"QUITO, Ecuador — Pope Francis on Tuesday called for increased protection of the Amazon rain forest and the indigenous people who live there, declaring that Ecuador must resist exploiting natural riches for “short-term benefits,” an implicit rebuke of the policies of President Rafael Correa."
"The Obama administration on Tuesday strongly criticized a Republican budget proposal that would undermine regulatory work at the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Interior."
"The din created by thousands of nesting birds is usually the first thing you notice about Seahorse Key, a 150-acre mangrove-covered dune off Florida's Gulf Coast. But in May, the key fell eerily quiet all at once."
"In Florida, the official state animal triggers mixed feelings. The Florida panther has been on the endangered species list for nearly 50 years. From a low point in the 1970s when there were only about 20 panthers in the wild, the species has rebounded."
"A donor trying to push Republicans toward climate policies has given his first major donation of the 2016 election cycle to Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.)."
"For many Californians, the state’s long drought has meant small inconveniences such as shorter showers and restrictions on watering lawns. But in two rural valleys, the Coachella southeast of Los Angeles and the San Joaquin to the north, farmworkers and other poor residents are feeling its impact in a far more serious and personal way."
"Despite reports of U.S. Catholics’ largely positive reception to Pope Francis’s beginning campaign on the issue, not everyone is optimistic that the Catholics of Texas will suddenly start trying to shut down their local coal plant."
"A federal appeals court upheld Monday the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to order pollution reductions by Maryland and all the other states that drain into the Chesapeake Bay.
In a 60-page ruling, the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia brushed aside challenges from agricultural and home building groups to the 'pollution diet' that EPA imposed for the bay in 2010.
"New analyses are giving mixed grades to the most recent greenhouse gas emissions targets submitted to the United Nations, with particularly low marks for the pledge from South Korea."
Greenland's massive ice sheet is melting faster this summer as the dome of hot air breaking records in Europe also threatens to hasten climate-related sea-level rise.
