"Ministers from Brazil, India, China and South Africa called for an extension of the Kyoto Protocol, the world's only treaty that forces countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions, which expires at the end of the year."

"WASHINGTON -- House lawmakers skipped out of town on Friday until after the November elections, but not before pushing through a sweeping anti-environmental package that has no chance of becoming law."

"The Senate unanimously passed a bill on Saturday that would shield U.S. airlines from paying for their carbon emissions on European flights, pressuring the European Union to back down from applying its emissions law to foreign carriers."

"On June 4, 1963, less than a year after the controversial environmental classic 'Silent Spring' was published, its author, Rachel Carson, testified before a Senate subcommittee on pesticides. She was 56 and dying of breast cancer. She told almost no one. She'd already survived a radical mastectomy. Her pelvis was so riddled with fractures that it was nearly impossible for her to walk to her seat at the wooden table before the Congressional panel. To hide her baldness, she wore a dark brown wig."

"The drought of 2012, which continues to spread westward, is making its mark on the national consciousness in many ways. Rising food prices. Interrupted livelihoods. Fields of stunted, desiccated crops. All of this dryness has resonance in our video culture. Just go to YouTube and look at the proliferation of public service announcements on water conservation."

"Organic champagne anyone? Environmental activists were celebrating Thursday as Quebec's new government gave an unambiguous thumbs-down to the shale gas industry in the morning and confirmed its intention to quickly shut down the Gentilly-2 nuclear plant in the afternoon."

"Efforts to clean up one of the largest industrial polluters in Illinois will be delayed until the end of the decade after a state panel voted Thursday to give the owner of a massive downstate power plant more time to slash its lung-damaging emissions."

"SAN FRANCISCO -- Next month, the climate change litigation circus leaves Washington, D.C. First stop: the James R. Browning U.S. Courthouse."

"British scientists have shot down a study on declining honeybee populations that triggered a French ban on a pesticide made by Swiss agrochemicals group Syngenta."

"President Obama plans to bypass Congress and sign an executive order [Friday]designating the ancient Chimney Rock ruins in southwest Colorado as a new national monument, the administration announced late yesterday."