"As fans of 'Duck Dynasty' can attest, hunting for nutria – big, water-loving rodents with bright orange front teeth – is hugely popular in Louisiana. This might not be exclusive to the bayou for long. As winters warm, nutria could migrate across the country, according to new research."

"PORTLAND, Maine -- A shell disease that has plagued the southern New England lobster industry for years by making lobsters unsightly and in some cases unmarketable appears to be creeping northward to the lobster-rich grounds off the coast of Maine."

"'An immediate and growing threat.' That’s how California’s lead environmental agency — and the Governor’s office — describe climate change in the latest in a series of periodic reports on the subject."

"California billionaire Thomas Steyer is taking his fight against climate change to Virginia, helping to buy TV ads criticizing Republican gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli."

Research biologists are studying the elusive Cascades frog, which lives in alpine meltwater ponds in Washington's Olympic Mountains, to understand how warming climate might affect the ecosystems they depend on.

"The weather is one of those topics that is fairly easy for people to agree on. Climate, however, is something else. Most of the scientists who study the Earth say our climate is changing and humans are part of what's making that happen. But to a lot of nonscientists it's still murky. This week, two of the nation's most venerable scientific institutions tried to explain it better."

"WASHINGTON -- A new massive federal study says the world in 2012 sweltered with continued signs of climate change. Rising sea levels, snow melt, heat buildup in the oceans, and melting Arctic sea ice and Greenland ice sheets, all broke or nearly broke records, but temperatures only sneaked into the top 10."

"As an extended drought bakes the West, nowhere are ravages of changes in the climate worse than in New Mexico."

"In the past several years, a number of polls have documented the huge gap between liberals and conservatives when it comes to their acceptance of the science of climate change. Naturally, then, researchers have increasingly turned their attention to trying to explain this dramatic divide over what is factually true. And it wasn't long before they homed in on the role of conservative media in particular -- thus, a number of studies show that watching Fox News increases your risk of holding incorrect beliefs about the science of climate change."

"Marine species, more than land-based species, are altering their breeding, feeding and migration patterns."

"Last week, various news outlets were publishing all sorts of dire headlines about climate change and war.

"PARIS, France -- Japanese biotechnologists on Sunday said they had developed a rice plant with deeper roots that can sustain high yields in droughts that wipe out conventional rice crops."

"Google’s climate scientists are not happy with the company’s political support for climate science denying Senator James Inhofe (R-OK)."

It is news that four former EPA administrators who served under Republican presidents wrote an op-ed published in the New York Times making "A Republican Case for Climate Change." Whether their persuasiveness will persuade may be in doubt -- but the fact that they tried may say a lot about the current US political situation.

"The Koch brothers have turned to a former aide to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) and Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK) to lobby against the simple idea of a carbon tax."