"SAN FRANCISCO -- Environmental group Sierra Club has named its first new leader in 18 years -- an activist who once took over the intercom of a Home Depot to tell customers not to buy lumber from ancient forests."

"The futuristic anti-whaling protest boat struck by a Japanese harpoon vessel near Antarctica finally sank on Friday, prompting Australia to voice official concern about safety in the remote Southern Ocean."

A Japanese whaling vessel hit and sunk a stealth-technology trimaran speedboat used by the Sea Shepherd Society to harass that nation's "research" whaling, which supplies the nation's appetite for otherwise-illegal whale meat. All the activists were rescued and none were seriously injured, according to early reports. Two videos show the incident from two perspectives, as each side blamed the other.

"COPENHAGEN — Police officers fired tear gas and wielded batons on Wednesday to beat back hundreds of demonstrators outside the global climate meeting here, as a police spokesman said 250 people had been arrested."
 

"Sammy Haddock started working with elephants when he joined the circus at 20, in 1976, a young man's dream. He walked them, groomed them, cleaned up after them. More than once, he later confessed, he beat them."

"Hardline anti-whaling activists prepared on Tuesday to pursue Japan's Antarctic whaling fleet with support from Daryl Hannah, who criticized Greenpeace for opting out of the annual chase."

"Environmental groups said Monday they want the Tennessee Valley Authority to be prosecuted for its huge coal ash spill in Tennessee and not shielded from penalties for polluting."

"TORONTO - A Mexican man who strongly opposed the presence of a Canadian company in his hometown felt sure his activism would lead to his murder but was willing to pay that price to protest what he regarded to be human rights abuses, friends said Thursday."

"When President Barack Obama takes part in the high-level talks of the UN conference on climate change next week, his political opponents will be there too, showing the world why the President has had trouble making a stronger commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions."

"DALI, China -- Justin Franchi Solondz, an environmental activist from New Jersey who spent years evading charges of ecoterrorism in the United States by hiding out in China, was sentenced to three years in prison by a local court on Friday on charges of manufacturing drugs in this backpacker haven."

"Hackers broke into the electronic files of one of the world's foremost climate research centers this week and posted an array of e-mails in which prominent scientists engaged in a blunt discussion of global warming research and disparaged climate-change skeptics."

"An African has taken over as director of Greenpeace, bringing experience honed as a teenage opponent of white rule in South Africa and a network of powerful contacts to the battle against global warming."

"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has pledged $1 million to help Utah communities deal with environmental justice challenges over the next two years."

"A college student who bid on and won more than $1.8 million in federal oil and gas leases last year without the intent or ability to pay will not be allowed to argue in court that he acted out of necessity to protect the environment, a federal judge ruled on Monday."

"The Environmental Protection Agency has directed two of its lawyers to makes changes to a YouTube video they posted that is critical of the Obama administration's climate change policy."