CFC-12, better known by the trade name Freon, may become the second-largest illegally imported substance after cocaine, according to the U.S. Customs Service in Miami.

Tucked into Latin America’s northeast coast between the continent’s two greatest river systems – Venezeula’s Orinoco and the Amazon in Brazil – Guyana’s Essequibo River is easily overlooked. So it’s no surprise that last August’s spill into the river of 130 million gallons of cyanide, effluent from a waste pond at a a gold mine, was back-page news in the U.S. (Even if it conjured up unpleasant memories of the Revered Jim Jones, who effected a cynanide spill of his own while in Jonestown, Guyana back in 1978.)

Do you want to get off the grid, but need help with the first step? Learn how to harness the power of the sun at The Solar Now Project in Beverly, Massachusetts. Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, the new program uses one of the country’s largest operating solar energy field as a study center for the vast potential of renewable energy. Solar Now features field trips, conferences, teacher workshops and classes, hosts college interns during the summers and helps engineering, education and environmental students put their solar skills to work in private and nonprofit settings.

Tulsa is a town that oil built. Sweet Oklahoma crude, that’s what they called the low-sulfur ooze which literally gushed from Tulsa’s red earth, turning a small Creek Indian Village into a muddy boomtown. Generations of residents firmly believed the slogan, "What’s good for oil is good for Tulsa."

Living in the rugged, mountainous landscapes of the Idaho Panhandle, northeastern Washington and British Columbia, the trans-boundary caribou are the last wild examples of their species to visit the continental United States. With numbers dwindling to around 34 animals, the South Selkirk mountain caribou herd is getting close to disappearing forever.