"President Barack Obama’s choice to lead the Energy Department pledged to increase use of natural gas Tuesday as a way to combat climate change even as the nation seeks to boost domestic energy production."

"LITTLETON, New Hampshire -- A New Hampshire jury on Tuesday found Exxon Mobil Corp liable for $236.4 million in a civil lawsuit that charged the oil company had polluted groundwater in the state with a gasoline additive used to reduce smog in the 1970s and 1980s."

"DUBAI -- A powerful earthquake struck close to Iran's only nuclear power station on Tuesday, killing 37 people and injuring 850 as it destroyed homes and devastated two small villages, Iranian media reported."

"LANCASTER, Calif. — There are at least two things to know about this high desert city. One, the sun just keeps on shining. Two, the city’s mayor, a class-action lawyer named R. Rex Parris, just keeps on competing."

"After years of internal deliberation and controversy, the Obama administration has issued a document suggesting that when dealing with the aftermath of an accident or attack involving radioactive materials, public health guidelines can be made thousands of times less stringent than what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency would normally allow."

"A court ruling that the U.S. government must consider the environmental impact of 'fracking' on federal lands leased to oil companies offers opponents of the technique a useful weapon in the fierce public debate in California and other parts of the country."

"The environmental consulting firm hired to evaluate the impacts of the Keystone XL pipeline should have been barred from working on the project, according to a group of environmentalists. On Monday, representatives from 13 environmental organizations asked State Department's Inspector General to investigate whether the firm's previous relationships with TransCanada should have qualified as a conflict of interest."

"Under proposed new national science standards, students would learn concepts more thoroughly, including how human activity is driving global warming."

"Health and environmental groups will launch a national campaign Thursday to prod 10 major retailers -- including Walmart, Target and Costco -- to clear store shelves of products containing hazardous chemicals."

"They’re back. Seventeen years after a major swarm of bug-eyed cicadas staged one of nature’s weirdest — and loudest — mating rituals, their offspring are preparing to rise in Washington’s suburbs and the Mid-Atlantic."

"Environmental groups on Monday asked the Obama administration to extend the approval process of the Keystone XL pipeline, using last month's spill of heavy Canadian crude oil in Arkansas as their latest reason to delay the project."

"A federal judge on Friday rejected BP's attempt to block the Deepwater Horizon claims administrator from awarding what it said could be billions of dollars in payments for 'business economic losses' that the British oil giant contends are based on 'fictitious' claims of damage.

U.S. District Court Judge Carl Barbier, who also is overseeing the sprawling BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill trial, seemed unlikely from the onset of the hour-long hearing to issue the temporary injunction that BP sought as part of the class action suit.

"A fungus tied to a disease devastating hibernating bats in the United States has been found in an Alabama cave system critical to the survival of endangered gray bats, government scientists said on Monday."

"The year: 1990. The venue: Palais des Nations, Geneva. The star: Margaret Thatcher, conservative icon in the final month of her prime ministership. The topic: global warming. Thatcher went to the Second World Climate Conference to heap praise on the then-infant Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and to sound, again, the alarm over global warming."

"Ohio State scientist Lonnie Thompson tests the limits of science -- and his health -- to unlock climate secrets frozen at the top of the world's highest mountain ranges."