For environmental activists, the message was clear: Earth Hour was a huge success.

On Tuesday of this week, Gavin Newsom introduced a resolution that will expand the SF Energy Watch program by nearly $4 million.

But just because some of us are suffering through a particularly cold and snowy winter doesn't refute the fact that the globe is warming as we continue to pump carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

But bird flu, it seems, is back. This year, China has already recorded eight human cases of the disease. Last month five people died in locations as far removed from each other as Beijing in the north, Xinjiang in the west, Guangxi in the south, Hunan in the center and Shandong in the east — and one of the highest tallies of bird flu deaths China has ever recorded in a month.

It was hailed by environmentalists as the ideal solution to congestion on the streets. But life is now proving short for the Velib, the self-service bicycle that the city of Paris introduced 18 months ago...

Greenpeace Brazil has released a report at the World Social Forum in Belém showing that up to 80 percent of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest is due to an increase in raising cattle for human consumption.

President Obama sets in motion several plans to benefit the environment.

Somebody had to do it. Who, after all, hasn't wondered how many credit card applications arrive in their mailbox in a year? A Chicago area man decided to find out and has saved 445 applications to show for it.

Just as "Y2K" and its batch of predictions about the year 2000 have become a distant memory, here comes "Twenty-twelve."

Climate change is essentially irreversible, according to a sobering new scientific study.