"On some days, Russell Keith could simply look up at the sky to gauge how busy his day would be as a paramedic at the largest U.S. base in Iraq. Dark green smoke meant the contractor could count on a 30 to 40 percent spike in his patient load, he told the Senate Democratic Policy Committee last week during a hearing on contractor oversight."

"With the clock ticking on the high-stakes Copenhagen climate summit, US President Barack Obama will try to salvage fading hopes for a deal as he meets this month with the leaders of China and India."

"The brown pelican, listed as an endangered species even before the 1973 U.S. Endangered Species Act existed, is officially back from the brink of extinction, the Interior Department said on Wednesday."

"A federal effort to ban the sale of raw oysters harvested during the warm months along the Gulf Coast has kicked up a hurricane of opposition from oystermen and members of Congress and threatened to derail a signature food-safety initiative by the Obama administration."

"A federal appeals court panel on Tuesday upheld a 2005 court decision that effectively halted the development of what would have been one of the nation's largest landfills near Joshua Tree National Park."

"West Virginia political leaders promised Tuesday to speak "with one voice" to clarify the Obama administration's proposals to more strictly regulate mountaintop removal coal mining."

"Exposure to high levels of a controversial chemical found in thousands of everyday plastic products appears to cause erectile dysfunction and other sexual problems in men, according to a new study published Wednesday."

"The Ninth World Wilderness Congress in Mérida, Yucatán, [is] an event that draws together top conservation officials and activists from across the globe to tackle trans-national wilderness issues."

"The Environmental Protection Agency has directed two of its lawyers to makes changes to a YouTube video they posted that is critical of the Obama administration's climate change policy."

"As the world heads for tough negotiations over a global climate deal next month, an influential forecasting agency said on Tuesday that current energy policies were not sustainable, and that a vast transformation of energy use was required to fend off the worst consequences of global warming."

An interesting new experiment in journalism "surfaced today in a Science Times article by  Lindsey Hoshaw, known on Twitter as  @thegarbagegirl. The feature is an up-close examination of the  Pacific Ocean's vast patch of plastic flotsam, reported with travel funds provided by readers of Spot.us."

"At an emotional meeting, a state panel imposes the landmark restrictions to help restore species, catches of which have dropped up to 95%. The plan was forged out of contentious negotiations."

"Australia's koalas could be extinct in 30 years, conservationists warned Tuesday, calling for the iconic creatures to be declared an endangered species."

"Nearly half of lakes and reservoirs nationwide contain fish with potentially harmful levels of the toxic metal mercury, according to a federal study released Tuesday."

"Power was restored in Brazil after an outage at a dam providing 20 percent of the country's energy thrust about half of the nation's 190 million people into darkness for at least two hours."