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Source: http://www.ouramazingplanet.com/

The damage toll from this year's wild weather keeps growing. A June tornado outbreak and the wildfires that have plagued the Southwest were added to the year's list of U.S. billion-dollar weather disasters, bumping the 2011 total to a record 12, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Earlier this year, Hurricane Irene had already put 2011 in first place by becoming the tenth billion-dollar weather disaster of the year, passing the $9-billion weather disasters of 2008.

These costly disasters don't hit the country evenly. Since 1980, wild weather has been costliest in the South. Texas, Oklahoma, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and North Carolina have had 33-to-42 billion-dollar weather disasters, according to NOAA.

Source: http://www.circleofblue.org/

Every year, our old water infrastructure spills 860 million gallons of untreated waste into America’s waterways, including raw or partially treated sewage, bacteria, parasites, synthetic hormones, pharmaceuticals, and agricultural wastes.

Source: http://www.scientificamerican.com

Power and water are interconnected and that has serious consequences for the American West as it grapples with climate change.

California likes to think of itself as being ahead of the curve. So when the state set out to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, regulators did all the right things - stringent tailpipe standards for cars, tighter codes for buildings, higher renewable energy standards for utilities. Then they took one of the most aggressive energy-saving steps of all. 

Source: http://www.fastcompany.com/

Around a black hole 12 billion light years away, there's an almost unimaginable vapor cloud of water--enough to supply an entire planet's worth of water for every person on earth, 20,000 times over.