"With a week to go before California voters head to the polls to decide the fate of Proposition 37, which would require GMO foods to be labeled, I’ve been expecting an ugly campaign fueled by $41 million in corporate ad dollars to get even uglier."
"A couple of weeks ago, Munich Re, one of the world’s largest reinsurance firms, issued a study titled 'Severe Weather in North America.' According to the press release that accompanied the report, 'Nowhere in the world is the rising number of natural catastrophes more evident than in North America.' The number of what Munich Re refers to as 'weather-related loss events,' and what the rest of us would probably call weather-related disasters, has quintupled over the last three decades."
"After stepping lightly around potential global warming-related weather impacts during much of his re-election campaign, President Obama signed an emergency order yesterday mobilizing federal resources and aid to deal with the impacts of a rare storm that could punish New York City and surrounding areas with devastating high winds and flooding."
"Storm-ravaged residents of New York and New Jersey began urgent recovery efforts Tuesday after a nighttime pummeling from Hurricane Sandy, which caused widespread flooding, raging fires and broad power outages and left at least 40 people dead from Connecticut to North Carolina."
"BEIJING — A week of protests against the planned expansion of a petrochemical plant in the port city of Ningbo turned violent on Friday and Saturday when demonstrators attacked police cars and tossed bricks and water bottles at officers, according to accounts from participants posted on the Internet."
"LONDON — BP returned to profitability with a better-than-expected third-quarter profit, prompting the oil giant to raise its dividend."
"Heart attacks dropped by one-third in one county in Minnesota after two smoke-free workplace ordinances went into place, a new study shows."
"The devastating U.S. drought and ensuing crop disease are upending traditional grain movement patterns, with dozens of trains and barges shipping North Dakota or Mississippi corn into the Corn Belt rather than out to the coasts."
"LARAMIE, Wyo. -- The idea behind the sculpture that appeared on the University of Wyoming campus about 16 months ago was simple but provocative: a swirl of dead wood and lumps of coal, intended to show the link between global warming and the pine beetle infestation that has ravaged forests across the Rockies."
"It’s been a banner year for extreme weather conditions, from the drought that held the country hostage this summer to superstorm Sandy. But then, last year was a banner year for extreme weather too. And the years before that …"
