Not so very long ago, Biosphere 2 captured the imagination of the world.

It’s new science - so new that its name has barely taken hold - and it’s brimming with notions that only a few years back would have been laughed off as lurid science fiction.

Biosphere 2, like Earth (Biosphere 1), is a complex, evolving organism that’s not easily classified, labeled or pigeonholed.

Fish waste appears to play an important role in regulating the oceans’ delicate chemistry, helping to balance acid levels that can harm sea life, according to research published today in Science.

The news comes at a time of increasing concern about the effects that humans’ carbon dioxide emissions are having on the world’s oceans. Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the oceans have absorbed about a third of human-caused CO2 emissions. That has resulted in water 30 percent more acidic than it was before factories, cars, planes and other fossil-fuel burning machines became widespread.

And that’s a problem for shellfish, corals and marine animals that grow hard shells made of a chalky, alkaline mineral called calcium carbonate.

An economic stimulus plan released by House Democrats yesterday would pump more than $1 billion into climate science at federal agencies, including long-ailing environmental satellite programs.

The $825 billion proposal would also provide tens of billions of dollars for the programs to encourage energy efficiency and develop renewable and alternative fuels and technology to capture and sequester carbon dioxide emitted by power plants.

The House bill’s strong emphasis on science agencies is unusual for a supplemental spending bill, let alone one aimed at propping up the sagging economy, experts said.

An environmental group said yesterday that it will sue the federal government to gain protection for the ashy storm-petrel, a California shorebird whose habitat is threatened by climate change.

The Center for Biological Diversity filed formal notice of its intent to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which missed an October deadline to decide whether to grant endangered or threatened status to the petrels.

The agency agreed to consider protecting the birds under the Endangered Species Act in May,

Poor farming practices and climate change are rapidly degrading soil in Africa, threatening food supplies on a continent where millions are already chronically hungry.

Half of Africa’s agricultural soil no longer has the nutrients necessary for farming, according to Jeroen Huising, a scientist who studies soils at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture. “The situation is very severe, and soil fertility is declining rapidly,” he said. “Many countries like Kenya already don’t have enough food to feed their population, and soil degradation is worsening an already critical situation.”

More than three dozen states have failed to submit adequate Clean Air Act plans for reducing air pollution drifting into national parks and wilderness areas, according to a new U.S. EPA assessment.

In a Federal Register notice Friday, EPA said 37 states, the District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands failed to submit all or a portion of state implementation plans (SIPs) for regional haze, which are required under a national program aimed at restoring parks and wilderness areas to their natural conditions by 2064.

The program required states to submit plans to clean up existing air pollution and prevent future visibility impairment in 156 Class 1 national parks and wilderness areas by Dec. 17, 2007.

As Hillary Rodham Clinton prepares to take the reins of the U.S. State Department, guiding America’s re-entry into global climate change negotiations will be among the agency’s top challenges.

The Democratic New York senator will be charged with putting together a negotiating team to represent the U.S. before the United Nations, which hopes to finalize a new global emissions treaty by December. She also will have to address a host of knotty problems, like how to convince countries like China and India to also accept emission cuts.

And despite mounting tensions from Israel to Iraq, both activists and congressional aides said Clinton will undoubtedly face questions before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today about how she will address some of the world’s burning climate change issues as the committee considers whether to approve her nomination as secretary of State.

China will increase its coal production by about 30 percent by 2015 to meet its energy needs, the government has announced.

Land and Resources Ministry chief planner Hu Cunzhi said the government would increase annual output to more than 3.3 billion tonnes by 2015, up from the 2.54 billion tonnes produced in 2007, according to the ministry. Figures for 2008 have not been issued yet.

Hu said annual production of natural gas would more than double to 160 billion cubic meters by 2015, while crude oil productions would increase by 7 percent to more than 200 billion tonnes.