"A U.N. meeting to set targets to fight rising animal and plant extinctions inched on Friday toward agreement, but rich and poor countries remained split over details of a new framework on genetic resources."
"There is a new front in the fight over whether Texas should build more coal-fired power plants -- water."
"The U.S. federal prison industry that recycled computers and other electronics violated health, safety and environmental laws, according to a scathing report by the Justice Department's Office of Inspector General released Thursday."
The alumina dust that coats a Texas Gulf Coast town is a sign of risks like those in the Hungarian villages recently buried in a spill of toxic red sludge.
"The voluntary quality control system widely used in the nation's $1 trillion domestic food industry is rife with conflicts of interest, inexperienced auditors and cursory inspections that produce inflated ratings, according to food retail executives and other industry experts."
"With Election Day less than two weeks away and Republicans rallying around their opposition to U.S. EPA regulations, the agency is expected to wait before it tightens the nationwide limit on ozone pollution."
"Remember the 2008 presidential campaign, when candidates and voters alike couldn’t seem to get enough of energy and climate issues during the good ol’ days of $4 per gallon gasoline? Politically and at the pump, those days are long gone."
"Federal forecasters on Thursday called for another winter of extremes, with the Pacific Northwest expecting a wetter and colder season than average and the South and Southeast yearning for rain."
"Just nine days after the Obama Administration lifted the deepwater drilling moratorium, Chevron announced on Thursday that it was going forward with a $7.5 billion project to develop two giant deepwater fields in the gulf."
"The signs of climate change were all over the Arctic this year -- warmer air, less sea ice, melting glaciers -- which probably means this weather-making region will not return to its former, colder state, scientists reported on Thursday."
