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Mon, 31 Mar 08
Amid the dark, millions keep an idea alight
http://www.smh.com.au/news/earth-hour/amid-the-dark-millions-keep-an-idea-a light/2008/03/28/1206207407961.html
Sydney Morning Herald: DOES Earth Hour really work? It depends how you define "work", say organisers, who are honest about the event's symbolic role in the face of a degree of public apathy and scepticism. When the plan for Earth Hour was hatched in World Wide Fund for Nature's Sydney office just under two years ago, no one expected it to spread to 35 countries and be embraced by millions of people who want to play their part in fighting climate change. But there have also been waves of ...

Mon, 31 Mar 08
Australia: Rudd's emission mission
http://www.theage.com.au/news/environment/rudds-emission-mission/2008/03/28 /1206207412992.html
Age: USING renewable energy to power Parliament House and electorate offices will be among the options explored by a new taskforce charged with finding ways to slash carbon emissions from Government departments. The taskforce, to be announced today, will also investigate using the Government car fleet to drive the market for low-emission cars. It will report to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd by June, with initiatives to slash water use and waste production also under ...

Mon, 31 Mar 08
Global warming felt more in Western US
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-climate28mar28,1,34 04768.story
LA Times: The American West is heating up faster than any other region of the United States, and more than the Earth as a whole, according to a new analysis of 50 scientific studies. For the last five years, from 2003 through 2007, the global climate averaged 1 degree Fahrenheit warmer than its 20th century average. During the same period, 11 Western states averaged 1.7 degrees warmer, the analysis reported. The 54-page study, was released Thursday by the Rocky Mountain Climate ...

Mon, 31 Mar 08
Handicapping green investments is no snap
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/28/yourmoney/mgreen.php
International Herald Tribune: The buzz words "climate" and "change" have been appropriated by the funds industry to market a new line of "green" equity products. But is this investment concept hot enough to coax investors back into markets that are buckling under more pressing financial concerns? Allianz, Schroders, HSBC, DWS and Virgin are among the money managers who figure that climate change should influence our investment decisions. Their message is simple: Companies that profit ...

Mon, 31 Mar 08
Australia: Money needed to buy back allocations, experts say
http://www.theage.com.au/news/environment/money-needed-to-buy-back-allocati ons-experts-say/2008/03/27/1206207302403.html
Age: MORE of the $10 billion rescue package for the Murray-Darling Basin should be spent buying back water allocations because climate change makes upgrades to irrigation less effective, environment experts warned yesterday. The Rudd Government yesterday left open the possibility of spending more on purchasing water entitlements than the $3 billion dedicated under the former government's plan. Water Minister Penny Wong's office confirmed Labor was not tied to the funding split ...

Mon, 31 Mar 08
Possible carbon tariffs could have an impact on growth: report
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/world/story.html?id=404233
National Post: The West's next weapon in the fight against global warming may be a carbon tariff on imports from the developing world, a strategy that could have a profound impact on the global economy, a new report argues. Not only will new charges for carbon emissions trim growth in developed countries, but carbon tariffs could boost inflation and reverse the march toward offshoring as manufacturers who have relocated to countries like China move to more energy-efficient environments back home, ...

Mon, 31 Mar 08
UN climate talks to test US shifts
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSL2837734020080328
Reuters: Up to 190 nations will start work on a new U.N. climate treaty in Bangkok on Monday, in a test of how far the world has progressed after years of deadlock highlighted by a U.S. outburst about a duck in 2005. "If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it is a duck," chief U.S. climate negotiator Harlan Watson said in Montreal, denouncing what he called a veiled bid to launch negotiations on a pact to combat global warming. Opposed to the ...

Mon, 31 Mar 08
US to propose CO2 rules this spring
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSWBT00865620080328
Reuters: The Bush administration, which has resisted regulating carbon dioxide emissions, this spring will propose rules that could affect everything from vehicles to power plants and oil refineries, the top U.S. environmental official told Congress on Thursday. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen Johnson said the agency will issue proposed rules "later this spring" on "the specific effects of climate change and potential regulation of greenhouse gas emissions ...

Mon, 31 Mar 08
Carbon tax proposed for China
http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/Business/2008/03/28/5127486-sun.html
Canadian Press: Countries such as Canada and the United States may impose a "carbon tariff" on goods from China and other developing countries in the next few years, a move that could bring manufacturing jobs back to North America, CIBC World Markets predicts. The investment bank's report says the economies of China, India and other developing countries have expanded so much they now surpass the established industrialized world in belching out carbon dioxide pollution blamed for climate ...

Mon, 31 Mar 08
Carbon tax riles northern BC
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080328.wbccarbon28/BNS tory/National/home
Globe and Mail: The B.C. government's plan to bring in North America's first all-out carbon tax is facing opposition from northern communities in the province, with some suggesting it penalizes rural residents who need to drive more. The concerns have been outlined in seven resolutions up for debate at the coming annual general meeting of the North Central Municipal Association, representing 41 northern local governments. One of the most pointed resolution, from the Regional District of ...

Mon, 31 Mar 08
Clean coal plan needs Australian money
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,23447793-3122,00.html
Courier Mail: AUSTRALIAN scientists are looking underground to test controversial techniques that aim to find a cleaner future for coal and gas, Kerrie Sinclair writes. Millions embrace darkness tonight to highlight their concern over climate change. But there's no light yet shed on which energy sources can support a plugged-in lifestyle without frying the planet. Annual emissions of carbon dioxide – the most important of the greenhouse gases causing temperature rises – have surged by 80 per ...

Mon, 31 Mar 08
Israel: Concentrated solar power more efficient than standard technology
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Now_solar_energy_five_times_more_effici ent/articleshow/2907712.cms
Economic Times: Rooftops all over Israel look strikingly similar: More than 1 million households in the nation of 7.1 million people have solar panels that produce hot water–a relatively simple technology that gained popularity after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, when oil prices shot up sharply. As of the early 1990s, all new residential buildings were required by the government to install solar water-heating systems. Yet despite Israel's sunny climate and early lead in solar heating, it has been slow ...

Mon, 31 Mar 08
EPA says it won't rush on emissions
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/28/MNVSVRK88.DTL
LA Times: The federal government made clear Thursday that it will not be rushed into deciding whether to regulate emissions linked to global warming, as the Supreme Court directed nearly a year ago. Such action "could affect many (emission) sources beyond just cars and trucks" and needs to be examined broadly as to other impacts, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency wrote lawmakers. Stephen Johnson said he has decided to begin by seeking public comment on the ...

Mon, 31 Mar 08
Nev.: Senator Pushes Coal Project
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/fn/5655968.html
Associated Press: U.S. Sen. John Ensign said he's trying to get the federal Energy Department to consider a project that would help a coal-fired power plant proposed by Sierra Pacific Resources for eastern Nevada. Ensign, R-Nev., on Thursday said he spoke two weeks ago with Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman about adding the Ely Energy Center project to a list of possible locations for a demonstration project on ways to capture carbon dioxide produced by such plants and store it underground. Carbon ...

Mon, 31 Mar 08
Canada: Oilsands ban may weaken
http://www.fortmcmurraytoday.com/Local%20News/388015.html
Fort McMurray Today: Even with American legislation defining oilsands as unconventional, there is belief by some the current U.S. administration will find a way to fully exempt the oilsands. But the door hasn't been closed completely to the oilsands based on two provisions in the American law and and interpretation by some. The legislation was not intended to bar federal agencies from entering into direct contracts to purchase fuels that are generally available in the market such as diesel or jet ...

Mon, 31 Mar 08
Australia: Police your own water restrictions
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/police-your-own-water-restrictions/2008 /03/27/1206207300873.html
Sydney Morning Herald: STATE governments have been told to let people decide for themselves how to cut back on water in a report that finds water restrictions cost every Australian household $150 a year. A new research paper by the Productivity Commission, to be released today, is critical of governments prescribing what households can and cannot use water for during times when water is scarce. "Such prescriptive rationing denies households the opportunity to choose how to use and conserve water ...

Mon, 31 Mar 08
Solar farms to rise on California rooftops
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23830087/
Reuters: Southern California Edison Co. said Thursday it plans to build the nation's largest solar energy installation – an array of collector cells covering two square miles of rooftops that could power about 162,000 homes. The project, which was submitted to state regulators for approval, is an effort to meet the state's mandate that 20 percent of California's electricity be generated from renewable sources by 2010. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger attended the announcement, praising the ...

Mon, 31 Mar 08
Sundance film tells of Texas coal plant fight
http://www.kswo.com/Global/story.asp?S=8083412
Associated Press: Robert Redford, movie icon, Oscar-winning director and founder of the Sundance Film Festival, knows the power of a good story. So when he heard about the battle being waged in Texas by an unlikely assortment of activists to halt construction of 18 coal-burning power plants, Redford knew there was a powerful story waiting to be told. Not just a manifesto of environmental awareness, not just a screed against pollution and global warming, but a tale of taciturn Texas ranchers, ...

Mon, 31 Mar 08
UN human rights body turns to climate change
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSL2778449820080328
Reuters: Climate change could erode the human rights of people living in small island states, coastal areas and parts of the world subjected to drought and floods, the U.N. Human Rights Council said on Friday. In its first consideration of the issue, the United Nations forum's 47 member states endorsed by consensus a resolution stressing that global warming could threaten the livelihoods and welfare of many of the world's most vulnerable people. They backed the proposal from the ...

Mon, 31 Mar 08
Allergies may grow like weeds as Earth warms
http://www.canada.com/topics/bodyandhealth/story.html?id=70f9204a-f186-4b4e -a774-ce355665d623
Canwest News Service: Allergies and sniffling will be on the rise because of global warming pollution that is also threatening the agriculture industry, new research indicates. Bringing together a series of recent studies, including work by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a non-profit group of weed experts said that the evidence justifies new policies and spending priorities to protect the public. The increased exposure to carbon dioxide emissions has resulted in larger weeds that can grow ...

Mon, 31 Mar 08
California lowers goal for zero-emission vehicles
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/03/28/zero.emission.ap/
Associated Press: California regulators have drastically cut the number of zero-emission vehicles required to be sold in the state by the year 2014, a decision that frustrated environmentalists but came as a relief to auto manufacturers. The rules adopted Thursday put the number of electric and hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles that automakers sell in California at 7,500 by 2014 -- a 70 percent reduction from the 2003 target. "We are disappointed. We think this proposal doesn't take us on the ...

Mon, 31 Mar 08
China's 3rd largest wind power plant to complete construction in Aug
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-03/28/content_7876219.htm
Xinhua: The country's third largest wind power farm should be completed by August, the project manager told Xinhua. The farm, in China's eastern Zhejiang Province, in coastal Daishan County, uses Danish technology but is being built for the provincial government by a Chinese firm. "With nine 81-meter-high rotors set up, the construction work will be finished in August and begin generating electricity by the end of the year", said Xu Jie, the project's construction manager. ...

Mon, 31 Mar 08
Climate rules deadline vague
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080328/BUSINESS01/8032803 39
Detroit Free Press: Federal environmental regulators will propose the first rules designed to limit global warming gases from U.S. vehicles and factories later this spring, a move Democratic critics called an attempt by the Bush administration to avoid setting greenhouse gas limits before the end of President George W. Bush's term. In a letter to two congressional committees Thursday, the chief of the Environmental Protection Agency said he had ordered EPA staff to draft the rule after questions were ...

Mon, 31 Mar 08
United States: State air board demands more low-emission cars
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/28/MNU8VRLDK.DTL
San Francisco Chronicle: The California Air Resources Board, acknowledging that development of air pollution-free vehicle technologies such as hydrogen fuel cells is lagging, moved Thursday to require major automakers to produce more low-emission cars such as plug-in hybrids. The board's decision will play a key part in its mandate to meet California's ambitious goal of reducing air pollution and cutting greenhouse gas emissions as required by landmark legislation, AB32, enacted more than a year ...

Mon, 31 Mar 08
Canada: In pollution terms, Alberta's wealth is based on dirty dollars
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/columnists/story.html?id=6553a92f-6c20-4 32b-b133-c1004e63f45c
Vancouver Sun: Alberta is a filthy rich, high-spending, pollution-belching piece of property growing increasingly out of sync with other provinces. That's one way of interpreting a flotilla of figures featured in a newly released report titled State of the West, 2008; Western Canadian Demographic and Economic Trends. The analysis points repeatedly to Alberta as being exceptional, in terms of resource bounty, government largesse and attitude toward the planetary crisis known as climate ...

Mon, 31 Mar 08
Russian, Canadian Winter Days Much Milder - UK Study
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/47667/story.htm
Reuters: The coldest winter days in Russia and Canada have become up to 4 Celsius (7 Fahrenheit) milder since the 1950s in an extreme sign of climate change, the British Meteorological Office said on Wednesday. A study of daily minimum and maximum temperatures said that a trend towards warmer nights and hotter days was set to bring more heatwaves and shifts in crop growing seasons. "Minimum temperatures have seen the biggest increases, most notably over Russia and Canada, where ...

Mon, 31 Mar 08
Japan: Sharp to invest $729 million in new solar cell plant
http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUST2454120080327
Reuters: Japan's Sharp Corp (6753.T: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Thursday it would spend $729 million to build a new solar cell plant in Sakai, western Japan, to better compete with Germany's Q-Cells (QCEG.DE: Quote, Profile, Research) and other rivals. Sharp said in July it would bring the new plant to production by March 2010 but did not disclose the size of capital investment. Solar companies around the world are expanding production capacity rapidly to meet growing demand for ...

Mon, 31 Mar 08
125 million people could face displacement in South Asia
http://southasia.oneworld.net/article/view/159150/1/1893
OneWorld South Asia: Greenpeace alerted the Indian government and people of the subcontinent to the massive humanitarian crisis the South Asian region could face if global warming was not kept below the 2 degree tipping point. Blue Alert – Climate Migrants in South Asia: Estimates and Solutions, a paper authored by Dr Sudhir Chella Rajan, professor of Humanities and Social Sciences at IIT Madras, and a climate expert, estimates the number of people who could be displaced from their homes at 125 million ...

Mon, 31 Mar 08
Calif. Grapples With Auto Emissions Rule
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h1tQjPCsT74RMthzCWeiw8_QKj9QD8VLMGDG1
Associated Press: A major revision proposed to the state's tough auto emissions program would cut the number of battery-powered and hydrogen vehicles that automakers must produce for California and 10 other states. Auto manufacturers say they need more time, but the proposal that the California Air Resources Board is scheduled to take up Thursday has drawn criticism from environmentalists, health advocates and some leading political figures. They question whether the state can afford to relax the rules ...

Mon, 31 Mar 08
Global warming creates giant Antarctic iceberg
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23437828-30417,00.html
Australian: A VAST iceberg seven times the size of Manhattan has broken away from the Antarctic coast, threatening the collapse of a bigger ice shelf that is now "hanging by a thread". Satellite images have revealed that about 415sqkm of the Wilkins Shelf has been lost since the end of last month, suggesting that climate change could be causing it to disintegrate more quickly than scientists had predicted. "The ice shelf is hanging by a thread," said David Vaughan, of ...

Mon, 31 Mar 08
Greenland Thaw May Replace Dog Sleds With Oil Drills
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aeu5ZbUSdOkc&re fer=home
Bloomberg: In Greenland, locals hunt reindeer for food and use dog sleds to traverse the ice sheet. Soon they may be working on offshore rigs and counting their money. Oil companies have begun looking for crude deposits off the west coast and Joern Skov Nielsen, deputy director of Greenland's Bureau of Minerals and Petroleum, said there may be more oil there than the entire past production of the North Sea. That's about 50 billion barrels, according to figures from Norway and the U.K., the ...

Mon, 31 Mar 08
Irish utility launches 11 bln euro renewables drive
http://www.guardian.co.uk/feedarticle?id=7415917
Reuters: Ireland's Electricity Supply Board (ESB) on Thursday announced an investment programme of 22 billion euros ($34.72 billion), half of which it plans to spend on renewable energy sources such as wind, tidal and biomass. The company aims to halve its carbon emissions within 12 years, by which time it will be delivering one-third of its electricity from renewable generation, and to achieve a "carbon net-zero" by 2035, it said. "This will include over 1,400 megawatts ...

Mon, 31 Mar 08
South Africa: Renewable Energy Sources 'Can Provide 5 Percent of Needs'
http://allafrica.com/stories/200803270170.html
Business Day: RENEWABLE energy has the potential to account for 5% of the electricity demand "in the short to medium term," an official of the Energy Development Corporation, a division of the Central Energy Fund (CEF) said yesterday. Electricity shortages have revitalised initiatives to diversify the energy mix -- shifting from an over-reliance on coal. In a bid to encourage multiple players in the generation of electricity, the white paper on renewable energy set a 2013 target of ...

Mon, 31 Mar 08
Australia: Rudd pledges activist role on eve of trip
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/rudd-pledges-activist-role-on-eve-of-tr ip/2008/03/26/1206207207287.html
Sydney Morning Herald: INSULATING Australia against growing global economic turmoil and deep-seated fears in Canberra that the world is losing the political will to tackle climate change will dominate Kevin Rudd's foreign travels over the next 18 days. And in a swipe at the style of his predecessor, John Howard, Mr Rudd has promised to restore Australia as a middle-power diplomacy by revitalising its engagement with Europe and such bodies as the United Nations, all while staying allied closely to the ...

Mon, 31 Mar 08
United Kingdom: Delays, protests as Heathrow's T5 opens
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/03/27/heathrow.t5/?iref=hpmostpop
CNN: A protest by campaigners opposed to the expansion of London's main airport and luggage delivery delays have overshadowed the long-awaited opening of Heathrow's Terminal 5. Protesters opposed to airport expansion make their views known in the new terminal. A sophisticated luggage system at T5, which finally welcomed its first passengers Thursday after nearly two decades and $8.6 billion, was designed to handle 12,000 bags an hour, dramatically improving the luggage performance ...

Mon, 31 Mar 08
Australia: Desalination plants in 50-year plan
http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/desalination-plants-in-50year-plan/2 008/03/26/1206207207296.html
Sydney Morning Herald: ONE desalination plant is on the way and five more may be built to accommodate a booming population and climate change in south-east Queensland. A draft 50-year plan released yesterday seeks to increase the water supply and cut demand to ensure a "sustainable and prosperous lifestyle". The state's Water Commission hopes to relax restrictions and aim for average home use three-quarters of the pre-drought level. A desalination plant is being built at Tugun. After 2028, ...

Mon, 31 Mar 08
Australia: Garnaut has faith in market forces
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23437829-5013871,00.html
Australian: LABOR'S chief adviser on climate change policy believes the market will resolve most problems arising from the introduction of an emissions trading scheme, while power companies claim market forces are likely to cause the greatest disruption. Presenting his blueprint for an emission trading scheme from 2010 to 800 business representatives yesterday, Ross Garnaut said he favoured a simple and transparent system with minimal intervention from government. While acknowledging the ...

Mon, 31 Mar 08
Ice seals might be endangered species
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Science/2008/03/27/ice_seals_might_be_endanger ed_species/5579/
United Press International: The U.S. government has agreed to study Alaska's ice seals for possible listing under the Endangered Species Act. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration accepted a petition from a California environmental group seeking protection for the animals, called "ribbon seals," that inhabit Alaska's Bering Sea. "In addition (to) reviewing the ribbon seal, we are also preparing status reviews on bearded, spotted and ringed seals for possible listing," ...

Mon, 31 Mar 08
Malaysia Should Wage War On Climate Change, Says Environmentalist
http://www.bernama.com.my/bernama/v3/news.php?id=323090
Bernama: Malaysia should focus more resources on combating the threat of climate change instead of spending huge sums of money on buying military hardware, says an environmentalist. Centre for Environment, Technology and Development Malaysia (CETDEM) chairman Gurmit Singh said today at the half-day Climate Change Post Bali Forum held here, that though the situation was not disastrous, it had reached critical levels. "Countries around the world, Malaysia included, should not be ...

Mon, 31 Mar 08
NOAA to Assess Whether Melting Ice Endangers Seals
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/26/AR200803260 2807.html?hpid=sec-nation
Washington Post: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced yesterday that it will evaluate whether four kinds of seals inhabiting Alaska's Bering Sea should be placed on the endangered species list because of melting sea ice. In December, an environmental group, the Center for Biological Diversity, petitioned NOAA's Fisheries Service to list ribbon seals as facing extinction because global warming has affected the extent of ice cover in both the Bering and Chukchi seas, where the ...

Mon, 31 Mar 08
Canada: Oilsands not targeted by US green law after all
http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/story.html?id=59b9762f-d927-447c -8977-6f3b7e883910&k=57660
Edmonton Journal: A new U.S. law will not, as first feared, prohibit the purchase of fuels that may have come from Alberta's oilsands California Democrat Henry Waxman, in a letter clarifying the legislation he helped write, says the oilsands produce significantly higher greenhouse gas emissions than conventional petroleum sources. For that reason, he says, "it is important that the federal government does not subsidize or otherwise support the expanded use of these fuels." The ...

Mon, 31 Mar 08
Trading Emissions to sell over 5mln offsets in '08
http://uk.reuters.com/article/companyResultsNews/idUKL2730232720080327
Reuters: Trading Emissions PLC expects to sell at least 5 million tonnes of carbon offsets this year as it tries to cash in on an expected shortage in 2008, the company said on the publication of its interim results on Thursday. Trading Emissions PLC (TEP) establishes projects to cut greenhouse gas emissions in developing countries and sells the resulting carbon offsets to developed world countries, companies and individuals. Demand for offsets is increasing as countries and companies ...

Mon, 31 Mar 08
UK Greenhouse Gas Emissions On Track to Hit Kyoto Target
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/mar2008/2008-03-27-02.asp
Environment News Service: Environment Secretary Hilary Benn today said that the UK is making progress on cutting greenhouse gas emissions, but there is still much work to do. Provisional statistics published today for total UK greenhouse gas emissions for 2007 showed a drop of two percent below the previous year, with 639.4 million metric tonnes carbon dioxide equivalent, down from 652.3 million metric tonnes in 2006. The decrease in CO2 emissions resulted from fuel switching from coal to natural gas ...

Mon, 31 Mar 08
UK on track to meet Kyoto emissions targets, says Benn
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/mar/27/carbonemissions.climatech ange
Guardian: The environment secretary, Hilary Benn, today said that the UK is making progress on cutting greenhouse gas emissions, but he admitted that "major change" across the economy was necessary if the UK was to meet the targets set in the climate change bill. Provisional statistics published for total UK greenhouse gas emissions for 2007 showed a drop of 2% over the previous year, with 639.4m tonnes CO2 equivalent, down from 652.3m tonnes in 2006. Net emissions of CO2 were ...

Mon, 31 Mar 08
Winter temperatures higher across Canada, British study says
http://www.saultstar.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=959946
Sault Star: Despite heavy snow in many central Canadian cities this year, the coldest winter day in Canada just ain't what it use to be. A study of daily minimum and maximum temperatures released Wednesday by the British Meteorological Office reported that the coldest winter days in Russia and Canada are as much as four degrees Celsius milder since the 1950s. A statement by the Centre said that the largest changes in maximum temperatures were "found across Canada and Eurasia, where ...

Mon, 31 Mar 08
'Green collars' becoming a force in US economy
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/26/business/gcollar.php
International Herald Tribune: Everyone knows what blue-collar and white-collar jobs are, but now a job of another hue - green - has entered the lexicon. U.S. presidential candidates talk about the promise of green-collar jobs - an economy with millions of workers installing solar panels, weatherizing homes, brewing biofuels, building hybrid cars and erecting giant wind turbines. Labor unions view these new jobs as replacements for positions lost to overseas manufacturing and outsourcing. Urban groups view training ...

Mon, 31 Mar 08
Alliance For Climate Protection Launches $300M Marketing Push
http://www.environmentalleader.com/2008/03/25/alliance-for-climate-protecti on-launches-300m-marketing-push/
Environmental Leader: The Alliance for Climate Protection will spend $300 million over the next three years on a global warming marketing campaign, USA Today reports. As a point of reference, U.S. automakers and industry trade associations spent $62.6 million on lobbying in 2007 to counter energy bills and efforts to craft new fuel rules. The Alliance, founded by Al Gore, will buy ads and partner with grass-roots groups to spread the word on how to cut greenhouse gases, according to the article. ...

Mon, 31 Mar 08
Big chunk of Antarctic ice shelf falling apart
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hvgbwRoBCsttrkhOqhvZFlFuT_uw
Agence France Presse: Antarctica's massive Wilkins Ice Shelf has begun disintegrating under the effects of global warming, satellite images by the University of Colorado's National Snow and Ice Data Center showed. The collapse of a substantial section of the shelf was triggered February 28 when an iceberg measuring 41 by 2.4 kilometers (25.5 by 1.5 miles) broke off its southwestern front. That movement led to disintegration of the shelf's interior, of which 414 square kilometers (160 square miles) ...

Mon, 31 Mar 08
Climate change could displace 125 million in S Asia: Greenpeace
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hnzIuW3BJLG699qtGFlwJHSK4Q6w
Agence France Presse: Rising seas and water shortages could displace 125 million people in South Asia by the end of the century if global warming goes unchecked, a new Greenpeace study said Wednesday. "If greenhouse gas emissions continue to grow under the business-as-usual scenario as projected... the South Asian region could face a wave of migrants," said the report's author Sudhir Chella Rajan, a leading Indian climate change expert. The 125 million people affected would be those living ...

Mon, 31 Mar 08
Climate change threatens Amazonian small farmers
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-03/iu-cct032508.php
EurekAlert: A six-year study of Amazonian small farmers and their responses to climate change shows the farmers are vulnerable to natural catastrophes and risky land use practices, say Indiana University Bloomington anthropologists Eduardo Brondizio and Emilio Moran. The researchers report in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B (now accessible online) that an increase in climate anomalies like El Nino could ultimately drive many small farmers to ruin, forcing them into Brazilian ...

Wed, 26 Mar 08
Global warming blamed for ice shelf collapse
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/03/26/eaice126. xml
Telegraph: An ice shelf of 5,000 square miles in western Antarctica has started to collapse, scientists said. The disintegration of the Wilkins ice sheet, the largest on the Antarctic Peninsula to be threatened, is more evidence of rapid climate change on the continent, they claimed. The British Antarctic Survey said the ice shelf was "hanging by a thread". Satellite images from the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre showed an iceberg measuring 25.5 miles by 1.5 miles - ...

Wed, 26 Mar 08
Huge chunk of Antarctic ice shelf collapses
http://livenews.com.au/Articles/2008/03/26/Huge_chunk_of_Antarctic_ice_shel f_collapses
AAP: A chunk of Antarctic ice about seven times the size of Manhattan has suddenly collapsed, and scientists are putting it down to global warming. The chunk covers 415 square kilometres and has been on the edge of the Wilkins ice shelf for up to one and a half thousand years. Because scientists noticed satellite images within hours, they diverted satellite cameras and even flew a plane over the collapse which they say was like hardened glass being smashed with a hammer. But ...

Wed, 26 Mar 08
Slab Of Antarctic Ice Shelf Collapses Amid Warming
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/47652/story.htm
Reuters: Satellite images show that a large hunk of Antarctica's Wilkins Ice Shelf has started to collapse in a fast-warming region of the continent, scientists said on Tuesday. The area of collapse measured about 160 square miles (415 square km) of the Wilkins Ice Shelf, according to satellite imagery from the University of Colorado's National Snow and Ice Data Centre. The Wilkins Ice Shelf is a broad sheet of permanent floating ice that spans about 5,000 square miles (13,000 square ...

Wed, 26 Mar 08
Australia: Garnaut throws down the gauntlet
http://www.geelongadvertiser.com.au/article/2008/03/26/12510_opinion.html
Geelong Advertiser: ROSS Garnaut, architect of the tariff-cutting policies that in the past transformed Australian manufacturing, is once again sending industry _ and government _ into a spin. His carbon emissions trading proposal, critically important as they might be, already has the Federal Government referring to his recommendations as an input. Before the federal election, and Australia's signing of Kyoto, Professor Garnaut was viewed widely as the key player in the Rudd Government's climate change ...

Wed, 26 Mar 08
Land Deal Could Open Alaska Wildlife Refuge To Oil
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/47646/story.htm
Reuters: A controversial land swap proposal could open portions of an Alaska wildlife refuge to oil drilling, dividing Alaska natives and stoking opposition from environmentalists seeking to protect the bears, moose and birds that live there. Supporters of the plan to exchange land in the Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge, which lies just south of the more-famous Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, say they would like the plan to be approved by the administration of US president George W. Bush ...

Wed, 26 Mar 08
Vast iceberg breaks off Wilkins Ice Shelf in Antarctic
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article3621685.ece
Times (UK): A vast iceberg has broken away from the Antarctic coast, threatening the collapse of a larger ice shelf that is now "hanging by a thread". Satellite images have revealed that about 160 square miles of the Wilkins Shelf have been lost since the end of February, suggesting that climate change could be causing it to disintegrate much more quickly than scientists had predicted. "The ice shelf is hanging by a thread," said David Vaughan, of the British Antarctic Survey(BAS). "We'll know ...

Wed, 26 Mar 08
Arctic ice refreezes 4%, not enough, scientists say
http://www.saultstar.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=956421
Sault Star: U.S. scientists say critical Arctic sea ice has made a tenuous partial recovery this winter, following last summer's record melt. But that is an illusion - like a Hollywood movie set - says scientist Walter Meier of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Washington. The ice is very thin and vulnerable to heavy melting again this summer. Overall, Arctic sea ice has shrunk precipitously in the past decade and scientists blame global warming caused by humans. Last ...

Wed, 26 Mar 08
Black carbon pollution emerges as major player in global warming
http://www.innovations-report.de/html/berichte/umwelt_naturschutz/bericht-1 06086.html
Innovations Report: Black carbon, a form of particulate air pollution most often produced from biomass burning, cooking with solid fuels and diesel exhaust, has a warming effect in the atmosphere three to four times greater than prevailing estimates, according to scientists in an upcoming review article in the journal Nature Geoscience. Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego atmospheric scientist V. Ramanathan and University of Iowa chemical engineer Greg Carmichael, said that soot and other ...

Wed, 26 Mar 08
Australia: Climate law revenue seen as way to cut taxes
http://www.theage.com.au/news/environment/climate-law-revenue-seen-as-way-t o-cut-taxes/2008/03/25/1206207106165.html
Age: AUSTRALIA should use the massive revenue boost from new climate change laws to abolish stamp duty and other "inefficient" state taxes, Opposition Treasury spokesman Malcolm Turnbull will argue today. In a speech to the Sydney Institute tonight, Mr Turnbull will say some of the money reaped from forcing businesses to buy permits to emit greenhouse gas – up to $20 billion a year by 2020, according to lobby group the Climate Institute – should be used to overhaul the tax system and help ...

Wed, 26 Mar 08
United Kingdom: Livingstone puts climate at core of London election
http://uk.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUKL2526694520080325
Reuters: London's Labour Mayor Ken Livingstone put climate at the core of his re-election campaign on Tuesday, trying for the first time in Britain to make the environment a key electoral issue. With Livingstone and his main opponent Conservative mayoral candidate Boris Johnson being actively backed by the leaders of their national parties, the campaign could have implications for the next general election due by mid-2010. London is seen as the jewel in the crown for both Labour Prime ...

Wed, 26 Mar 08
Millions seen at risk in South Asia from warmer world
http://uk.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUKSP10187020080325
Reuters: Rising seas and water shortages will displace about 125 million people living along the coasts of India and Bangladesh by the turn of the century, Greenpeace said on Tuesday. In a study on rapidly warming South Asia, the global environment group said climate change would also trigger erratic monsoons and break down agricultural systems in the vast and densely populated Gangetic delta. India, whose economy has grown by 8-9 percent annually in recent years, is one of the world's ...

Wed, 26 Mar 08
Nuclear Power Debate Heats Up
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41728
Inter Press Service: French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown are about to agree on a new generation of nuclear power plants in London this week, and plan to export the technology to the rest of the world, according to unconfirmed reports. Downing Street has refrained from commenting on news of the deal, which was reported last week by The Guardian, a British newspaper. The move would fly in the face of the opinions of Germany and Spain, which wish to gradually phase out ...

Wed, 26 Mar 08
Soot may play big role in climate change
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-na-carbon25mar25,1,23722 42.story?track=rss
LA Times: Black carbon pollution, or soot, produced by burning wood, coal, cow dung and diesel fuel, may be a much greater contributor to global warming than previously suspected, according to a study released this week. The report concludes that the atmospheric warming effect of black carbon pollution is as much as three to four times the consensus estimate released last year in a report by the U.N.-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The findings are of concern to ...

Wed, 26 Mar 08
Warming seen having immunological consequences
http://uk.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUKPAR56289420080325
Reuters: The first two bee sting-related deaths were reported in Fairbanks, Alaska in the summer of 2006, which researchers suspect was a consequence of global warming; and they predict that this is just the beginning. Honeybees and yellow jackets were rare in the area until the past few years. "The yellow jacket population has increased tenfold and the first two sting-related deaths were reported," Dr. Jeffrey Demain of the University of Alaska in Anchorage told attendees here this ...

Wed, 26 Mar 08
Western Antarctic Ice Chunk Collapses
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jnjYmtmAnaPQ4YWKA6WpWdm2X8yAD8VKMVQ80
Associated Press: A chunk of Antarctic ice about seven times the size of Manhattan suddenly collapsed, putting an even greater portion of glacial ice at risk, scientists said Tuesday. Satellite images show the runaway disintegration of a 160-square-mile chunk in western Antarctica, which started Feb. 28. It was the edge of the Wilkins ice shelf and has been there for hundreds, maybe 1,500 years. This is the result of global warming, said British Antarctic Survey scientist David ...

Wed, 26 Mar 08
Canadians souring on Alberta oil sands
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2008/03/25/canadians_souring_on_alber ta_oil_sands/7119/
United Press International: Half of Canadians want Alberta's oil sand development slowed over environmental concerns, a poll published Tuesday indicated. The Environmental Defense group commissioned the poll of 1,014 people March 7-10, and 52 percent said expansion of oil production should not be given federal approval until "environmental management issues are resolved," compared with 32 percent who said they should be "permitted so as not to curb economic growth," the Calgary Herald ...

Wed, 26 Mar 08
Canadians warming to emissions cap: poll
http://www.nationalpost.com/story.html?id=398559
Canwest News Service: Four of five Canadians disagree with the Harper government's approach to protect economic growth in Alberta's oilsands sector while allowing its annual global warming-causing emissions to triple over the next decade, a new survey has revealed. The poll found that a majority of Albertans wanted the federal government to get tough with greenhouse gas emissions and that Quebecers were leading the way in calls for no expansion in the booming oilsands sector until environmental issues are ...

Wed, 26 Mar 08
Climate change could devastate Aust fauna: report
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/03/25/2198984.htm?section=australia
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: The author of a new report on climate change says even a small rise in temperatures could have a dramatic effect on Australia's native species. The report was commissioned by the Threatened Species Network, and concludes that global warming could produce sweeping changes in bushfire intensity and frequency, vegetation cover, and feral animal numbers. The report's author, Lesley Hughes, says many native species are vulnerable to climate change because they live in small habitats ...

Wed, 26 Mar 08
Climate change may lead to massive displacement in South Asia
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/S_Asians_under_threat/articleshow/289855 6.cms
Times of India: A massive 125 million people may be displaced in India and Bangladesh by a rise in the sea level triggered by a projected four-five degrees Celsius increase in global temperature this century. Painting the grim picture, a report released by independent environment watchdog Greenpeace on Tuesday said that Bangladesh, Pakistan and India have almost 130 million people living in the Low Elevation Coastal Zone who will be the most vulnerable to sea-level rise and coastal erosion as well ...

Wed, 26 Mar 08
Developer plans $45 million solar energy farm in Rhode Island
http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2008/03/25/developer_plans_45_m illion_solar_energy_farm_in_rhode_island_1206449182/
Associated Press: A former hazardous waste site in Coventry could be converted into the largest solar energy farm east of the Mississippi River. New York-based Allco Renewable Energy says it will sign a letter of intent Tuesday to build the $45 million project on a 100-acre tract of town-owned land that was once home to a pig farm. A portion of the farm was declared a federal Superfund site in the 1980s. The Providence Journal reports that Coventry has agreed to give Allco a 50-year lease ...

Wed, 26 Mar 08
United Kingdom: Environmental campaigners sabotage Edinburgh 4X4s with mung beans
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/2008/03/25/environmental-ca mpaigners-sabotage-edinburgh-4x4s-with-mung-beans-86908-20362106/
Daily Record: GREEN activists are sabotaging motorists' gas-guzzling 4x4s with mung beans. They have vandalised vehicles in Edinburgh using the oriental beans, claiming they are raising awareness about climate change. The eco activists deflate the tyres by putting a bean in the valve before leaving a note on the windscreen explaining their antics. Police have warned they will face charges if caught. The group are thought to be linked to European anarchists The Indians of The ...

Wed, 26 Mar 08
Ice shrink in Arctic sea may attract oil firms
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSL2555957620080325
Reuters: Winter sea ice around a Norwegian Arctic island has thinned to less than one meter (3 feet) since the 1960s, according to a study on Tuesday of a region that may be more attractive to oil firms because of climate change. The Norwegian Polar Institute said ice around Hopen island southeast of the Svalbard archipelago had become more than 40 cms (16 inches) thinner in the past 40 years, in what it called the first long-term study of ice thickness in the Barents Sea. "Since ...

Wed, 26 Mar 08
Kyoto treaty unfair and favours Europe, says Japan
http://www.themercury.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=4318305
Agence France Presse: A senior Japanese official said yesterday that 2005 would be fair for a base year in a new deal on slashing greenhouse gases, suggesting the Kyoto Protocol was slanted towards the European position. The unusually blunt remarks came a week before the latest round of negotiations was due to start in Bangkok on drafting a successor to the Kyoto treaty. The treaty requires major developed nations to slash emissions blamed for global warming by an average of 5% from 1990 levels ...

Wed, 26 Mar 08
The response of marine algae to climate change
http://www.sciencecentric.com/news/08032555.htm
Science Centric: A new project at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association dealing with the impact of climate change on marine phytoplankton will be funded by the European Research Council ERC with 1.4 million Euros. The project PhytoChange of Dr Bjoern Rost, who was among the 3% of successful applicants and succeeded against more than 9,000 competitors from all over Europe, will be funded by the EU for 5 years. The Independent Investigator Grant is designed to ...

Wed, 26 Mar 08
The very real cost of carbon offsets and trading
http://www.bangkokpost.com/News/25Mar2008_news018.php
Bangkok Post: Halldor Thorgeirsson, director of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (and organiser of the Bali climate change talks in December 2007), recently remarked that "effective carbon market mechanisms" would be the "key component" of any post-2012 climate change regime. However, relying on market mechanisms such as carbon trading and carbon offsets to fight climate change could create disastrous consequences for the world's poor and the ...

Wed, 26 Mar 08
Tipping Elements A Global Warning
http://www.forbes.com/business/2008/03/24/climate-global-tipping-cx_0324oxf ord.html?feed=rss_business
Forbes: A recent study, "Tipping Elements in the Earth's Climate System," published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reviews 14 earth systems to assess which ones might have policy-relevant tipping points that would constitute a danger to the global climate. Tipping points and mechanisms differ across systems but share characteristics. While minor perturbations tend to be unimportant, slight increases can lead to major changes in the system: -- Arctic ...

Wed, 26 Mar 08
Wind energy group spent $816K lobbying
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8VKOL6O0.htm
Associated Press: The wind industry's trade group spent nearly $816,000 to lobby last year as wind companies tried to persuade Congress to extend a key tax credit and make power companies use more renewable sources. Despite the efforts of the American Wind Energy Association, neither desire found its way into legislation this past year. The group, whose members include General Electric Co., BP PLC, AES Corp. and FPL Group Inc., is still pushing for the tax-credit extension after lawmakers failed ...

Wed, 26 Mar 08
Wind power breaks records in Spain
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jb_CljIaxmm-5LbeW4Hb0taAY8VA
Agence France Presse: Wind power is breaking new records in Spain, accounting for just over 40 percent of all electricity consumed during a brief period last weekend, the country's wind power association said Tuesday. As heavy winds lashed Spain on Saturday evening wind parks generated 9,862 megawatts of power which translated to 40.8 percent of total consumption due to low demand during the Easter holiday weekend, AEE said. Between Friday and Sunday wind power accounted for an average of 28 percent ...

Wed, 26 Mar 08
Biofuels could send emissions soaring
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Planet_SOS/Biofuels_could_send_emission s_soaring/articleshow/2898297.cms
Economic Times: UK's chief environmental scientist has warned that an increased reliance on biofuels could lead to an increase in greenhouse gas emissions. According to a report in The Scotsman, the scientist in question is Professor Robert Watson, who gave the warning just days before Westminster is to introduce a policy dictating minimum levels of the fuels at the pumps. Watson said that it would "obviously be totally insane" to have a scheme aimed at reducing greenhouse gases by ...

Wed, 26 Mar 08
Black carbon elevates damage to climate
http://www.newstrackindia.com/newsdetails/2859
Newstrack India: A study published in Nature Geoscience indicates black carbon or soot produced by burning coal, wood, diesel and dung elevates damage to the environment by warming the atmosphere by several times. The researchers including atmospheric scientist V. Ramanathan from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego and Chemical Engineer Greg Carmichael of University of Iowa, said that the black carbon or its other forms could have contributed 60% of the current global warming effect of ...

Wed, 26 Mar 08
Climate change can be measured daily says researcher
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,23429159-3102,00.html
AAP: AN Australian researcher says climate change could be measured on a daily basis, not just in the long term, by monitoring changes in coral. Geoscientist with Brisbane's Queensland University of Technology (QUT) Luke Nothdurft said coral was a good indicator of changes in water temperature over time and the rate of global warming. But conventional measurement techniques studied coral in a similar way to a tree being examined for annual growth rings and this could lead to ...

Wed, 26 Mar 08
Corals measure climate change
http://www.sciencealert.com.au/news/20082603-17098.html
Science Alert: A researcher from Queensland University of Technology has advanced the use of coral to measure the rate of climate change. Studying coral at Heron Island, at the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef, QUT natural resource sciences PhD researcher Luke Nothdurft has greatly improved the accuracy of coral analysis, keeping it up-to-date with recent advances in technology. "Analysis of coral can tell us about the changes in water temperature over time and the rate of global ...

Wed, 26 Mar 08
Disagreement On Carbon-Based Tax Breaks For Biofuels
http://www.innovations-report.de/html/berichte/umwelt_naturschutz/bericht-1 06037.html
Innovations Report: New UK legislation coming into effect on 15 April 2008 – the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation – will mean that biofuels must show significantly smaller carbon footprints than their petroleum-based cousins in order to keep their government subsidies. But governments of the UK, the EU, Germany and the US disagree seriously about biofuel footprints, and this could lead to confusion in the fuel markets, says Eric Johnson, editor of Environmental Impact Assessment Review, in an article ...

Wed, 26 Mar 08
Greenpeace to launch anti-climate change campaign in India
http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/enviornment/greenpeace-to-launch-anti-c limate-change-campaign-in-india_10031148.html
Indo-Asian News Service: Global environmental NGO Greenpeace will launch 'Blue Alert', a campaign in the coastal belts of India to make people aware of the impending dangers of global warming. The movement would be launched in all coastal states of the country, including West Bengal, Orissa, Maharashtra, Goa and Karnataka. "We will start this campaign in India in the next one month. The movement would be consolidated by involving people coming from different sections," Greenpeace campaign director Divya ...

Wed, 26 Mar 08
United Kingdom: Livingstone puts environment at heart of campaign
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/mar/25/london08.london
Guardian: Ken Livingstone put the environment at the centre of his campaign to be re-elected as London mayor today, claiming a victory for his Tory rival, Boris Johnson, would be "a disaster" for the fight against climate change. Speaking at the launch of his environment manifesto in Richmond, south-west London, Livingstone said that voters faced a clear choice between a pro-environment coalition of Labour and the Green party, and Johnson when they go to the polls on May ...

Wed, 26 Mar 08
Canada: PM confirms support for carbon capture technology
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/03/25/carbon-capture.html
CBC: Prime Minister Stephen Harper repeated his commitment on Tuesday to spend $240 million to convert an old coal-fired generator in southeastern Saskatchewan to a commercial-scale carbon capture and storage unit. The money was first announced in last month's federal budget. The seven-year pilot project at the Boundary Dam plant near Estevan will cost an estimated $1.4 billion, with the province putting up $758 million. As he toured the plant with Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall, ...

Wed, 26 Mar 08
Solar water heating pays off in Hawaii
http://sanantonio.bizjournals.com/pacific/stories/2008/03/24/daily1.html
Pacific Business News: Solar water heating is cost effective in all parts of Hawaii, according to a recent study. In the sunny areas of the islands, solar water heating can deliver hear at a cost of about 4 cents to 6 cents per kilowatt hour. In less sunny areas the range is 6 cents to 8 cents, said the report from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Electric customers in Hawaii pay at least 15 cents per kilowatt hour, depending on utility and customer class. The report said simple payback ...

Tue, 25 Mar 08
Australia facing threat of wildlife catastrophe
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=95489
Independent: From the tiny tree kangaroo via the greater bilby to the quoll, some of Australia's unique and rare wildlife could disappear in the coming decades as a result of climate change, according to a report by the WWF published today. The species, already under threat because of wide-scale land clearance and the introduction of exotic predators, could be pushed into extinction by rising temperatures and the knock-on effects, including drought and more frequent and devastating ...

Tue, 25 Mar 08
Climate change seen as last nail in coffin for native fauna
http://www.theage.com.au/news/environment/climate-change-seen-as-last-nail- in-coffin-for-native-fauna/2008/03/24/1206207012438.html
Age: SOME of Australia's most vulnerable native animals could die out as climate change take its toll on their already fragile existence. The warning is contained in a report that catalogues the risks facing 11 species from the impact of rising temperatures and rainfall decline. The report, produced by environment group WWF and a research team from Macquarie University, says global warming could skew the sex ratios for marine turtles in favour of females, as sex is determined by the ...

Tue, 25 Mar 08
Drought And Flooding Seen For The US-NOAA
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/47636/story.htm
Reuters: US farmers in the Midwest and Plains risk drought this summer while those in much of the eastern half of the US could face flooding similar to what has battered the nation this week, government forecasters said on Thursday. There is an "enhanced risk" of drought going into spring and even summer for the Corn Belt, largely because of a fading La Nina, said Doug Lecomte, a meteorologist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Climate Prediction Center. ...

Tue, 25 Mar 08
Australia: No dodging tough choices on climate change
http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/no-dodging-tough-choices-on-climate-c hange/2008/03/24/1206207007576.html
Age: CLIMATE change will be one of the issues that defines the Rudd Government. It is an issue of tough choices, of clashing values and objectives, in which decisions will have to be made in a fog of uncertainty about how serious the problem is, and what is the best way out of it. But those choices must be made. Rudd rode to power partly on concern over global warming. Labor promised to act decisively, not only on the symbolic step of ratifying the Kyoto protocol, but on the serious stuff: ...

Tue, 25 Mar 08
United Kingdom: Top scientists warn against rush to biofuel
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/mar/25/biofuels.energy1
Reuters: Gordon Brown is preparing for a battle with the European Union over biofuels after one of the government's leading scientists warned they could exacerbate climate change rather than combat it. In an outspoken attack on a policy which comes into force next week, Professor Bob Watson, the chief scientific adviser at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, said it would be wrong to introduce compulsory quotas for the use of biofuels in petrol and diesel before their ...

Tue, 25 Mar 08
United Kingdom: Biofuels 'could increase carbon emissions'
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/03/25/eabiofuel s125.xml
Telegraph: Plans to force motorists to run their cars on "green" petrol could lead to higher levels of greenhouse gases, the Government's leading environment scientist warned yesterday. Professor Robert Watson said it would be "totally insane" to promote the use of biofuels for environmental purposes if it was found that their production contributed to greater carbon emissions through the destruction of forests. He called on the Government to delay the compulsory use ...

Tue, 25 Mar 08
Biofuels: a solution that became part of the problem
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/mar/25/biofuels.energy
Guardian: Using plant-based materials for fuel in cars and trucks was until recently heralded as the answer to the need to reduce carbon emissions from petrol and diesel fuels. But the alarm expressed yesterday by Professor Robert Watson, the government's highest-ranking environment scientist, that the headlong pursuit of biofuels could accelerate climate change, is the latest in a series of comments from senior figures that have shaken Whitehall. Both Watson and the former chief ...

Tue, 25 Mar 08
China Urged To Shift Urban Growth To Supercities
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/47623/story.htm
Reuters: Shifting China's model of urbanisation to favour huge supercities could boost per capita output, improve energy efficiency and help contain the loss of arable land, the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) said on Monday. Rapid urbanisation has been a major driver of Chinese growth over the past two decades and will become more so over the next 20 years; cities will account for 95 percent of China's gross domestic product by 2025, up from 75 percent today, MGI said. But the ...

Tue, 25 Mar 08
Link to Global Warming in Frogs' Disappearance Is Challenged
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=95493
New York Times: In the scientific equivalent of the board game Clue, teams of biologists have been sifting spotty evidence and pointing to various culprits in the widespread vanishing of harlequin frogs. The amphibians, of the genus Atelopus – actually toads despite their common name – once hopped in great numbers along stream banks on misty slopes from the Andes to Costa Rica. After 20 years of die-offs, they are listed as critically endangered by conservation groups and are mainly seen in ...

Tue, 25 Mar 08
United Kingdom: Biofuels will speed climate change, chief scientist says
http://news.scotsman.com/uk/Biofuels-will-speed-climate-change.3909009.jp
Scotsman: FARMERS in Scotland last night criticised a warning from the UK's chief environmental scientist that an increased reliance on biofuels could send greenhouse gas emissions soaring. Professor Robert Watson spoke out just days before Westminster is to introduce a policy dictating minimum levels of the fuels at the pumps. He said it would "obviously be totally insane" to have a scheme aimed at reducing greenhouse gases by using biofuels, which instead led to an increase ...

Tue, 25 Mar 08
UAE Says To Explore Nuclear Energy For Electricity
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/47637/story.htm
Reuters: The United Arab Emirates says it will establish a $100 million agency to look into developing nuclear energy to satisfy rising electricity demand in the Gulf oil exporter on Iran's doorstep. "Analysis of future domestic electricity demand ... has concluded that peaceful nuclear power generation represents an environmentally promising and commercially competitive option which could make a significant contribution to the UAE's economy and future energy security," a government ...

Tue, 25 Mar 08
'The Great Warming': Climate change? Been there, done that
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/24/arts/21book.php
International Herald Tribune: The Great Warming Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations By Brian Fagan Bloomsbury Press. $26.95. 282 pages. If you don't think climate change produces winners as well as losers, consider this: In the 12th and 13th centuries England exported wine to France. Vineyards also flourished in improbable regions like southern Norway and eastern Prussia. A centuries-long spell of mild, predictable weather blessed Western Europe with abundant crops, healthy populations ...

Tue, 25 Mar 08
Japan wants easier target for greenhouse gas cuts
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/03/24/asia/AS-GEN-Japan-Climate-Change. php
Associated Press: Japan will push for an easier target for reducing greenhouse gases in the next international pact on global warming than in the previous one, a top bureaucrat said Monday. The Kyoto global warming pact requires nations to cut emissions below 1990 levels, but critics say that is too difficult because emissions in many countries have risen dramatically since then. Instead, Japan will push to set the base year for 2005 in an agreement that is meant to take effect when Kyoto ...

Tue, 25 Mar 08
New Limits to Growth Revive Malthusian Fears
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120613138379155707.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Wall Street Journal: Now and then across the centuries, powerful voices have warned that human activity would overwhelm the earth's resources. The Cassandras always proved wrong. Each time, there were new resources to discover, new technologies to propel growth. Although a Malthusian catastrophe is not at hand, the resource constraints foreseen by the Club of Rome are more evident today than at any time since the 1972 publication of the think tank's famous book, "The Limits of Growth." Steady ...

Tue, 25 Mar 08
Parks in Peril
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=95426
New York Times: The country's treasured open spaces are no more immune to air pollution from coal-fired power plants than are its big cities. Sulfur dioxide causes acid rain and kills trees. Mercury emissions poison streams. Nitrogen oxides and sulfates create smog and haze. For all these reasons, Congress in 1977 amended the Clean Air Act to require the Environmental Protection Agency to make a special effort to clean the air in national parks, wildlife refuges and other places of "scenic" and ...

Tue, 25 Mar 08
Scientists warn of soot effect on climate
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/mar/24/climatechange.fossilfuels
Guardian: Soot produced by burning coal, diesel, wood and dung causes significantly more damage to the environment than previously thought, according to research published today. So-called "black carbon" could cause up to 60% of the current warming effect of carbon dioxide, according to the US researchers, making it an important target for efforts to slow global warming. Around 400,000 people are estimated to die each year due to inhaling soot particles, particularly because of indoor ...

Tue, 25 Mar 08
The Road to a Stronger CAFE Standard
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23778688/
Business Week: Since last December, when President Bush signed an energy bill that requires auto companies to achieve a 35-mpg fuel economy standard by 2020, with substantial improvements by 2015, auto executives have been gnashing their teeth while environmentalists have been flashing the V sign for victory. Three months later, it has become evident the road to greater fuel efficiency is full of potholes. For one thing, the new legislation adds a new level of complexity to the 35-year-old CAFE ...

Tue, 25 Mar 08
United States: Want to aid climate? Fix land use, groups say
http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/120632 1909135610.xml&coll=7
Oregonian: Three Oregon environmental groups are calling on state transportation and land-use commissions to set goals and adopt policies that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by cutting back on car and truck travel in the state. 1000 Friends of Oregon, the Oregon Environmental Council and Environment Oregon recommend increased funding for transit, rail and bicycle transportation. The groups said vehicle operation or emissions taxes should be used to pay for transportation options other ...

Tue, 25 Mar 08
'Green' bandwagon is getting a big push
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/environment/2008-03-23-green-behavior_N .htm
USA Today: "The missing ingredient is the force of public opinion." That's the line Cathy Zoi recalls from former vice president Al Gore when he urged her to become CEO of the Alliance for Climate Protection. Americans are aware of global warming, "but they don't get the urgency of it and that this is solvable," says Zoi, who took the job last year. The new group is about to launch the most ambitious U.S. marketing campaign ever on climate change, at a cost of ...

Tue, 25 Mar 08
United Kingdom: 'Jet-setting' government clocked up 300 million air miles last year
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jetsetting-government-clocked -up-300-million-air-miles-last-year-800206.html
Independent: Ministers were accused of hypocrisy and extravagance after the Conservatives calculated that Whitehall departments and major public bodies clocked up more than 300 million "air miles" last year. The Tories said the flights would have been enough to take politicians and civil servants to the moon 1,280 times or make 12,240 journeys around the world. The figures came after the Sustainable Development Commission, an environmental watchdog, warned the Government that it ...

Tue, 25 Mar 08
As Biofuels Catch On, Next Task Is to Deal With Environmental, Economic Impact
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120631198956758087.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Wall Street Journal: The world's economy is acquiring a new energy addiction: biofuels. Crop-based fuels such as ethanol and biodiesel are quietly becoming a crucial component of the global energy supply, despite growing concerns about their impact on the environment and world food prices. Biofuels production is rising rapidly, while other fuel sources are failing to keep pace with demand. As a result, biofuels are making up a larger portion of the world's energy-supply gap than many analysts ...

Tue, 25 Mar 08
Australian wine industry feels heat from climate change
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSSYD225086
Reuters: Australian grape growers reckon they are the canary in the coalmine of global warming, as a long drought forces winemakers to rethink the styles of wine they can produce and the regions they can grow in. The three largest grape-growing regions in Australia, the driest inhabited continent on earth, all depend on irrigation to survive. The high cost of water has made life tough for growers. Some say they probably won't survive this year's harvest, because of the cost of keeping ...

Tue, 25 Mar 08
Black carbon adds the most to global warming
http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=14629010
Sify: Black carbon pollution - soot, diesel exhaust - is a greater contributor to global warming than believed earlier, according to leading atmospheric scientist V. Ramanathan of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. And China and India are major culprits, together accounting for between 25 and 35 per cent of black carbon emissions. Produced by biomass burning, cooking with solid fuels and diesel exhaust, black carbon has a warming effect three to four times greater than ...

Tue, 25 Mar 08
Bangladesh: Climate change battle limps for lack of fund
http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=29186
Daily Star: Despite being at the forefront of countries affected by climate change, Bangladesh has received only $10 million in foreign aid over the past decade, even as recent donor estimates put future climate change adaptation bill for the country around $4 billion. Meanwhile, a climate change research centre and a government climate change data centre are in the pipeline to allow Bangladesh to use better models and data for mainstreaming climate change adaptation into government projects and ...

Tue, 25 Mar 08
Drought-hit Cyprus starts emergency water rations
http://uk.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUKL2455576320080324
Reuters: Cyprus on Monday ordered emergency water rationing and imports from Greece to cope with a growing shortage exacerbated by a fourth year of drought. The east Mediterranean island faces an unprecedented water crisis which has seen reservoir reserves plunge dangerously low and desalination plants unable to cope with growing demand. On Monday, the island's reservoirs were 10.3 percent full. Rainfall has been minimal since 2003. "Cuts are essential to cover the needs of ...

Tue, 25 Mar 08
Global Warming: Who Said What -- and When
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120605552237153199.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Wall Street Journal: It turns out Al Gore was hardly the first one to sound the alarm. Looking back nearly three decades, you can find prominent people warning the public about the danger of rising temperatures. But there have also been a number of skeptics. Here's a selection of quotes on climate change. --Compiled by Beckey Bright 1979 "It is the sense of the scientific community that carbon dioxide from unrestrained combustion of fossil fuels potentially is the most important ...

Tue, 25 Mar 08
Japan official suggests 2005 as emissions cut base
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jtCBZfzZvZ9NUnyLfd1GYSh-lrfA
Agence France Presse: A senior Japanese official said Monday that 2005 would be fair for a base year in a new deal on slashing greenhouse gases, suggesting the Kyoto Protocol was slanted towards the European position. The unusually blunt remarks come a week before the latest round of negotiations start in Bangkok on drafting a successor to Kyoto, the landmark treaty on fighting global warming. The Kyoto Protocol requires major developed nations to slash emissions blamed for global warming by an ...

Tue, 25 Mar 08
Japan Wants Softer Greenhouse Gas Target
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iTSDuik3ZpDk6LpCSX7fiJv8DPCAD8VJT3U00
Associated Press: Japan will push for an easier target for reducing greenhouse gases in the next international pact on global warming, a government official said Monday. The Kyoto Protocol of 1997 requires the industrial nations that ratified it to cut emissions below 1990 levels, but critics say that is too difficult because emissions in many countries have risen dramatically since then. Japan will push to set the base year as 2005 in an agreement that is meant to take effect when the Kyoto ...

Tue, 25 Mar 08
United Kingdom: Move to bio-fuels prompts green revolt
http://www.theherald.co.uk/politics/news/display.var.2142657.0.Move_to_biof uels_prompts_green_revolt.php
Herald: The government's drive to reduce carbon emissions from transport was confronted with a co-ordinated revolt among green groups yesterday, as its own chief environmental scientist branded the rush to embrace bio-fuels as "insane". Professor Robert Watson called for new regulations compelling oil companies to supply at least 2.5% of motor fuel at the pumps from bio-fuel to be put on hold until its environmental credentials can be established. His stance was backed by a ...

Tue, 25 Mar 08
United States: Scientists try to explain dismal salmon run
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2008/03/24/MN1BVMR10.DT L
San Francisco Chronicle: Amid growing concern over an imminent shutdown of the commercial and sport chinook salmon season, scientists are struggling to figure out why the largest run on the West Coast hit rock bottom and what Californians can do to bring it back. The chinook salmon - born in the rivers, growing in the bay and ocean, and returning to home rivers to spawn - need two essential conditions early in life to prosper: safe passage through the rivers to the bay and lots of seafood to eat once they ...

Tue, 25 Mar 08
United States: Study: Warming May Threaten Lake Tahoe
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hDeWvUqhufLyH8rkUh0BEPTldDcgD8VK1VO84
Associated Press: A new study predicts water circulation in Lake Tahoe is being dramatically altered by global warming, threatening the lake's delicate ecosystem and famed clear waters. The University of California, Davis study said one likely consequence is warmer lake temperatures that will mean fewer cold-water native fish and more invasive species – like carp, large-mouth bass and bluegill. "What we expect is that deep mixing of Lake Tahoe's water layers will become less frequent, even ...

Tue, 25 Mar 08
Tony the climate tiger: Roaring success?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7307698.stm
BBC: Tony Blair rode into Japan on his white horse earlier this month calling for a "global environment revolution" that would see the world's biggest polluters, including China and India, cut their greenhouse gas emissions to tackle climate change. So far, so good; but Blair's credentials on climate change and some of his recent statements show that he needs a revolution of his own mindset if he is to succeed. The same applies to Japan's Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda who ...

Tue, 25 Mar 08
UN food agency launches 'emergency appeal': report
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hCQJiw06G4wKpuDGKTQ43AeLjU4w
Agence France Presse: The UN agency charged with relieving world hunger has launched an "extraordinary emergency appeal" for at least 500 million dollars (325 million euros), the Financial Times reported on Monday. According to the business daily, which cited a letter sent to donor countries over the weekend that it obtained, the money was required by the end of April, otherwise the World Food Programme (WFP) would have to reduce food rations because of rapidly increasing commodity ...

Tue, 25 Mar 08
Australia: Warming helps pests at native species' expense
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,23423542-2761,00.html
AAP: As cane toads bear down on WA reports claim climate change gives the introduced pests even more of an advantage over native species. Human responses to climate change, such as increased farming in northern Australia, could also harm fragile birds and animals, the WWF report released today says. Species identified as being under threat of extinction due to global warming include bilbies, rock wallabies, quolls, turtles and Gouldian finches. The report - Australian Species ...

Tue, 25 Mar 08
100 MPG Vehicles Will Race to Share $10 Million Prize
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/mar2008/2008-03-23-02.asp
Environment News Service: The Automotive X PRIZE Foundation will award at least $10 million in privately funded prizes to teams that can engineer clean, production-capable vehicles that exceed 100 miles per gallon, or its energy equivalent fuel efficiency, and win a cross-country stage race. Officially launched Thursday at the New York International Auto Show, the independent and technology-neutral competition is open to teams from around the world that can design, build and bring to market high-efficiency ...

Tue, 25 Mar 08
United Kingdom: 15mph speed limit to force people out of cars
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/03/24/nroads124.x ml
Telegraph: Speed limits of just 15 miles-per-hour are to be introduced on major roads in planned new towns across the country as part of an effort to reduce global warming. Caroline Flint, the housing minister, will unveil the measure when she publishes planning guidelines later this week for up to 15 "eco-towns" across the UK, which will house 100,000 people. The Government wants the towns designed and built to encourage people to stay out of their cars. It will ...

Tue, 25 Mar 08
China hopes nuclear will replace coal
http://www.upi.com/International_Security/Energy/Briefing/2008/03/24/china_ hopes_nuclear_will_replace_coal/2513/
United Press International: China is pushing to be an energy efficiency leader. A senior state leader said the country could lead the world in energy efficiency by 2050, China Daily reported. By then, nuclear power and renewable energy is likely to account for at least half of the country's energy mix, said Lu Yongxiang, vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the 11th National People's Congress. He is urging policymakers to increase their efforts to develop a long-term plan for China's energy ...

Tue, 25 Mar 08
Australia: Emissions plan may omit petrol
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23421886-2,00.html
Australian: ASSISTANT Treasurer Chris Bowen has left the door open to exempting petrol from a national emissions trading scheme. Mr Bowen confirmed yesterday that Kevin Rudd's concern over petrol prices putting pressure on family budgets would be a consideration in the design of any emissions trading scheme. But he played down reports of Easter price hikes by petrol retailers, suggesting the increases were within normal fluctuations. "Petrol is a very important commodity for ...

Tue, 25 Mar 08
Australia: Global warming making fish hard of hearing
http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=6712e533-2383-4a9 e-b5d7-3a6de0d050de&MatchID1=4664&TeamID1=5&TeamID2=2&Match Type1=1&SeriesID1=1173&MatchID2=4673&TeamID3=4&TeamID4=8&am p;MatchType2=1&SeriesID2=1
Deutsche Presse-Agentur: Climate change is dulling the hearing of fish and making it more difficult for them to find a home, Australian researchers say. More carbon in the atmosphere means less calcium in the water and consequently poorer hearing in fish, who use hearing as much as sight to locate a habitat. James Cook University researchers Monica Gagliano and Martial Depczynski says tropical fish on the Great Barrier Reef, off the east coast of Australia, are growing asymmetrical ...

Tue, 25 Mar 08
United States: Global warming may turn Lake Tahoe murky
http://news.mongabay.com/2008/0324-tahoe.html
Mongabay: Warming temperatures may cloud Lake Tahoe's legendary clear waters and put the lake's native species at risk, reports a new study from the University of California, Davis. The research projects higher temperatures will alter water circulation in the lake, dramatically altering the conditions for its flora and fauna. "What we expect is that deep mixing of Lake Tahoe's water layers will become less frequent, even non-existent, depleting the bottom waters of oxygen. This ...

Tue, 25 Mar 08
India: Heavy summer rains sign of climate change
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/PoliticsNation/Heavy_summer_rains_ sign_of_climate_change/articleshow/2894102.cms
Economic Times: The unusual summer rains that pounded Kerala last week, leaving a trail of misery could be a clear indication of climate change, according to experts here. While it was usual for the state to get an average of two cms rainfall in March, this year it has already touched 17 cm, the highest recorded in 25 years, according to the Meteorological office here. Weather experts think that there could be more rains after a breather as the low-pressure in the Arabian sea is likely to ...

Tue, 25 Mar 08
We need more nuclear plants to avoid blackouts, say German power chiefs
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/mar/24/nuclearpower.energyeffici ency
Guardian: Senior German energy executives warned yesterday that Europe's biggest economy faces growing blackouts unless it follows the Franco-British lead in promoting new nuclear power stations. They seized on a weekend report in the Guardian that Gordon Brown and French president Nicolas Sarkozy will unveil an alliance to build nuclear plants and export the modern technology worldwide at their "Arsenal" summit at the Emirates Stadium this week to press the case for Germany to pursue ...

Tue, 25 Mar 08
Ethiopia: A warming world, overuse drain giant lake in a single generation
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/356178_water24.html
Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Chala Ahmed, 26, hit the jackpot eight years ago when he won the U.S. visa lottery in the bustling eastern Ethiopian town of Haramaya. His first thought was that he would build his mother a big, beautiful house. His next thought was that the new home, painted a rosy pink behind a high white gate, should be erected on the shore of Lake Haramaya, the huge stretch of placid water that gave his hometown its name. It took Ahmed almost eight years of long-haul trucking across America ...

Mon, 24 Mar 08
Australia: Power price rises not 'overwhelming'
http://news.smh.com.au/power-price-rises-not-overwhelming/20080323-212b.htm l
Sydney Morning Herald: An emissions trading scheme will cause a significant but not overwhelming increase in electricity prices, the federal government's top climate change adviser says. Economist Ross Garnaut believes electricity and petrol prices will inevitably rise under emissions trading. Asked on Sunday how much electricity prices would rise, Professor Garnaut declined to put a figure on it. "It'll be significant, it won't be overwhelming, it won't be a doubling, it will be well ...

Mon, 24 Mar 08
Tropical Glaciers Slowly Vanish
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/GlobalWarming/story?id=4498640&page=1
Christian Science Monitor: Each Saturday Delia Cascamayta hops on a bus to the colorful produce market in Cuzco, Peru. There she sells the bananas, yucca, potatoes, and oranges that she grows on a 25-acre patch in the Sacred Valley, named by the ancient Incas for its fertile soil. But as one of several farmers dependent on river water that originates from melting glaciers here in Peru, her feelings about her future are far less bright than the intense hues of her fruit display. "What's going to ...

Mon, 24 Mar 08
U.S. coal industry a major player in a hot global market
http://www.nwanews.com/adg/Business/220665/
New York Times: vast reorganization of the global coal trade is making the United States a major exporter for the first time in years and is helping to drive up domestic prices of the one fossil fuel the nation has in abundance. Long a cheap and plentiful fuel source for utilities and their customers, coal has helped keep American electric bills relatively low. But rising worldwide demand is turning American coal into another hot global commodity, and domestic buyers have to compete with ...

Mon, 24 Mar 08
Curbing soot could blunt global warming: study
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jObvKCK9ZDHzMqfZ9wnE73NBwq5g
Agence France Presse: Sharply reducing the amount of black carbon -- commonly known as soot -- in the atmosphere could help slow global warming and buy precious time in the long-term fight against climate change, according to a study released Sunday. Curbing soot emissions could also be a life saver, said the study, published Sunday in the British journal Nature. Each year, more than 400,000 deaths among women and children in India alone, and 1.6 million worldwide, are attributed to smoke inhalation ...

Mon, 24 Mar 08
Russia in 2007 saw record number of dangerous weather phenomena
http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/dangerous-weather-47 032302
Itar Tass: Russia experiences steady growth in dangerous weather phenomena, the deputy chief of the national weather watching agency Rosgidromet, Alexander Frolov, told a news conference at Itar-Tass on Friday. According to the official, 2007 saw more of them than any previous year - 436. In 2006 there were 387 dangerous weather phenomena, and in 2005, 361. Frolov attributes the growth in high-risk weather phenomena to climate change, which manifests itself not only "in the trend of ...

Sun, 23 Mar 08
Climate change 'is accelerating'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/mar/23/climatechange.carbonemiss ions
Observer: The growth of developing economies in Africa, Asia and South America has accelerated global warming far beyond official predictions and it is developed nations that must act to halt the potentially catastrophic consequences, according to a new study from the world's leading temporary power supplier, Aggreko. The warning, which has shocked environment campaigners, comes from Aggreko's chief executive, Rupert Soames, who said: 'The threat of global warming is far greater than people ...

Sun, 23 Mar 08
Australia Faces Higher Power Prices on Emissions Plan
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601081&sid=aV3.2zbXnnUw&re fer=australia
Bloomberg: Australia faces a ``significant'' rise in electricity prices because of the introduction of emissions trading which will place a price on carbon, a government adviser said. The increase in power prices won't be ``overwhelming'' and will be less than a doubling, Ross Garnaut, an economics professor who is advising the government on the trading plan, said today on Ten Network Holdings Ltd.'s Meet the Press program. Gasoline prices will also rise, probably proportionally less than for ...

Sun, 23 Mar 08
$10 million offered for production-ready 100-mpg vehicles
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080321/BUSINESS01/8032103 06/1014/business01
Detroit Free Press: Ten million dollars amounts to loose change for most automakers, but the backers of the Automotive X Prize hope it's enough to kick off a race for better vehicle technology. The foundation behind the X Prize unveiled title sponsor Progressive Insurance on Thursday and said it would begin testing vehicles in New York and other cities next year. The prize goes to the teams that can produce the most production-ready vehicles that get 100 miles per gallon or more and win a ...

Sun, 23 Mar 08
More states step in to limit carbon emissions
http://www.kansas.com/news/state/story/349142.html
Wichita Eagle: Regulating greenhouse gas emissions, such as carbon dioxide, could drive businesses away from Kansas, some argue. But others say limits on greenhouse gases are coming, no matter what the state does. Federal lawmakers are considering plans to reduce greenhouse gases, and at least 17 other states are working to limit their state's greenhouse gas emissions. Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius on Friday vetoed a bill that would have allowed two new coal-fired power plants in ...

Sun, 23 Mar 08
Oil-shale 'rush' is sparking concern
http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695263708,00.html
Deseret Morning News: With oil prices surpassing $100 per barrel, talk of extracting the black gold wherever it can be found in Utah and elsewhere is raising red flags for environmental groups. The most recent complaint came this week from 26 conservation groups that accuse the Bush administration of rushing to develop oil shale and tar sands and endangering communities and 2 million acres of wild lands in three states, including Utah. A letter Thursday to the Bureau of Land Management from 26 ...

Sun, 23 Mar 08
Save the climate by saving the forests
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=95327
New Scientist: KEVIN CONRAD was brought up in Papua New Guinea, the son of American missionaries. He spent his childhood "shooting birds, cutting down trees and burning things". His name might not be familiar, but at the Bali climate conference last December he drew applause and worldwide TV coverage for taking on the US. If it wasn't willing to lead the world in combating climate change, said Conrad, head of the Papua New Guinea delegation, the US should "get out of the way". There is more to ...

Sun, 23 Mar 08
World Water Day today: 1.1 bn lack access to water
http://www.commodityonline.com/news/topstory/newsdetails.php?id=6614
Commodity Online: As the world celebrates World Water Day on Saturday, nearly 1.1 billion people lack access to safe drinking water, it requires 100 tonnes of water to produce one ton of grain and food security is under threat. The UN, which has been celebrating World Water Day for last fifteen years, reported this week that the world's glaciers are melting at "an alarming rate." Like reservoirs, glaciers store water and then release it at predictable rates, around which humans have formed communities ...

Sun, 23 Mar 08
China: "When the well is dry we know the worth of water"
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-03/22/content_7837890.htm
China Daily: It is the 16th World Water Day since it was initiated by the United Nations in 1992 to promote awareness of increasingly serious water problems and press for action by governments worldwide to save and protect water resources. Benjamin Franklin once said: "When the well is dry, (then) we know the worth of water." However, we must know its worth before it is too late and the lack of water, or the want of drinkable water, threatens the existence of human life. ...

Sun, 23 Mar 08
Air Force Prod Aids Coal-To-Fuel Plans
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hDV8DuaNJvKYJk98TvephqrLZWcwD8VICO9G0
Associated Press: On a wind-swept air base near the Missouri River, the Air Force has launched an ambitious plan to wean itself from foreign oil by turning to a new and unlikely source: coal. The Air Force wants to build at its Malmstrom base in central Montana the first piece of what it hopes will be a nationwide network of facilities that would convert domestic coal into cleaner-burning synthetic fuel. Air Force officials said the plants could help neutralize a national security threat by ...

Sun, 23 Mar 08
Philippines: Consumers urged to cut use of bottled water
http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/storypage.aspx?StoryId=112695
ABS-CBN: BRINGING bottled mineral water may be the most convenient way to quench your thirst during long trips, but they do have some drawbacks. Aside from being expensive, they cause problem of disposing their plastic containers, which sometimes contribute to the garbage woes–not to mention the pollution caused by producing the plastic containers to meet the ever-increasing demand for bottled mineral water, which greatly contributes to global warming. The EcoWaste Coalition, a waste ...

Sun, 23 Mar 08
Global warming disturbs seasonal timing changes
http://www.kansascity.com/news/nation/story/542673.html
Associated Press: The cherry trees are primed to burst out in a perfect pink peak about the end of this month. Thirty years ago, the trees usually waited till around April 5. In central California, the first of the field skipper sachem, a drab little butterfly, was fluttering about on March 12. Just 25 years ago, that creature predictably emerged there anywhere from mid-April to mid-May. And sneezes are coming earlier in Philadelphia. On March 9, when allergist Donald Dvorin set up his monitor, ...

Sun, 23 Mar 08
United States: Governor backs an $8 toll to fight congestion, boost mass transit
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-nytraffic22mar22,1,269 4219.story
Newsday: Gov. David A. Paterson plunged into a divisive regional issue Friday, announcing his support for a plan to charge drivers to enter part of Manhattan. "Congestion pricing addresses two urgent concerns of the residents of New York City and its suburbs: the need to reduce congestion on our streets and roads, and thereby reduce pollution and global warming; and the need to raise significant revenue for mass-transit improvements," Paterson said in a statement. Paterson, a ...

Sun, 23 Mar 08
India and China likely to face food shortage due to melting glaciers
http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IE320080322070158&Page=3&am p;Title=Features+-+Health+%26+Science&Topic=166
Asia News International: A new study has determined that the melting of glaciers due to global warming might trigger food shortages in India and China. According to a report in New Scientist, the irrigation water vital for the grain crops that feed India and China is at risk of drying up, as global warming melts the glaciers that feed Asia's biggest rivers. Rains feed the Ganges, Yellow and Yangtze Rivers in India and China during the monsoon season, but during the dry season, they depend heavily on ...

Sun, 23 Mar 08
Insecure About Climate Change
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/21/AR200803210 2631.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
Washington Post: When Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in 2005, Americans witnessed what looked like an overseas humanitarian-relief operation. The storm destroyed much of the city, causing more than $80 billion in damage, killing more than 1,800 people, and displacing in excess of 270,000. The country suddenly had to divert its attention and military resources to respond to a domestic emergency. While scientists do not attribute single events to global warming, the storm gave Americans a visual image of ...

Sun, 23 Mar 08
Scientists seek climate clues on Antarctic voyage
http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-32624720080322
Reuters: Scientists set off on a voyage to Antarctica on Saturday to see if the icesheets at the edge of the vast continent are melting faster and whether the Southern Ocean is soaking up less climate-warming carbon dioxide. The Southern Ocean absorbs a large amount of the CO2 emitted by industry, power stations and transport, acting as a brake on climate change. "Some recent results suggest the Southern Ocean is becoming less effective at absorbing CO2 than it used to be," ...

Sun, 23 Mar 08
Canada: Water supply under threat
http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/News/National/2008/03/22/5074606-sun.html
Canadian Press: Most Canadians are blissfully unaware that the water they take for granted is being threatened by overuse and mismanagement, say experts who warn climate change could soon make water shortages an unmistakable reality across the country. The United Nations is using today's World Water Day to warn about the impending dangers of water scarcity -- shortages that could affect two-thirds of the world's population by 2025. Canadian advocates hope the day will also raise awareness ...

Sun, 23 Mar 08
United Kingdom: Woodchip power station 'opened'
http://www.cumberland-news.co.uk/news/viewarticle.aspx?id=811260
Cumberland News: THE UK'S biggest wood-fired power station was officially opened near Lockerbie this week by Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond. Steven's Croft will be fuelled by woodchip from surrounding forests and willow grown by farmers throughout the Borders and Cumbria. The £70 million plant has been running at full capacity since December, producing enough power to supply 70,000 homes. Mr Salmond said: "Today we put Lockerbie on Scotland's renewable energy map, as the home of ...

Sun, 23 Mar 08
United States: Benefits of solar energy manifold
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/mar/22/speakout-benefits-of-sola r-energy-manifold/
Rocky Mountain News: Colorado is facing an energy challenge: can we meet increasing energy demand while reducing global warming pollution? Colorado's Climate Action Plan calls for cutting global warming pollution by 20 percent by 2020. According to a report by the Colorado Energy Forum, the state will need 4,900 megawatts of new generation by 2025. While renewable energy in Colorado is playing a growing role, conventional coal still supplies almost 80 percent of the state's electricity, the source of ...

Sun, 23 Mar 08
United Kingdom: Experts mull future of Thames Barrier
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Science/2008/03/22/experts_mull_future_of_tham es_barrier/9253/
United Press International: Sea levels are rising much faster than when the Thames Barrier was designed, and British officials are looking ahead to new consider flood defenses. The barrier was designed in the 1970s and completed in 1982. At the time, average sea level rise around the world was 1.8 millimeters or .07 inches a year. In the past 15 years, sea-level rise has speeded up to 3.1 millimeters or .12 inches annually -- and it could accelerate with global warming. While experts say the barrier can ...

Sun, 23 Mar 08
UK and France 'plan nuclear deal'
http://ukpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5h97DFX3u6aPDBguS31NkPqG21ArQ
Press Association: Anti-nuclear campaigners have reacted with dismay to reports that Britain is on the brink of signing a deal with France to construct a new generation of power plants. Downing Street on Saturday declined to comment on claims that the agreement would be sealed during next week's state visit to the UK of French President Nicolas Sarkozy. The Guardian reported that, as well as committing themselves to using nuclear power to combat climate change, Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Mr ...

Sat, 22 Mar 08
Kansas Governor Vetoes Bill to Allow Coal-Fired Plants
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/21/AR200803210 2722.html?hpid=sec-business
Associated Press: Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius vetoed a bill yesterday that would allow construction of two coal-fired power plants in the southwest part of the state and strip some power from the regulator who has blocked them. Legislators who support the bill have been working for weeks to build the two-thirds majorities they need in both chambers to override Sebelius's veto, which had been expected. "Of all the duties and responsibilities entrusted to me as governor, none is greater ...

Sat, 22 Mar 08
Lofty Pledge to Cut Emissions Comes With Caveat in Norway
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=95321
New York Times: Last year, as United Nations scientists were warning of the perils of man-made climate change, this small country of fjords and factories reacted with an extraordinary pledge: by 2050 Norway would be "carbon neutral," generating no net greenhouse gases into the air. Norway's bold promise raised the bar for other nations, which were mostly still struggling to figure out how to reduce emissions, by even a fraction. Then, in January, the Norwegian government went a step further: Norway ...

Sat, 22 Mar 08
Solving the population problem
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/03/23/bosac123.xm l
Telegraph: Thomas Malthus's Essay on the Principle of Population, published in 1798, had a subtle argument and an alarming conclusion. Improvements in food production would lead to population growth; growing populations would also lead to increases in food production; but of these two lines of growth, one (population) would be much steeper than the other. And once they were far apart, only famine, disease and war would bring them back together. When Malthus wrote his book, the world's population ...

Sat, 22 Mar 08
Water will be source of war unless world acts now, warns minister
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/water-will-be-source-of-wa r-unless-world-acts-now-warns-minister-799292.html
Independent: The world faces a future of "water wars", unless action is taken to prevent international water shortages and sanitation issues escalating into conflicts, according to Gareth Thomas, the International Development minister. The minister's warning came as a coalition of 27 international charities marked World Water Day, by writing to Gordon Brown demanding action to give fresh water to 1.1 billion people with poor supplies. "If we do not act, the reality is that water supplies may ...

Sat, 22 Mar 08
We're all doomed! 40 years from global catastrophe - and there's NOTHING we can do about it, says climate change expert
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id =541748&in_page_id=1770
Daily Mail: The weather forecast for this holiday weekend is wildly unsettled. We had better get used to it. According to the climate change scientist James Lovelock, this is the beginning of the end of a peaceful phase in evolution. By 2040, the world population of more than six billion will have been culled by floods, drought and famine. The people of Southern Europe, as well as South-East Asia, will be fighting their way into countries such as Canada, Australia and Britain. ...

Sat, 22 Mar 08
India: “Restoring degraded forests, major task before us”
http://www.thehindu.com/2008/03/22/stories/2008032254330900.htm
Hindu: The major task before the country is to rehabilitate degraded forests, increase productivity and enhance the contribution of forests towards poverty alleviation among people living in and around forests, Minister of State for Environment and Forests S. Regupathy said on Friday. Speaking at World Forestry Day celebrations here, he said India was actively participating in different forest-related international processes. Meet on climate change It had highlighted the ...

Sat, 22 Mar 08
Air support for Africa's organic farms
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article3599294.ece
Times (UK): Two of Britain's biggest airlines are joining forces with African farmers to fight environmental restrictions on food transported by air. British Airways and Virgin Atlantic, which make millions of pounds from flying food in passenger jets, have given free tickets to representatives of farmers in Ghana and Kenya to visit London to argue their case. The airlines are planning to make a joint submission with the farmers to a review of air freight by the Soil Association, which ...

Sat, 22 Mar 08
Australia: Bottled water: the new social poison?
http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/bottled-water-the-new-social-poison/ 2008/03/21/1205602658558.html
Sydney Morning Herald: FIRST fast food, then plastic bags. Now bottled water is the next alleged social evil to find itself in the crosshairs of pressure groups. Environmentaists lay the blame for a growing mountain of plastic in landfill and the increasing strain on water resources directly at the feet of the large companies that sell bottled water. The problem of our growing addiction to bottled water will come up at a meeting of environment ministers next month where the question of a national ...

Sat, 22 Mar 08
Britain and France to take nuclear power to the world
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/mar/22/nuclearpower.energy1
Guardian: Britain and France are to sign a deal to construct a new generation of nuclear power stations and export the technology around the world in an effort to combat climate change. The pact is to be announced at the "Arsenal summit" next week when prime ministers Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy will meet at the Emirates stadium in north London. Britain hopes to take advantage of French expertise to build the power stations that do not rely on fossil fuels. Nearly 79% of ...

Sat, 22 Mar 08
Kansas Governor Vetoes Bill to Revive 2 Coal-Fired Plants
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=95324
New York Times: Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas vetoed a measure on Friday that would have forced the state to approve two coal-fired power plants producing large amounts of carbon dioxide. The veto, which was expected, is unlikely to be overridden in the Kansas House of Representatives, two legislators said. The State Senate passed the measure with a veto-proof majority. The two proposed plants, to be built by the Sunflower Electric Corporation in the southwest corner of the state, would ...

Sat, 22 Mar 08
Brazil pursues crackdown on loggers
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23742204/
Washington Post: An aggressive crackdown on logging in the Amazon has been launched by the Brazilian government, an operation that pits environmental regulators against people who say they depend on those protected resources to survive. After three years of declining rates of deforestation, satellite images released in January showed that as much as 2,700 square miles of land in the Brazilian Amazon had been cleared in the final five months of 2007 -- a rate that would represent more than a 60 percent ...

Sat, 22 Mar 08
Censoring Science: Inside the Political Attack on Dr. James Hansen and the Truth of Global Warming
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/3/21/censoring_science_inside_the_politica l_attack
Democracy Noew: Dr. James Hansen is widely regarded as the leading climate change scientist in the country. For the past twenty-five years, he has headed NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Just over a year ago, Dr. Hansen went public with a charge that made headlines around the world–that the Bush administration had been trying to silence his warnings about the urgent need to address climate change. Dr. Hansen joins us in our firehouse studio. His story is detailed in a new book by author Mark ...

Sat, 22 Mar 08
Australia: Compo call for coal-fired energy producers
http://www.theage.com.au/news/environment/compo-call-for-coalfired-energy-p roducers/2008/03/21/1205602661781.html
Age: AUSTRALIA'S coal-fired energy industry has won the backing of business and the NSW Government in its campaign for massive compensation under Kevin Rudd's proposed laws to slash greenhouse gas emissions. A heated debate is raging between the electricity generation industry and Government climate change adviser Ross Garnaut, after he argued high-polluting power stations did not deserve a handout to ensure they survived. Under the professor's proposed carbon trading scheme, the ...

Sat, 22 Mar 08
EU 'committed' to stiff CO2 cuts
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7308036.stm
BBC: Europe's environment chief Stavros Dimas says the EU's leaders are still committed to ambitious CO2 cuts of up to 30% by 2020, despite the appearance of back-tracking at last week's European summit. Mr Dimas said it was natural for national leaders to debate the precise details of how the cuts would be implemented - but that did not suggest a weakening of overall resolve. Green groups gave a shudder last week when they heard Europe's big players - especially Germany - were ...

Sat, 22 Mar 08
Fight climate change by turning roof green
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/19/technology/rbogroof.php
International Herald Tribune: As climate change raises the alternating risks of urban flooding and drought, cities around the world are seeking better ways to manage water. In Europe and North America, two strategies are becoming increasingly popular: installing "green" roofs covered in vegetation and collecting rainwater for household use. New companies are sprouting to meet this demand, and existing companies are expanding. In Britain, the growth has been especially explosive: Manufacturers say the use ...

Sat, 22 Mar 08
Kansas governor vetoes plan for coal power plants
http://uk.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUKN2147013620080321
Reuters: In a big win for environmentalists, the Democratic governor of Kansas on Friday vetoed legislation that would have allowed a huge coal-fired power plant to expand in the state and spew 11 million more tons of greenhouse gas emissions a year. The bill, approved by the Republican-dominated Kansas legislature, would have allowed Sunflower Electric Power Corp to add two 700-megawatt units at a facility in western Kansas. Under the bill, lawmakers sought to strip the authority of ...

Sat, 22 Mar 08
Massive reserves at stake in Arctic oil claim
http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/story.html?id=0e151a0a-c5e6-49d7-bfa7 -99bc4ff85f57&k=38324
Canwest News Service: A U.S.-based company that has controversially laid claim to nearly all of the Arctic Ocean's undersea oil said Thursday that new geological data suggests a "potentially vast" petroleum resource of 400 billion barrels. That figure is backed by a respected Canadian researcher who recently signed on as the firm's chief scientific adviser. Las Vegas-based Arctic Oil & Gas has raised eyebrows around the world with its roll-of-the-dice bid to lock up exclusive rights to ...

Sat, 22 Mar 08
Melting glaciers will shrink harvests in India, China
http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/enviornment/melting-glaciers-will-shrin k-harvests-in-india-china_10029810.html
Indo-Asian News Service: Shrinking Himalayan glaciers will turn the Ganga in India and the Yangtze in China into seasonal rivers that dry up in summers, massively reducing grain harvests, and may cause "politically unmanageable food shortages" in the region, a leading US environmental expert has warned. Climate-driven shrinkage of river-based irrigation water supplies in China and India, which produce half of the world's wheat and rice, could be "civilisation-threatening". The scary scenario can become a reality ...

Sat, 22 Mar 08
Researchers identify new 'biodiversity threats'
http://www.euractiv.com/en/science/researchers-identify-new-biodiversity-th reats/article-171102
EurActiv: In an attempt to spot the next GMO-like controversy before it happens, environmental scientists, policymakers and environmental NGOs have, in a joint 'horizon scanning' exercise, drawn up a list of 25 novel threats and opportunities likely to affect biodiversity in the UK between now and 2050. "Horizon scanning is more and more common in government and business, but we should also be using it to help prioritise scientific research," said professor Bill Sutherland of the ...

Sat, 22 Mar 08
S Korea to cap emissions for five years
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/054b7b4c-f730-11dc-ac40-000077b07658.html
Financial Times: The new government of South Korea, among the world's largest emitters of greenhouse gases, plans to cap emissions at 2005 levels for the next five years despite Seoul's exemption from cuts under the Kyoto protocol. The environment ministry presented the proposal to freeze emissions until 2012 on Friday in a report to Lee Myung-bak, president, in an effort to join international efforts to fight global warming. Although South Korea is the world's 12th largest economy, it is ...

Sat, 22 Mar 08
South Korea announces plans to freeze emissions
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iADsFkY7BS2QiCO0Z6qvC1-ro84g
Agence France Presse: South Korea on Friday announced a plan to freeze greenhouse gas emissions at 2005 levels for the next five years, sparking cricitism from activists who are demanding more drastic measures. Environment Minister Lee Maan-Ee presented the initiative to freeze emissions until 2012 in a report to President Lee Myung-Bak, a ministry official said. The nation's annual carbon dioxide emissions doubled between 1990 and 2005 to 591 million tonnes. The world's 13th-largest economy stands ...

Sat, 22 Mar 08
United States: Amended Bill For Emissions Cuts Approved
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/20/AR200803200 3399.html?hpid=sec-metro
Washington Post: The Maryland Senate gave preliminary approval yesterday to an ambitious set of controls on carbon dioxide emissions that are believed to contribute to global warming. With passage likely in the House of Delegates and backing from Gov. Martin O'Malley (D), the Global Warming Solutions Act would make Maryland one of four states to pass laws that mandate caps on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, cars, trucks and other energy consumers. The bill would require carbon ...

Sat, 22 Mar 08
Arctic Pollution's Surprising History: Explorers Saw Particulate Haze In Late 1800s
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080319085406.htm
Science Daily: Scientists know that air pollution particles from mid-latitude cities migrate to the Arctic and form an ugly haze, but a new University of Utah study finds surprising evidence that polar explorers saw the same phenomenon as early as 1870. "The reaction from some colleagues -- when we first mentioned that people had seen haze in the late 1800s -- was that it was crazy," says Tim Garrett, assistant professor of meteorology and senior author of the study. "Who would have ...

Sat, 22 Mar 08
Climate Change deepening world water crisis
http://www.dailynews.lk/2008/03/22/fea06.asp
Ceylon Daily News: When U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon addressed the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland last January, his primary focus was not on the impending global economic recession but on the world's growing water crisis. "A shortage of water resources could spell increased conflicts in the future," he told the annual gathering of business tycoons, academics and leaders from governments, intergovernmental and non-governmental organisations. "Population growth will make the ...

Sat, 22 Mar 08
United States: Coal plant legislation vetoed
http://primebuzz.kcstar.com/?q=node/10596
Prime Buzz: Gov. Kathleen Sebelius vetoed legislation to allow a sizeable coal plant expansion in Western Kansas today. The bill would have eliminated the discretion a state regulator used last year to block Sunflower Electric Power Corp.'s plans to add two coal-burning plants to its existing Holcom, Kan. power station. The long-anticipated veto sets up a showdown with the Legislature, where leaders are counting votes to see whether they have the two-thirds majorities needed to override a ...

Sat, 22 Mar 08
EU environment chief backs green tax plan - report
http://www.guardian.co.uk/feedarticle?id=7402408
Reuters: The European Union's environment chief on Friday backed a Franco-British proposal to cut sales tax on green products t