California on Thursday approved rules for a multibillion-dollar carbon market, in what proponents hope and detractors fear will be a turning point for the United States toward building a national program to address global warming. After Congress failed to pass a climate change law last year, California is the vanguard of the nation’s effort to…

In the Arctic, trees and forests just do not happen. However, long ago they did when the area was warmer and then turned cooler. As it turns out there are many such northern forests that have been preserved by mineralization and similar processes. The northernmost mummified forest ever found in Canada is revealing how plants…

The plight of polar bears continues as the climate gradually becomes warmer in the Arctic. Warmer temperatures cause the melting of sea ice, which is essential for polar bears to reach their prey, primarily seals. However, according to a recent study published in the journal, Nature, polar bears have a good chance at survival if…

NASA has released a new analysis of temperature change. The map shows temperature anomalies for 2000-2009 and 1970-1979 relative to a 1951-1980 baseline.

Global dimming is a less well-known but real phenomenon resulting from atmospheric pollution. The burning of fossil fuels by industry and internal combustion engines, in addition to releasing the carbon dioxide that collects and traps the sun’s heat within our atmosphere, causes the emission of so-called particulate pollution—composed primarily of sulphur dioxide, soot and ash.…

Reclamation in Canada’s oil sands is not keeping pace with rapid development and that could leave the public vulnerable to major financial burdens in years to come, a scientific panel said Wednesday. The study by Royal Society of Canada scientists, the latest report on the effects of the country’s multibillion-dollar oil sands sector, also concluded…

Ecology is the branch of science that studies the distribution and abundance of living organisms, and the interactions between organisms and their environment. Any ecological group is always in a dynamic equilibrium. If you change one part, some other part will change in response to that change. Changes may come from man, climate, pollution or…

Today, December 15, the Obama administration will be hosting the first White House Forum on Environmental Justice. Major members of the cabinet will be featured during the summit as well as environmental leaders from throughout the country. The forum can be watched live online and will be accepting questions from the public (see links below).

Climate change is affecting the breeding cycles of toads and salamanders, researchers reported on Tuesday, in the first published evidence of such changes on amphibians. They documented that two species were breeding later in the autumn than in years past, and two others were breeding earlier in the winter. Their study, published in the Proceedings…

Metsahallitus, a forest enterprise controlled by the Finnish government, have agreed to preserve 80 percent of 107,000 hectares of pine forests in northern Finland. The area, which serves as a grazing land for the reindeer, includes tracts of old growth forest.