Arch Coal's announcement of a second West Coast shipping terminal signals a trend toward increasing exports of strip-mined western coal to Asian nations like China, where demand outstrips supply. The implications for greenhouse emissions and accounting schemes for controlling them are huge.

Water managers, farmers, electric utilities, skiers and some 30 million water users breathed a sigh of relief in recent weeks with news that snowpack in the basin of the Colorado River was better. The relief may be temporary. The drought that has plagued the region for 11 years may become the new "normal."

"Shrinking ice and snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere is reflecting ever less sunshine back into space in a previously underestimated mechanism that could add to global warming, a study showed."

"Higher ocean levels force Ventura officials to move facilities inland, an action that is expected to recur along the coast as the ocean rises over the next century."

"Last year tied for the warmest since data started in 1880, capping a decade of record high temperatures that shows mankind's greenhouse gas emissions are heating the planet, two U.S. agencies said."

"A federal appeals court today denied the state of Texas' third attempt to block implementation of greenhouse gas control measures imposed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for the largest sources of emissions -- power plants and refineries. Texas has many of both types of facilities -- 27 refineries and 19 operating coal-fired power plants."

"Climate change has likely intensified the monsoon rains that have triggered record floods in Australia's Queensland state, scientists said on Wednesday, with several months of heavy rain and storms still to come."

"Under pressure from some members of Congress, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is easing up on regulating global warming pollution from facilities that burn biomass for energy."