Climate Change

"The Environmental Protection Agency's plan to roll out regulations on planet-warming gases may hit a snag in the coming months -- opposition from environmentalists."

"An island of ice more than four times the size of Manhattan is drifting across the Arctic Ocean after breaking off from a glacier in Greenland. Potentially in the path of this unstoppable giant are oil platforms and shipping lanes - and any collision could do untold damage."

Walruses in the Arctic depend on sea ice as a base for hunting and transportation. The native Yupik and Inupiat people have depended on the walrus for meat, clothing, and tools. Now the climate-driven shrinking of sea ice is threatening both walruses and humans.

"It has been the summer of polling discontent, or at least the dog days of disagreement on climate change."

"Russian emergency workers have increased forest patrols in a western region previously contaminated by the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, trying to prevent wildfires from spreading harmful radiation, officials said Wednesday."

"With 3-1/2 months left before a United Nations climate summit in Cancun, Mexico, the spade work ahead of the meeting seems to be turning up more boulders than a New England plow."

"Devastating floods in Pakistan and Russia's heatwave match predictions of extremes caused by global warming even though it is impossible to blame mankind for single severe weather events, scientists say."

"The daily mortality rate in Moscow has doubled and morgues are overflowing amid an acrid smog caused by the worst heatwave in Russia's thousand-year history, officials said Monday."

"U.N. climate talks have moved backward rather than forward toward a hoped-for deal later this year as nations make slow progress on pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions and add more proposals to the working document."