"Pope Benedict XVI called for urgent action to protect the environment, saying Tuesday that climate change and natural catastrophes threaten the rights to life, food, health -- and ultimately peace."

"Negotiators have all but completed a sweeping deal that would compensate countries for preserving forests, and in some cases, other natural landscapes like peat soils, swamps and fields that play a crucial role in curbing climate change."

"Environmental groups said Monday they want the Tennessee Valley Authority to be prosecuted for its huge coal ash spill in Tennessee and not shielded from penalties for polluting."

"Rates of black-lung disease are growing, most notably among younger miners, reversing decades of progress and prompting more federal scrutiny and calls to lower exposure to coal dust."

House Science Committee Chairman Bart Gordon (D-TN) announced that he would retire at the end of this Congress. Gordon faced a strong GOP challenge. The Science Committee has jurisdiction over several key environmental issues.

"It is not easy to reinvent the wheel, but researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are giving it their best shot."

"Hispanic farmworkers in California poisoned by pesticides are demanding that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency exercise greater control over toxic substances used in agriculture."

"Government regulators have found high levels of manganese, a dangerous metal that can affect the brain, in the air outside a school in eastern Ohio."

"As environmental concerns threaten to derail natural gas drilling projects across the country, the energy industry has developed innovative ways to make it easier to exploit the nation's reserves without polluting air and drinking water." But are they used?

The first robot to cross the Atlantic Ocean is a prototype that may offer dramatic new opportunities for measuring the ocean's properties at various depths -- a key to better understanding of climate change, as well as an aid to hurricane prediction, fishing, and shipping.