"A tough new proposal to regulate U.S. markets calls for top regulators and government officials to conduct a study on transparency in emerging U.S. carbon markets as part of the financial reform package."

"With the oceans absorbing more than 1 million tons of carbon dioxide an hour, a National Research Council study released Thursday found that the level of acid in the oceans is increasing at an unprecedented rate and threatening to change marine ecosystems."

"With their 'guerrilla' tactics, black organic farmers are taking Malcolm X's mandate of 'by any means necessary' and turning it green. It is time, they say, to change an unhealthy paradigm."

"The nation's oil and chemical plants are spewing a lot more pollution than they report to the Environmental Protection Agency -- and the EPA knows it. But the federal agency has yet to adopt more accurate, higher-tech measuring methods that have been available for years."

"One of the world's leading climate scientists has launched a libel lawsuit against a Canadian newspaper for publishing articles that he says 'poison' the debate on global warming." The newspaper is the conservative National Post, owned by CanWest.

"A rare and dangerous fungal infection named Cryptococcus gattii has been quietly spreading from British Columbia southward to the U.S. Pacific Northwest. And it's changing as it goes. ... The most striking thing about this fungus is that it's popping up and establishing itself far afield from its usual range -- possibly because of climate change."

"The chairman of the International Whaling Commission offered a compromise proposal Thursday that would authorize commercial hunting for the first time in a quarter-century in exchange for reducing the number of whales killed each year."

"As Earth Day marks its 40th birthday, three-fifths of Americans consider themselves either active in or sympathetic to the environmental movement, a new Gallup poll shows."

"As hope dimmed for the lives of 11 crew members missing since a drilling rig exploded in flames in the Gulf of Mexico, authorities turned their focus to controlling an oil spill that could threaten the fragile ecosystem of the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts." Latest news accounts vary on how much oil, if any, may still be seeping to
the surface from the deepwater well.
 

"As Southern Company and its partners, armed with federal loan guarantees of $8.3 billion, move toward construction of two new reactors at a site near Augusta, Ga., opponents are taking aim at the design details." A new engineering study funded by several anti-nuclear groups says corrosion in the reactor's containment could vent radioactivity to the atmosphere in the event of an accident. Westinghouse, the reactor's maker disputed the study.