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Las Vegas Sands (NYSE: LVS) has been ranked as one of the greenest large companies in the world in the 2016 Newsweek Green Rankings, released today. LVS holds the #39 spot on the U.S. 500 list and the #74 position on the Global 500 list, while the company's subsidiary in Macao, Sands China Ltd., has been listed #62. This accomplishment makes Las Vegas Sands and Sands China Ltd. the highest ranked hospitality companies in the U.S., as well as in the world.

When people picture sand spread across idyllic beaches and endless deserts, they understandably think of it as an infinite resource. But as we discuss in a just-published perspective in the journal Science, over-exploitation of global supplies of sand is damaging the environment, endangering communities, causing shortages and promoting violent conflict.

General Electric has launched an up to CAD$1 million ecomagination open challenge to help accelerate emissions-reducing technology development in Canada's oil sands. The Innovation Challenge will target two of the biggest opportunities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the oil sands: new uses for waste heat and improved efficiency of steam generation.

JPMorgan Chase is the target of a new environmental push demanding the bank end funding for tar sands drilling, HuffPost has learned. In a new campaign set to be announced Tuesday, the San Francisco-based Rainforest Action Network criticizes the country's largest bank by assets for providing over $3.1 billion to tar sands producers between 2014 and 2016 alone.

Thousands of barrels of tar-sands oil have been burbling up into forest areas for at least six weeks in Cold Lake, Alberta, and it seems that nobody knows how to staunch the flow.

Environmental questions about Canada's massive tar sands development have long centered on greenhouse gas emissions. Now there are mounting concerns about the huge volumes of water used by the oil industry and the impact on the vast Mackenzie River Basin.

With the Keystone XL and other pipeline projects running into stiff opposition, Alberta's tar sands industry is facing growing pressure to find ways to get its oil to market. One option under consideration would be to ship the oil via an increasingly ice-free Arctic Ocean.

FORT MCMURRAY, Alberta-A group of Canadian oil sands producers, including some of the world's biggest energy companies, is prepared to commit to specific environmental impact reduction targets later this month.

Warming ocean waters are bleaching the world's corals to an unprecedented degree and could destroy huge swaths of coral reefs in areas ranging from Australia to Africa. "This is a huge, looming planetary crisis, and we are sticking our heads in the sand about it," says Justin Marshall of the University of Queensland in Australia.

Companies that own as-yet-unextracted fossil-fuel reserves could be left with stranded assets if the regulatory atmosphere changes, experts say. Expensive fossil-fuel sources, such as Alberta's oil sands, could be among the first to become uneconomic to extract. "I don't see this discussion going away. If anything, it's gaining momentum," says Ceres analyst Ryan Salmon.

Low-lying European cities such as Rotterdam, Netherlands, and Hamburg, Germany, are preparing for rising sea levels, and their innovative methods could prove instructive for cities in similar predicaments around the world. One strategy: "building with nature" by using sand and marsh grasses to protect coastlines. 

Warming ocean waters are bleaching the world's corals to an unprecedented degree and could destroy huge swaths of coral reefs in areas ranging from Australia to Africa. "This is a huge, looming planetary crisis, and we are sticking our heads in the sand about it," says Justin Marshall of the University of Queensland in Australia.

Answers to the question, "Why is the Keystone Pipeline such a focal battle in the war on climate legislation?"