A quarter of the world's plant species may be headed toward extinction. Seed banks aim to prevent that.

According to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, a quarter of the world’s known plant species – some 60,000 to 100,000 species – are threatened with extinction.

9 billion people live well, and within the limits of the planet:

WBCSD-VISION-2050

Vision 2050:  The new agenda for business

Under the WBCSD's Vsion 2050 Project, twenty-nice WBCDSD member companies developed a vision of a world well on the way to sustainablility by 2050 and the pathways leading to that world.

The physics of Earth’s natural systems show that a delay—of even a decade—in reducing CO2 emissions will lock in large-scale, irreversible changes.

Reuter

Molly O'Toole

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States is on a pace in 2011 to set a record for the cost of weather-related disasters and the trend is expected to worsen as climate change continues, officials and scientists said on Thursday.

BRAD JOHNSON

Thirty-five years ago this week, Wallace Broecker predicted decades of dangerous climate change caused by humans. Unfortunately, he was all too prescient.

Damian Carrington

Unknown amount of trapped persistent organic pollutants poses threat to marine life and humans as temperatures rise

Climate change could result in "sudden and abrupt" shocks to countries around the world and have "far-reaching implications for global stability and security," a senior United Nations' official has warned.

John Vidal

Critics fear that manipulating weather patterns could have a calamitous effect on poorer countries

Juliet Eilperin

Climate change in the Arctic is not likely to spark an immediate boom in oil and gas exploration, according to a new study published in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.