Amber Bartlett had just finished reading a book in her Mayflower, AR, home when she got a call from her teenage daughter that she will never forget; police had stopped her from entering their subdivision because of a dangerous oil spill in the neighborhood. Amber looked out her window in disbelief,...

With a puff of white smoke, the world was greeted this week with the announcement of a new pope, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the Argentine Cardinal now known as Pope Francis, named after the patron saint of the poor St. Francis of Assisi.

The new pontiff’s role in assisting the...

Canada harbors some of the great environmental Arctic treasures of the world, magnificent polar bears, wildlife and fisheries unique to its pristine Arctic shores. But the land of the Maple Leaf also is pushing policies that will destroy these natural jewels that already are showing signs of damaging impacts from climate change. Canada...

Many believe “Chasing Ice,” the powerful climate change film nominated for an Oscar for its haunting original song, "Before My Time," should have made the cut for Best Documentary Feature too. But if you haven’t seen the virtuoso film directed by Jeff Orlowski, you still may have time to run to the nearest theater to watch...

When Punxsutawney Phil raised his furry groundhog nose into the cloudy, bone-chilling air and saw no shadow last weekend, he immediately forecast an early spring. Although Phil’s history of accuracy isn't exactly stellar, he could be onto something this year. After recording the hottest year on record in the lower 48, the National...

Up in the pristine Canadian boreal forests and freshwater deltas of Alberta, home to caribou, whooping crane and native communities settled long before Europeans arrived, a poisonous sore is being gouged out of the carbon-rich soil, a massive tar sands oil mining operation that could have huge climate impacts for people across the globe.   

New information...

This is not a good time to be a climate change denier. After a record-breaking year of dangerous weather in 2012—following a destructive year in 2011—scientific reports are rolling out this month showing extreme weather in the U.S. is on the rise, threatening Americans today with bone-bleaching drought, fueling more devastating...

When officials confirmed this week that 2012 was the hottest year on record in the contiguous U.S., it came as no surprise to anyone who walked through the cauterized corn fields of America’s breadbasket last summer, talking to farmer’s traumatized by the searing 100-degree heat that seemed to have no end.

As Congress stumbles through an embarrassing year-end game of fiscal brinkmanship, the world continues its slow burn toward unchartered and dangerous territory. It’s a future that threatens us all with more cataclysmic storms, punishing drought, mind-boggling Arctic ice melts, and more ferocious fires and floods. Scientists say future years to...

Thanksgiving is traditionally a time to celebrate the positive things in life, to cherish friends and family and individual accomplishments. But in a rapidly-warming world chock-full of violent storms, severe droughts and extreme weather events, common traditions can be turned upside down. Just ask residents of the northeast struggling...

An oil platform explosion and fire today near the site of the nation’s greatest offshore oil spill in history -- BP’s Deepwater Horizon -- sent shivers up the spines of many Gulf residents as the U.S. Coast Guard reported that 11 crewmembers were flown to area hospitals and two crewmembers...

Down in the Louisiana bayou, people have first-hand knowledge of the kind of suffering a maelstrom like Superstorm Sandy brings. After the titanic tempest slammed into northeast coastal communities, killing more than 100 and making thousands homeless, people in the Gulf could feel their pain.

After all, Gulf residents are habitual witnesses to raging gales that roar...

In Hollywood’s latest cetacean love-fest, Big Miracle, three gray whales are trapped in the encroaching Arctic ice of the Chukchi Sea, soon to be part of a heroic rescue attempt by the local indigenous community, a Greenpeace activist (Drew Barrymore) and an oil company executive (Ted Danson) looking for some good...

Cajun fishing and hunting guide Ryan Lambert has weathered his share of storms over the years. He rebuilt his house and lodge deep in the Louisiana bayou seven years ago after Katrina rampaged across the area like a wild boar through roseau cane. Two years later, he struggled to rebuild...

Across the nation’s breadbasket, many farmers are out of time waiting for cooling rains to salvage crops blistered by one of the hottest and driest summers on record. But up in the frigid arctic, another battle with nature is playing out; the race against ice. It’s part of a...

Last month, I spent a week traveling with my NRDC colleague Bob Deans through the drought-decimated corn and wheat fields of Colorado and Kansas, talking to farmers knocked flat by one of the hottest summers ever. This is ground zero for one of the worst droughts in recent history; more than...

In Canada's western province of Alberta, Melina Laboucan-Massimo’s community—the Lubicon Lake Nation—has endured a withering toxic tar sands oil assault, an Armageddon against nature few Americans are fully aware of. Here in the once pristine sub-Arctic, tar sands mining operations level vast swaths of boreal forests near native lands, as 

On an early morning in May 2011, North Dakota farmer Bob Banderet was walking out of his farm house with his daughter to check on some calves when off in the distance they noticed something billowing into the air “like a geyser.” It didn’t take long for him to figure out what it...

This week, much of the globe’s attention is focused on the United Nation’s Rio +20 Earth Summit, where thousands of international delegates and NGO representatives are gathering to hammer out solutions to an increasingly stressed out, warmed-up world.

As the slow-burn of climate change spreads across the four corners of the...

Despite all the industry hype over jobs and purported energy security benefits from building the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline -- benefits a Brooklyn bridge-builder could propose -- a new report shows the mammoth Canadian tar sands pipeline will cut the amount of gasoline produced in the U.S. and jack up gas prices for American drivers, especially in Midwestern, Great...