A UN Environment Program update summarizing more than 400 new scientific studies says global warming may be larger and faster than predicted in the authoritative IPCC review of 2007.

"The Arctic ice cap will vanish completely in summer months within 20-30 years, polar researchers said Thursday, sounding the alarm two months before a critical climate change summit in Copenhagen."

"The Environmental Protection Agency said on Thursday that it would overhaul enforcement of the Clean Water Act, as lawmakers sharply criticized the agency's decade-long lapses in punishing polluters."

Over the last decade, aspens in the Rocky Mountains have been fading away from "sudden aspen decline." Now, as scientists have gained better understanding of the syndrome, they hope that timber harvesting and prescribed burns will help stands regenerate.

"Fox Cable Networks and the National Geographic Channel announced Thursday that they would start a new program service that would focus on natural history and wildlife."

"A prominent coal industry association spent nearly $10 million over the past 18 months on lobbying efforts supervised by a public affairs firm currently under congressional investigation for its involvement in sending forged letters opposing the climate bill."

"Thanks to El Nino, the 2009 Atlantic hurricane season has been the quietest in more than a decade, offering a reprieve for residents in the danger zone and a chance for insurance firms to refill depleted coffers."

"More automakers are joining the trend. Nine of the top 10 vehicles in the Environmental Protection Agency's fuel economy rankings for the 2010 model year are hybrids, made by six companies."

"Environmentalists are taking the fight over coal beyond Capitol Hill and onto college campuses."

"Canada's major waterways have suffered significant alterations in their natural flows, a WWF-Canada report contends."

"A proposed coal-fired power plant in Surry County (Va.) would add 'significant and harmful' amounts of mercury and other pollutants to the Chesapeake Bay and several river systems in coastal Virginia already suffering from excessive mercury levels, a study released Wednesday concludes."

A big-money rancher alumnus caused Cal Poly San Luis Obispo to change a scheduled lecture by best-selling sustainable food writer Michael Pollan -- raising questions about academic freedom.

"Army Corps of Engineers officials on Wednesday defending their handling of a rowdy crowd of coal industry supporters who repeatedly interrupted other speakers at a mountaintop-removal public hearing Tuesday night."

"The state is poised to ban the use of mercury-tainted coal fly ash at a Ravena cement plant that is the state's second largest source of airborne mercury pollution."

"Oil prices reached a fresh one-year high above $75 a barrel Thursday in Asia on a weaker U.S. dollar and growing investor optimism about an economic recovery."