"If four federal agencies closed their doors, would anyone notice?"

"The 2013 Atlantic hurricane season could be 'extremely active' and spawn 13 to 20 tropical storms, seven to 11 of which are expected to become hurricanes, the U.S. government's top climate agency predicted on Thursday."

Don Montague is leading an innovative enterprise to collect wind energy with high-tech kites. Google money is backing him.

"German brewers have warned Chancellor Angela Merkel's government that any law allowing the controversial drilling technique known as fracking could damage the country's cherished beer industry."

"Organizing for Action -- a group that formed out of President Obama's re-election campaign -- has posted five tweets in the past week about climate change using the Twitter account."

"Denise Mauzerall arrived in Beijing this year at a time that was both horrifying and illuminating. The capital was facing some of its worst pollution in recent memory and Mauzerall, a Princeton environmental engineering professor, was passing through on her way to a university forum on the future of cities."

"SWARTHMORE, Pa. -- Student activists at more than 200 colleges are trying a new tactic in hopes of slowing the pace of climate change: They are asking their schools to stop investing in fossil fuel companies."

"In the 1980s, manufactures began making cockroach baits that combined sweet glucose with deadly insecticides. By 1993, many cockroach populations somehow developed an aversion to the bait. Now, 20 years later, scientists finally understand how the roaches beat these traps."

"Hydraulic fracturing on Indian land may become more difficult under new rules proposed by the Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Land Management."

"Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) set forth an amendment to overturn the provision — which he says allows the unrestricted sale and planting of genetically modified seeds that could be harmful to farmers, the environment and human health — but it was blocked by GOP Senators."

"At least 800,000 people across the United States live near hundreds of sites that store large amounts of potentially explosive ammonium nitrate, which investigators are blaming as the source of last month's deadly blast at a fertilizer plant in West, Texas, a Reuters analysis shows."

"The House of Representatives approved a bill as expected on Wednesday declaring that a presidential permit was not needed to approve the Canada-to-Nebraska leg of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, a move that would take a decision on the project away from the Obama administration."

"Scientists have used plant samples collected in the mid-19th Century to identify the pathogen that caused the Irish potato famine."

"In a rare display of bipartisanship on Capitol Hill, a group of key senators unveiled legislation Wednesday that would require chemical companies to provide more health and safety information about their products and give regulators more power to force harmful compounds off the market."

"WASHINGTON, DC -- The Obama Administration’s plan to remove the gray wolf from the protections of the Endangered Species Act, as detailed in a draft Federal Register notice released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, PEER, is temporarily on hold."