"As far back as records go (1895), never has the U.S. strung together 12 straight months warmer than May 2011 to April 2012 according to new data released today by NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center (NCDC)."
"Long respected by his professional peers around the world, [scientist Michael] Mann became more widely known as one of the targets of the so-called and now discredited 'climategate scandal,' involving hacked emails of several prominent climate scientists. Mann's science and professional conduct (and that of others so targeted) have been repeatedly exonerated by independent professional review."
"For two centuries, the town of Hermann has been known for the Missouri River. But now the river is making Hermann known for an unexpected reason: It is a hot spot for nitrate. Despite three decades of costly efforts to clean it up, the levels at Hermann have increased 75 percent since 1980."
"PRESTONSBURG, Ky. — Ray Marcum bears the marks of a bygone era of coal mining. At 83, his voice is raspy, his eastern Kentucky accent thick and his forearms leathery. A black pouch of Stoker's 24C chewing tobacco pokes out of the back pocket of his jeans. "I started chewing in the mines to keep the coal dust out of my mouth," he says.
Plenty of that dust still found its way to his lungs. For the past 30 years, he's gotten a monthly check to compensate him for the disease that steals his breath — the old bane of miners known as black lung.
"KANSAS CITY, Mo. — An unrelenting and record-setting heat wave peaked this weekend, beating a broad swath of states into sweaty submission, with above-normal triple-digit temperatures stretching from St. Louis to Washington."
"A disturbing nationwide decline in oysters and the life-giving reefs that they build is particularly dramatic in California, where the once-abundant native species has been virtually wiped out, according to a recent scientific study."
"The debate over who should use the roads and paths of the country's national parks is consistently fraught. In California's Sequoia National Park, unkind words are sometimes exchanged when pack animals with their wide panniers encounter hikers kitted out with the latest R.E.I. gear on the trails behind Mount Whitney. The code of etiquette and safety governing such encounters is sometimes ignored, And there have been continual efforts to ban horses, burros and llamas because of their impact on the trails."
"ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Michael J. Potter is one of the last little big men left in organic food. More than 40 years ago, Mr. Potter bought into a hippie cafe and 'whole earth' grocery here that has since morphed into a major organic foods producer and wholesaler, Eden Foods."
"It took Gulf Coast lawmakers more than two years of prodding and negotiating to persuade a divided Congress their communities deserve most of the billions of dollars BP will pay in fines for its role in the 2010 oil spill. Now comes another challenge: figuring out how to spend that money."
Is the coal lobby forging petition signatures on a White House web site to stop EPA from regulating toxic coal ash?
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