"Today's number: 1.6 million. That's 1.6 million acres — about the area of the state of Delaware. That's how much land was removed this year from the federal Conservation Reserve Program, or CRP, which pays farmers to keep land covered with native grasses or sometimes trees. Most of that land now will produce crops like corn or wheat.
"Conservative groups may have spent up to $1 billion a year on the effort to deny science and oppose action on climate change, according to the first extensive study into the anatomy of the anti-climate effort.
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"A crisis grips the Indian River Lagoon. Record numbers of manatees, dolphins and pelicans died in the past year — often from mysterious maladies. Sea grass flats are decimated. Unprecedented algae blooms have formed."
"The first day's trading in what will be by far the largest carbon market in China kicked off briskly yesterday with pricing in line with expectations, as Beijing continues its drive to slow its rapid growth of heat-trapping emissions."
"If companies want to continue storing giant mounds of petroleum coke on Chicago's Southeast Side, they soon will have to start doing so indoors."
"Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he will 'soon' pardon one of his sharpest critics — jailed oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky — and said that a newly enacted amnesty law would free imprisoned Greenpeace activists and two members of the punk band Pussy Riot."
"This coming Sunday, Dec. 22, marks five years since the Kingston Coal Plant's ash dam in Tennessee ruptured, sending more than a billion gallons of toxic sludge into homes, onto farmland, and into the Emory and Clinch Rivers in Roane County - one of the biggest environmental disaster in U.S. history. Five years later, we're still waiting - and pushing - for the Environmental Protection Agency to put in place long-overdue protections to prevent more coal ash disasters."
"U.S. gasoline pump prices are poised to reach their lowest level this year as supply expands to a two-decade seasonal high and winter curbs demand."
"U.S. federal regulators on Thursday said oil and gas company Chesapeake Energy Corp will pay a civil penalty of $3.2 million to settle Clean Water Act violations in West Virginia where it drills in the Marcellus Shale."
