In 2005, at least 3,600 facilities violated their water discharge permits more than 24,000 times, according to a US Public Interest Research Group report released Oct. 11, 2007.

"Citizen scientist" program to document when local plants flower, bud, leaf.

The Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration is expected to release its annual report on greenhouse gas emissions in the last week or two of November 2007.

"Net metering" for selling excess wind or solar energy to utilities shows great variability among states.

The final installment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's "Fourth Assessment Report on Climate Change" is expected to be released Nov. 16, 2007, during a Nov. 12-17 gathering in Valencia, Spain.

Drought is a major local story for many news media. Weather extremes, including drought, are an integral part of the climate change dilemma.

After years of wrangling, and little significant action, federal legislative efforts addressing greenhouse gases and climate change are beginning to crystallize.

The Valencia science meeting is just a prologue to a meeting of diplomats from some 180 countries in Bali, Indonesia, to hammer out a new international agreement to control climate change. The current Kyoto Protocol, which was signed in 1997 and took effect in 2005, expires in 2012.

As Congress members and international diplomats roll up their sleeves for serious efforts at action in coming months, a final "synthesis" report from the top U.N. climate science body will brief them this week.

In January of 2007, the Society of Environmental Journalists added a special section to its Web site to help reporters cover climate change - which seems to be shaping up as one of the biggest environmental stories of the next decade.