"DALLAS -- A southeast Texas industrial plant is scrapping plans to import and incinerate 20,000 tons of hazardous materials from Mexico, the facility's general manager said Wednesday."

"COPENHAGEN -- Environment ministers made progress on Tuesday toward a scaled-down climate deal in Copenhagen next month, with Washington facing pressure to promise deep cuts by 2020 in greenhouse gas emissions."

"An African has taken over as director of Greenpeace, bringing experience honed as a teenage opponent of white rule in South Africa and a network of powerful contacts to the battle against global warming."

"Facing the possibility of a $27 billion pollution judgment against it in an Ecuadorean court, Chevron launched an aggressive lobbying and public relations campaign to try to prevent the judgment as well as reverse a deeply damaging story line."

As U.S. chlorine plants convert to cleaner technology, they are leaving behind large stocks of mercury. There is a danger that mercury will find its way to dangerous and polluting uses on the global market. Efforts to ban mercury export have not been effective.

"President Barack Obama says the United States and China are looking for a comprehensive deal during next month's climate change summit that will 'rally the world.'"

"Researchers have pinpointed the source of what is probably the worst mass poisoning in history, according to a study published Sunday. For nearly three decades scientists have struggled to figure out exactly how arsenic was getting into the drinking water of millions of people in rural Bangladesh."

"President Obama and other world leaders have decided to put off the difficult task of reaching a climate change agreement at a global climate conference scheduled for next month, agreeing instead to make it the mission of the Copenhagen conference to reach a less specific 'politically binding' agreement that would punt the most difficult issues into the future."

"At little noticed talks last week in Port Ghalib, Egypt, climate advocates were hoping to seal a global agreement for the phase down of super greenhouse gases and give next month's Copenhagen climate talks a can-do running start. But the annual meeting of the 198 nations of the Montreal Protocol began on a note of contention that five days of discussions could not overcome."

"MÉRIDA, Mexico -- Connectivity is a message reverberating in multiple work sessions as the week-long 9th World Wilderness Congress concludes. A new declaration, The Message of Mérida, demands that the UN climate conference next month make the connection between climate and wilderness and 'recognize that it is necessary to address both the climate change and biodiversity extinction crises.'"

"In the new economy created by global warming, forests are turning into a valuable commodity. Promising not to cut them down is one of the most popular ways companies would like to offset their emissions. Correspondent Mark Schapiro follows the trail of one of those offset projects deep into Brazil's Atlantic forest."

"In Lima, Peru, more than 1.3 million people have no access to drinking water. The citizens without it are in the poorest areas, where water trucked in can cost nine times as much as it does in richer areas. So, citizens have had to either make do without running water, or, with the help of a German NGO, make dew into drinking water."

"Less than a month before negotiators will meet in Copenhagen with the lofty goal of crafting a deal to curb global greenhouse gas emissions, the Obama administration is considering endorsing a limited short-term climate pact and deferring more ambitious action until next year."

"Ocean acidification, caused by rising CO2 levels, is affecting not only coral reefs, but coastal ecosystems by changing everything from the ability of oysters to adhere to the riverbed to the extent of dead zones along the U.S. Pacific coast."

"A coalition of conservation groups are calling on international climate negotiators in Copenhagen next month to develop land-use policy incentives intended to encourage governments to protect natural carbon storehouses -- especially those in northern boreal forests and peatlands found in Canada, Scandinavia and Russia."