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"The White House scrambled Monday to contain the political damage from rising gas prices, which have emerged as a primary threat to President Obama’s reelection."

"The Senate [Tuesday] will likely vote on an amendment to approve construction of the Keystone XL pipeline and to vastly expand access to domestic oil and gas resources. But unlike similar votes last week, senators this time will vote on a much broader package that includes the extension of expiring tax incentives."

Phil Taylor reports for Greenwire (subscription only) March 12, 2012.

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"Ben Kessler, a student at the University of North Texas and an environmental activist, was more than a little surprised that an FBI agent questioned his philosophy professor and acquaintances about his whereabouts and his sign-waving activities aimed at influencing local gas drilling rules."

"F. Sherwood Rowland, the Nobel prize-winning chemist who sounded the alarm on the thinning of the Earth's ozone layer, has died at 84."

"A new study has documented the rapid growth in Canada of ticks that can cause Lyme disease, and global warming is thought to be a factor."

"The average amount of ice covering the Great Lakes declined 71 percent over the past 40 winters, with Lake Superior ice down 79 percent, according to a report published by the American Meteorological Society.

'There was a significant downward trend in ice coverage from 1973 to the present for all of the lakes,' states the study appearing in the society’s Journal of Climate.

"WILLIAMSTOWN, Australia -- The whale conservation group Sea Shepherd is celebrating victory as Japan ends its whaling season with less than a third of its annual self-assigned quota."

When some 18 girls in the upstate New York town of Le Roy developed unexplained tics and twitches starting in August 2011, many were quick to suspect that the cause was toxic substances in the environment. There had been a major chemical spill there in 1970. Erin Brockovich, of movie fame, started an investigation (as did EPA). But many of the potential chemical causes were ultimately discounted. Later hypotheses about the cause included sociological, psychological, and infectious factors. Today, many of the victims are doing better.

"The complete melt of the Greenland ice sheet could occur at lower global temperatures than previously thought, a study in the journal Nature Climate Change showed on Sunday, increasing the threat and severity of a rise in sea level."

Is it safe to extend the life of the aging US fleet of nuclear power plants -- even those whose obsolete designs match those of the failed reactors at Fukushima?