Climate Change

"Legislation imposing a two-year pause on Environmental Protection Agency regulation of carbon dioxide pollution from smokestacks appeared to be dead for this year as Senator John Rockefeller accused Republicans on Friday of withholding their needed support."

"The cap-and-trade system will limit emissions from 600 major industrial plants in the state, starting in 2012. Firms could buy pollution offsets from timber companies that preserve carbon in forests."

Fox News Washington Managing Editor Bill Sammon ordered the network's journalists to include language in their stories casting doubt on established climate change science and data, an email memo shows.

"Contrary to pessimistic assertions that polar bears are doomed because summer sea ice has melted past the point of no return, a new study concludes that significant curbs in carbon emissions would effectively cool the planet, rebuild ice and save the Arctic habitat and the bears in it."

"A worst-case scenario devised by US researchers shows that the American southwest could experience a 60-year stretch of heat and drought unseen since the 12th century."

The musk ox, an Arctic species that is a holdover from the Pleistocene, survived terrible climate changes when mastodons and sabertooths went extinct. That may be as much a result of its social structure as its shaggy coat.

"The world's governments face a new battle in South Africa in 2011 between rich and poor about slowing climate change, buoyed by some progress in Mexico but with faded hopes for a new treaty in coming years."

"For several weeks, nine Kansas state employees have been voluntarily working weekends and late into the night to finish a review of a permit for a power plant. ... And that worries the coal plant’s opponents, who said the extra hours were a clear signal that the state was pushing the permit process too fast."

"Plans to open the first major coal export facility on the West Coast are likely to be delayed until next year because of an appeal filed by a coalition of environmental groups, which say shipping coal to Asia throws a wrench in U.S. efforts to reduce international greenhouse gas emissions."