – which is both expensive and insecure. The new hydrogen station will be used as part of GM’s test of its Chevy Equinox fuel-cell car. Ultimately, GM aims to put 1,000 hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles on the road in California between 2012 and 2014, which will comply with the state's goal of introducing thousands of cleaner cars. The switch to hydrogen fuel cell cars, however, faces a number of hurdles – one of which (and a problem with fuel-cell cars generally) is the lack of infrastructure for them. The construction of hydrogen stations is a step toward mitigating that difficulty.

Reuters also reports that the recent earthquake that devastated China’s Sichuan province also devastated the natural habitat and heartland of the Panda. About 8% of the endangered bear's habitat was completely destroyed. The number of actual casualties the Pandas suffered is not yet known; but about 1,400 of China’s nearly 1,600 Pandas were in Sichuan province on May 12 when the earthquake struck. Apparently much of the forest area is now barren land and there have been a number of landslides, which could have endangered nearby Pandas. Such severe damage to the land also could have led to pollution of the Pandas’ drinking water, which might have poisoned them. Another possible cause of injury to the bears has to do with the nature of their living quarters: Pandas sleep in caves and tree hollows, which might have collapsed.

The Associated Press reports that Madagascar will sell some of its carbon credits to protect its forest. The island country off the coast of Africa will voluntarily sell nine million tons of carbon offsets in an effort to protect one of its biggest and most pristine forests. Such offset schemes offer great hope that the environment can be protected for the future, as it allows polluters to pay for their greenhouse gas emissions using cuts made elsewhere in the world. Reducing such emissions is key to staving off climate change. Moreover, safeguarding forests like Madagascar's helps significantly in tackling global warming, as tropical deforestation causes about 20 % of total carbon dioxide emissions.

In a related story, Agence France-Presse reports that Madagascar has signed a conservation deal with France to help protect the island’s biodiversity. The two countries signed an agreement allocating the equivalent of $20 million, which will be managed by a WWF fund called Foundation for Protected Areas and Biodiversity (FPAB), Conservation International and the Madagascan government.