"The Obama administration on Wednesday announced plans to beef up federal strip-mining inspections and reviews of mining permits issued by state regulators like West Virginia's Department of Environmental Protection."

"Coal pollutants affect all major body organ systems and contribute to four of the five leading causes of mortality in the United States: heart disease, cancer, stroke, and chronic lower respiratory diseases, concludes a scathing report issued today by Physicians for Social Responsibility."

"The biggest influence groups for oil and coal spent a combined $115 million last year to burnish their images and shape public opinion on energy, expenditures that dwarf amounts they have previously reported for federal lobbying."

"Appearing with President Hu Jintao, President Obama on Tuesday told reporters that the United States was determined to work with China and other countries to help produce a substantive agreement in Copenhagen climate talks next month."

"No one would choose to eat polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs -- yet we unwittingly do. And a new study finds that the cost of their pervasive contamination of our food supply can be high blood pressure, a major risk factor for heart disease."

John M. Broder reports a feature-length profile of U.S. Chamber of Commerce president Thomas J. Donohue, whose legendary pugnacity has been focused on legislation to curb climate change.

"A solid majority of Americans recognize the need to help the environment, although there are some things -- like buying a hybrid car or taking mass transit -- that people often talk about, but don't necessarily act on."

The peatlands of Indonesia, formed over thousands of years, used to be a vast reservoir of carbon. But now deforestation has dried them out, and they are burning, releasing back into the atmosphere as much carbon dioxide as all the cars and trucks in the U.S. The question is how economic incentives to save the peatlands can outweigh the incentives for destroying them.

"In a groundbreaking decision, a federal judge ruled late Wednesday that the Army Corps of Engineers' mismanagement of maintenance at the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet  was directly responsible for flood damage in St. Bernard Parish and the Lower 9th Ward after Hurricane Katrina."