The potential revision to the government’s approach for rejuvenating a huge “Dead Zone” in the Gulf of Mexico is potentially dangerous and should be reconsidered, scientists in Michigan are reporting in a study scheduled for the Dec. 1 issue of ACS’ Environmental Science

The response to the worst drought on record in the Southeast has unfolded in ultra-slow motion. All summer, more than a year after the drought began, fountains sprayed and football fields were watered, prisoners got two showers a day and Coca-Cola's bottling plants chugged along at full strength.

For the first time in more than 100 years, much of the southeastern United States has reached the most severe category of drought, climatologists said, creating an emergency so serious that some cities are just months away from running out of water.

The Washington, D.C.-based Wilderness Society analyzed drilling plans and said oil and gas exploration was poised to push into some of the West's most environmentally sensitive areas. That includes plans to drill in Colorado's Roan Plateau, the Upper Green River Basin in Wyoming and Montana's portion of the Powder River Basin.

In one typical poll from last year, only 34 percent of people said they expected today's children to be better off than people are now, down from 55 percent when a similar question was asked in 1999. So while Americans are generally pleased with their lot in life today, they're anxious about the future.

An effort by Australia and the United States to forge a new post-Kyoto consensus on how to tackle climate change ran into opposition from China on Thursday.

In July, 2007, The National Petroleum Council released a report called "Facing the Hard Truths about Energy". This document is one of the most comprehensive overviews of the planet's current energy situation. It recommends increased efficiency, development of alternatives, and cutting CO2 emissions; it is, however, dismissive of Peak Oil theory.

China produced 6,200 million tons of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels and making cement last year, the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency said Tuesday on its Web site. That pushed it past the United States, which produced 5,800 million tons of the gas, the agency said.

Automobile companies seem to be making progress in tamping down Democratic Party proposals for tougher fuel economy requirements, an issue that pits powerful Democrats from Michigan against national leaders of their own party.

Government plans to subsidize ethanol are making petroleum refineries think twice about investing in expensive capacity increases, creating a bottleneck in US refining capacity and driving up prices.