"Countries around the world are selling more than twice as much Atlantic and Mediterranean bluefin tuna than international standards allow, according to a new report from the Pew Environment Group. The report, released earlier this week, compares the recorded volume of Atlantic bluefin tuna caught and traded in the Mediterranean Sea and northeastern Atlantic Ocean with catch quotas set by the intergovernmental body responsible for regulating the fish's trade."

"California approved one of the broadest and most controversial components of its landmark climate change law, pushing the state toward a low-carbon economy that relies less on imported foreign oil.

The California Air Resources Board on Thursday voted to adopt final rules that will regulate carbon emissions across a broad cross section of the state's economy, including oil and gas producers, utilities and transportation companies, farmers and the building industry.

"DENVER — A federal appeals court on Friday upheld a law prohibiting roads on nearly 50 million acres of land in national forests across the United States, a ruling hailed by environmentalists as one of the most significant in decades.

The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals backed the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule after lawyers for the state of Wyoming and the Colorado Mining Association contended it was a violation of the law.

"Genetic engineering has failed to increase the yield of any food crop but has vastly increased the use of chemicals and the growth of "superweeds", according to a report by 20 Indian, south-east Asian, African and Latin American food and conservation groups representing millions of people.

"Republican lawmakers from South Carolina and Washington state, which hold tons of nuclear waste, are none too pleased that leading candidates for the GOP presidential nomination are backing President Barack Obama's decision to shutter a central dump designed to store their waste."

"When Obama cut out funding for the long-planned Yucca Mountain waste repository near Las Vegas in 2009, Republicans accused him of playing politics in a bid to help Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in his tough Nevada re-election race.

"SAN BRUNO, Calif. -- State regulators have uncovered evidence that suggests Pacific Gas and Electric Co. installed 'salvaged or junked transmission pipe' on its natural-gas system in the 1940s and '50s, raising fears that a problem like the one that caused the San Bruno disaster could be lurking undetected, officials said in a regulatory filing Wednesday.

"A few hundred voters in the remote hills of western Alaska cast ballots this week -- in one of the most closely watched elections in the country -- to halt big mining projects that might poison fishing streams. That initiative was targeted squarely at the giant Pebble Mine.

"This summer, as environmental groups converged on Washington, DC, to protest the Keystone XL oil pipeline, a Canadian 'grassroots' nonprofit by the name of Ethical Oil went on the counteroffensive. The group's YouTube videos and TV ads all carried the same blunt message: You can buy oil from Saudi Arabia and bankroll terrorism, the oppression of women, and fanatical Islam, or you can buy oil from Canada, your friendly, democratic neighbors to the north."

As the natural gas drilling boom based on "fracking" has spread across the U.S. from Texas to New York, ordinary householders have signed more than a million leases allowing companies to drill on their land. But bankers and real estate executives are now starting to ask what happens if they lend money for a piece of land that ends up storing huge amounts of toxic drilling wastewater.

Ian Urbina reports for the New York Times October 19, 2011. [34]

"Over the past 10 years, chlorine has been involved in hundreds of accidents nationwide, injuring thousands of workers and townspeople, and killing some. In one California town, more than a year after a chemical cloud forced them to run for their lives, the employees of a recycling business are back to work – but not back to normal."

Jane Kay reports for Environmental Health News October 20, 2011. [38]