"To ensure that oil rigs, tankers and other commercial ships are in safe operating condition, governments around the world, including the U.S. government, often rely on inspections by private firms that are hired and paid by the vessels' owners. But how much confidence should the world have in the maritime watchdogs?"
"U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he has never seen anything like the flood disaster in Pakistan, and urged foreign donors to speed up assistance to the 20 million people affected."
"Trains carrying deadly chemicals rumble through our backyards every day, but railroad companies hauling them refuse to publicly disclose exactly what those substances are, or how often they travel through the area."
"In the race to build hybrid cars and wind turbines to feed growing demand for green technology, China has one clear advantage, it holds the world's largest reserves of rare earth metals and dominates global production."
As archetypal as a scene from Grimm's tales, the 580-square-mile Bialowieza Forest, said to be the last remaining stand of primeval forest in all of Europe, is being logged.
"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday proposed new rules to ensure factories and power plants will be able to obtain permits they will need to emit greenhouse gases starting next year."
"Delving into the gritty details of how offshore drilling is regulated, a National Academy of Engineering inquiry into the Deepwater Horizon well blowout found a big hole in oversight during a hearing on Thursday."
"In the end, Gov. Charlie Crist’s effort to buy huge swaths of sugar company land for the Everglades restoration was just too much: too much money, too much land to handle, and too much of a fight with critics and the courts."
"Southern California is poised to become the world's solar power capital as the Obama administration continues to stamp its approval on large-scale renewable energy projects across the Mojave and Colorado deserts."
The market-based cap-and-trade approach to climate legislation was originally a product of a business coalition and Republican principles. Then some of the people who invented it began vilifying it.
Advertisement 
