"President Barack Obama is creating a new federal interagency task force to coordinate the "economic and environmental resiliency" of Louisiana and the rest of the Gulf Coast region."

"The level of inorganic mercury in the blood of American women has been increasing since 1999 and it is now found in the blood of one in three women, according to a new analysis of government data for more than 6,000 American women."

"Humans may have to reset the Earth's natural thermostat and develop new technologies like reflecting sunlight back into space if climate talks fail, Britain's top science academy said on Tuesday."

"A Global Framework for Climate Services that would provide climate forecasting the way that weather forecasting services do is in the works."

"The Prius hybrid automobile is popular for its fuel efficiency, but its electric motor and battery guzzle rare earth metals, a little-known class of elements .... That makes Toyota's market-leading gasoline-electric hybrid car and other similar vehicles vulnerable to a supply crunch predicted by experts as China, the world's dominant rare earths producer, limits exports while global demand swells."

"Environmental groups presented a federal official with more than 19,000 signed letters and postcards Tuesday asking the U.S. government to set stricter rules to prevent pollution in the Chesapeake Bay."

"San Francisco Bay and the delta are dying. Salmon runs are collapsing. Droughts are getting worse. And big agriculture still wants more water."

"A group of 91 countries have agreed on a treaty that will block ships involved in illegal fishing from entering signatory ports and thus help prevent the fish going to market, the UN said on Tuesday."

"Scientists who returned to the Bay Area this week after an expedition to the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" brought piles of plastic debris they pulled out of the ocean — soda bottles, cracked patio chairs, Styrofoam chunks, old toys, discarded fishing floats and tangled nets."

"Wolf hunting season opened Tuesday in the state of Idaho."

"The shipping industry is an invisible and nearly unregulated environmental disaster."

A rare chance for people to walk through the mile-long tunnel that gives entrance to Zion National Park was part of the park's centennial celebration.

"Restrictions on the sale of incandescent bulbs begin going into effect across most of Europe on Tuesday in the continent’s latest effort to get people to save energy and combat global warming."

"LOS CABOS, Mexico – Emergency workers struggled to evacuate thousands of reluctant slum dwellers as extremely dangerous Hurricane Jimena approached Mexico's resort-studded Baja California Peninsula on Tuesday."

Four years after Hurricane Katrina destroyed some 200,000 homes in New Orleans, the city has embraced a new and unexpected role as a laboratory for green building.