"Apart from water and air, humble sand is the natural resource most consumed by human beings. People use more than 40 billion tons of sand and gravel every year." There’s so much demand that riverbeds and beaches around the world are being stripped bare. The demand is so strong that islands are disappearing and organized crime often controls production."
"California is suffering from 'second-hand smog' drifting in from Asia and other places, researchers said on Tuesday, even as the state's prolonged drought has made air quality worse."
"Iran hopes to bring an additional 1 million barrels of oil per day back online in the coming months if a deal can be signed, a volume that would crush oil prices."
"SINGAPORE – Bearing the message “use your power to change climate change” WWF’s Earth Hour is motivating people to turn out their lights for one hour across 24 time zones and six continents on Saturday, March 28."
"The United States will submit plans for slowing global warming to the United Nations early this week but most governments will miss an informal March 31 deadline, complicating work on a global climate deal due in December."
"Nuclear energy is experiencing a renaissance around the world, but lawmakers in the US are struggling with a decades-old waste problem. It's one of the many challenges facing the US industry as competition grows in China and elsewhere."
"Oil prices rose sharply on Thursday amid concerns that fighting in the Arabian Peninsula between a Saudi-led coalition and Houthi rebels in Yemen could disrupt supplies."
"Antarctica’s ice shelves are shrinking at an accelerating rate, one of the longest satellite records of ice thickness reveals. Researchers report online March 26 in Science that several West Antarctic ice shelves are now on pace to disappear completely within 100 years."
"More than a half-billion dollars of Japanese taxpayer money has been wasted in the struggle to contain and cleanup the ongoing Fukushima nuclear disaster, according to a government audit."
"Less than a week before the United Nations deadline for countries to file greenhouse-gas pledges necessary to keep a global climate change deal on track, it looks like most of the world is missing in action."
