"Wide-ranging investigation, which will look into six different federal departments, is to review incidents in which the media was thwarted when trying to speak to Canadian government scientists about their work."

"Canada has become the first country to drop out of the UN convention to combat desertification."

"Most city governments on the mainland withheld vital information on pollution from the public last year, with many scaling back their disclosure to protect polluters as economic growth slowed, two major environmental organisations said in a study released in Beijing yesterday."

"...Over the past couple of years, the number of monarch butterflies that reach the Mexican sanctuaries has been declining, generating concern among rural communities that rely on spillovers of butterfly tourism activities, as well as entomologists, biologists, ecologists and monarch aficionados around the world. ..."

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"Energy subsidies cost governments from the U.S. to Egypt $1.9 trillion, discourage private investment and help wealthy consumers more than the poor, according to a study by International Monetary Fund staff."

"A mile-long train hauling oil from Canada derailed and leaked 30,000 gallons of crude in western Minnesota on Wednesday, as debate rages over the environmental risks of transporting tar sands across the border."

"The Arctic Ocean reached the most frozen it's going to get this year on 13 March. Now the melt season begins, predicts the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). The seasonal stats were gloomy. The max sea ice area of 2013 was was 5.84 million square miles (15.13 million square kilometers). That's the sixth lowest extent on record and a whopping 283,000 square miles (733,000 square kilometers) below the 1979 to 2000 average maximum."

"AKWESASNE — A $20 million settlement may remedy nearly 60 years of environmental pollution to the St. Regis Mohawk Reservation."

For a while, the Naga Viper was the hottest pepper in the world. Today, breeding peppers for hotness is an area of military research.

Products so toxic they are banned in the United States -- lead paint is just one example -- are still being legally exported by U.S. corporations to other countries, where they may harm unsuspecting customers.

"A controversial offshore wind project off the coast of Aberdeen has been approved by the Scottish government. The 11-turbine European Offshore Wind Deployment Centre is bitterly opposed by US businessman Donald Trump, who has complained that it will the spoil the view from his nearby golf course."

"Environmentalists and beekeepers are calling on the government to ban some of the country's most widely used insect-killing chemicals."

Conventional wisdom says the U.S. needs to rely on coal, oil, and gas as fuels indefinitely. But techological advances in renewables and efficiency are suggesting this industry-sponsored mantra is wrong. And other countries are proving it.

"AMSTERDAM -- The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is lodging a second complaint with the Netherlands Public Prosecutor’s Office for serious fraud and environmental crime against the captain and crew of the Nisshin Maru, the Japanese whaling fleet’s factory ship."

"SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- A U.S. agency has issued a long-awaited report saying it found no proof that decades of military practice bombing on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques sickened residents who blame it for high rates of cancer, asthma and other illnesses."