After Peruvian police opened fire June 5, 2009, on indigenous Amazonian people protesting the taking of their land for oil drilling, killing at least 34, some laws have been repealed and some ministers have lost thier jobs.

The debate over the giant climate-change and energy bill now before Congress has set off a fight between Eastern and Midwestern politicians over transmission lines and solar and wind energy. Many of the best wind sites are in the Midwest, far from the electric load in populous East Coast cities.

"The Delaware Bay is the site of the largest horseshoe crab orgy in the world. Mating season brings millions of crabs onto the beaches, and tens of thousands of migratory shorebirds, who gorge themselves on crab eggs on their way to the Arctic."

"The National Park Service is proposing the extension of rules for boating on the Colorado River through part of Grand Canyon National Park to the landmark's entire 277-mile river corridor."

"Jonathan Jarvis, President Barack Obama's choice for director of the National Park Service ..., is winning support from environmental groups just a few days after the President nominated him for the post on Friday."

The monsoon arrived late and weak in India this year -- a phenomenon some attribute to climate change. As it ponders drought and crop failure, India continues to insist that rich nations must solve the climate problem without its help.

"When the United States' top energy and commerce officials arrive in China on Tuesday, they will land in the middle of a building storm over China's protectionist tactics to become the world's leader in renewable energy."

"California's San Joaquin Valley has lost 60 million acre-feet of groundwater since 1961, according to a new federal study. ... The Central Valley is America's largest farming region; it's also the single-largest zone of groundwater pumping."

"In the verdant farmland surrounding Monterey Bay, a national marine sanctuary and one of the world's biological jewels, scorched-earth strategies are being imposed on hundreds of thousands of acres in the quest for an antiseptic field of greens. And the scheme is about to go national."

This spring's run-up in oil prices is hard to explain on the basis of market fundamentals. It seems to be the result of speculation in the commodity markets.