Last chance to see chequered gems heading for extinction

Today The Independent’s Great British Butterfly Hunt turns its attention to a butterfly family that contains some of our rarest and most rapidly-declining species, the fritillaries.

Being Green Is Latest Style for Watchmakers

When it comes to sustainability, a mechanical watch is a model machine. Given the proper care, an automatic or manual-wind timepiece can run for generations on clean kinetic energy created by the simple act of swinging an arm or winding a gear.

Looking at Europe’s Green Ways

When Chicago’s mayor, Richard Daley, visited Germany some years ago, he was struck by the concept of “green roofs” – flourishing gardens atop homes and businesses. He came back to Chicago and founded the most ambitious green roof program in the United States.

Britain’s Ideal: Green Homes

Aiming to drastically cut its emissions of planet-warming pollutants, Britain is telling its home builders to design a new generation of super-efficient houses that use only clean power and add no net carbon to the atmosphere.

Bring Out Your Dead (TVs)

Moore’s law, which has held true for more than 40 years, states that the number of transistors that can fit on an integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years. The world economy has reaped the benefits of this maxim, with ever-sleeker and more powerful electronics. But the phenomenon has also created up to 50 million metric tons annually of obsolete waste, according to the United Nations.

Green Groups Say E-Waste Bill Is Too Lax

The new legislation was introduced on Thursday with the title of “To restrict certain exports of electronic waste”. Proponents of the bill say that it provides “safeguards” against the export of toxic e-waste to developing nations.

Carbon capture success in Wisconsin

Capturing the carbon dioxide that wafts up the smokestack after burning coal (or any other fossil fuel) has been identified by everyone from President Obama to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as a critical technology to help keep the lights on while combating climate change. And now there has been yet another successful demonstration that the technology to capture that CO2 from flue gas might actually work: chilled ammonia can capture more than 88 percent of the greenhouse gas before it goes up the smokestack.

New auto standards: the start of Obama’s green revolution

President Obama’s announcement on tailpipe emissions Tuesday reaffirmed a commitment that goes beyond regulation of the auto industry. The move is part of a broader White House strategy to confront the risk of global warming while making green-collar jobs a centerpiece of the economy.

Now, you can hear global warming

A new study has determined that it’s now possible to hear the rise of global warming, in the form of more larger and more intense storms, which are signs of climate change.

Chile faces climate change challenge

Chile has enjoyed one of the most dynamic economies in Latin America in recent years, largely based on a booming export sector.

UK ‘worst electrical recycler’

A study on recycling suggests Britons are the worst in Europe when it comes to recycling electrical equipment. Computer manufacturer Dell found that fewer than half of UK residents regularly recycled old hardware, compared with more than 80% of Germans.

Another Way Lead Kills Condors

Bruce Robertson, a private detective, had little to go on. Two gunshot victims, one soon to be dead, both found in the Big Sur wilderness. The victims had brown eyes, ruddy faces and nine-foot wingspans.