The animals are washing ashore at a higher rate than the last 26 years. Host Scott Simon speaks with Charley Potter, collection manager for marine mammals at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, about the response along the Mid-Atlantic.
From China's Yellow Sea to the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, agricultural waste in the water system is fueling spectacular algae blooms. The masses of slime cause dead zones in the water and major losses in tourism revenue in affected towns. But the algae fight doesn't begin at the water's edge; it starts in the fields and pastures.
The environmental agency has proposed permits that would allow oil companies to continue releasing contaminated wastewater onto the Wind River Reservation in central Wyoming. NPR found last year that the EPA has been allowing oil companies to send so much wastewater onto dry land that it was creating raging streams.
Usually bustling streets are nearly empty at noon, and thousands have gone to hospitals for relief. China's National Meteorological Center says the long-running heat wave is driven by a variety of factors, including climate change, as well as Shanghai's construction density, growing population and shrinking green space.
The world's soil is in trouble. Ecologists say without dramatic changes to how we manage land, vast swathes of grassland are at risk of turning into hard-packed desert. To make sure that doesn't happen, researchers are testing out innovative ways to keep moisture in the soil.
The federal government's top climate scientists announced Tuesday that 2012 was really hot — among the top 10 hottest years on record and the hottest ever in the U.S., with rising sea levels, less Arctic sea ice and warmer oceans. And the American Geophysical Union called humanity "the major influence" on global climate change.
New pumping and irrigation systems made it easy for farmers to extract billions of gallons of water from the High Plains Aquifer. But now, parts of the aquifer are dried out, prompting a debate over how to preserve what once seemed to be an almost inexhaustible resource.
Dense forests of old-growth pines and cypress once blanketed South Carolina. As farming spread, nearly all the state's virgin trees were logged, but some sank into rivers en route to the sawmills. Now, some entrepreneurs are raising the preserved trees from the muck — and selling them for big money.