"President Obama could invoke strong climate policies, like gasoline carbon limits, without congressional input before world leaders convene this fall to negotiate an international global warming treaty, a research group says in a plan provided to the administration."

"Top climate change leaders from Europe to Africa are wondering if it's time to give up on the United States."

An oil-industry-funded PR 'War Room' stands ready to kill or counter any public discourse unfavorable to the oil industry. The conservative non-profit group running it has been accused of shaking down BP. They are working hard to elect Republiicans to the Senate.

"Global wheat crops are taking it on the chin, thanks to a drought and fires in Russia, too much rain in Canada, and locusts in Australia. Prices are at levels not seen in almost two years." Climate-driven harvest failures in other parts of the world may be good news for US grain dealers -- and may alter the balance of UN climate talks.

"The House of Representatives on Friday approved the toughest reforms ever to offshore energy drilling practices, as Democrats narrowly pushed through an election-year response to BP's massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico."

"The worst floods in memory in Pakistan have devastated the lives of more than 3 million people, a U.N. spokesman said on Tuesday, while outrage over the unpopular government's response to the suffering spreads."

"Environmentalists are suing U.S. EPA over a rule that aims to regulate greenhouse gases from only the largest industrial sources, arguing that the agency exempts too many big polluters."

"Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill asked Russians to pray for rain on Sunday as wildfires raged across the European parts of the vast country, sweltering since June in an unprecedented heat wave."