"Levels of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere rose at a record-shattering pace last year, a new report shows, a surge that surprised scientists and spurred fears of an accelerated warming of the planet in decades to come."
"PINK HILL, N.C. — On many mornings, as tobacco plants tower around her, Saray Cambray Alvarez pulls a black plastic garbage bag over her 13-year-old body to protect her skin from leaves dripping with nicotine-tinged dew."
"The cloud of insecticide that drifted from a neighbour's corn field onto the asparagus on Andrew and Melissa Dunham's central Iowa farm cast a shadow over their organic vegetable business."
"It may be years before an underground nuclear waste dump in New Mexico shuttered by a radiation leak is fully operational, and costs for decontamination and other activities to restore the facility are not yet clear, U.S. Energy Department officials said."
"The cost of cleaning up Britain's toxic nuclear sites has shot up by £6bn, with the Government and regulators accused this weekend of 'incompetence' in their efforts to manage the country's legacy of radioactive waste."
"DINUBA — Growing up in Mexico, Maria Rodriguez remembers hauling water from a stream to the shack where her parents and their nine children lived. Indoor plumbing was not an option."
"As a Texas energy company seeks approval for its plan to build a 1,100-mile pipeline carrying North Dakota crude oil across 17 Iowa counties, documents show the state's pipeline safety record has been less than spotless."
"When a dust storm swept across the desert last month, the wall of churning dust and sand rolled across the Coachella Valley like a colossal wave of floodwater, enveloping everything in a haze that resembled thick smoke."
"PASCAGOULA -- An EPA inspector, during a tour of Mississippi Phosphates in 2009, walked through a puddle so acidic it ate leather off the inspector's steel-toed boots."
"Good news, whale lovers: A new analysis suggests that there are as many blue whales living off the coast of California as there were before humans started hunting them to near extinction 110 years ago."
