Decades of illegal gold mining have transformed large expanses of virgin Peruvian rainforest into pocked, denuded, mercury-poisoned wastelands. Excavations to separate gold flecks from tons of earth have left holes big enough to swallow a half-dozen buses. Mercury, a neurotoxin used to bind the gold, pervades the local food chain, reaching humans through the fish they eat. The ruined lands scar the southeastern region of Madre de Dios, a mecca of biodiversity whose natural marvels lure eco-tourists and where several...

If you believe that fruitcake your aunt just sent is the biggest culinary catastrophe of the holiday season, think again. It's actually the food you're not eating that's the most harmful to our world. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that roughly 35 million tons of food are thrown out every year by Americans, and much of that is during the holidays, when temperatures dip and our stomachs expand. That's up from 12.2 million tons of food thrown out by Americans...

Global leaders currently meeting in Peru for the U.N. climate talks might have come to the summit with the assumption that, based on the current body of scientific research, the Earth wouldn't start warming from today's carbon emissions for 30 to 40 years. But according to new research, the lag time between carbon emissions and their impact on the atmosphere might actually be much shorter, down to just 10 years, meaning that whatever policy leaders draft and vote on in...

In this Aug. 3, 2012 file photo, an Indian farmer shows a dry, cracked paddy field in Ranbir Singh Pura, 21 miles from Jammu, India. (AP Photo/Channi Anand) Our planet has changed a lot in the past 20 years, and that's not a good thing. Since world leaders first met to discuss climate change two decades ago, Earth has gotten hotter, more filled with heat-trapping gases and more crowded. Global temperature has risen six-tenths of a degree in those 20...

The U.N. weather agency dismissed claims global warming has paused on Wednesday, after temperature data revealed 2014 was tied for hottest year on record. In January-October of 2014, the global average temperature was 1.03 Fahrenheit above average, the World Meteorological Organization reported. The same record hot was recorded in 2010. During this same period, a new record ocean temperature was set. Since the beginnings of recordkeeping in the 19th century, 2014 land temperatures were the fourth or fifth highest, the...

You may be waiting until Dec. 21 to celebrate winter but if you’re meteorologically oriented, now is the time to break out the hot chocolate and ugly sweaters. Meteorological winter officially kicked off this week with a bang in California, providing some much-needed rain to start the wet season there. And over the next 6-10 days, the majority of the U.S. is likely to experience some unseasonably warm temperatures, according to forecasts from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. (MORE:...

Nearly 60 percent of the world's carbon dioxide emissions come from just six countries. Two-fifths of these come from China and the United States alone, a clue that the future of the planet is largely in the hands of what its top carbon-polluting nations do about the heat-trapping gases that lead to global warming. Here's how the countries rank and what they're doing to slow their emissions: China It emits nearly twice the amount of greenhouse gases as the United...

Get ready to pay more for guacamole, or even consider giving it up. That's the predicament Modern Farmer magazine says the world may be in soon with avocados, the creamy green fruit whose popularity has grown by leaps and bounds in the U.S. over the past few decades. As the California Avocado Commission notes, the industry has grown from one that sold $24 million of avocados each year in the early 1970s to one that sells $435 million of them...

Last month's joint emissions pledges by Presidents Xi Jinping and Barack Obama spurred hopes for a global climate deal a year from now in Paris. But heading into the second half of the Dec. 1-12 talks in Lima, Peru, China and the U.S. remain on opposing sides on a series of vital issues.The familiar rich-poor conflict persists over who should do what to keep the planet from overheating and clashes have flared between developed and developing countries. As environment ministers...

Watch a Special Extended Edition of "WX Geeks" This Sunday @ 12P, Only on The Weather Channel For the full interview, tune in this Sunday at 12P for a special hour-long Wx Geeks! Jane Goodall’s name is synonymous with chimpanzees. She’s been studying the primates since 1960, when she left England and headed for what is today Tanzania, in eastern central Africa. In the decades Goodall’s been an advocate for these animals, she’s noticed weather, temperature and climate changing around...

In early Februry of this year, a drainage pipe underneath a Duke Energy Coal ash pit collapsed. "We released between 30 and 39 tons of ash into the river," said CEO Lynn J. Good on 60 Minutes. The unlined pit was used to store coal ash waste from Duke Energy's coal fired Dan River Power Plant, shut down in 2012. Duke Energy says they've spent twenty million dollars cleaning up the river. Coal ash contains toxins like arsenic and mercury....

Climate change is usually discussed in extremes: Epic heat in Australia. A deadly heat wave in Europe. Hurricane Sandy grinding New York to a halt. The extreme California drought? Maybe not so much. A new National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration study released Monday shows that the 3-year California drought may have been caused by natural variability and not necessarily human-caused climate change. The study follows a series of studies released in September that were inconclusive about the role of climate...

A newly proposed draft at the United Nations (U.N.) climate talks in Lima, Peru, would have every country commit to some level of carbon emissions cuts for the first time ever at the expense of a single emission standard, the New York Times reports. Under the new draft, each country will propose separate carbon emissions reduction commitments to be enacted post-2020 and publish those pledges by June 2015 at the latest, Reuters notes. That would mean there would be 196...