"VIRGINIA KEY, Fla. -- The wastewater plant on this barrier island sits tucked in a northern corner, away from the wading birds, views of Miami Beach and grassy vegetation providing prime picnic spots."

"CHICAGO -- When city students arrived for the first day of school under the blazing temperatures of a Midwest heat wave, staff greeted them with some unusual school supplies: water bottles, fans and wet towels to drape around their necks."

"Eating raw oysters in the summertime is always risky; aqueous pathogens peak when the ocean is warm, which is part of why folk wisdom suggests one should only eat raw shellfish in months with an 'R' in the name. But this summer's been riskier than ever."

"Paul Bailey made the White House pitch on July 31. Flanked by six colleagues from the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, the coal industry’s most public voice, Bailey pressed the case for 'achievable' greenhouse gas emissions standards for coal-fired power plants."

"Glaciers in the Alps of Europe pose a scientific mystery. They started melting rapidly back in the 1860s. In a span of about 50 years, some of the biggest glaciers had retreated more than half a mile."

"The world's oceans are turning acidic at what's likely the fastest pace in 300 million years. Scientists tend to think this is a troubling development. But just how worried should we be, exactly?"

"Desiccated corn and sun-scorched soybeans have been in high supply lately -- and we're paying through the nose for them. The federal government forked out a record-breaking $17.3 billion last year to compensate farmers for weather-related crop losses—more than four times the annual average over the last decade."

"Crop-damaging pests are moving towards the poles at a rate of more than 25 km (16 miles) a decade, aided by global warming and human transport, posing a potential threat to world food security, a study showed on Sunday."

"No one understands risk better than the insurance industry — except, perhaps, the reinsurance industry, the companies that sell insurance to insurers, which also need protection from risk exposure. As the risk managers for the risk managers, reinsurers follow climate change obsessively. A great deal of money is at stake. ..."

"Abnormally dry conditions and pockets of moderate drought have spread over parts of the U.S. Midwest in the past week, including in the key crop state of Iowa, according to a report issued on Thursday."