Environment

Helen Slottje is an Ithaca-based lawyer who helped develop town bans against drilling. She spoke to a friendly crowd on Monday night at the Unitarian Church of Ithaca.

When environmentalist Bill McKibben visited Syracuse in October as part of the University Lectures series, he urged students to get their schools to make more sustainable investments. His words encouraged Syracuse University and SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry students to start the Fossil Fuel Divestment Campaign.

Central New Yorkers make the most trash over the holiday season, which only makes recycling all the more important this time of year, says one of the region's recycling agencies.

Even though dredging and capping operations to clean up contamination in Onondaga Lake is in its early stages, a scientist consulting on the project says mercury levels are dropping better than expected.

The Department of Environmental Conservation recently released regulations on water withdrawals that would cover the natural gas industry in New York.

A new poll finds that, in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy, more than two thirds of New Yorkers say they now believe in climate change.

A General Motors facility in western New York has announced they are going green. The site in Lockport makes heating and air conditioning components for GM radiators and is the 103rd facility for the company to become landfill-free.

Solar and wind power have gotten a lot of the attention as promising alternative power sources. But energy extracted from plants, known as biofuels, is also the subject of ongoing research.

Wildlife ecologist Danielle Garneau is making a habit of tracking down roadkill. She actually seeks it out, hunting for clues about larger ecological trends. Garneau records it all on a free smartphone app, EpiCollect.

Standing by the side of the road in upstate New York, phone in hand, Garneau peers down at a dead, bloody and smelly skunk.

A central New York planning agency is moving into the public comment period as it works to create its contribution to a state-wide sustainability plan.

At a packed public meeting November 7 in Watertown, state environmental and health officials began a dialogue with members of the public concerned about pollution on the city's north side, with the New York Air Brake plant at the center of concern. Now, Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) officials talk about what they'll do with the new information from the meeting, and what might come next.