Russia arrests 28 Greenpeace activists and two freelance journalists for piracy after their protest at an oil rig in the Russian Arctic. The charges are later reduced to hooliganism.

Japan takes its last operating nuclear power plant off-line. Just offshore from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, Japan is installing three floating wind turbines that are among the largest in the world.

A giant fluther of jellyfish shuts down Swedens Oskarshamn nuclear power plant by clogging its cooling-water intake valves.

China rents 5 percent of Ukraine for 50 years to raise crops and pigs for its growing population.

After a major earthquake in Pakistan, a new seven-acre island appears offshore. Within days, visitors find it littered. Leaders of low-lying Pacific islands plead for action on climate change to prevent their nations from sinking beneath the waves.

The Arctic is warmer than it has been in more than 44,000 years.

Moose populations across North America are in steep decline.

In Nova Scotia, a white moose sacred to the Mikmaq people is shot by nonindigenous hunters, who post photographs of their kill on Facebook.

For the first time in 150 years, a gray wolf is sighted in Kentucky. It is promptly shot.

IKEA starts selling solar panels.

Massachusettss Brayton Point Power Station will close by 2017, making it the 150th U.S. coal plant to be retired or prevented from opening.

The EPA proposes to sharply limit allowable carbon dioxide emissions for future coal- and gas-fired power plants.

Kolkata, India, where bicycles outnumber cars, bans the bikes to ease passage for the cars.

France bans fracking.

In an attempt to protect endangered condors from being poisoned, California bans lead ammunition.

A leaking pipeline spills 20,000 barrels of crude oil in a North Dakota wheat field.

Up to 100,000 cattle in South Dakota freeze to death during a freak early-October blizzard.

After 15 years of debate and litigation, the National Park Service publishes final rules limiting the number of snowmobiles and snowcoaches in Yellowstone and how much noise and pollution they can produce.

The worlds oldest known wild bear dies at age 39 in a Minnesota forest.