"Royal Dutch Shell is spending billions of dollars to drill the first oil wells in U.S. Arctic waters in 20 years, backed by an Obama administration eager to show it wasn't opposed to offshore exploration. But the closely watched project isn't going the way the company or the government hoped—illustrating the continuing challenge of plumbing for natural riches in one of the world's most unforgiving locations."
"A floating robot has been deployed to track great white sharks in the Pacific as part of efforts to understand the giant predators."
"Inch by inch along parts of the Atlantic Coast, global climate change is running in what scientists warn is geology’s version of fast-forward — swamping and eroding beaches, wetlands and farm fields."
"Beside Seattle’s notoriously polluted Duwamish River, an excavator scoops up small pieces of waste metal and slings them onto a rusty mountain at Seattle Iron & Metals Corp. A pile of flattened cars and trucks squats nearby amid vast sheets of scrap metal. For at least the last four years, this auto-shredder and metal recycler has dumped more pollutants into the river than allowed under the federal Clean Water Act, government records show. The levels have ranged higher than 250 times above what’s known to harm salmon that migrate through the river."
"Trading pollution 'credits' to reduce the cost of cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay risks endangering the health of the region's poor and minority communities, a new report warns."
"A Canadian company's surprise proposal to build a hydroelectric generation facility on the Yuba River has raised alarm among government agencies and nonprofits working to restore salmon runs on the river."
"Landslides killed more than 32,000 people across the world from 2004 to 2010 - up to 10 times more than previously thought, the first detailed study of the disasters showed on Thursday."
"ANCHORAGE -- Shell Oil's delay in drilling Arctic Ocean exploratory wells off Alaska's northern shores is not due to heavy ice or federal regulators, according to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar."
"In a potential milestone for ocean management, a team of collaborators has produced the first Ocean Health Index, a tool for appraising the state of the world’s oceans. The index takes into account the major factors that influence the quality of regional marine ecosystems like fisheries, biodiversity, tourism and carbon storage and then assigns a score from zero to 100 for each place."
"The source of an enormous floating mass of pumice spotted this week in the South Pacific Ocean off the coast of New Zealand has been discovered: NASA satellite images and other sleuthing science have pinpointed an erupting undersea volcano called the Havre Seamount as the culprit."
