Canada’s oil-sands boom creates vast riches and a dirty footprint. The huge oil reserves of Canada, where the stuff can literally be dug out of the ground, provide the U.S. with a nearby alternative to importing crude from distant, unstable countries. [News Source]

Salmon-tracking network upends some sacred cows. Scientists have made some startling discoveries that challenge long-held beliefs about salmon survival and raise new cautions about how global warming may affect salmon and other marine species. [News Source]

Acorn watchers wonder what happened to crop. The idea seemed too crazy to Rod Simmons, a measured, careful field botanist. Naturalists in Arlington County couldn't find any acorns. None. No hickory nuts, either. Then he went out to look for himself. He came up with nothing. [News Source]

Cow tax could milk farms dry. Insane, ridiculous, unbelievable — just some of the words used to describe a federal proposal to regulate greenhouse emissions by taxing dairy farms $175 per cow. [News Source]

Tatas to invest more in wind power sector. Aiming at reducing carbon emission, India's Tata Power will make additional investments in the wind power sector to take its production capacity from the present 200MW to 500MW by 2011. [News Source]

Not so Old MacDonald: Young farmers tend to the land to fulfill their dreams. Slotnick said the strong interest in local farming has been steady for a decade, propelled by younger people who don't see the job as an obscure hobby but as part of a solution to problems such as global warming. [News Source]

Egypt’s Red Sea Resort becomes a Tourism Earth Lung. Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt’s Red Sea Resort last week became the second Earth Lung destination of the world, an initiative in which Sri Lanka is heavily involved. [News Source]

Girl Guides introduce environmental star-rating for schools. The Sri Lanka Girl Guides Association announced that a compulsory environmental star-rating would be introduced for all government and private schools in Sri Lanka with the approval of the Ministry of Education. [News Source]

UT scientist drops research that he says pollutes. Going with his conscience, an astronomy professor at the University of Texas has decided to back out of a NASA project that he spent about a decade working on because he thinks it excessively harms the environment. [News Source]

Energizing the commonwealth. Coal - the resource that has helped power the state and fortified the backbone of the state’s economy for years - figures prominently in the energy plan released by Gov. Steve Beshear. [News Source]

UN global warming talks weighed down by financial crisis. The two-week UN climate conference in Poznan, Poland, is meant to put governments on track for a new global deal to save the climate that leaders can approve in Denmark in a year's time. [News Source]