The study, conducted by researchers at Loma Linda University in Loma Linda, California, found that women did not share the increased risk of lung cancer with men. However, both men and women face increased risk of lung cancer from high levels of soot particles and sulphur dioxide in the air, the researchers found.

This danger from dirty air adds to a growing list of problems associated with smog, including asthma and other breathing-related ailments, said Frank O'Donnell, executive director of the Clean Air Trust. ``This study is dramatic new evidence that we need much cleaner gasoline as well as cleaner cars, sport utility vehicles and other light trucks,'' said O'Donnell.In the study, Loma Linda researchers followed more than 6,000 non-smoking Seventh-Day Adventists in California for 15 years. They foundthat men who didn't smoke, but lived in smoggy areas, were more than three times as likely to have lung cancer than men in areas with cleaner air.

The scientists had several theories why women seemed less at risk of cancer from smog, including that men spend far more time outdoors in the summer when ozone is worst or that estrogen somehow neutralises the dangerous ozone.

Colorado wind farm to light homes
The state of Colorado's first wind farm began generating electricity last week, as Phase I of the Ponnequin Wind Facility in the north-east part of the state fired up. When construction of the Public Service Company of Colorado Windsource Project is complete next spring, more than 14.7 megawatts of wind power will help electrify thousands of homes. Residential customers can buy wind energy for their homes in ``blocks'' on a monthly basis from the Denver-based Public Service Company and from Holy Cross Energy of Glenwood Springs, Colorado, a wholesale customer of PSC. One block consists of 100kilowatt-hours of electricity and costs $2.50 a month above existing residential rates. On average, one US household uses about 600 kilowatt-hours of electricity per month. Buying one block of power from these green energy programmes each month for a year has the same environmental benefits as not driving a car 2,400 miles or planting a half-acre of trees.

CEO puts forward salmon plan
Steven R Rogel, Weyerhaeuser Company president and chief executive officer, has challenged the Puget Sound business community to help develop and implement a regional solution to the ``salmon crisis'' and other environmental issues that may arise from regional growth. Based on Weyerhaeuser's experience with the northern spotted owl, Rogel offered six recommendations to guide the business community in working toward achieving an equitable and effective salmon-recovery plan: Get involved and stay involved, stand united, press for a regional solution, be clear about the goals, seek regulatory flexibility and do yourfair share.

Bottom trawlers decried as ocean clear-cutters
An extremely common industrial fishing method, known as bottom trawling, has the same devastating impact on the ocean bottom as clearcutting forests has on the Earth's surface, according to a series of reports published in the December issue of the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology, US.Trawling vessels drag huge nets for thousands of miles along estuaries, bays and the continental shelves, pulling tonnes of marine creatures, rocks and mud. Les Watling of the University of Maine in Walpole and Elliott Norse of the Marine Conservation Biology Institute in Redmond, Washington, estimate that trawlers scrape nearly six million square miles a year, the equivalent of half the world's continental shelves. This is twice the area of the lower 48 United States and about 150 times larger than the area of forests clearcut each year.

And on top of that, fishermen trawl pretty much wherever and whenever they want because there are veryfew government restrictions in place--the frontier mentality still reigns in high-seas fisheries, according to the report.

The damage left behind by trawling is immense. Many of us retain in our mind's eye the storybook picture we had as kids of the bottom of the ocean as one vast wet sandy desert. The truth is that the bottom of the ocean is a complex series of ecosystems, made up of mud, seagrass beds, coral reefs, rocky reefs and cobbles. Each seabed type supports a different community of sea life, and provides protection from predators, food and a safe place to raise the young. Bottom trawling rips all that up. The nets take everything in their paths and the weighted lines dragging the ocean floor crush, bury and expose any remaining wildlife.