More Arctic ice is melting faster.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has been monitoring the Arctic ice since 1979. This is the worst year they've seen. The ice is melting faster than previously thought. It's melting in more places and less freezes when the northern hemisphere gets cold. That's bad for the animals and people who depend on the ice for sustenance.

It's bad for the planet, too, because of what the Arctic ice means for the climate, the world's oceans and sea levels. NBC's Kerry Sanders has a comprehensive look at all that, first aired on NBC nightly News's Wednesday, Oct. 17 broadcast.

There was another good story on that same broadcast by NBC's chief environmental correspondent, Anne Thompson, about the drive to get people off bottled water and back to the tap. They're doing that in New York with television commercials, which is when we first blogged about it. And Thompson shows how and why San Francisco isn't going to buy bottled water for city employees anymore. It's not all flowing easily , though: people in the bottled water business are pushing back.