"A mudslide triggered by torrential rains from a typhoon may have buried up to 600 villagers in mountainous southern Taiwan, disaster officials said on Monday."

"The brown tree snake invasion has wiped out birds on guam and left a forest to survive on its own."

"Companies on three continents continue to make and sell consumer paints that contain dangerous levels of lead despite the availability of technology to produce high-quality, low lead paint. A tougher lead paint standard takes effect in the United States later this month, but imported consumer goods may still contain hazardous amounts of lead paint."

"In a matter of years or decades, researchers believe, animals and plants already are adapting to life in a warmer world. Some species will be unable to change quickly enough and will go extinct, but others will evolve, as natural selection enables them to carry on in an altered environment."

"Mexico aims to put a detailed offer to cut the growth of its own greenhouse gas emissions on the negotiating table at global climate change talks in Copenhagen this year, a senior environmental policymaker said."

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which won attention along with the Nobel Prize in 2007, now faces a challenge as climate policy and diplomacy lag behind climate science.

"Union Carbide is defending its former chief executive now wanted for arrest in India, saying that managers at the company’s plant in Bhopal could not have anticipated a gas leak that killed 10,000 people 25 years ago."

"The Obama administration is talking with allies and Congress about the possibility of imposing an extreme economic sanction against Iran if it fails to respond to President Obama’s offer to negotiate on its nuclear program: cutting off the country’s imports of gasoline and other refined oil products."

"There's no question that the world's fish are in trouble. Fishermen are pulling fish out of the seas far faster than these populations can grow back. Some fisheries are heading toward collapse or even extinction. But a major new analysis of this grim picture shows that fisheries aren't doomed. In fact, some are on the mend."

Portugal may be the first nation out of the blocks in the scramble for electric automobiles. Its motives may be more selfish than ecological.

The World Bank is taking a renewed role in hydropower development, driven it part by estimates that the developing world has 1,333 GW of potential and unexploited hydro capacity. Some NGOs, however, don’t believe large scale hydropower is the answer for rural electrification and say the World Bank's number would be much lower if negative social and economic impacts were taken into consideration.

"Secretary General Ban ki-moon today announced plans to fly from Norway out over the Arctic Ocean to the Norwegian research vessel Lance near the North Pole on September 1. The planned excursion is part of his efforts to prod world leaders to take meaningful steps on global warming in treaty talks in Copenhagen in December."

"A microscopic pathogen and pesticides embedded in old honeycombs are two major contributors to the bee disease known as colony collapse disorder."

"The great outdoors is a dangerous place for animals, who often die from hunger, predator attacks, or infections. But cancer can also be a culprit, and human pollution may be making it worse."

"Is it possible that the long performance of the 'You first, sir,' vaudeville routine by the Alphonse and Gaston of the global greenhouse is drawing toward a close?"