"Renewable energy could meet nearly 80 percent of the world's energy needs by mid-century and play a crucial role in fighting global warming, the UN's climate scientists said Monday in a major report."

"Thursday night's Republican debate was worth watching if only to see Tim Pawlenty try to talk his way around his previous support for efforts to cut planet-warming emissions. As governor of Minnesota, Pawlenty not only acknowledged that climate change is a problem, but also endorsed a cap-and-trade plan to deal with it. That makes him something of a pariah among other Republicans these days."

"The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident exposed flaws in the Japanese government's measures to guard the country's reactors against earthquakes and tsunamis. U.S. officials in recent years also have worried that Japanese officials haven't taken enough precautions to protect the facilities from terrorist attacks, according to diplomatic documents released over the weekend on the WikiLeaks website."

"Methane levels were 17 times higher in ground water near areas where shale-gas 'fracking' wells had been drilled in Pennsylvania, compared with areas where no gas drilling had occurred, a new study has found."