"For the better part of a century, from 1840 to around 1940, the U.S. was the world's biggest buyer of ivory. Hunters killed hundreds of thousands of elephants, and uncounted numbers of Africans were enslaved to carry the tusks to ships bound for America. Most of that ivory went to a tiny town in Connecticut — a town that's now grappling with this dark part of its past."

"THE HAGUE, The Netherlands – All 581 metric tonnes of a precursor chemical for sarin gas that were removed from the Syrian Arab Republic and loaded onto the U.S. Maritime Vessel Cape Ray in early July, have been destroyed with neutralization technology aboard the ship while sailing in international waters of the Mediterranean Sea."

"The solar industry is facing a looming shortage of photovoltaic panels, reversing a two-year slump triggered by a global glut."

"More than two-thirds of the recent rapid melting of the world's glaciers can be blamed on humans, a new study finds."

"NASA’s new carbon dioxide-monitoring satellite just opened its eyes for the first time. Based on the initial data its sending back to Earth, it appears to have 20/20 vision and scientists will soon have plenty more data to analyze."

"Russian president calls ExxonMobil a 'model of cooperation' for its partnership with Rosneft in the face of Western sanctions against the Russian oil company. The energy giants are drilling Russia's first well in the arctic Kara Sea, an area with huge reserves of oil and gas."

"Toxic metal threatens marine life as it accumulates faster in shallow layers than in deep sea due to human activity"

"Researchers have long contended that the epicenter of global warming is also farthest from the reach of humanity. It’s in the barren landscapes of the frozen North, where red-cheeked children wear fur, the sun barely rises in the winter and temperatures can plunge dozens of degrees below zero. Such a place is the Yamal Peninsula in Siberia, translated as 'the ends of the Earth,' a desolate spit of land where a group called the Nenets live."

"In part of the search to find ways to feed future populations, given the mounting impacts of extreme weather on traditional farming, many have begun to turn their attention to the ocean. Over the past four decades, aquaculture has grown rapidly, accounting for half of human-consumed seafood in 2011 and continuing at a 6 percent annual increase in production."

"Some of the world’s top PR companies have for the first time publicly ruled out working with climate change deniers, marking a fundamental shift in the multi-billion dollar industry that has grown up around the issue of global warming."