"Next time you go to toss that 'flushable' wipe in the toilet, you might want to consider a request from your sewer utility: Don’t."

"Prime Minister Stephen Harper, in an effort to win U.S. backing for the Keystone XL pipeline, has sent a letter to President Barack Obama proposing joint action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the oil and gas sector"

"Arsenic in rice occurs at such low levels that it poses no short-term health threat, Food and Drug Administration says, although it is still studying long-term effects. The arsenic in rice is thought to come from water on the ground, which is where rice is grown."

"Japanese authorities are unable to control the radioactive water leaking out of the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant. Now the government plans to install a wall of ice around the facility to contain the contaminated water. Ed Lyman, from the Union of Concerned Scientists, tells host Steve Curwood that the new ice wall plan is likely an act of desperation, and that some American reactors are at risk for the same kind of flooding disaster."

"MIAMI -- The 2013 Atlantic hurricane season, which forecasters had predicted would be more active than normal, has turned out to be something of a dud so far as an unusual calm hangs over the tropics."

"As the season heads into the historic peak for activity, it may even enter the record books as marking the quietest start to any Atlantic hurricane season in decades.

'It certainly looks like pretty much of a forecast bust,' said Jeff Masters, a hurricane expert and director of meteorology at the Weather Underground."

"ST. PETERSBURG -- Transcending their disagreements over Syrian chemical weapons, the G-20 leaders managed to reach agreement on confronting climate change in two ways. They will phase down refrigerant greenhouse gases and phase out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies."

"WASHINGTON -- The Environmental Protection Agency this week quietly withdrew two draft rules dealing with the regulation of chemicals. The potential rules were in limbo at the Office of Management for several years."

"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has fined Royal Dutch Shell affiliates $1.1 million for emitting too many pollutants into the air during the 2012 drilling season offshore in the Alaska Arctic."

"The eight-state commission that sets water quality standards for the Ohio River wants a two-year delay on enforcement of a more stringent mercury standard while it considers relaxing those rules."

"In the 1980s, it was South Africa. In the 1990s, it was tobacco. Now fossil fuels have become the focus of those who would change the world through the power of investing."