"Experts claim current rate of change is likely to be more than 10 times faster than it has ever been in Earth's history."

"As evidence mounts that excessive use of light is harming wildlife and adversely affecting human health, new initiatives in France and elsewhere are seeking to turn down the lights that flood an ever-growing part of the planet."

"Anti-government activists in Syria are accusing President Bashar al-Assad's forces of deploying a chemical weapons attack on the suburbs of the capital, Damascus. The government denied the attack, but the allegations have prompted the United Nations to call an emergency meeting. Melissa Block talks to Washington Post reporter Loveday Morris for more."

"An advisory panel to Tokyo Electric Power Co. urged the utility to tighten water-management procedures at its crippled Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant weeks before 300 metric tons of radioactive water seeped out, the panel’s chairman said."

"For nearly a year, disease detectives around the world have been trying to track down the source of a mysterious new virus in the Middle East that has infected 96 people and killed 47 since September."

"The World Health Organization says that at least 135 people in China have been sickened by the H7N9 flu strain, and 44 have died. Most likely, these victims got the virus from chickens sold in live poultry markets. But where did the chickens get it? From ducks, who got it from wild migratory birds, scientists now say."

"Wind-turbine makers are poised to make their first profit in years after shutting underused factories and abandoning a drive for growth at all costs."

"At least three people were killed by an ammonia gas leak from a pipeline owned by state oil monopoly Pemex in southern Mexico on Tuesday and 1,500 people were evacuated from the area and taken to shelters, the company said."

"Japan will raise the severity rating of a recent toxic water leak at the destroyed Fukushima nuclear plant to level 3, or 'serious incident', on an international scale for radiological releases, underlining the deepening sense of crisis at the site."

"Quebec's government last week added rail giant Canadian Pacific Railway Corp. to its list of companies deemed responsible for cleanup costs following last month's deadly oil train derailment."

"Activists condemn refusal to allow Arctic Sunrise icebreaker entry to Northern Sea Route as attempt to stifle peaceful protest."

"In less than 40 years from now the cost to the world's biggest coastal cities from flooding is expected to have risen to $1tn – 0.7% of the value of the entire world economy in 2012."

"TOKYO -- Contaminated water with dangerously high levels of radiation is leaking from a storage tank at Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, the most serious setback to the clean up of the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl."

"Officials raise alert as 'zombie' birds fall to earth amid fears city may be in grip of avian ailment Newcastle disease."

"OSLO -- Climate scientists are surer than ever that human activity is causing global warming, according to leaked drafts of a major UN report, but they are finding it harder than expected to predict the impact in specific regions in coming decades."