MARBURG, Germany: This fairy-tale town is stuck in the middle of a utopian struggle over renewable energy. The town council's decision to require solar-heating panels has thrown Marburg into a vehement debate over the boundaries of ecological good citizenship and led opponents to charge that their genteel town has turned into a "green dictatorship."

BEIJING: The transport restrictions that China is imposing as part of its drive to ensure clean air and security for the Olympics are rippling well beyond Beijing, ensnaring a widening circle of companies.

Private cars can use the city's roads only every other day, depending on whether the numbers of their license plates are odd or even.

Most trucks can enter the city only at night, and only if they meet tough emissions standards.

On top of that, a range of goods deemed dangerous, including most liquids and even electronics, cannot be shipped by post, nationwide.

For so long now, there has been almost nothing but bad news about the likely fate of gorillas. They have been the victims of deforestation and incessant warfare in Central Africa. They have been hunted for meat. They are susceptible to the Ebola virus. Estimates in the 1980s suggested that there were roughly 100,000 western lowland gorillas - one of four subspecies. Since then, that number was thought to have declined by half.

A grueling survey of vast tracts of forest and swamp in the northern Congo Republic has revealed the presence of more than 125,000 western lowland gorillas, a rare example of abundance in a world of rapidly vanishing primate populations.

As recently as last year, this subspecies of the world's largest primate was listed as critically endangered by international wildlife organizations because known populations - estimated at less than 100,000 in the 1980s - had been devastated by hunting and outbreaks of Ebola virus. The three other subspecies are critically endangered or endangered.

HONG KONG: Businesses, government offices, financial markets and schools were closed on Wednesday in Hong Kong and Macau with the approach of severe Tropical Storm Kammuri, but Olympic officials said that the storm was not affecting horses and riders here for the start of the Olympic equestrian events in Hong Kong on Saturday.

By John P. Holdren Published: August 4, 2008

The few climate-change "skeptics" with any sort of scientific credentials continue to receive attention in the media out of all proportion to their numbers, their qualifications, or the merit of their arguments. And this muddying of the waters of public discourse is being magnified by the parroting of these arguments by a larger population of amateur skeptics with no scientific credentials at all.

CHINO HILLS, California: Despite shaking a large swath of Southern California, a magnitude 5.4 earthquake was not the "Big One" that scientists have long feared. Still, it rattled nerves, causing people to vow to step up their emergency preparations.

BRUSSELS: As the United States moves toward action on global warming, practical experience with carbon markets in the European Union raises a critical question: Will such systems ever work?

MUMBAI: Shweta Kumari is waiting impatiently for the new Nano by Tata Motors to hit car showrooms here later this year.

With a price tag of about $2,500, the Nano will cost about half the price of the least-expensive car on the market, easily affordable for Kumari, who works as a software developer.

For seven long years, President George W. Bush has refused to confront the challenge of climate change and provide the leadership that America and the world needs to reduce greenhouse gases and avoid the destructive consequences of global warming.