Filippo Monteforte / AFP - Getty Images

Pope Francis gestures on June 5, 2013 at the end of his weekly general audience on St Peter's square at the Vatican.

Pope Francis denounced on Wednesday what he called a "culture of waste" in an increasingly consumerist world and said throwing away good food was like stealing from poor people. 

"Our grandparents used to make a point of not throwing away leftover food. Consumerism has made us accustomed to wasting food daily and we are unable to see its real value," Francis said at his weekly audience in St. Peter's Square. 

"Throwing away food is like stealing from the table of those who are poor and hungry," he said. 

Since taking office in March, Pope Francis has said he wants the 1.2-billion-strong Roman Catholic Church to defend the poor and to practice greater austerity itself. He has also made several calls for global financial reform. 

Around 1.43 billion tons of food, or one third of what is produced for human consumption, gets lost or wasted every year, according to the United Nations' food agency. 

In the industrialized world the majority of waste is by consumers, often because they buy too much and have to throw away what they do not manage to eat. 

A U.N.-backed study released on Wednesday said simple measures such as better storage and reducing over-sized portions would sharply reduce the vast amount of food going to waste. 

In U.S. restaurants, diners wasted nine percent of the meals they bought, partly because of a trend to increase the size of everything from cheeseburgers to soft drinks, said the report by the World Resources Institute and the U.N. Environment Program. 

Francis said the "culture of waste" was especially deplorable given the prevalence of hunger in the world. The United Nations says hunger affects some 870 million people, while 2 billion suffer from at least one nutritional deficiency. 

The Argentinian-born pontiff warned that too much focus on money and materialism meant financial market dips were viewed as tragedies while human suffering had become normal and ignored. 

"In this way people are discarded as if they were garbage," he said. 

Yves Logghe / AP

Beekeepers protest next to a giant inflatable bee in front of the European Council and Commission in Brussels, Belgium, on Monday April 29.

PARIS — The European Commission will enact a two-year ban on a class of pesticides thought to be harming global bee populations, the European Union’s health commissioner said Monday.

“I pledge to do my utmost to ensure that our bees, which are so vital to our ecosystem and contribute over €22 billion annually to European agriculture, are protected,” Tonio Borg said in a statement from Brussels, where the commission is based.

Mr. Borg made the announcement after representatives of the 27 E.U. member states failed for the second time in two months to reach a binding agreement on a proposal to ban the pesticides, known as neonicotinoids. The commission had proposed the ban after the European Food Safety Authority recommended in January that use of the pesticides be restricted until scientists determined whether they were contributing to a die-off in bee colonies.

Though a simple majority of 15 nations backed the measure in committee Monday, it failed to gain the required “qualified majority,” which takes into account the relative weight of populations. Britain, which abstained last time, opposed the measure this time. Germany, which also abstained last month, backed it. France and Poland, two of Europe’s largest farming nations, supported it.

Under E.U. rules, Mr. Borg has the authority to move ahead on his own in such cases, as his predecessor, John Dalli, did in 2010, controversially allowing the cultivation of genetically modified potatoes.

Worldwide sales of the pesticides total in the billions of dollars. Two companies that make them in Europe, the German giant Bayer CropScience and Syngenta, a Swiss biochemical company, have said they were willing to finance additional research, but that the current data do not justify a ban.

“The proposal is based on poor science and ignores a wealth of evidence from the field that these pesticides do not damage the health of bees,” John Atkin, Syngenta’s chief operating officer, said Monday in a statement. “Instead of banning these products, the commission should now take the opportunity to address the real reasons for bee health decline: disease, viruses and loss of habitat and nutrition.”

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Bayer CropScience called the commission’s plan “a setback for technology, innovation and sustainability,” and warned of “crop yield losses, reduced food quality and loss of competitiveness for European agriculture.”

Europe’s struggle with the question of neonicotinoids and bee health is being closely watched in the United States, where the pesticides are in wide use, and where a bee die-offover the past winter appears to have been one of the worst ever. Beekeepers and environmentalists are suing the Environmental Protection Agency over its approval of the products, which they claim were allowed on the market with inadequate review.

Neonicotinoids are among the world’s most effective and widely used insecticides, and there is significant disagreement as to how much — if at all — they are contributing to the crisis that has devastated global wild and domesticated bee populations.

A plant or seed treated with such a chemical incorporates it into its tissues as it grows, making it lethal to insects that bore into a stem or nibble a leaf. The neonicotinoids are also present in pollen and nectar, and two recent studies have suggested that even sublethal doses might hurt bees.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization notes that 71 of the 100 crops that provide 90 percent of human food are pollinated by bees. Estimates of the value to those crops run to as much as $200 billion annually.

While there are other natural pollinators, including wild bees and flies, current agricultural practices would be impossible without honeybees, and honeybee populations have shrunk alarmingly over the last decade. In the United States, domesticated bee populations are at a 50-year low and falling, and the story is much the same in other countries. Scientists say several factors, including varroa mites and viruses, have contributed to the decline.

In some cases, commercial beekeeping operations are decimated in a matter of days as workers disappear, a phenomenon scientists have named Colony Collapse Disorder. So badly has the bee population been diminished that in California, the important almond crop now requires more than one-third of all the domesticated bees in the United States for pollination.

Some scientists fear that if the neonicotinoids are banned the chemicals that replace them could be worse. But even those who question the linkage between the pesticides and bee deaths say the current state of knowledge is inadequate and that more study is needed.

Under the European measures, which take effect Dec. 1, there will be sharp restrictions on three neonicotinoid pesticides — clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiametoxam — for treating seeds, soil and leaves on flowering crops attractive to bees, like corn, sunflowers and rapeseed, the source of canola oil. The products may still be used on crops like winter wheat for which the danger to bees is deemed to be small. Use by home gardeners will be prohibited.

The two-year ban will allow commission officials to re-examine the scientific studies that were submitted for approval of the pesticides in the first place and “to take into account relevant scientific and technical developments.”

“This gives bees a bit of breathing space to recover,” said Paul de Zylva, an environmental campaigner in London with Friends of the Earth. The time should be used to come up with a comprehensive plan to address the bee crisis, he said, with civil organizations, governments, farmers and companies working together.

The European ban “doesn’t solve all the problems, though, we never said it did,” Mr. de Zylva added. “You’ve got to look at all the problems facing bees, it’s not just pesticides."

This story, "Europe Bans Pesticides Thought Harmful to Bees," first appeared in The New York Times.

While the possible construction of the Keystone XL pipeline has made for contentious disagreements from the halls of Congress to ranches in Nebraska, the real environmental debate begins in a place most Americans have never heard of.

Nearly 700 miles north of the U.S.-Canada border sits Fort McMurray, Alberta, the unofficial capital of oil sands country, and the heart of the Keystone controversy.

Canada's oil reserves rank third largest in the world and sit beneath the vast Alberta forest. Oil mining companies like Shell, Syncrude and Suncor surround the town. They are big industrial operations in an even bigger forest.

Oil here is not the liquid black gold you think of in Texas or Oklahoma or the Gulf of Mexico.  It is a tar-like substance called bitumen.  It is excavated by mining or steam assisted drilling, where it is literally melted a quarter mile beneath the earth.  This oil is so heavy it must be upgraded or diluted before it can transported.

At Shell's Jackpine Mine in the oil sands, the company digs 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Twenty-eight trucks burning 45 gallons of diesel fuel an hour transport the goods once lifted from the ground.

The whole operation is a carbon intensive process sending more global warming gases into the atmosphere. How much depends on your point of view. The oil industry downplays the impact, but opponents claim it is up to 37 percent more carbon intensive to produce a barrel of crude from oil sands.

The State Department, in its review of Keystone, says the oil from this area produces 17 percent more greenhouse gasses than conventional crude.  Those emissions are the heart of the environmental debate in Alberta, and a big reason why opponents call this "dirty oil."

Jeff Mcintosh / AP file

This Sept. 19, 2011 aerial photo shows an oil sands mine facility near Fort McMurray, in Alberta, Canada.

The oil sands industry here plans to more than double its production by 2030. Shell Vice President Tom Purves explains, "We have a massive resource here that's oil from a country that's very stable, it's a democratic country. We're able to transport this oil on pipelines safely to the US and other parts of the world, other parts of North America. And I think we'll be using fossil fuels for a long time - this will be an important part of it."

Opponents say this is not about stopping development. They realize this is a natural resource crucial to Canada's future. For them, it's about the pace, the scale and how it adds to Canada's carbon footprint. They worry approval of the Keystone pipeline will turbo-charge growth.

Eriel Deranger of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation understands the booming industry brings modern conveniences. It also brings, she says, modern problems threatening the forest and wildlife that are still part of the First Nations culture and have been for centuries.

"There has to be a balance, and respect for human - fundamental human rights and the rights to human subsistence and survivals. What we're seeing is that balance is out of whack here in Alberta. I think we're seeing development take precedence over the preservation of peoples and people's basic right to human survival," she said.

At the Pembina Institute, an environmental think tank, the focus is about carbon dioxide.  If things continue the way they are, says Jennifer Grant, Pembina's Oil Sands director, Canada will not meet its goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

"Right now between 2005 and 2020, we're expecting 67 million tons of reductions from other sectors in Canada's economy.  During that same timeframe we're expected to see 72 million tons oil sands greenhouse gas emissions growth," Grant said.

Todd Korol / REUTERS file

Oil, steam and natural gas pipelines run through the forest at the Cenovus Foster Creek SAGD oil sands operations near Cold Lake, Alberta, in a July 9, 2012, photo.

Aware of the concerns in Canada and in the U.S. about climate change, the industry is quick to point out it has reduced carbon emissions intensity – that is, the emissions created per barrel – 26 percent from 1990 to 2009. But overall emissions are still growing because of increases in production. Shell hopes to have the ability to capture some of the carbon emissions at one of its facilities by 2015.

But there is no perfect way to extract oil. Cenovus, a Canadian company which drills for oil, uses natural gas to make steam. Al Reid, vice president of Cenovus' Christina Lake operation, says reducing the amount of natural gas it burns shrinks the carbon footprint and helps the bottom line. But he admits there's only so much they can do.

"With today's technology, we will not get emissions down to zero. Can we continue to decrease them? I think that's very possible and that's something that we work on every single day," he said. "And over time there may be a technology that allows us to do that but we don't have that technology today."

There's no question the debate in the U.S. over Keystone is having an impact in Canada. This month, Alberta's government floated the idea of raising its price on carbon to force the industry to do more to reduce emissions. Will that be enough to convince President Barack Obama to approve a pipeline that carries oil with a bigger carbon footprint?

It's not just the environment. There are issues of energy security and economic impact. The State Department says the extension would provide 3,900 construction jobs over a  1 to 2 year period  and another 38,200 positions associated with the construction over the same time frame. Once built it says the pipeline would create 35 permanent jobs and 15 temporary ones, according to the government study released last month. It is multifaceted issue that will dominate discussion for months to come.

Jeff J Mitchell / Getty Images

Donald Trump waves to a crowd following an address to the Scottish Parliament on April 25, 2012. He spoke of his concerns about a proposed wind farm set to be built near his new GBP 1 billion golf resort, saying it would destroy tourism.

Donald Trump has been given an embarrassing rebuke by U.K. officials who ruled that an advertisement linked to his new $1.1 billion golf resort in Scotland was "misleading."

The country’s Advertising Standards Agency said the newspaper advertisement, which attacked plans for a nearby offshore wind energy plant and mentioned the release of the Lockerbie bomber, could not be substantiated.

Trump has fought a long battle with authorities over the proposed wind farm, which he says will hurt Scottish tourism by spoiling the view from his Trump International Golf Club Scotland.

The 640-foot turbines will be in the sea an estimated mile-and-a-half from Trump's resort.

The first phase of the development, in Menie, Aberdeenshire, opened in 2012 and is marketed as one of the world’s leading links courses.

The club ran an ad in two Scottish daily newspapers featuring a picture of a wind farm in California, with the tag lines: "Is this the future for Scotland?" and "Tourism will suffer and the beauty of your country is in jeopardy!"

It also showed a picture of Scotland’s First Minister, Alex Salmond, with the caption: "This is the same mind that backed the release of terrorist al-Megrahi, 'for humane reasons' – after he ruthlessly killed 270 people on Pan-Am flight 103 over Lockerbie."

The move attracted 21 formal complaints, including one from a member of the Scottish Parliament.

The ASA said the reference to the 1988 terror attack was "distasteful" but did not breach U.K. advertising code of practice.

However, it ruled that the claim a wind farm would harm tourism was "misleading" because it had not been substantiated with sufficient evidence, and said the advertisement should never again appear in its current form.

New York-based Trump last month announced he was shelving the later phases of his development, including a prestige hotel, in protest at the decision to allow the wind farm to go ahead.

He told The Scotsman newspaper: "This was a purely political decision. As dictated by Alex Salmond, a man whose obsession with obsolete wind technology will destroy the magnificence and beauty of Scotland. Likewise, tourism, Scotland's biggest industry, will be ruined."

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Chile's Navy via AP file

Chinese factory fishing ship Kai Xin, pictured burning just off the coast of Antarctica, Friday.

A Chinese factory fishing ship that burned last week off Antarctica has sunk without anyone on board, Chile's navy said Monday. 

The vessel Kai Xin caught fire and its 97 crew members were rescued by a Norwegian ship. Then it began to drift in unmanned and in flames, zigzagging dangerously close to glaciers. 

The Chilean navy said an official representing the ship's owner confirmed that the vessel went down Sunday afternoon near Bransfield Strait at the Antarctic peninsula.

A Chilean navy tugboat was searching for the ship's remains and stood ready to contain any spilled fuel.

The first alert of the sinking came from the Chinese fishing ship Fu Rong Hai, which on its way through Antarctic sent an email to the shipowner saying the Kai Xin no longer appeared on radar. Crewmembers then saw fishing nets and small boats drifting in the chilly waters.

Chile's navy told the Fu Rong Hai to remain there until the navy tugboat Lautaro reached the site and began to search for the sunken ship.

Officials had feared a damaging oil spill. But Capt. Juan Villegas, maritime governor for Chile's portion of Antarctica, said that appeared unlikely now.

"An environmental disaster is ruled out because of the fire on board," Villegas told The Associated Press. "Experts say that if there was any fuel on board it has burned out by now."

The 341-foot Chinese vessel was built in 1990, according to the website of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources.

The Kai Xin was operated by Shanghai Kaichuang Marine International Co., a company that specializes in deep-sea fishing, fisheries products and processing. The ship used pelagic trawling to fish and could sail in loose pack ice, according to the commission.

A company statement posted last week said the fire occurred while the ship was fishing. It said Kaichuang would investigate the cause of the accident and the extent of the damage before releasing more details. 

Related:

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Reuters

A polluted stream which has turned white in Dongchuan district of Kunming, Yunnan province, March 20. According to local media, the source of the pollution is waste water discharged by nearby mining industries.

Reuters

Farmers dig ditches from a white polluted stream to farm fields for irrigation in Dongchuan district of Kunming, Yunnan province, March 21.

Reuters

A villager carries buckets of water to be used for drinking from a white polluted stream in Dongchuan district of Kunming, Yunnan province, March 20.

Reuters

A villager holds two bottles of water, one from the polluted stream, left, and the other normal mineral water, in Dongchuan district of Kunming, Yunnan province, March 21.

Locals began calling the river, 'milk river' after runoff from a nearby mine turned the water white. It is their only source of drinking water and farmers use it to irrigate their fields.

Pollution problems are growing in China. Smog in Beijing, captured in pictures and heavily reported, caught the world’s attention. Outdoor air pollution is now the fourth leading risk factor for deaths in the country, according to a report in The New York Times. But polluted water is another problem. In March, thousands of dead pigs were found floating in a Shanghai river, the main source of water for the city’s residents. Tainted waterways have been linked to higher cancer rates in people living nearby. Rivers filled with algae, garbage or turned unnatural colors by factory runoff and chemical spills are still being used by farmers, fisherman and for drinking water. 

An official newspaper reported that China will spend 100 billion yuan ($16 billion dollars) over three years to deal with Beijing’s pollution. But will they address the water issue? 

• More photos of China's water pollution on Business Insider
• More photos from China on PhotoBlog

Editor's note: The pictures were taken on March 20-21, but made available to NBC News today.

Lauro Alves / Agencia RBS via AFP - Getty Images

An aerial view of the Taim Ecological Station on fire, in Rio Grande do Sul state, southern Brazil, on March 27, 2013.

A wildfire that started on Tuesday has consumed around 1,400 acres of a protected ecological station in southern Brazil. The fire at the Taim Ecological Station is at risk of spreading further, Agence France-Presse reports, since there is limited access to water. 

Lauro Alves / Agencia RBS via AFP - Getty Images

Shaun Botterill / Getty

Sochi, Russia - host city of the 2014 Olympic Winter Games

SOCHI, Russia - While Moscow digs itself out of a huge snow storm that hit the Russian capital in the last few days, organizers of the Winter Olympics are worried a lack of white powder could become a problem next February.

Unseasonably warm temperatures this winter in Sochi have forced local organizers to store some 450,000 cubic meters of snow in the nearby Caucasus Mountains that surround this sub-tropical Black Sea resort.

"We've prepared seven separate areas for snow storage high up in the mountains," Sergei Bachin, general director of Roza Khutor, a ski resort in Krasnaya Polyana that will host Alpine skiing, snowboarding and freestyle Olympic competition, told Reuters.

"I want to assure all the competitors that there won't be any shortage of snow next February even if we encounter even warmer temperatures next year," he said.

"We're storing such huge amounts of snow just in case."

The snow will be covered with a "special thermo seal", to protect it from melting during the summer, Bachin said.

"We expect that about 140,000 (cubic meters) will melt away but we'll still have more than 300,000 cubic meters of snow available for next year," he predicted, saying the storage will cost his company an extra $11 million.

Nevertheless, Sochi 2014 chief Dmitry Chernyshenko has stated on several occasions that the weather has become a bigger problem for the organizers, who are frantically trying to finish all the construction projects on time, than security or the infrastructure.

Slideshow: Sochi 2014

Mikhail Mordasov / AFP - Getty Images

The Winter Olympics arrive in Sochi on Feb. 7, 2014. A look at how the Russian city is shaping up for its moment in the spotlight.

Launch slideshow

Bachin, however, assured that Krasnaya Polyana, once a sleepy mountain village, about 70 kilometers from central Sochi, would be ready to host all the outdoor Olympic events next February rain or shine.

"Of the 76 Olympic test events scheduled in Krasnaya Polyana this winter a great majority had been completed and only a handful have been called off because of bad weather," he said.

"I think we've passed the test as the last major event of the season was held this weekend in nearby Laura complex."

Usually, Krasnaya Polyana has the opposite problem - too much snow and the risk of avalanches, Bachin said.

"This was a very odd winter. Even locals don't remember when was the last time they had such warm days in the mountains. It's highly unlikely we'll see the same kind of weather next year," he added.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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More Sochi coverage from NBC Olympics

By Kerry Sanders, NBC News Correspondent

It’s hard to believe when each day of a trip tops the last, but Antarctica was just that: A show-stopper every day.

The weather shifted on our second day. The wind picked up and the temperatures dropped. We hit about 31 degrees, and it started to flurry. But with a steady 17-mph wind, and some gusts into the 30-mph range, it became uncomfortable.  Of course, I was aboard the Quark Expedition ship, a 400-foot long ice-resistant vessel, where it's only a few steps away from the deck to the warmth inside the cabins.

I had hoped to experience a landing at Planeau Bay, but the weather remained uncooperative. We did venture out in choppy two-foot swells by way of the smaller Zodiac vessels.

Those inflatable boats are perfect to negotiate the floating ice here. As we slipped by one sizable iceberg I noticed a lazing Leopard seal, about as big as a compact car, plopped on top of the ice. Leopard seals are the second most deadly predator here, behind the killer whale. This one lounged as we neared to within five feet before quickly speeding off, just to be safe.

Vince Genova/NBC News

Leopard seal

Leopard seals eat up to 25 penguins a day, and with so many chicks making their first attempts at swimming in the warmer months, this is prime feeding time. The Adelie penguins had hatched, and soon the chicks would make their first forays into the water for a swim.  They’re birthed on rocks, like all other penguins except the Emperor, which hatches its chicks on snow and ice. 

Nery Ynclan / NBC News

Adelie penguins

The Adelies are facing challenges and scientists blame man, at least in part.

Global climate change here means portions of the Antarctic have less ice, which in turn means there’s less food to eat. Life here depends on the shrimp-like krill, and krill live under the floating ice where they shelter like bees in a hive. Less ice means fewer krill, which in turn means less food for the Adelies, and, as scientists are seeing, a declining population of penguins. In fact, in some spots of Antarctica, 90 percent of the Adelie population has disappeared.

Getting pictures of the Adelie penguins, with the wind and whitecaps kicked up, was a challenge. The salt water spray can ruin a camera within minutes. I was using a plastic Ziploc back to protect my camera when a wind gust grabbed the bag and blew it right out of my hands.

A plastic bag is never good just blowing around, but here, in the pristine nesting grounds of the newborn Adelies, it can look like food. We were able to spin around in the Zodiac and quickly get the bag back on board.

This day, at least, one sign of my intrusion into the stunning environment would not remain.

Learn about what you can do to help the penguins at penguinlifelines.org

Day 3: Watch Mother Nature in action