"Just as wild plants and animals have their environmental champions, so foodies are seeking to preserve the biodiversity of cultivated species and rescue rare delicacies such as California's Sebastopol Gravenstein apple. The big difference? With endangered foods, you save them by eating them."

"Oregon's top environmental agency plans to side with one of the state's biggest polluters in its effort to seek an exemption from tough new federal rules controlling the release of toxic mercury."

"Beetles and fire, twin plagues, are consuming northern forests in what scientists say is a preview of the future, in a century growing warmer, as the land grows drier, trees grow weaker and pests, abetted by milder winters, grow stronger. Dying, burning forests would then only add to the warming."

"No fish can escape mercury pollution. That's the take-home message from a federal study of mercury contamination released Wednesday that tested fish from nearly 300 streams across the country."

"Scientists have identified a new source of chemical pollution released by the huge amounts of plastic rubbish found floating in the oceans of the world. A study has found that as plastics break down in the sea they release potentially toxic substances not found in nature and which could affect the growth and development of marine organisms."

"Mexico is suffering from its driest year in 68 years, killing crops and cattle in the countryside and forcing the government to slow the flow of water to the crowded capital."

"Since the mid-1990s, hurricanes and tropical storms have struck the Atlantic Ocean with unusual frequency -- or have they? Two new studies suggest that the situation may not be so clear."

Some parts of the U.S. are "food deserts," where liquor stores may vastly outnumber grocery stores. Now one Detroit group is fixing that by taking fresh veggies to an inner city neighborhood in what looks like a Good Humor truck.

"Very low doses of some types of the herbicide Roundup can disrupt human liver cell function; the formulations' toxicity may be tied to their 'inactive' ingredients rather than the active weed-killing ingredient glyphosate."

"Kenya's lion population could disappear altogether in the next 20 years because of climate change, habitat destruction, disease and conflict with humans, the country's wildlife authority said on Monday."

"Congressional investigators have uncovered five more letters sent to members of Congress that falsely claimed to be from charities expressing opposition to climate change legislation."

"A new study has found that downloading music is substantially better from an emissions perspective than buying compact discs."

"Hard on the heels of the health care protests, another citizen movement seems to have sprung up, this one to oppose Washington's attempts to tackle climate change. But behind the scenes, an industry with much at stake -- Big Oil -- is pulling the strings."

Canada faces a monumental challenge in finding a way to store or dispose of highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel. The problem has dragged on unsolved for decades, and any solution is likely to prove costly.

"The chairman of agribusiness giant Monsanto demanded Monday that his counterpart at DuPont -- his firm's leading competitor in the seed business -- appoint a special committee to investigate what he said was a pattern of covert attacks on Monsanto's business practices by DuPont."