Articles by Sarah Laskow

Australians to kill camels for carbon credits

Australians really don't like the hundreds of thousands of feral camels that run around the continent, so every once in a while the government decides to spend money on sending guys with guns up in helicopters to cull their numbers. But now they have a utilitarian justification for the culls: They're fighting climate change.

Like cows, camels spew methane from their digestives systems. By cutting their lives short, one company argues, Australia would be preventing the release of the methane the camels would emit over their remaining years. The company, Northwest Carbon, also says it'll be able to offer carbon credits for the reduction in emissions.

Shark massacre reported off of Colombian coast

Off the coast of Colombia, as many as 2,000 sharks in a wildlife sanctuary have been massacred, says the Colombian government. A team of divers first alerted the government to the killings, according to the Guardian:

[The divers] saw a large number of fishing trawlers entering the zone illegally," [environmental minister Sandra] Bessudo said. The divers counted a total of 10 fishing boats, which all were flying the Costa Rican flag. 

New skimmer can capture nearly 90 percent of spilled oil

After the BP oil spill, the X Prize Foundation offered a $1 million prize to anyone who could come up with a better way of cleaning up oil. But the winning team, Team Elastec/American Marine, didn’t merely do better -- they blew other oil skimmers out of the water (ha). Their skimmer sucks up nearly 90 percent of spilled oil. You can check it out in the video above. The details, according to NPR:

Critical List: Exotic animals escape in Ohio; Nebraskans ‘stand with Randy’

Forty-eight escapees from an exotic animal farm were running amok in eastern Ohio; about 25 of the lions, tigers, and bears have been shot.

If the U.S. wants to oversee Cuba's offshore drilling, it'll have to lift the embargo.

Glad is selling an eco-friendly trash bag, made with less plastic.