Public

"HOUSTON -- Over the past two years, environmentalists have chained themselves to the White House fence and otherwise coalesced around stopping the Keystone XL pipeline as their top priority in the fight against global warming. But even if President Obama rejects the pipeline, it might not matter much. Oil companies are already building rail terminals to deliver oil from western Canada to the United States, and even to Asia."

"BECKLEY, W.Va. -- The stately, wood-paneled chamber in the federal building here unsettled Gary Fox and his wife, Mary. Fox was used to the dusty caverns of the mines in the southern part of the state, where he'd spent more than 25 years working underground in the heart of Appalachian coal country. They had never been in a courtroom before."

"Scientists have discovered three new species of animals in a rainforest 'lost world' in Australia, protected for millions of years by almost impenetrable stacks of granite boulders."

"'American policymakers need to understand just who they will be doing business with if they approve the Keystone,' says environmental artist Franke James."

"The Italian Senate is investigating a cluster of cancers near Naples which may have been caused by the mafia's dumping of toxic waste. It's a question that has long been on the conscience of one former mafia boss, who says it was not the violence but pollution that made him turn police informer."

As a centerpiece of its bid to hold the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia boldly promised a "Zero Waste" program. State-owned companies are already systematically and publicly violating that pledge.

"Nearly 1 million chickens and turkeys are unintentionally boiled alive each year in U.S. slaughterhouses, often because fast-moving lines fail to kill the birds before they are dropped into scalding water, Agriculture Department records show."

"Scientists have confirmed for the first time that at least one variety of Asian carp is living and breeding in the Great Lakes watershed, where it threatens stocks of native fish."

"During the build-up to the Cold War, the U.S. government called upon hundreds of factories and research centers to help develop nuclear weapons and other forms of atomic energy. At many sites, this work left behind residual radioactive contamination requiring government cleanups, some of which are still going on."

"In the year since Hurricane Sandy struck the Mid-Atlantic, news articles have widely declared that the storm has 'changed the public’s view of weather threats' and that 'resilience' would be the environmental buzzword of 2013. That sounds all well and good, but are headlines enough to move public opinion and spark new discussions?"