"It is known that mountain pine beetle infestations have the potential to raise nearby air temperatures by killing off trees that provide a natural refrigerator effect for forests. Now, researchers are releasing hard numbers documenting how the pests' invasions affected a specific place."

"Japanese voters look likely to hand victory to a party that favors nuclear power in the first election since the March 2011 Fukushima radiation disaster -- a result a baffled Greenpeace activist likens to one of the 'wonders of the world.'"

"DOHA, Qatar -- U.N. talks on a new climate pact resumed Monday in oil and gas-rich Qatar, where negotiators from nearly 200 countries will discuss fighting global warming and helping poor nations adapt to it."

"A top Mexican government official said Thursday that the long-awaited but highly controversial approval of genetically modified (GM) corn fields on a commercial scale will drag into next year."

"A species of giant tortoises from the Galapagos Islands could be brought back from extinction despite the death earlier this year of the famed 'Lonesome George,' a tourist magnet and conservation icon who was the last of his kind."

"Atmospheric volumes of greenhouse gases blamed for climate change hit a new record in 2011, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said in its annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin on Tuesday."

"A coalition of the world's largest investors called on governments on Tuesday to ramp up action on climate change and boost clean-energy investment or risk trillions of dollars in investments and disruption to economies."

"BEIJING -- Some of the world’s best known fashion retailers are selling clothing contaminated with hazardous chemicals that break down to form hormone-disrupting or cancer-causing chemicals when released into the environment, finds a report issued [Tuesday] by Greenpeace International in Beijing."

"WINDSOR, Ontario -- For more than three decades, workers, most of them women, have complained of dreadful conditions in many of this city’s plastic automotive parts factories: Pungent fumes and dust that caused nosebleeds, headaches, nausea and dizziness. Blobs of smelly, smoldering plastic dumped directly onto the floor. 'It was like hell,' says one woman who still works in the industry."

"Water agencies in Southern California, Arizona and Nevada will buy nearly 100,000 acre-feet of water from Mexico's share of the Colorado River for nearly $10 million."

"All nations will suffer the effects of a warmer world, but it is the world's poorest countries that will be hit hardest by food shortages, rising sea levels, cyclones and drought, the World Bank said in a report on climate change."

"VISAGINAS, Lithuania -- The parking lot outside the atomic power plant is weedy and potholed. Bus stops that once teemed with hundreds of workers are eerily empty."

"Continuing a hot trend, October was the fifth warmest across the globe since record keeping began in 1880. And climate scientists say it's likely, about 90 percent so, that 2012 will become the warmest year on record for the contiguous United States."

"A collapse in upcoming global climate negotiations in Doha could lead to a 'wild west' approach to reducing carbon emissions, an Australian environmental think tank says."

The Conservative Harper government is discouraging Environment Canada scientists from talking to news media about their published findings on pollution from oilsands.