"The Copper Mountain mine is one of a growing number of old, shuttered mines around the world that are being revisited, refurbished and reopened by companies hoping to cash in on the current surge in prices for copper, gold, nickel and a host of other metals."
"For the scientists aboard the WeatherBird II, the recasting of the Deepwater Horizon spill as a good-news story about a disaster averted has not been easy to watch. Over the past seven months, they, along with a small group of similarly focused oceanographers from other universities, have logged dozens of weeks at sea in cramped research vessels, carefully measuring and monitoring the spill's impact on the delicate and little-understood ecology of the deep ocean."
Evergreen Solar, which prospered from at least $43 million in aid from the state of Massachusetts, has decided to lay off 800 Massachusetts workers and move to China.
Members of Congress inclined not to regulate hydraulic fracturing for natural gas are getting about 19 times as much money from the gas industry as those who want to disclose the toxic chemicals in the fracturing fluid companies are pumping into the ground near people's drinking water supplies.
"If a company dumped the black goop behind a factory, it would violate all sorts of environmental laws and face an expensive hazardous-waste cleanup. But playgrounds, parking lots and driveways in many communities are coated every spring and summer with coal tar, a toxic byproduct of steelmaking that contains high levels of chemicals linked to cancer and other health problems."
"Federal regulators on Thursday vetoed Arch Coal Inc.'s proposal for the largest mountaintop removal permit in West Virginia history, saying the company had refused to adopt alternative mining plans that would do less environmental damage."
"In 2009, a federal judge ruled that a vague potential threat of violence against ranchers was not sufficient cause to withhold GPS data about the killing and capture of wolves in Arizona. The judge in question was John M. Roll of the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona, one of six killed during Saturday's attack on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.)."
"Brazil is suffering its worst-ever natural disaster after mudslides near Rio de Janeiro killed more than 500 people, the latest toll showed Friday."
"Oil and gas companies drilled fewer new wells on public lands in 2010 than in any other year over the past decade, leaving nearly two-thirds of their drilling permits unused, according to federal records obtained by Greenwire."
"As temperatures drop well below freezing during [Afghanistan's] harsh winter, bombs and bullets from a near-decade long war against a Taliban-led insurgency are not the only threat -- just trying to light a home and stay warm can be deadly." Heating and cooking with solid fuels like wood and coal kills some 54,000 Afghans a year, most of them children under five. By contrast, 2412 civilians were killed by conflict-related violence in the first 10 months of 2010."
