"The Obama administration on Monday extended its ban on mining on 1 million acres of federal lands near the Grand Canyon by six months, as it heads toward a possible long-term moratorium on mining in the area."
In the race for the GOP presidential nomination, even candidates who previously accepted climate science and backed cap-and-trade are backtracking and changing position as fast as they can.
"The American public is less likely to believe in global warming than it was just five years ago. Yet, paradoxically, scientists are more confident than ever that climate change is real and caused largely by human activities."
"The Supreme Court ruled [Monday] that six states cannot, for now, try to limit emissions of greenhouse gases under federal common law. The court ruled 8-0 -- Justice Sonia Sotomayor was recused -- that the Clean Air Act and the Obama administration's efforts to regulate emissions had displaced the states' federal common law argument."
"The U.S. ethanol industry is growing up. Moves in Washington to start weaning producers off government support are not expected to stunt a sector that had often been perceived as too fragile to withstand the travails of market forces."
"In Japan it is known as detergent suicide, a near-instant death achieved by mixing common household chemicals into a poisonous cloud of gas. By some counts, more than 2,000 people there have taken their own lives, inhaling the gas — in most cases hydrogen sulfide — in cars, closets or other enclosed spaces. The police now say they are seeing an increasing number of similar suicides in the United States."
The Missouri River flooding confronting Iowans is "a historic double punch expected to continue at least into August and one that worries even the most battle-hardened veterans of previous flood fights."
"The first six months of 2011 have brought image after image of human misery and ecological upheaval. Droughts, wildfires, twisters, floods, heat waves, extreme blizzards — just about every natural disaster you can imagine has hit just about every place on the planet."
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