Activism

"Beijing -- Authorities ordered a solar-panel manufacturing plant in eastern China to close after four days of protests by hundreds of villagers who have accused the facility of causing air and water pollution, Chinese media reported Monday.

The decision is an indication of the growing power of environmental protesters to sway government policy in China. As many as 500 villagers participated in the protests near Haining, an industrial city of 640,000 in coastal Zhejiang province.

"Police in the Brazilian Amazon say they have arrested two men in connection with the murders of two rainforest activists who were gunned down in May."

"'There's a long tradition of people who don't like a particular message turning to attack the person delivering the message,' former Vice President Al Gore just said on NPR's Talk of the Nation."

"This week marks two anniversaries of global green campaigning groups that could scarcely be more different, while holding almost identical aims."

"Five years after the release of An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore returns to the world stage with an updated slide show. Can his message be any more successful this time around?"

"Environmental groups and their critics are trading blows over the findings of a recent Government Accountability Office report on environmental litigation costs. In the face of Republican claims that environmentalists game the legal system to win attorneys' fees, GAO experts examined lawsuits filed against U.S. EPA and found 'no discernible trend' over the last 16 years."

Hundreds of anti-fracking protestors rallied outside a Marcellus Shale industry conference in Philadelphia. Aubrey McClendon, the chief executive of Chesapeake Energy Co., called people concerned about the safety of their families' drinking water "extremists," even as an industry-friendly report noted that fracking could be costly to communities.

"MONUMENT VALLEY, Utah (AP) — The stretch of high desert on the Arizona-Utah border gives way to towering rock formations that resemble huge mittens, chimney spires and castles. But to the west of Monument Valley lies a reminder of what has been blamed for much heartache and tragedy in Elsie Mae Begay's family: A mesa stained with a gray streak where uranium was mined decades ago."

"Protesters hope to persuade President Obama not to approve the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline that would run from Canada to Texas. But the State Department already says its safe, and supporters point to thousands of new jobs."