"The release of toxics once bound within glaciers may be a little-anticipated consequence of climate change. Adverse effects are likely occurring, or could occur, on almost every continent."

"A large Southern utility said Tuesday that it would close 30 percent of its North Carolina coal-fired power plants by 2017, a step that represents a bet that natural gas prices will stay acceptably low and that stricter rules are coming on sulfur dioxide emissions, which cause acid rain."

"The Environmental Protection Agency has put off, until the middle of next year, any decision about whether to increase the amount of ethanol allowed into the nation’s fuel."

"An El Nino weather pattern warming the Pacific Ocean and linked to drought in South Asia is likely to continue through the first quarter of 2010, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Tuesday."

Environmental groups have issued a new report listing top U.S. species threatened by climate change.

"Most world leaders plan to attend a climate summit in Copenhagen this month, boosting chances that a new U.N. deal to fight climate change will be reached, host Denmark said on Tuesday."

"BP Plc on Tuesday began cleaning up an oil spill from a leaky Alaskan pipeline, but said it has not determined what caused the leak or how much material spilled onto the snow-covered tundra."

A USA TODAY probe reveals some of the reason why USDA officials did not recall meat they knew could be tainted with salmonella from school lunch programs. The story is based on documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

Cleanup of polluting runoff from abandoned mines in Colorado and elsewhere is stalled by a legal paradox.

"The U.S. Supreme Court hears a major property rights case Wednesday, a case from Florida that pits the state's need to prevent beach erosion against the rights of property owners to keep ownership of the land at the water's edge."

"If the evidence is overwhelming that man-made climate change is already upon us and set to wreak planetary havoc, why do so many people refuse to believe it?" Psychologists say denial of reality is a common human reaction to unpleasant truth.

"A scientist who is one of the central figures in the uproar over pirated e-mails from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit announced Tuesday that he is stepping down as the unit's director while the university investigates the incident."

"Recycling centers across California are closing, and scores of troubled youths are being tossed from 'green' jobs onto unemployment rolls in the wake of Sacramento's raid on bottle deposit funds."

"A group of U.S. senators who could determine the fate of a climate bill received more than $20 million in campaign contributions over the past two decades from energy interests with a direct stake in pending legislation."

Hoping to please the farm lobby, Congress ordered the nation's gasoline refiners to blend more ethanol into the fuel Americans use. But fuel demand falling because of the recession and more efficient vehicles has made this impossible.