The federal government could soon give the final go-ahead for Royal Dutch Shell to begin drilling for oil in the Arctic Ocean. Shell has spent $4 billion since 2007 to prepare for this work, and is hoping to tap into vast new deposits of oil.

There are a lot of fish in the sea. But their numbers are no match for growing human appetites and the ultra-efficient fisheries that have sprung up to feed our hunger. A shift towards “blue job” fisheries is urgently needed, experts say, if the oceans are to nourish future generations as they have in the past.

Aren’t critics of genetically engineered food anti-science? Isn’t the debate over GMOs (genetically modified organisms) a spat between emotional but ignorant activists on one hand and rational GM-supporting scientists on the other?

Diplomats and activists from around the world are meeting in Rio de Janeiro this week to talk about how the planet's growing population can live better lives without damaging the environment. The Rio 20 meeting marks the 20th anniversary of the United Nations Earth Summit in Rio, a watershed meeting to address topics as diverse as climate change and biodiversity.

The world's political and environmental leaders gather in Rio de Janeiro tomorrow to assess the state of the planet's health 20 years after the first such gathering in 1992. But if science is any guide, Earth still needs some help.

Last month a virus broke out in several open water salmon farms in British Columbia that has the region’s fish farm owners scrambling to mitigate their losses. Called infectious hematopoietic necrosis (IHN), the rabies-like virus was found among salmon in floating net pens belonging to Mainstream Canada, the biggest producer in the region. As a result, B.C. farms culled over 500,000 fish infected with IHN, which spreads rapidly and can kill up to 100 percent of a fish farm’s population. And it’s just the latest disease scandal to hit the province’s salmon farming industry.

Since 2006, the U.S. has seen the largest reduction in carbon dioxide emissions of any country or region, according to a recent report from the International Energy Agency (IEA). The report states that, during this time, U.S. CO2 emissions have fallen by 7.7 percent or 430 million metric tons, primarily due to a decrease in coal use. This decrease in carbon emissions is equal to eliminating the annual greenhouse gas emissions from more than 84 million passenger vehicles or more than 53 million homes.

Kristen Iversen spent years in Europe looking for things to write about before realizing that biggest story she'd ever cover was in the backyard where she grew up. Iversen spent her childhood in Colorado close to the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons factory, playing in fields and swimming in lakes and streams that it now appears were contaminated with plutonium. Later, as a single mother, Iversen worked at the plant but knew little of its environmental and health risks until she saw a feature about it on Nightline.

Canadian conservation officers have euthanized a black bear that ate the remains of a convicted murderer.

As dysfunctional as the American political system appears to be right now, it at least provides some checks and balances to unlimited power. In a parliamentary system like Canada's, if a government is in power long enough to pack the Senate and the Supreme Court and gets a majority government, it can pretty much do what it wants. Now that Stephen Harper has his majority (earned with only 39% of the vote, but that's what happens with a first-past-the-post system and a Liberal party meltdown) he is doing exactly what he wants.