"UNITED NATIONS -- This summer's sustainable development conference in Brazil, known as Rio+20, is emerging as an overt attempt by U.N. officials to shift away from the divisive politics of climate change to a broader debate on the green economy and how to bring it to developing nations."

"The Southern Environmental Law Center, a Virginia-based nonprofit legal advocacy group, has released its 2012 list of the Top 10 endangered places in the Southeast, environmentally speaking. While the list changes from year to year, certain places like the Chesapeake Bay remain a top concern — and issues like pollution from coal-fired power plants and the protection of public lands and old-growth forests are recurring themes. While the list only considers six states, the issues raised by each site resonate nationally, and even globally."

"A team of Louisiana scientists is laying the groundwork for creating a new carbon storage industry that could both reduce the effects of global warming and rebuild wetlands along the state’s coastline. Sarah Mack, founder of New Orleans-based Tierra Resources, and Louisiana State University wetlands scientists John W. Day and Robert Lane have come up with a method for measuring the molecules of carbon removed from the atmosphere by the soils and plants that are created with coastal restoration projects."

"Even with California's volatile weather, where exceptions are the rule, the season has been the driest in 30 years. Without snow, hotels offer rock climbing and archery to frustrated skiers."

Artificially created wetlands may not really compensate well enough for the loss of natural wetlands they replace.

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"To many, it’s a familiar scenario: a strip mall suddenly pops up in what was once a desolate quagmire or boggy boondock.

"On a bus tour, California Coastal Commission members strive to find out what's keeping the public from some of the state's most desirable beaches. One thing they didn't see: 20 pathways that were set aside on paper but have yet to be built."

"The farm bill is a favorite target of budget-cutters and those looking to reduce the size of government, particularly because about 80% of it encompasses food stamps and nutritional programs. However, it also contains some of the most successful conservation programs in our nation’s history, and those are now threatened with the ax, including the popular 1985 Conservation Reserve Program."

"A $50 billion, 50-year proposal aspires to stop coastal land loss in Louisiana, build new levee systems to protect cities and even begin to slowly reverse the trend of eroding marsh that has turned the entire southern portion of the state into one of the nation's most vulnerable regions to sea level rise."

"U.S. EPA faced a hostile Supreme Court today as the agency defended its authority to issue compliance orders under the Clean Water Act without allowing an immediate hearing on the underlying issue."

"The Obama administration is set to announce on Monday that it will block new uranium mining on one million acres in northern Arizona near the Grand Canyon, lobbyists and Interior Department employees who had been informed about the decision said on Friday."

"LAKE ANDES, S.D. (AP) — Famous for its role as Harry Potter's companion in the books and movies, a species of majestic, mostly white owls is being sighted in abundant numbers this winter far from both Hogwarts and its native Arctic habitat.

It's typical for snowy owls to arrive in the U.S. every three or four winters, but this year's irruption is widespread, with birders from the Pacific Northwest to New England reporting frequent sightings of the yellow-eyed birds. As many as 30 were spotted in December around South Dakota's Lake Andes.

Can southwest Alaska make money from its rich mineral deposits without destroying the Bristol Bay fishery that is currently an economic mainstay?

All along the Mississippi-Missouri river system, floodplains have been reclaimed  as farmlands. Often government agencies like the Corps of Engineers must make agonizing choices between these two beneficial uses.

"Humans are having an effect on Earth's ecosystems but it's not just the depletion of resources and the warming of the planet we are causing. Now you can add an over-abundance of nitrogen as another "footprint" humans are leaving behind. The only question is how large of an impact will be felt. In a Perspectives piece in the current issue of Science, Arizona State University researcher James Elser outlines some recent findings on the increasing abundance of available nitrogen on Earth."

"RICHMOND, Va. -- A company lobbying lawmakers to unearth in Southside Virginia what is thought to be the nation's largest uranium deposit needs to overcome significant health and environmental obstacles before the site is mined, according to a long-awaited study released Monday."