People & Population

"VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis' eagerly awaited environment encyclical will be published June 18."

"Latino voters care deeply about green issues, and could be a crucial voting bloc in support of environmentally-friendly legislation, according to a new report."

"Several Minnesota Indian bands are upset about what they say is a lack of consultation over a proposed controversial oil pipeline across northern Minnesota."

"Every 10 days, Thad Smith enters a piece of land that is otherwise forbidden to most people: The empty acreage around Chicago’s O’Hare airport. It’s there that Smith and his crew from the Westside Bee Boyz tend to 75 beehives. Last year, he and his fellow beekeepers harvested 1,600 pounds of honey in the otherwise unoccupied land beneath O’Hare’s airspace."

"Back in 2008, an estimated 1.1 billion gallons of toxic coal ash was released into the Emory River in Tennessee when a dam breached at the Kingston Fossil Plant. It was the biggest coal ash spill in the nation. Much of that coal ash was hauled to a landfill in Perry County, Alabama. Residents of the poor, mostly African-American county have filed a lawsuit saying they're suffering as a result of the coal ash. But the landfill is also a vital part of the local economy.

"A U.S. Geological Survey researcher says she's worried about the Navajo because drought, combined with increasing temperatures, are making it harder for them to live in the harsh conditions. The Navajo Nation is being buried in sand."

"Lester Brown has spent his career making shrewd projections about the food, water, and energy people need to survive, and pushing governments to respond. None of this math brings tears to his eyes except the time in 1965 he made some calculations and risked his career advising the president of the United States to save India from starving."

"A small aboriginal community in British Columbia has rejected a $1 billion payment for a natural gas project, the latest setback for the Canadian energy industry’s effort to bolster exports."

"Fracking wells in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale region are disproportionately located in poor rural communities, which bear the brunt of associated pollution, according to a new study."