A huge oil slick caused by an underwater leak continued to creep toward the U.S. Gulf Coast on Monday as the Obama administration pressed energy giant BP Plc to stem the oil gushing from its ruptured offshore well. The direction of the slick has been pushed around by strong winds in the Gulf of Mexico…

President Barack Obama will visit the U.S. Gulf Coast on Sunday as his administration aims to deflect criticism that it could have responded more quickly to a huge oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that threatens to become an economic and ecological catastrophe. The incident could ultimately rival the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster in…

The U.S. government pressured energy giant BP to avert an environmental disaster as a huge, unchecked oil spill reached coastal Louisiana, imperiling fish and shrimp breeding grounds and vulnerable wetlands teeming with wildlife. With oil gushing unchecked from a ruptured deepwater well in the Gulf of Mexico off Louisiana, President Barack Obama’s administration piled pressure…

A new, warmer Arctic cannot continue to operate under rules that assume it is ice-covered and essentially closed to fishing, resource exploration and development and shipping, WWF said as it launched a group of reports on protecting a newly accessible, highly vulnerable environment with profound significance for global climate, the global economy and global security.…

Contradicting earlier studies showing that soil microbes will emit more carbon dioxide as global warming intensifies, new research suggests that these microbes become less efficient over time in a warmer environment and would actually emit less CO2. The research, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, could have important implications for calculating how much heat-trapping CO2…

Royal Dutch Shell Plc has been granted a long-awaited federal air-quality permit the oil company needs to conduct exploratory drilling this year in Alaska’s Beaufort Sea, government officials said late on Friday. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued the permit to Shell to cover air pollutants emitted from the drill ship and fleet of support…

A federal advisory panel urged the U.S. Interior Department on Friday to block a $1 billion wind project off Cape Cod opposed by local business leaders and politicians but seen as helpful to the Obama administration’s energy strategy. Cape Wind Associates LLC has proposed building 130 wind towers that would soar 440 feet above the…

Starved and emaciated, sea lion pups are beaching themselves along the Pacific Coast. A strong El Nino tropical weather pattern is to blame. Unusually warm sea surface temperatures in the western Pacific are moving east, forcing the sea lions’ natural food sources — squid, hake, herring and anchovies — to seek out cooler waters. Adult…

Scotland has approved ten marine energy projects that leaders predict could provide electricity for one-third of the nation’s homes by 2020 and make Scotland the world leader in wave energy. The government awarded leases to companies to construct six wave energy projects and four tidal projects off the Scottish coast in what experts say would…

Federal limits on water that can be pumped out of a major river delta for California farmers are scientifically justified, a much-anticipated report said on Friday, a finding hailed by environmentalists in the state’s epic water wars. But the National Academy of Sciences stopped short of handing a decisive victory to environmental interests over agricultural…