"Those who don’t believe that the ridges of mountains should be blasted away to extract coal in Tennessee have taken to prayer in the 40 days leading to this year’s opening of the state legislature."

"High levels of carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere mean the next ice age is unlikely to begin for at least 1,500 years, an article in the journal Nature Geoscience said on Monday."

"SEOUL -- Bringing a diplomatic end to an unwieldy high seas drama, three Australian anti-whaling protesters detained after boarding a Japanese vessel in the Indian Ocean will be released to Australian authorities, the government in Canberra announced Tuesday."

"MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s social development secretary says an estimated 600,000 households suffered property damage or crop losses due to an unusual combination of floods, drought and freezing weather in 2011. Heriberto Felix Guerra says the drought has been so bad that about 2.6 million people in about 1,650 villages and towns in northern Mexico do not even have drinking water."

"The U.S. should declare a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing for natural gas in populated areas until the health effects are better understood, doctors said at a conference on the drilling process."

Ongoing controversy over Pennsylvania's oversight (or lack thereof) of fracking for gas in the Marcellus Shale has brought a lot of readers to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's "Pipeline" reporting portal. The Post-Gazette offers interactive maps of drilling data from the Department of Environmental Protection. One big problem: "DEP's production data ... says there are 495 more wells producing gas, or ready to produce gas, than DEP has recorded as ever being drilled, and 182 of those wells don't even show up on the state's Marcellus Shale permit list."
 

EPA's Toxics Releaser Inventory is the foundation of much of what the nation knows about toxic pollution. But it consists of estimates from industry, sometimes dramatically understating the extent of pollution, and omits whole industrial categories.

"U.S. EPA faced a hostile Supreme Court today as the agency defended its authority to issue compliance orders under the Clean Water Act without allowing an immediate hearing on the underlying issue."

"Don’t look for many environmentalists to mourn the resignation of White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley, who was scorned by some activists for presiding over the controversial decision last year to scuttle tougher Environmental Protection Agency smog rules."