"German brewers have warned Chancellor Angela Merkel's government that any law allowing the controversial drilling technique known as fracking could damage the country's cherished beer industry."

"Denise Mauzerall arrived in Beijing this year at a time that was both horrifying and illuminating. The capital was facing some of its worst pollution in recent memory and Mauzerall, a Princeton environmental engineering professor, was passing through on her way to a university forum on the future of cities."

"Scientists have used plant samples collected in the mid-19th Century to identify the pathogen that caused the Irish potato famine."

Drought, loss of water rights, and debt are among the factors causing farmers in India's Maharashtra state to commit suicide.

"LONDON — More than a decade ago, British parents refused to give measles shots to at least a million children because of now discredited research that linked the vaccine to autism. Now, health officials are scrambling to catch up and stop a growing epidemic of the contagious disease."

"Forecast global temperature rise of 4C a calamity for large swaths of planet even if predicted extremes are not reached."

"WINDSOR, Ontario — Assumption Park gives residents of this city lovely views of the Ambassador Bridge and the Detroit skyline. Lately they’ve been treated to another sight: a three-story pile of petroleum coke covering an entire city block on the other side of the Detroit River."

"This Syrian disaster is like a superstorm. It’s what happens when an extreme weather event, the worst drought in Syria’s modern history, combines with a fast-growing population and a repressive and corrupt regime and unleashes extreme sectarian and religious passions, fueled by money from rival outside powers — Iran and Hezbollah on one side, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar on the other, each of which have an extreme interest in its Syrian allies’ defeating the other’s allies — all at a time when America, in its post-Iraq/Afghanistan phase, is extremely wary of getting involved."

"Hundreds of people took to the streets of the southwestern Chinese city of Kunming on Thursday to protest against the planned production of a chemical at a refinery, the second demonstration this month against the project."

"KIRUNA, Sweden -- Ministers from the eight Arctic states and representatives of the Arctic Indigenous Peoples Wednesday adopted a shared vision statement for the future development of the region as a 'zone of peace and stability.'"

"MEXICO CITY -- Fed up with oil spills from facilities belonging to Mexico’s state oil company Pemex, residents of two communities in the southeastern state of Tabasco are taking the country’s largest company to court in a bid for compensation for damage to the environment and agriculture."

"Ninety-seven percent of scientists say global warming is mainly man-made but a wide public belief that experts are divided is making it harder to gain support for policies to curb climate change, an international study showed on Thursday."

"DHAKA, Bangladesh -- A cyclone blowing across the Indian Ocean is expected to hit Bangladesh on Thursay, threatening the lives of 8.2 million people in northeast India, Bangladesh and Myanmar (Burma). The highest storm surge and rainfall predictions are for Bangladesh’s coastal cities of Chittagong and Cox’s Bazaar."

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"Experts judged on Wednesday that a reactor on Japan's west coast is located on ground at high risk of an earthquake, setting in motion a process that will likely lead to the first permanent shutdown of a nuclear plant since the 2011 Fukushima crisis."

"Fish and other sea life have been moving toward Earth’s poles in search of cooler waters, part of a worldwide, decades-long migration documented for the first time by a study released Wednesday."