There is no question that increased use of natural gas has been good for the atmosphere - energy CO2 emissions are down to early 1990s levels in America and coal is at early 1980s levels of emissions, just like we all said we wanted.

Enhanced extraction methods like hydraulic fracturing - fracking - have also been good for the local economies in places like Pennsylvania. But as with any industry, Not In My Backyard (NIMBYism) occurs in residents of Pennsylvania just like it does yacht owners in Massachusetts. 

Reuters gets dinged for being off-kilter journalistically when it comes to politics; to the current generation of independent voters they became famous for their Mid-East coverage last decade by retouching photos to make Israelis look bad and Arabs look persecuted, adding in smoke from explosions that didn't exist, etc. Editors and journalists at other corporate media companies never noticed, but bloggers tripped them up.

While the United States is now back at early 1990s levels of CO2 emissions, thanks to a switch to natural gas in the energy sector and a moribund economy, that doesn't apply to Asia. The middle class in China alone has a population that exceeds the entire USA and they all want, and are getting, cars and air conditioners and a better life and the emissions to go along with it. Globally, greenhouse gas emissions have continued to rise but warming, the telltale sign of climate change, has not.

Since 2000, global warming has tapered off and virtually no one in the climate science community predicted that could happen.

In 2013, stem cell therapy is touted as the future of medicine by proponents in Europe and Asia while scientists in America urge caution. Contrast that to a decade ago, when the concern was that American President George W. Bush was holding back progress because he limited federal funding for one form of stem cell research. In 2012, Governor Rick Perry of Texas not only believed in stem cell research, he declared that he wanted to make his state the home of American stem cell science.