"Ferrying a load of soybeans from Seattle to China in 2004, the engine of Malaysian freighter Selendang Ayu lost power and the vessel broke in half on rocks off Unalaska Island in the middle of the Alaskan archipelago."

"SEVERANCE, Colo. -- Since he was a boy in western Colorado, John Bartmann seemed destined to become a sheep man. He raised lambs with the local 4-H club and sheared them for elderly German farmers. His office is lined with paintings of sheep and a plaque honoring him for 'promoting culinary excellence' in lambs. But over the last few years, skyrocketing costs, a brutal drought and plunging lamb prices have battered Mr. Bartmann and the 80,000 ranchers across the county who raise sheep -- from a few to several thousand."

"DOHA, Qatar -- The annual United Nations climate change negotiations concluded here late Saturday after the customary all-night negotiating session and recriminations over who must bear the costs and burdens of a warming planet."

"An unusually late fire season may bring coal to more than a few Christmases this year. Ongoing drought conditions across much of the West, Midwest and South have left ample fuel for ignition, keeping firefighters on edge and raising alerts in a number of states."

"The death rate of many of the biggest and oldest trees around the world is increasing rapidly, scientists report in a new study in Friday’s issue of the journal Science. They warned that research to understand and stem the loss of the trees is urgently needed."

"Norway has agreed to give $180 million to Brazil as part of a broader $1 billion deal for slowing deforestation in the Amazon rainforest, Oslo's environment minister said on Thursday."

"Norway has promised $1 billion each to Brazil and Indonesia for protecting their tropical rainforests and warned Jakarta earlier this year that its progress in reforming its forestry sector will not be sufficient to meet its pledge to reduce carbon emissions by 26 percent by 2020.

"A bit of news about the melting of the Arctic waterways associated with climate change: Gazprom, the Russian energy giant, says it recently completed the world’s first liquefied natural gas cargo delivery through the Arctic Northern Sea Route. Escorted by Russian nuclear icebreakers, the giant L.N.G. carrier Ob River went through the waters of the Barents and Kara seas and then through an icy passage between the Vilkitsky and Bering straits."

"Cheatgrass is about as Western as cowboy boots and sagebrush. It grows in yellowish clumps, about knee high to a horse, and likes arid land. One thing cheatgrass does is burn — in fact, more easily than anyone realized. That's the conclusion from a new study that says cheatgrass is making Western wildfires worse."

"Drought continued to expand through the central United States even as winter weather sets in, wreaking havoc on the nation's new wheat crop and on movement of key commodities as major shipping waterways grow shallow."

"DOHA, Qatar -- The Senate's rejection yesterday of a treaty to extend rights to disabled people internationally does not bode well for a climate change treaty, observers here said today as the clock began to wind down on this year's U.N. climate talks."

"Checking 20 years' of projections by the foremost global climate science panel against reality finds that the group has consistently underestimated the pace and impacts of climate change – with severe consequences for the public it is tasked to inform."

"Activists step up pressure on president to turn vague promises made since re-election into concrete policies for the future."

"SWARTHMORE, Pa. -- A group of Swarthmore College students is asking the school administration to take a seemingly simple step to combat pollution and climate change: sell off the endowment’s holdings in large fossil fuel companies. For months, they have been getting a simple answer: no."

"The Natural Resources Defense Council thinks it has the perfect solution to regulating planet-warming emissions from existing power plants. But can the group sell the Obama administration Environmental Protection Agency on it?"

"Extreme weather is the new normal and poses a threat to the human race, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Tuesday, as he sought to revive deadlocked global climate change talks."