"Dam projects by neighbouring states are drastically reducing the flow of the Tigris and Euphrates and helping to turn a once-fertile plain into desert."

"One company has received more than half of $500 million in the first round of grants from a Recovery Act program that provides cash assistance to renewable energy production companies in place of earned tax credits."

"One of the world's rarest mammals, discovered just 16 years ago, is on the brink of extinction, warn conservation biologists."

"U.S. scientists say persistent winds and a weakened current contributed to higher than normal June and July sea levels along the Eastern Seaboard."

"The National Trust, Britain's conservation charity, has signed on to a five-year census of ancient trees organized by a sister charity, the Woodland Trust."

"The United States and Canada are nearing an international agreement to clean up the emissions of ships traveling within 200 nautical miles of shore."

"The Station fire in the San Gabriel Mountains has taken an enormous toll on the environment."

"The Gulf of Mexico opened to industrial-size fish farms Thursday after federal regulators declined to oppose the plan."

"U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on Thursday for swifter work on a climate treaty, saying inaction could spell economic disaster and a rise in sea levels of up to 6.5 feet by 2100."

"The human-driven buildup of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere appears to have ended a slide, many millenniums in the making, toward cooler summer temperatures in the Arctic, the authors of a new study report."