"The global average temperature has increased over the past 160 years, but short-term trends in temperature and sea ice seem to be at odds with each other and need more research, the UK Met Office's Hadley Center said. In a report on long and short-term climate trends, the Hadley Center found several factors that indicate a warming world and said 2010 has been one of the warmest years on record."

"In the name of job creation and clean energy, the Obama administration has doled out billions of dollars in stimulus money to some of the nation’s biggest polluters and granted them sweeping exemptions from the most basic form of environmental oversight, a Center for Public Integrity investigation has found."

Some transnational technology corporations see billions of dollars of business opportunity in China's rollout of a "smart grid" energy infrastructure in the next five years. No plans of comparable scale exist in the U.S.

"PARIS -- Government delegates from 48 fishing nations today failed to protect the spawning grounds of the vanishing Atlantic bluefin tuna, either in the Gulf of Mexico or the Mediterranean, although they did approve some protections for whitetip and hammerhead sharks."

"The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has designated more than 187,000 square miles of on-shore barrier islands, denning areas and offshore sea-ice as critical habitat for the threatened polar bear under the Endangered Species Act."

In California, recyclers are sending the discarded electronic devices they can not profitably reclaim toxic materials from to foreign countries -- where workers pick them apart by hand and are exposed to harmful substances.

"A boat resembling a flying saucer and run by the sun is making a stop in Miami."

"The United Nations' cultural arm UNESCO has appealed to Congolese President Joseph Kabila to guarantee there will be no oil exploration in the forest home of rare gorillas where two UK-listed firms hold drilling rights."

Canada's "federal government is introducing the most stringent rules in the world to effectively ban lead from toys for young children and other products that kids put in their mouths."

"Europe on Thursday banned baby bottles containing the chemical Bisphenol-A as of early next year over fears it may harm the health of children throughout the EU's half a billion population."