Celia W. Dugger reports that "degradation of farmland across sub-Saharan Africa has accelerated at an ominous rate over the past decade." One result: deepening of a hunger crisis already afflicting more than 240 million Africans. She reports on a study by the International Fertilizer Development Center, a nonprofit ag group, and writes that three-quarters of Africa's farmland "is severely depleted of the basic nutrients needed to grow crops." That figure compares with 40 percent 10 years ago. "Nothing grows, so the topsoil is blown away by the wind and washed away by the rains," says the head of the group doing the study. "It goes into the river system, silting them, and out to the oceans." Dugger reports that fertilizer to restore the productivity of the soil "is far too expansive for Africa's small and often impoverished farmers," costing two to six time more than the world average. Africa's "awful, sparse roads" complicate efforts to lower prices, she writes. "It costs more to move fertilizer from an African seaport 60 miles inland than to ship it from the United States to Africa, the researchers said." Another challenge: combating widespread corruption.

A federal scientific panel finds "new national standards for soot are not tough enough to protect Americans from microscopic air pollution linked to heart disease and respiratory ailments," writes Michael Hawthorne. The panel of scientists who advised EPA on the new standard has accused the Bush administration of ignoring their advice. The White House Budget Office edited the wording of the rules, softening scientific conclusions on the effects of soot at lower levels, and deleting sections summarizing some of the latest research, including "a study concluding that low-income people could be more vulnerable to soot." Hawthorne reports also that a sentence was deleted indicating that the new rules could have an impact on the life expectancy in the U.S. "In a sign of how upset many scientists are with the EPA's proposal, the advisory panel is taking formal action to dispute it, a first in the committee's 35-year history," Hawthorne reports.

Scott Stecklow's front-page piece says "The IRS won't say how it decided to audit Greenpeace." But "what is clear" is that Exxon, long a target of Greenpeace antics and protests, gives a lot of money to Public Interest Watch (PIW), "a self-described watchdog of nonprofit groups" that had written to IRS urging the Greenpeace audit. That audit in March concluded that Greenpeace "continues to qualify for exemption from federal income tax" as a nonprofit notwithstanding the PIW claim two and a half years ago that the group was laundering money and otherwise abusing its nonprofit status. "I believe organizations should be scrutinized and audited, but I just don't believe you should get targeted because ... you're a critic of Exxon Mobil," Greenpeace USA Executive Director John Passacantando told the WSJ. Stecklow reports that Exxon Mobil "said that it wasn't aware of the IRS audit and that it played no role in initiating the audit." He quotes an Exxon Mobil spokesperson as saying, "It's hard for us to have sympathy for an organization that would complain that the IRS audited them." He reported Greenpeace concerns that the audit "lasted nearly three months" before concluding that nine "deficiencies" do not affect its tax status.

"Nationwide, there are 35 million mercury switches in vehicles on the road, according to industry estimates," Michael Hawthorne writes. Older models used the mercury for devices that control antilock brakes and turn on lights inside trunks and under hoods. Although each switch has only a small amount of mercury, they account for up to 11 tons of mercury waste each year, compared to coal-fired power plants which release up to 48 tons per year. In an effort to reduce mercury in the environment, EPA has reached a national agreement with the steel and auto industry to encourage removing the devices before cars are shredded or crushed. The "auto and steel industries agreed to finance a three-year, $4 million fund to encourage automakers to collect auto switches from scrap yards. The mercury would be recycled or disposed of in landfills for hazardous waste," writes Hawthorne.

Foreign service reporter Doug Struck reports from Pangnirgtung, Canada, 30 miles from the Arctic Circle, that the Arctic's "frozen grip is loosening," forcing "a historic reshaping" of people's world there. Global warming increasingly documented by scientists is hitting first and hardest here," and hardy Inuit "say this winter was the worst in a series of warm winters," with signs of change "everywhere." With five photos and images, three of them in color, Strunk reports of a snowmobiler's facing a sudden sinking on ice "where he had hunted safely for 20 years." He reports on a study in Science concluding "the Bering Sea was warming so much it was experiencing 'a change from arctic to subarctic conditions.'" He reports on gray whales heading north, walruses starving, adrift on ice floes in water too deep for feeding, and warmer-water fish such as Pollock and salmon migrating in. A quote from a local hunter: "They call it climate change ... but we just call it breaking up."

"Munich Re [insurers] calculated that last year was the most expensive on record for natural catastrophes, with losses of more than $210 billion. Windstorm destruction in just the United States, the Caribbean and Mexico cost $83 billion, most of it, of course, coming from Hurricane Katrina," writes author Derrick Jackson. These types of statistics have prompted formation of a National Association of Insurance Commissioners task force to assess impacts of climate change on the American insurance industry. European insurers have been discussing this issue for years, and some insurers have "warned of massive financial losses from storm patterns aggravated by global warming." Boston-based CERES has indicated that insured losses as a result of weather have grown 10 times faster than premiums since 1971.

"State biologists in Maryland and Virginia are wrapping up the annual winter dredge survey – a sampling of 1,500 sites in the bay – which they expect will show a stable, if not growing, population," Joshua Partlow reports. Ten years ago, the Chesapeake Bay yielded approximately 751 million crabs. Last year the estimate was 487 million. In an effort to bring the numbers back up, "crabbers are allowed to catch crabs for no more than eight hours a day and must take one day off a week. The limits on the size of crabs that can be caught and where they can be caught have been tightened," writes Partlow. Some professional crabbers accept or even agree with the rules, but others, citing rising costs for maintenance of gear and boat repairs, fear the restrictions will make their jobs a thing of the past.