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Wed, 30 Apr 08
Biofuels Halt Would Ease Food Prices - Ag Group
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/48157/story.htm
Reuters: A moratorium on global grain- and oilseed-based biofuels would help ease raging wheat and corn prices by up to 20 percent in the next few years, a leading agriculture research group said on Tuesday. "Our models analysis suggest that if a moratorium on biofuels would be issued in 2008, we could expect a price decline of maize by about 20 percent and for wheat by about 10 percent in 2009-10. So it's this significant," Joachim von Braun, who heads the International Food Policy ...

Wed, 30 Apr 08
Drought Is Spurring Resource Wars
http://www.alternet.org/water/83796/
Independent: On a warm January afternoon in southern Ethiopia, thousands of ill-tempered livestock stand in groups with the pastoralists who have guided them for dozens of miles to drink. The animals dot an expansive field of Acacia trees, severed bits and pieces of dead grass and dust. Earlier in the day thousands of young goats, sheep and calves took turns to have their fill of water. And the show will not end with the cattle; camels are still waiting in line. For being the best able to resist ...

Wed, 30 Apr 08
Siphoning Off Corn to Fuel Our Cars
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/04/29/ST20080429035 85.html
Washington Post: Erwin Johnson picks up a clump of the dark, rich soil that he has farmed for 35 years, like his father and grandfather before him. In a few months, this flat expanse of northern Iowa will be crowded with corn ready to be trucked to market. A year ago, that market got a little closer -- and a lot better. Instead of sending his corn to a barge company to be shipped down the Mississippi River for export, Johnson now loads it into an open truck and sends it just two miles up the gravel ...

Wed, 30 Apr 08
Canada: Alberta seeks exemption from tough U.S. restrictions on oil imports
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/080429/world/us_cda_oilsands_2
Canadian Press: Alberta expects a U.S. working group to classify the province's oilsands fuel as a conventional resource to exempt it from tough new restrictions on imports, provincial envoy Gary Mar said Tuesday. A major energy bill passed last year prohibits the American government from buying "alternative" fuels that produce more greenhouse gas emissions over the life of a project than other sources. Right now, oil from the oilsands is considered alternative energy under ...

Wed, 30 Apr 08
Dumb as We Wanna Be
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=98246
New York Times: It is great to see that we finally have some national unity on energy policy. Unfortunately, the unifying idea is so ridiculous, so unworthy of the people aspiring to lead our nation, it takes your breath away. Hillary Clinton has decided to line up with John McCain in pushing to suspend the federal excise tax on gasoline, 18.4 cents a gallon, for this summer's travel season. This is not an energy policy. This is money laundering: we borrow money from China and ship it to Saudi Arabia and ...

Wed, 30 Apr 08
Sealing our future by revealing the secrets of the seas
http://news.scotsman.com/latestnews/Sealing-our-future-by-revealing.4032757 .jp
Scotsman: PLACID and adorable, the Weddell seals are the most well-known and appealing of all the Antarctic seals, and are considered one of the "must-sees" by tourists on wildlife voyages to the frozen region. But the seals are more than just cute sea creatures – they have been invaluable in helping Scottish scientists reveal the secrets of climate change, with the latest data suggesting the ocean around the Antarctic is becoming less salty, which could have major implications for ...

Wed, 30 Apr 08
UN taskforce to tackle global food price crisis
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/apr/30/food.development
Guardian: The UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, yesterday called for world leaders to attend a summit in June to tackle the food price crisis that has triggered global social unrest. In the run up to the summit in Rome, a UN taskforce headed by a British diplomat, Sir John Holmes, will try to develop a coherent international response to the crisis, at a time of sharp international divisions over food exports, genetically modified crops and biofuels. The plans for a taskforce and summit were ...

Wed, 30 Apr 08
Weather modification: The rain makers
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/weather-modification-the-rain-mak ers-818023.html?r=RSS
Independent: Whether it is the Chinese firing weapons into the sky to make it rain, or the Thai government setting up a "royal rainmaking project", the science of weather modification has always had a touch of the sci-fi about it. So it is perhaps little surprise that the effectiveness of such an eccentric area of research has always been a little foggy. Indeed, no matter how hard you try – say, through launching silver-iodide particles into clouds to make them rain – it's hard to tell how ...

Wed, 30 Apr 08
World Bank Tackle Food Crisis, Bush Backs Ethanol
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/48171/story.htm
Reuters: UN agencies and the World Bank on Tuesday pledged to set up a task force to tackle soaring global food prices, while US President George W, Bush said high crop prices should not slow biofuel efforts. The international bodies called on countries not to restrict exports of food to secure supplies at home, warning that could make the problem worse. "We consider that the dramatic escalation in food prices worldwide has evolved into an unprecedented challenge of global ...

Wed, 30 Apr 08
Greenland's tropic phase hard to pin down
http://www.oregonlive.com/science/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/science/1209513 322175140.xml&coll=7
Oregonian: For years, climate researchers puzzled over a long hot spell about 90 million years ago, when tropical breadfruit trees flourished in Greenland, crocodiles slithered above the Arctic Circle and at least a few dinosaurs roamed Antarctica. It's a serious concern because the warmth came at least in part from greenhouse gases. Climate scientists say they need to understand that period to better forecast how rising carbon dioxide levels affect our climate. Computer models that ...

Wed, 30 Apr 08
Waste Management To Make Vehicle Fuel From Landfill Gas
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/48167/story.htm
Reuters: Waste Management Inc said on Monday it would open the largest-ever facility to turn landfill gas into vehicle fuel, which will then be used in its own California collection trucks. The project will help the largest US trash hauler develop a source of low-carbon fuel, which is expected to be in wide demand when states such as California begin requiring drivers to cut their carbon dioxide emissions. "We think there's going to be a very significant demand for the ...

Wed, 30 Apr 08
Federal judge orders polar bear decision by May 15
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/nation/20080429-1320-wst-polarbears.html
Associated Press: It's been more than three years since a California conservation group asked the federal government to protect polar bear habitat threatened by global warming. The Center for Biological Diversity and other groups pushing for federal action to climate change could get an answer in about two weeks. U.S. District Court Judge Claudia Wilken of Oakland, Calif., late Monday ordered the Bush administration to decide by May 15 whether polar bears should be listed as threatened under ...

Wed, 30 Apr 08
'Biofuels frenzy' hits grain market
http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/story.html?id=326b8d8e-4ea2-4cb2-a041 -040b46efff1b&k=12412
Agence France Presse: A "biofuels frenzy" and other misguided policies have led to the global food crisis in which rice consumption is outpacing production, threatening one billion people with malnutrition, experts said today. International agriculture researchers warned that farmers will need to double global food production by 2030 to meet rising demand and said countries should impose a moratorium on grain-based ethanol and biodiesel to rein in skyrocketing prices for corn, rice, soybeans and ...

Wed, 30 Apr 08
Canada: Ottawa must reconcile oilsands' riches, environmental challenges: Expert
http://www.canada.com/topics/news/story.html?id=63909bdb-f74d-4201-82cb-3a6 e21a67fdc&k=52189
Canwest News Service: The distinguished Canadian researcher who pioneered the development of the country's oilsands is warning Prime Minister Stephen Harper that the industry touted to make Canada an energy superpower will "hit a wall" unless the Conservative government urgently injects funding into projects aimed at solving the huge environment problems associated with the resource. Clement Bowman, a former top Imperial Oil scientist and a key adviser on energy issues to Alberta premier Peter ...

Wed, 30 Apr 08
United Kingdom: Brown wants profits poured into North Sea
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/apr/30/oil.commodities
Guardian: Gordon Brown stepped into a growing row about oil company profits yesterday, calling on BP and Shell to spend more of their combined £7bn first-quarter earnings on activity in the North Sea. The prime minister's comments came as lorry drivers took a protest on the soaring cost of petrol to central London, while other motoring organisations and environmentalists accused the oil industry of profiteering at the expense of car drivers and the planet. "We do need the oil coming ...

Wed, 30 Apr 08
Higher energy costs from climate bills
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jpasaDPWF0iAt1i5rdvunWtVkbrAD90BQLEG0
Associated Press: People will be paying higher energy prices under a Senate bill to limit greenhouse gases, but how much will depend on how well the country can shift away from burning fossil fuels, an Energy Department analysis said Tuesday. The Energy Information Administration said annual energy costs could increase on average of as little as $30 or as much as 10 times that much by 2020. The projected cost increases per household ranged from $76 a year more to as much as $723 a year more by ...

Wed, 30 Apr 08
United States: Judge sets deadline for Interior Dept. to make decision on listing polar bear
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/29/BAQA10DR7F.DTL
San Francisco Chronicle: The Interior Department has violated a legal deadline for deciding whether to list the polar bear as an endangered species because of global warming and must act by mid-May, a federal judge has ruled, putting species protection on a collision course with the Bush administration's push for oil drilling off Alaska. In her decision Monday, U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken said oil industry operations in Alaska's Chukchi Sea, where one-fifth of all polar bears live, "could ...

Wed, 30 Apr 08
Methane to power vehicles, not pollute air
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/29/BUTS10DSNP.DTL
San Francisco Chronicle: Methane percolating out of the Altamont Landfill near Livermore could soon fuel the garbage trucks that dump trash at the site. Waste Management, North America's largest garbage hauling company, today will announce plans to turn gas from the landfill's rotting contents into a transportation fuel. A system designed and installed by German engineering company Linde will purify the gas and chill it to 260 degrees below zero, cold enough for the gas to turn into a liquid. Waste ...

Tue, 29 Apr 08
Australia to spend $2.9 billion to buy water from farmers
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hg-P9S4-XjJL7QGmXLpdF9pUJyIgD90BELP82
Associated Press: Australia's government promised Tuesday to spend about $2.9 billion to buy river water from farmers in a bid to address the country's worst drought in a century. The spending is the most expensive component of a $12.1 billion, 10-year plan to reduce water waste and improve water efficiency on Australian farms and in cities. "Climate change means most Australian cities and towns have less water and we can no longer rely on local rainfall to supply all our drinking ...

Tue, 29 Apr 08
Climate change could force 1 billion from their homes by 2050
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/climate-change-coul d-force-1-billion-from-their-homes-by-2050-817223.html
Independent: As many as one billion people could lose their homes by 2050 because of the devastating impact of global warming, scientists and political leaders will be warned today. They will hear that the steady rise in temperatures across the planet could trigger mass migration on unprecedented levels. Hundreds of millions could be forced to go on the move because of water shortages and crop failures in most of Africa, as well as in central and southern Asia and South America, the ...

Tue, 29 Apr 08
Gas emissions worse than gravest scenario: report
http://www.theage.com.au/news/environment/gas-emissions-worse-than-gravest- scenario-report/2008/04/28/1209234762226.html
Age: GLOBAL greenhouse gas emissions are growing far more rapidly than even the most pessimistic estimates developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Government's adviser on global warming warned. Professor Ross Garnaut has projected that by 2030 annual greenhouse gas emissions would be 14% higher than the panel's worst-case scenario. In a yet-to-be-finalised academic paper, Professor Garnaut and three colleagues estimate that annual emissions of carbon dioxide ...

Tue, 29 Apr 08
Global warming: What can we do?
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0429/p14s03-bogn.html
Christian Science Monitor: Writing about global warming has changed a lot in the past few years. This is not because the science itself has changed – but because political reaction to it has. It seems that we have, at long last, moved beyond denial and inertia. The time for books that explain what global warming is and why it matters has come and gone. The need now is for answers to the one question that really mattered all along: What do we do about it? Two current books examine the evidence and come ...

Tue, 29 Apr 08
Rockefellers urge action on climate change
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/natural_res ources/article3835693.ece
Times: One of America's most powerful families will call tomorrow for a sweeping shake-up at the top of ExxonMobil, the world's largest company. A group of descendants of John D. Rockefeller, who founded its predecessor Standard Oil in 1870, will begin a campaign to split the role of chief executive and chairman of the board at Exxon, a role held by Rex Tillerson. Last night the family group issued a statement saying that the company's leadership was "failing to address the future ...

Tue, 29 Apr 08
Canada: The Beetle Factor in a Carbon Calculus
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=98129
New York Times: Trees have been fighting climate change for ages, using photosynthesis to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and sequestering it for the long term in their tissues. Most forests are considered net sinks of carbon dioxide, meaning they store more carbon than they give up. But natural events can upset a forest's carbon calculus. Big fires, for instance, spew plenty of CO2 into the atmosphere, and the dead trees that remain eventually decompose by microbial action, releasing more ...

Tue, 29 Apr 08
Warming 'affecting poor children'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7372137.stm
BBC: Climate change is already affecting the prospects for children in the world's poorer countries, according to Unicef. The UN children's agency says that increases in floods, droughts and insect-borne disease will all affect health, education and welfare. While richer societies can adjust, it says in a new report, poorer ones do not have the resources. It is asking western governments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions swiftly and provide money to help poor nations. ...

Tue, 29 Apr 08
Australia: $3billion to make rivers run again
http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/3-billion-to-make-rivers-run-again/2 008/04/28/1209234761895.html
Sydney Morning Herald: IN AN attempt to restore the health of Australia's major river system, the Rudd Government will set aside more than $3 billion to buy back water from irrigators in the Murray-Darling basin and use it for the environment. The money represents almost a quarter of the government investment in water over the next decade. Today, the Climate Change Minister, Penny Wong, will announce the final breakdown of $12.9 billion - including about $1.5 billion in new funding - to be spent on the ...

Tue, 29 Apr 08
'Climate change will hit vulnerable children'
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/04/29/eachild12 9.xml
Telegraph: The world's poorest and most vulnerable children are being hit hardest by climate change, according to UNICEF. They face a world in which disasters, violence and disease will become more intense. A new report from UNICEF UK, formerly the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund, says access to clean water and food supplies will become harder, particularly in African and Asia. It calls on the Government to make children a priority and says UK companies must ...

Tue, 29 Apr 08
As Clinton Seeks Gas Tax Break for Summer, Obama Says No
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=98171
New York Times: As angry truckers encircled the Capitol in a horn-blaring caravan and consumers across the country agonized over $60 fill-ups, the issue of high fuel prices flared on the campaign trail on Monday, sharply dividing the two Democratic candidates. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton lined up with Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, in endorsing a plan to suspend the federal excise tax on gasoline, 18.4 cents a gallon, for the summer travel season. But ...

Tue, 29 Apr 08
Australia splashes A$13 bln to secure water supplies
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSSYD168643
Reuters: The Australian government outlined plans to secure water supplies and repair ailing rivers on Tuesday, to protect the nation's drought-hit food bowl, which produces about A$22 billion ($21 billion) worth of food exports. The A$13 billion 10-year water plan includes A$3 billion to buy river water back from irrigators in the Murray-Darling River basin, which produces 41 percent of Australia's agriculture, as well as money to secure water for the nation's thirsty ...

Tue, 29 Apr 08
Australia: Climate change will hurt poor and elderly most
http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/climate-change-will-hurt-poor/2008/0 4/28/1209234761937.html
Sydney Morning Herald: WILD weather caused by climate change will hit Sydney's poor, elderly and least-educated hardest, according to a new study mapping the city's most vulnerable coastal regions. Of 15 council areas, Rockdale and Botany Bay were identified as the most at risk from climate change impacts, including extreme heat, rising sea levels and flash flooding. Wealthier areas, such as Woollahra, Waverley, Warringah and Mosman, were the most capable of dealing with the dramatic effects. The ...

Tue, 29 Apr 08
United States: Climate think tank created on shaky legal grounds, Legislature's attorneys say
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-institute29apr29,1,3137820.story
LA Times: California utility regulators overstepped their authority and can't force electricity and natural gas customers to pay for the recently approved $600-million global-warming think tank, according to an opinion issued Monday by the state Legislature's attorneys. The 14-page opinion was requested by Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata (D-Oakland), who disagreed with the California Public Utilities Commission's decision this month to create the California Institute for Climate Studies ...

Tue, 29 Apr 08
Floating turbines may join Norway's offshore rigs
http://www.guardian.co.uk/feedarticle?id=7490336
Reuters: Giant turbines the size of jumbo jets bobbing on the North Sea may soon become as common off Norway as oil and gas platforms. At least that is the ambition of Norwegian authorities and industry, eager to splash some green on their oily image and use their offshore expertise to corner a potentially lucrative new market -- floating wind farms in deep sea waters. Norway's government is contemplating licensing "blocks" for offshore wind generation, and Norwegian oil ...

Tue, 29 Apr 08
Monitoring Of Carbon Dioxide Will Require Global Data Collection Ten Times Larger Than Current Set Up
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080424141929.htm
Science Daily: Monitoring Earth's rising greenhouse gas levels will require a global data collection network 10 times larger than the one currently in place in order to quantify regional progress in emission reductions, according to a new research commentary by University of Colorado and NOAA researchers appearing in the April 25 issue of Science. The authors, CU-Boulder Research Associate Melinda Marquis and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientist Pieter Tans, said with atmospheric ...

Tue, 29 Apr 08
Most at risk: Study reveals Sydney's climate change 'hotspots'
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/04/29/2229801.htm
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Botany Bay and Rockdale have been identified as areas considered most vulnerable to climate change in the Sydney region. A new study by the CSIRO, the University of the Sunshine Coast, and WWF Australia, looked at the effect of rising sea levels, extreme rainfall, and storm surges across 15 areas either on the ocean front or on major estuaries The Sydney Coastal Councils Group will use the information to improve their planning and development on low-lying level areas and ...

Tue, 29 Apr 08
Preserving Arctic Fisheries Before Harvesting Them
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=preserving-arctic-fisheries-before-harv esting-them
Scientific America: In the wake of dramatically dwindling populations of salmon and other fish, U.S. officials are grappling with ways to cut their losses–and stave off future damage. Overfishing and environmental damage have decimated ocean inhabitants–and climate change threatens to hurt them even more. Just this month, the Pacific Fishery Management Council in Portland, Ore., closed the coasts of California and Oregon to salmon fishing after observing an alarming drop in the species population there, which ...

Tue, 29 Apr 08
Renewables policy under attack
http://www.smh.com.au/news/energy-smart/renewables-policy-under-attack/2008 /04/28/1209234761946.html
Sydney Morning Herald: THE nation's biggest oil and gas lobby group has attacked the Rudd Government's renewable energy policy, citing a consultant's report that says the policy will cost $1.8 billion to the economy and 3600 full-time jobs. The attack comes from the Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association, which represents some of the biggest fossil-fuel companies in Australia, including Shell, BP, Chevron, Woodside and AGL, which produce and supply almost all the country's oil and ...

Tue, 29 Apr 08
Sweden's carbon-tax solution to climate change puts it top of the green list
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/apr/29/climatechange.carbonemiss ions
Guardian: If there's a paradise for environmentalists, this Nordic nation of 9.2 million people must be it. In 2007 Sweden topped the list of countries that did the most to save the planet - for the second year running - according to German environmental group, Germanwatch. Between 1990 and 2006 Sweden cut its carbon emissions by 9%, largely exceeding the target set by the Kyoto Protocol, while enjoying economic growth of 44% in fixed prices. Under Kyoto, Sweden was even told it could increase ...

Tue, 29 Apr 08
Sydney's poor, elderly hit hardest by climate change
http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-33292520080429
Reuters: Climate change will hurt Sydney's poor and elderly the most, as many live in low-lying coastal areas vulnerable to rising sea levels and cannot afford technologies that protect them from life-threatening heatwaves. This is the conclusion of a new study, backed by the Australian government, which looked not only at the environmental factors in climate change but also at how socio-economic factors determine vulnerability. The study, by the Commonwealth Scientific & Industrial ...

Tue, 29 Apr 08
UK homes 'failing to cut energy consumption'
http://www.24dash.com/news/Housing/2008-04-29-UK-homes-failing-to-cut-energ y-use
24 Dash: UK households are failing to cut back on their energy use and remain among the highest consumers in Europe, according to research out today. Domestic energy consumption has increased by 9% since 1995 compared with a fall of 4% in the industrial sector, according to the study by management consultants Roland Berger. Figures show the amount of gas and electricity used in UK homes is 100% higher than in Sweden, and significantly greater than Italy (38%), France (40%) and Germany ...

Tue, 29 Apr 08
UN, World Bank to Coordinate Task Force Efforts in Food Crisis
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,3300141,00.html
Deutsche Welle: The United Nations, with the help of the World Bank, intends to form a task force to deal with the unprecedented rise in global food prices, the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced on Tuesday, April 29. The heads of UN agencies will be brought together to provide a coordinated response on the issue of rising food prices while the World Bank plans a rapid financing facility to help poor and fragile countries in particular and provide quicker, more flexible financing for ...

Tue, 29 Apr 08
Australia: $3bn for Murray-Darling water buyback
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23615759-5005961,00.html
Herald Sun: THE Federal Government will allocate $3 billion to buy back water from irrigators in the Murray-Darling Basin, Climate Change and Water Minister Penny Wong has announced. She also said $1.5bn in new funding would be provided to ensure cities had secure water supplies. The announcement of a revamped water plan and a new body to oversee it follows a deal with the states giving the Commonwealth control over the Murray-Darling Basin - covering an area from Queensland to South ...

Tue, 29 Apr 08
Act now to prevent climate change or rehabilitate 12.5 crore people, Greenpeace warns
http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/south-asia/act-now-to-prevent-climate-c hange-or-rehabilitate-125-crore-people-greenpeace-warns_10043268.html
Asia News International: In a dramatic action early this morning, singer Rabbi joined Greenpeace activists who have occupied "prime real estate" and set up a "migrant colony" of hutments 35 feet above the Delhi Noida toll bridge. This occupation will continue all day and will highlight the urgency of creating a National Climate Action plan (NCAP) that focuses on taking action now to prevent climate change. Indications are that the government's approach to the NCAP is to wait and deal with the nightmarish ...

Tue, 29 Apr 08
Australia to spend billions on water projects
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/latest/200804290910/bbd35b3
Radio New Zealand: Australia plans to spend just under $A13 billion on water projects over the next 10 years. The ABC reports that part of the plan is the $A10 billion Murray-Darling Basin deal recently agreed to by the states. Federal Water Minister Penny Wong says the plan, contained in next month's budget, also includes $A1.5 billion to secure urban water supplies. "This is a substantial investment, an investment that recognises that we need to deal with climate change," she ...

Tue, 29 Apr 08
Ban Ki-Moon to Chair UN Task Force on Food Crisis
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a93psqCxUq64&re fer=home
Bloomberg: United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he will chair a new UN task force to counter the effects of soaring food prices that are putting basic foods beyond the reach of the poorest people. The food crisis is an ``unprecedented challenge'' that has ``multiple effects on the most vulnerable,'' Ban told a press conference in the Swiss capital Bern today. ``We must feed the hungry,'' and ``full funding'' is needed, he said, referring to the $755 million appealed for in February ...

Tue, 29 Apr 08
Bring on the right biofuel crops
http://canberra.yourguide.com.au/news/opinion/opinion/bring-on-the-right-bi ofuel-crops/1233084.html
Canberra Times: Fads come fast and furious in our viral age, and the reactions to them can be equally ferocious. That's what we're seeing right now with biofuels, which everyone loved until everyone decided they were the worst thing since the Black Death. Where fuel distilled from plant matter was once hailed as an answer to everything from global warming to the geo-strategic power balance, it's now a scam and part of the problem, according to Time magazine. Ethanol has turned awful. The ...

Tue, 29 Apr 08
California wildfire forces mass evacuations - Summary
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/201952,california-wildfire-forces-m ass-evacuations--summary.html
Deutsche Presse-Agentur: High temperatures and strong winds hampered firefighters Monday as they tried to gain the upper hand on southern California's first major wildfire of the season. More than 1,000 residents in the town of Sierra Madre were evacuated from 400 homes in the forested foothills on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Fire crews had the blaze 23-per-cent contained Monday and prevented the 200-hectare fire from burning any homes, despite a flare-up that prevented them containing the blaze further. ...

Tue, 29 Apr 08
Australia: Canberra meeting for farmers to discuss emissions
http://www.abc.net.au/rural/news/content/200804/s2230094.htm
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: It appears farmers will be part of the Federal Government's future emissions trading scheme. That's the understanding of the NSW Farmers Association after a climate change and industry meeting in Canberra on Monday with the Agriculture and Climate Change Ministers. Association president Jock Laurie says he's confident any scheme won't damage agricultural industries. "People need to understand the government position, that there will be an emissions trading ...

Tue, 29 Apr 08
Australia: Govt wants urgent action to buy water
http://news.theage.com.au/farmers-question-focus-on-water-buybacks/20080429 -2963.html
Age: Farmers fear the federal government's $3 billion irrigation water buyback will slash food production and threaten rural communities. Water Minister Penny Wong on Tuesday announced the government would spend $3.1 billion purchasing water rights from irrigators as part of a 10-year, $13 billion plan to secure the nation's water. The Howard government's scheme to restore the Murray-Darling Basin has been rejigged to add $1.5 billion in funding for urban water initiatives which ...

Tue, 29 Apr 08
India, China should be part of climate change policy: US
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/PoliticsNation/India_China_should_parta ke_in_policy/articleshow/2993451.cms
Press Trust of India: The US has said post-Kyoto protocols to tackle climate change will not make any sense if India and China are given a "pass" and that Washington will not be a signatory to any such framework if the two Asian giants are not on board. "... the international community has got to come up with a new plan. And if we give a pass, again, to India and China, these major rapidly growing economies -- if we don't get them on, whatever measures we take are going to be totally ...

Tue, 29 Apr 08
N.Sea CO2 store at 10 million tonnes-StatoilHydro
http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssEnergyNews/idUSL2915061620080429
Reuters: A store for greenhouse gases under the seabed off Norway, the first such industrial project in the world, has stashed away 10 million tonnes since it began in 1996, operator StatoilHydro said on Tuesday. StatoilHydro said there were no signs of leaks from the porous rocks beneath the seabed at the Sleipner gas field. It was looking at the possibility of receiving carbon dioxide from other sources, including from the mainland, for injection. "Ten million tonnes of carbon ...

Tue, 29 Apr 08
Australia: Penny Wong announces $13b national water plan
http://www.livenews.com.au/Articles/2008/04/29/Penny_Wong_announces_13b_nat ional_water_plan
Live News: Plans for the Murray Darling have been officially announced at a special water summit in Sydney. The federal government has detailed to the summit the importance of securing the nation's water supply. Climate change minister Penny Wong has listed key issues including taking action servicing water supplies, supporting healthy rivers and securing existing resources. Nearly $13 billion will be spent by the government over the next decade, including about $3 billion buying ...

Tue, 29 Apr 08
Shell Examines Carbon Capture Project at Its Canadian Refinery
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601082&sid=alqIPwDUYRN4&re fer=canada
Bloomberg: Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Europe's largest oil company, said it's examining a carbon capture project at its Scotford refinery and upgrader in the Canadian province of Alberta. The company is studying a plan nicknamed ``Quest,'' which would capture carbon at the 155,000-barrel-a-day upgrader and ``transport it to a mature field for sequestration,'' Chief Financial Officer Peter Voser said today on call with reporters. ``We are looking into that and we are working on that.'' The ...

Tue, 29 Apr 08
UN chief orders task force to tackle food crisis
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hoi2sZ15pKwscBX9It0lqm51vH3A
Agence France Presse: UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday ordered a top level task force to take on the global crisis caused by rising food prices and urged key producer nations to end export bans. The UN chief said the immediate priority must be to "feed the hungry" and called for urgent funding for the World Food Programme. Ban said after a meeting of the heads of 27 key international agencies that the new task force would be led by the UN's top humanitarian official, deputy ...

Tue, 29 Apr 08
UN holds food crisis meetings
http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/news/stories/200804/s2229955.htm?tab=asia
Radio Australia: The United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, is meeting key development agencies to discuss the crisis of food and fuel prices. Ahead of the meeting in the Swiss capital Berne, Mr Ban said it's hoped the two days of UN meetings will produce a battle plan of emergency measures. It will also explore long-term measures intended to resolve the global food crisis. Attending the meetings are officials from the World Food Program, the World Bank, and the Food and ...

Tue, 29 Apr 08
Activists Opposed to Rebuilding Amazon Highways
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42158
Inter Press Service: Nearly four decades after they were first planned, three highways through the jungles and swamps of Brazil's Amazon region are being rebuilt. Neglected in the past when they became economically obsolete, they are once again a focus of environmental criticism. "BR-319 is being restored in response to demand from Amazonian communities and towns," according to Aluisio Braga, cabinet chief for the Transport Ministry and a regular advocate of the highway in public debates. ...

Tue, 29 Apr 08
Bill Gates uses 10,000 times the energy of the average American, MIT says
http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/37159/113/
TG Daily: Time to start the finger-pointing again. A class at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has begun to track the carbon footprint of different lifestyle in different nations. And the picture painted for the U.S. isn't pretty: Even the most power conscious people in this country use more than twice the energy of the average person around the world. If you are looking for people with the worst carbon footprint, look among the super-rich such as Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey, MIT ...

Tue, 29 Apr 08
Brown Scientists Say Biodiversity Is Crucial to Ecosystem Productivity
http://www.innovations-report.de/html/berichte/umwelt_naturschutz/bericht-1 08874.html
Innovations Report: In the first experiment in a natural environment, Brown University scientists have shown that greater plant diversity significantly enhances an ecosystem's productivity. The finding, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, underscores the importance of biodiversity to an ecosystem's value, such as capturing the global warming gas carbon dioxide. In the first experiment involving a natural environment, scientists at Brown University have shown that richer ...

Tue, 29 Apr 08
Climate change to hit poor children
http://www.metro.co.uk/news/climatewatch/article.html?in_article_id=145136& amp;in_page_id=59
Metro: Millions more of the world's poorest children are facing hunger, disease and death due to climate change, a UN report says today. Ten years to the day since Britain signed up to the Kyoto Protocol, Unicef warns Western governments are failing to meet targets on both poverty and climate change. Researchers called for greater focus on the risks to children, who 'face a future in which disasters, violence and disease will be more frequent'. Unicef UK executive director ...

Tue, 29 Apr 08
Peru: Disappearing Andean glaciers could affect 30 million people
http://www.livinginperu.com/news-6274-environmentnature-peru-disappearing-a ndean-glaciers-could-affect-30-million-people
Living in Peru: Over the past 27 to 35 years, twenty-two percent of the surface has been lost of the 18 currently existing mountain glaciers in Peru, says World Bank engineer Walter Vergara, in his new report, "The Impacts of Climate Change in Latin America." In his report, Vergara notes that 99 percent of the Chacaltaya glacier in Bolivia has already disappeared, explaining that 70 percent of the world's tropical glaciers are in Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador's high Andes ...

Tue, 29 Apr 08
Displacements Set To Increase
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42147
Inter Press Service: Climate change is likely to lead to an increase in conflicts and forced migrations of poor people in the south, a new report warns. Developing countries can reduce this impact by adopting preventative measures now, while international law and human rights principles need to be updated. Most so-called 'climate refugees' will be displaced both by gradual environmental degradation, slow-onset disasters such as drought, and sudden disasters such as floods or storms, while rising sea ...

Tue, 29 Apr 08
Melting Andean Glaciers Could Leave 30 Million High and Dry
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/apr2008/2008-04-28-01.asp
Environment News Service: About 99 percent of the Chacaltaya glacier in Bolivia has disappeared since 1940, says World Bank engineer Walter Vergara, in his new report, "The Impacts of Climate Change in Latin America." One of the highest glaciers in South America, Chacaltaya is one of the first glaciers to melt due to climate change. Although the glacier is over 18,000 years old, it is expected to vanish this year. "The greenhouse gases are the main driver," says Vergara. "The ...

Tue, 29 Apr 08
Poor children main victims of climate change - UN
http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-33288220080428
Reuters: Millions of the world's poorest children are among the principal victims of climate change caused by the rich developed world, a United Nations report said on Tuesday, calling for urgent action. The UNICEF report "Our Climate, Our Children, Our Responsibility" measured action on targets set in the U.N. Millennium Development Goals, aimed at halving child poverty by 2015. It found failure on counts from health to survival, education and gender equality. "It is ...

Tue, 29 Apr 08
Potent greenhouse-gas methane has been rising
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0428/p01s04-wogi.html
Christian Science Monitor: After nearly a decade of holding relatively steady, levels of methane in the atmosphere appear to be rising, and scientists are trying to find out why. The uptick is tiny, especially compared with the growth in carbon-dioxide emissions from industrial activity and land-use changes. But the shift has still raised eyebrows. Pound for pound, methane is 25 times more effective as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. So powerful is its effect that some experts have proposed that ...

Mon, 28 Apr 08
Chance Of US Drought Seen; Food Squeeze Feared
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/48129/story.htm
Reuters: The US Midwest has enjoyed nearly 20 years without a major drought but forecasters worry the corn belt's luck could dry up this year, further squeezing tight global supplies amid soaring food prices. With its last major drought in 1988, the Midwest has reached its average span of 18.6 years between droughts. Considering that statistic and current weather conditions, Iowa State University extension climatologist Elwynn Taylor said the corn belt has a one in three chance of ...

Mon, 28 Apr 08
Desertification: How to stop the shifting sands
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/04/25/es.desertification/
CNN: When a 'Yellow Dragon' roars, Beijing listens. These huge, sky-blackening dust storms sweep across Asia in March and April, bringing with them millions of tons of sand from inner Mongolia and depositing it in China and on across the Korean peninsula to Japan. During the past few years the storms have grown in ferocity and scale, and they are at the vanguard of an advancing Gobi desert that threatens more than 400 million people in the Chinese provinces of Xinjiang, Inner ...

Mon, 28 Apr 08
March warmest on record over world land surfaces
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008%5C04%5C28%5Cstory_28-4-2 008_pg6_21
Associated Press: Planet Earth continues to run a fever. Last month was the warmest March on record over land surfaces of the world and the second warmest overall worldwide. For the United States, however, it was just an average March, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported Thursday. NOAA's National Climatic Data Center said high temperatures over much of Asia pulled the worldwide land temperature up to an average of 40.8 degrees Fahrenheit (4.9 degrees Celsius), 3.2 degrees (1.8 ...

Mon, 28 Apr 08
Six years of Australian drought making it worse
http://www.deccanherald.com/Content/Apr282008/eb2008042765015.asp
New York Times: Lindsay Renwick, the mayor of this dusty southern Australian town, remembers the constant whir of the rice mill. "It was our little heartbeat out there, tickety-tick-tickety," he said, imitating the giant fans that dried the rice, "and now it has stopped." The Deniliquin mill, the largest rice mill in the Southern Hemisphere, once processed enough grain to satisfy the daily needs of 20 million people. But six long years of drought have taken a toll, reducing Australia's rice crop by ...

Mon, 28 Apr 08
Sparks fly over ethics of air travel
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0428/p13s01-wmgn.html
Christian Science Monitor: Travelers troubled by rising airfares, canceled flights, and overcrowded tarmacs are hearing yet another reason to reconsider air travel. Some say it's unethical to fly. Earlier this month, neighborhood and environmental activists staged events across Britain to dramatize concerns about commercial aviation. Donning masks of Prime Minister Gordon Brown and waving cardboard airplanes, they called on government to keep track of carbon emissions from planes and raise fees to ...

Mon, 28 Apr 08
Forestry policies should aim to fight poverty, says Asia-Pacific commission
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=98099
Jakarta Post: Delegates from the Asia Pacific ended a meeting here Saturday calling for forestry policies to focus on people-centered development to help alleviate global poverty. They said the now much-debated climate change issues had been one of the vehicles to return forestry affairs to the top of the world's agenda during the past two years. "A key recommendation from the Asia Pacific Forestry Commission (APFC) is to continue efforts to enhance community-based forest management ...

Mon, 28 Apr 08
US Environment Groups Target Senate Races On Climate
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/48132/story.htm
Reuters: US environmental groups joined forces on Thursday to target Senate candidates in Colorado, New Hampshire and New Mexico, aiming to elect a 60-vote majority to deal with global warming. Environmental measures have failed to clear Congress by "a handful of votes in the Senate" in recent years, the groups' leaders said, noting the legislation to fight climate change is set for debate by the full Senate this year. "This issue is too great for half-measures," ...

Mon, 28 Apr 08
Canada: Air travel becomes latest eco-cause
http://www.canada.com/topics/travel/story.html?id=0985e06c-a8a8-41f3-a3b1-8 98e5ad33c3e
CanWest News Service: I'm flying to Alberta next week and starting to feel more than a tad guilty about it. Not because I'm abandoning my work, loved ones and responsibilities in order to fish. I never feel guilty about fishing. No, the reason for my angst has to do with the unintended consequences of my flight, specifically, my contribution to global warming via carbon dioxide emissions. Air travel, you see, has become the latest cause celebre of the eco-set, including such august, ...

Mon, 28 Apr 08
Australia: Ban new freeways: transport
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/ban-new-freeways-transport-group/200 8/04/27/1209234656186.html
Sydney Morning Herald: AUSTRALIA must halt construction of freeways if drastic cuts in emissions from vehicles are to be achieved, a submission to the Garnaut Climate Change Review has said. The Public Transport Users Association has backed its recommendation with a document showing that expansion of freeways does nothing to alleviate congestion. Instead, the report says, new freeways encourage car use and worsen gridlock. "The existence of congestion indicates high latent demand, so an increase ...

Mon, 28 Apr 08
Belarus Rally Chides Nuclear Plan On Chernobyl Date
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/48128/story.htm
Reuters: Opposition protesters marched through the capital of Belarus on Saturday to mark the 22nd anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and denounce plans to build an atomic power station in the ex-Soviet state. Belarus was the country most affected by the world's worst nuclear accident and the anniversary is traditionally the year's biggest rally for opponents of President Alexander Lukashenko, accused in the West of violating fundamental human rights. A modest crowd of ...

Mon, 28 Apr 08
Carbon emissions may be immaterial to global warming in future
http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/india-news/carbon-emissions-may-be-imma terial-to-global-warming-in-future_10042719.html
Asia News International: While climate change and carbon emissions are considered to be strongly associated, a new study report suggests that this relationship will perhaps no longer persist in the future. The report published in BioMed Centrals open access journal Carbon Balance and Management, however, makes it clear that it may be some time before this saturation point is reached. Russian researchers Igor Mokhov and Alexey Eliseev, from the Moscow-based A.M. Obukhov Institute of Atmospheric ...

Mon, 28 Apr 08
Cars now no more efficient than '60s
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/cars-now-no-more-efficient-than-60s/200 8/04/27/1209234655207.html
Sydney Morning Herald: CARS are no more fuel-efficient today than they were in the 1960s, a transport expert says. In research for the Garnaut climate change review, Paul Mees, of Melbourne University, has used Bureau of Statistics figures to show fuel efficiency has remained practically unchanged since 1963. The average Australian car then used 11.4 litres of petrol to travel 100 kilometres. In 2006, the bureau's Survey of Motor Vehicle Use shows, it was unchanged. Dr Mees said boasts from ...

Mon, 28 Apr 08
Australia: Coalition calls for 'solar continent'
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23607840-11949,00.html
Australian: AUSTRALIA must invest far more heavily in solar power, including it as a mainstream energy source in the national grid, Opposition environment spokesman Greg Hunt has said. In a speech to be delivered to a climate change conference today, Mr Hunt will spell out the Coalition's vision for a "solar continent", in which the energy source could be stored and sold on the market like coal-generated, baseload power. "In short, we want to set Australia on a path to ...

Mon, 28 Apr 08
Australia: Extreme weather is here to stay
http://www.smh.com.au/news/water-issues/extreme-weather-is-here-to-stay/200 8/04/27/1209234655241.html
Sydney Morning Herald: SOMETHING strange is happening to our weather. Sydney has endured the most sodden school holidays in living memory, including the longest unbroken spell of April drizzle for 77 years, a month after some state capitals sweated through the worst continuous period of baking heat ever recorded. And unseasonably early snow fell in the mountains at the weekend. "The weather's been anything but normal over the last six months," said Dave Williams, a senior forecaster at the ...

Mon, 28 Apr 08
Australia: Forests 'best option' for providing carbon offsets
http://business.theage.com.au/forests-best-option-for-providing-carbon-offs ets/20080427-28ve.html
Age: AGROFORESTRY and reforestation are the best option for providing carbon offsets in the initial phase of an emissions trading system, according to Australian researchers. Soil carbon sequestration also holds potential, but more research is needed to gauge the impact of management practices on long-term changes in soil carbon, they say. The research was presented to an agriculture, greenhouse gases and emissions trading conference on the Gold Coast. The Australian Farm Institute ...

Mon, 28 Apr 08
Australia: Global warming slows weed invasion
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/04/28/2228740.htm?site=idx-tas
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Tasmanian scientists have discovered a possible benefit to global warming. In 50 years, it is expected our climate will be two degrees warmer with elevated levels of carbon dioxide. The School of Plant Science at the University of Tasmania has simulated those conditions so they can see how global warming will affect important biosystems. The seven-year study by the University of Tasmania has found climate change can slow the invasion of some types of weeds threatening ...

Mon, 28 Apr 08
Russia: Japan PM Meets Medvedev To Push Climate Plan
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/48127/story.htm
Reuters: Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda focused on a new global climate change initiative and a decades-old dispute over a group of Pacific islands when he met Russia's two leaders on Saturday. Japanese officials had said Fukuda would urge Russia to accelerate talks aimed at resolving the territorial row over the islands, a running sore in relations that has prevented the two states from signing a peace treaty ending World War Two. "We are continuing dialogue on the peace ...

Mon, 28 Apr 08
Latin America's Poorest Seek Food Price Respite
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/48124/story.htm
Reuters: Farm ministers from some of Latin America's poorest countries met on Saturday to seek a regional solution to soaring food prices that have sparked violent protests in the Caribbean. Farm ministers from Central America, Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela held talks in the Nicaraguan capital of Managua to boost corn, rice and bean production, as well as lifting output of the animal feed sorghum. Central America hopes to spend about $630 million to increase the ...

Mon, 28 Apr 08
United Kingdom: Scientists accuse tabloids of fuelling climate ignorance
http://www.inthenews.co.uk/news/science/science/scientists-accuse-tabloids- fuelling-climate-ignorance-$1220449.htm
InTheNews.co.uk: Leading scientists have accused Britain's tabloid newspapers of misrepresenting climate change issues and fuelling ignorance on the subject. Researchers say the matter is particularly worrying as consensus around human contributions to climate change has grown and the need for action has become increasingly urgent. The accusations from researchers at the University of Oxford's Environmental Change Institute follow their study of nearly 1,000 tabloid articles from the Daily ...

Mon, 28 Apr 08
US air force calls for mission to combat climate change
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/apr/28/climatechange.scienceofcl imatechange
Guardian: The US air force will this week call for the world's top scientists to come together in a 21st-century Apollo-style programme to develop greener fuels and tackle global warming. It wants universities, governments, companies and environmental groups to collaborate on a multibillion-dollar effort to work out greenhouse gas emissions of existing and future fuels. William Anderson, an assistant secretary of the air force, said the project aimed to calculate the overall carbon footprint ...

Mon, 28 Apr 08
Australia: Water trading plan 'feudal'
http://canberra.yourguide.com.au/news/opinion/opinion/water-trading-plan-fe udal/1232111.html
Canberra Times: As a result of the Water Act 2007 taking effect on March 3, 2008, the Minister for Water, Senator Penny Wong, has referred the issue of the sale of water and trading in water licences in the Murray Darling Basin to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. Submissions from interested parties have been called for. The process being entered into by the minister and the ACCC implies that there is no alternative to trading in water and that it is both desirable and ...

Mon, 28 Apr 08
How Biofuels Could Starve the Poor
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20070501faessay86305/c-ford-runge-benjamin-se nauer/how-biofuels-could-starve-the-poor.html
Foreign Affairs: Summary: Thanks to high oil prices and hefty subsidies, corn-based ethanol is now all the rage in the United States. But it takes so much supply to keep ethanol production going that the price of corn -- and those of other food staples -- is shooting up around the world. To stop this trend, and prevent even more people from going hungry, Washington must conserve more and diversify ethanol's production inputs. C. Ford Runge is Distinguished McKnight University Professor of Applied ...

Mon, 28 Apr 08
Human warming hobbles ancient climate cycle-study
http://www.guardian.co.uk/feedarticle?id=7488158
Reuters: Before humans began burning fossil fuels, there was an eons-long balance between carbon dioxide emissions and Earth's ability to absorb them, but now the planet can't keep up, scientists said on Sunday. The finding, reported in the journal Nature Geoscience, relies on ancient Antarctic ice bubbles that contain air samples going back 610,000 years. Climate scientists for the last 25 years or so have suggested that some kind of natural mechanism regulates our planet's temperature ...

Mon, 28 Apr 08
Merkel urges Germans to buy greener cars
http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssConsumerGoodsAndRetailNews/idUSL27255111 20080427
Reuters: Germans should buy more fuel-efficient cars, Chancellor Angela Merkel said, even though her government is fighting European Union efforts to force down carbon dioxide emissions. Merkel, who regularly defends Germany's powerful luxury car industry against European Commission plans to clamp down on CO2 emissions, said more efficient cars could provide an answer for two problems: higher energy prices and climate change. "We've got to use every chance available to save ...

Sun, 27 Apr 08
Asia's rainforests vanishing as timber, food demand surge: experts
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5h72gB_2XhOnj9oCJpuhMULEpCcoQ
Agence France Presse: Asia's rainforests are being rapidly destroyed, a trend accelerated by surging timber demand in booming China and India, and record food, energy and commodity prices, forest experts warn. The loss of these biodiversity hot spots, much of it driven by the illegal timber trade and the growth of oil palm, biofuel and rubber plantations, is worsening global warming, species loss and poverty, they said. Globally, tropical forest destruction "is a super crisis we are facing, ...

Sun, 27 Apr 08
India on brink of water crisis
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Earth/India_on_brink_of_water_crisis/art icleshow/2986960.cms
Times of India: The per capita water availability in India is projected to decline to about 1,140 cubic metres per year in 2050 from 1,820 cubic metres per year recorded in 2001, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has stated in a report released recently. While the figures are not new, the IPCC has put out a warning specifically on the impact on freshwater sources for the world by culling all the scientific data it has earlier assessed. The warning comes at a time when the country is already ...

Sun, 27 Apr 08
Australia: Carbon price 'to cost poor $1000pa'
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23605767-5005961,00.html
AAP: THE introduction of an emissions trading scheme (ETS) in two years could cost poor households up to $1300 a year, mainly through higher fuel costs, a report says. The research released today by the Brotherhood of St Laurence found a price on carbon would add an average $938 a year to low-income households in Victoria, or $18 a week. Assuming a carbon price of $35 a tonne and no government benefits or changed behaviour, poor rural residents would be hardest hit, with household ...

Sun, 27 Apr 08
Go for veggies to curb the perils of global climate warming
http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/india-news/go-for-veggies-to-curb-the-p erils-of-global-climate-warming-re-issue_10042551.html
Asia News International: Go for veggies if you want to do your bit to prevent greenhouse gas emissions, researchers have suggested, claiming that it is the dietary choice, not food miles, which most determines a households food-related climate impacts. With increasing focus on food milesthe distance that food travels from farm, where it is produced to the consumers plate Carnegie Mellon researchers Christopher L. Weber and H. Scott Matthews ask people to follow the age-old saying We are what we ...

Sun, 27 Apr 08
Individual versus social solutions to global warming
http://www.greenleft.org.au/2008/748/38700
Green Left: There is, by now, virtually unanimous agreement among scientists and activists, and increasingly among millions of ordinary people, about the seriousness of climate change and the time frame we have to make fundamental changes to address it. The main "solutions" being offered by the capitalist class, its politicians and the corporate-dominated mass media – and endorsed by some key peak environmental organisations – are consciously designed to shift the responsibility for, and the ...

Sun, 27 Apr 08
United States: Nobel Peace laureate Wangari Muta Maathai speaks at ecological awakening event in L.A.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-nobel27apr27,1,3379094.story
LA Times: The greeting outside Ward African Methodist Episcopal Church on Saturday was meant to send a clear message that their special guest and keynote speaker could feel at home. Wangari Muta Maathai, the founder of Kenya's Green Belt Movement and the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, received fresh bouquets of flowers as she walked to the church, down a street filled with the musical sounds of ululating women dancing to the rhythms of African drummers. In Los ...

Sun, 27 Apr 08
100 homes evacuated as Calif. wildfire burns out of control
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080427/ap_on_re_us/socal_wildfires_8
Associated Press: A wildfire in Southern California that has scorched 270 acres and forced the evacuation of about 100 homes in neighborhoods might not be under control for days, officials said Sunday. Firefighters originally had hoped to have the blaze contained Sunday, but gusting winds late Saturday night kept the fire burning out of control and creeping toward nearby homes, said Elisa Weaver of the Arcadia Fire Department. The mandatory evacuation order came shortly before 11 p.m. The fire ...

Sun, 27 Apr 08
REI explores the environmental cost of eco-tourism
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2004375890_sundayb uzz27.html?syndication=rss
Seattle Times: It's easy to see how a person might develop a deeper appreciation for Mother Nature by hiking the Alps or climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. Then again, that traveler would contribute to global warming by getting on an airplane and flying across the world. What to do? It's a question that REI, the Kent-based retailer of outdoor gear and apparel, asked itself after examining its impact on the environment. The retailer's REI Adventures unit sells vacation packages to people who ...

Sun, 27 Apr 08
'Climate change is hurting India's crops'
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Earth/Climate_change_is_hurting_Indias_c rops/articleshow/2984125.cms
Times of India: R K Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, on Friday took on the government, saying that climate change is affecting Indian agriculture unlike what 'some leaders' had claimed. His warning came while addressing MPs in a lecture organised by the Bureau of Parliamentary Studies and Training. Pachauri, who is the director-general of the Energy Resource Institute and also heads the Nobel-winning IPCC, said that studies clearly showed that agriculture would be ...

Sun, 27 Apr 08
Cities so busy planting they can't see the forest for the trees
http://www.startribune.com/nation/18299229.html
Washington Post: Spurred by visions of their cities frying in a warmer world, mayors around the nation have grasped a green solution: trees. Like Johnny Appleseed, they have vowed to sow their seeds in great profusion, promising millions of new trees in the coming years. Arbor Day, that old fusty holiday, is getting a makeover. Cities once planted trees because they were beautiful. Now trees are part of the "green infrastructure" managed by "urban foresters" to work as powerful ...

Sun, 27 Apr 08
Greenhouse gases increased sharply in 2007
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Earth/Green_gases_increased_in_2007/arti cleshow/2984984.cms
Indo-Asian News Service: Global levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, the primary driver of climate change, increased by 0.6 per cent or 19 billion tonnes last year. Additionally methane rose by 27 million tonnes after nearly a decade with little or no increase. National Oceanic And Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientists released these and other preliminary findings as part of an annual update on agency's greenhouse gas index, which tracks data from 60 sites worldwide. The burning of coal, oil ...

Sun, 27 Apr 08
Texas seeks U.S. ethanol cutbacks; cites corn costs
http://uk.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUKN2547879120080425
Reuters: Texas Gov. Rick Perry on Friday asked the U.S. government to cut "skyrocketing" food prices by waiving half of the renewable fuel standard for ethanol made from grain. The Republican governor from the oil-producing state said in a statement that such a waiver was "the best, quickest way" to ease rising food costs before lasting damage was done. "We're diversifying our state's energy portfolio at a rapid rate, but this misguided mandate is significantly ...

Sun, 27 Apr 08
The Food Chain Movable Feast Carries a Pollution Price Tag
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=97959
New York Times: Cod caught off Norway is shipped to China to be turned into filets, then shipped back to Norway for sale. Argentine lemons fill supermarket shelves on the Citrus Coast of Spain, as local lemons rot on the ground. Half of Europe's peas are grown and packaged in Kenya. In the United States, FreshDirect proclaims kiwi season has expanded to "All year!" now that Italy has become the world's leading supplier of New Zealand's national fruit, taking over in the Southern Hemisphere's winter. ...

Sun, 27 Apr 08
Canada May Add Polar Bears to Protected List as Habitat Melts
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601082&sid=aOQRAisf8w2s&re fer=canada
Bloomberg: Canadian Environment Minister John Baird said he may add polar bears to a list of animals protected under federal law, after scientific advisers said their habitat is threatened. ``It's important to act on this great iconic species,'' Baird, 38, told reporters in Ottawa today when asked about a listing. ``Canada has a special responsibility to look out for its future. I'm not interested in a two- or three-year-long process which simply punts this off to another minister.'' ...

Sun, 27 Apr 08
Canadian panel: Climate change is threat to polar bears
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jSJfwRY1EFc3c0VPEGH_mZ6lQGrwD90979204
Associated Press: A scientific committee that advises Canada's government on endangered species said Friday that climate change is a threat to the survival of the polar bear, but the species does not face extinction. The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada determined that the polar bear was a "special concern species" because evidence wasn't strong enough to recommend elevating the polar bear's status to threatened or endangered. "That's not to say that it's ...

Sun, 27 Apr 08
China in plea on 'green' technology
http://ukpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5im-Q6av-2gPlRnvQWFbMpt6LPn_g
Press Association: China has called on the international community to increase the flow of technology to developing countries to help them fight climate change. Wan Gang, minister of science and technology, said developed nations "need to establish a mechanism for technological transfer" of environmentally friendly technology so developing countries can afford them. China - which rivals the US as the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases - has pledged to raise energy efficiency ...

Sun, 27 Apr 08
United Kingdom: Congestion fee fuelling mayor race in London
http://www.thestar.com/News/World/article/418678
Toronto Star: It is a rare political contest that draws the ire of Madonna, Porsche, big bankers, radical Muslim clerics and climate-change gurus. But next Thursday's mayoral vote is shaking up London, even as it helps solidify the hot button question of road congestion charges in the British capital. If "Red Ken" Livingstone, London's famously unorthodox far-left mayor, manages to eke out victory for a third four-year term, the Labour party maverick vows to steer his city far ...

Sun, 27 Apr 08
Drought a major cause for food crisis: UN agency
http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/001200804261322.htm
Press Trust of India: Addressing the problem of drought is essential in resolving food crisis that is being faced by several countries, the United Nations agency, tasked with minimizing the threat posed by natural disasters, said on Saturday. Both drought and unsustainable water management have played a key role in the current problem, and managing drought risk is essential in finding a long-term solution to the crisis, the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR) said. Reports of ...

Sun, 27 Apr 08
Drought could mean climate change
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/state/20080426-1241-wst-southwestdrought .html
Associated Press: The Southwest's current drought could be the start of the Dust Bowl-like future that some scientists have already predicted will come from human-caused warming. Or, it could just be another in the long line of natural, cyclical droughts in this region dating back 1,000 years. But one of the nation's leading climate scientists, the University of Arizona's Nobel Prize-sharing Jonathan Overpeck, says he's coming to believe there's "a real likelihood" the drought is caused by ...

Sun, 27 Apr 08
Extreme Ocean Storms On the Rise, Tremors Show
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/04/080425-ocean-storms.html
National Geographic: Extreme ocean storms have ramped up in frequency over the past 30 years, according to new research based on small tremors. The faint tremors, called microseisms, are periodic movements of Earth's surface that can last anywhere from 5 to 30 seconds. Unlike earthquakes, which are caused by movements of Earth's tectonic plates, microseisms are created by the incessant beating of waves along the coasts. The phenomena are usually dismissed as background noise by scientists ...

Sun, 27 Apr 08
IEA warns against retreat on biofuels
http://money.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=453443
Money: Biofuel production is critical to meeting current and future fuel demand in spite of its possible role in driving up food prices, the west's energy watchdog has warned. Amid signs of a growing backlash against biofuels in the wake of the worst food price spike since the 1970s, the International Energy Agency said that the crop-based fuel was vital to meeting current and future demand. Biofuels already make up about 50 per cent of the extra fuel coming to the market from sources ...

Sun, 27 Apr 08
Malaysia, Indonesia agree to counter anti-palm oil propaganda
http://enews.mcot.net/view.php?id=3980
Bernama: Malaysia and Indonesia today agreed to carry out joint scientific research to counter anti-palm oil propaganda among Western non-governmental organisations. Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Peter Chin Fah Kui said the findings would then be tabled at international conferences as well as to the European members of parliament. This was aimed at correcting inaccuracy about palm oil which tainted the image of industry, he said. "We will present accurate ...

Sun, 27 Apr 08
Narwhals more at risk to Arctic warming than polar bears
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5j6OhKt7hhu7e6WfTgGH8mm_Sj7cQD9092AE00
Associated Press: The polar bear has become an icon of global warming vulnerability, but a new study found an Arctic mammal that may be even more at risk to climate change: the narwhal. The narwhal, a whale with a long spiral tusk that inspired the myth of the unicorn, edged out the polar bear for the ranking of most potentially vulnerable in a climate change risk analysis of Arctic marine mammals. The study was published this week in the peer-reviewed journal Ecological Applications. Polar ...

Sun, 27 Apr 08
Scientists say polar bears at risk, but threat not imminent
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5ib5O29ZKoCYf3fPUUQvJvGbSdY-g
Agence France Presse: A scientific panel Friday urged Canada to act to safeguard the Canadian polar bear, which it recommended designating as a species "of special concern" but not one imminently threatened with extinction. The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) "has reassessed the polar bear as a species of special concern ... a species at risk in Canada ... (and) in trouble," said panel chairman Jeffrey Hutchings. "This is a species that is ...

Sun, 27 Apr 08
United Kingdom: Sting - Styler Defends Huge Carbon Footprint
http://www.contactmusic.com/news.nsf/article/styler%20defends%20huge%20carb on%20footprint_1066914
Contact Music: STING's wife TRUDIE STYLER has conceded to allegations the couple is "hypocritical" in their stance on global warming, but insists her husband's tour with THE POLICE is to blame for their huge carbon footprint. Sting - real name Gordon Sumner - and Styler have long been criticised for claiming they are eco-friendly, despite using private jets to fly between their numerous homes in England and Italy. But Styler was forced to face the facts during an interview in London ...

Sun, 27 Apr 08
Study: Bio-plastic goods not eco-friendly
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Science/2008/04/26/study_bio-plastic_goods_not _eco-friendly/9284/
United Press International: Bio-plastic goods can still damage the environment by emitting gases that can impact climate change, a study by a British newspaper found. The Guardian reported Saturday that its study determined the plant-based goods being embraced by supermarkets worldwide can cause environmental problems and add to the world's food crisis. The replacements for oil-based plastic goods have been found to increase greenhouse gas emissions when placed in landfills, the British newspaper ...

Sun, 27 Apr 08
World Bank Carbon Plan 'A Protection Racket'
http://us.oneworld.net/article/view/160150/1/3319
OneWorld UK: A World Bank-backed carbon-reduction programme in which concessional loans would be offered to developing country governments was compared to a "protection racket" by Friends of the Earth director Tony Juniper at a meeting in London at the weekend. He said it would be like smashing the windows of a car and then demanding money to stop further damage. "A deep injustice in the development model is being put together," he said of the plan. Speaking at a meeting called to ...

Sun, 27 Apr 08
Canada panel declines to say polar bear threatened
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN25336919
Reuters: The polar bear, a symbol of Canada's far north as well as the effects of climate change on the sensitive Arctic environment, is in trouble, but it is not endangered or threatened with extinction, a Canadian advisory panel said on Friday. The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada gave the the polar bear its weakest classification, that of "special concern", but the Canadian government would nonetheless have to develop a management plan to protect the ...

Sun, 27 Apr 08
Japan PM to push G8 climate agenda on Russia visit
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSNL25667332
Reuters: Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda will seek Moscow's support for a new global initiative to curb greenhouse gases on Saturday when he has his first meeting with Russia's outgoing and incoming presidents. Japanese officials said a territorial dispute over four islands in the Pacific -- a running sore in relations since World War Two -- will be touched on only briefly. Japan will host this year's Group of Eight summit on its northern island of Hokkaido and has placed finding a ...

Sun, 27 Apr 08
Japanese PM meets Russia's leaders to discuss G-8 climate initiatives
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/04/26/europe/EU-GEN-Russia-Japan.php
Associated Press: Japan's leader met with Russia's outgoing and incoming presidents Saturday, seeking Moscow's support for global environmental initiatives before the Group of Eight summit. Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda discussed Japan's initiatives against global warming, as well as ways of mending ties with Russia, during his meetings with President Vladimir Putin and his president-elect Dmitry Medvedev. At the opening of talks, Putin said: "In the last two or three years, we managed to ...

Sun, 27 Apr 08
Kansas Supreme Court puts coal-plant cases on hold
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/fn/5731112.html
Associated Press: The state's highest court has put on hold indefinitely its review of a regulator's decision blocking two coal-fired power plants in southwest Kansas. The Supreme Court plans to wait until legal challenges to the decision are considered first in district court and in administrative hearings involving the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. Sunflower Electric Power Corp. wants to build the two plants outside Holcomb, in Finney County. It applied for an air-quality permit ...

Sun, 27 Apr 08
Polar bears 'at risk' in Canada
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7368484.stm
BBC: Polar bears in Canada are at risk from climate change but not threatened with extinction, a panel of experts has advised the Canadian government. The government should develop a plan to protect the country's estimated 15,000 polar bears, the panel said. The plight of the polar bear has long concerned environmentalists. The animals face loss of habitat on two fronts, the panel said - hunting, and melting ice in the Arctic, which is widely blamed on climate change. ...

Sun, 27 Apr 08
Vietnam manages forests to deflect climate change
http://www.nhandan.com.vn/english/life/260408/life_v.htm
Nhan Dan: In an effort to fight climate change, Vietnam will continue to work to increase forest coverage and importantly, ensure the quality of forest, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) said on April 23. Apart from boosting preservation of biodiversity, Vietnam will strengthen silvicultural methodology, said Deputy Director of International Cooperation Department under the MARD, Tran Kim Long, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Forestry Week and the 22nd session of the ...

Sun, 27 Apr 08
Arctic Getting "Wetter" Due to Human-Driven Warming
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/04/080425-wet-arctic.html
National Geographic: In addition to heating up faster than almost anywhere else on the planet, the Arctic has gotten wetter and snowier because of global warming, according to a new study. The extra precipitation could freshen ocean water in the Arctic and North Atlantic, researchers say, which might disrupt the so-called ocean conveyor belt, a current that runs through the Atlantic and carries warm water northward from the Equator. The new study is the first to show that changes in precipitation ...

Sun, 27 Apr 08
United Kingdom: Green giants: Our love affair with trees
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/green-giants-our-love-affai r-with-trees-815329.html
Independent: On the way to work tomorrow, as you hurry, head bowed, to the crowded bus-stop or station, or pause in the car at the red traffic light, feeling your blood pressure start to mount as you see that, on the other side of the junction, the traffic still isn't moving, do yourself a massive favour: look up. What may swim into your line of sight is greenery. We've been without it for five months, do you realise? And now it's back. Those things called trees, those tall roadside posts that for ...

Sun, 27 Apr 08
Chile: Environmentalists Withdraw Backing from Government
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42137
Inter Press Service: Twenty-three environmental groups in Chile withdrew their support from President Michelle Bachelet, complaining that she had failed to live up to an agreement they had signed with her during her election campaign. They also accused the centre-left government of persecution against the environmental movement. Environmentalists "have the right to take the decisions that they please," government spokesman Francisco Vidal told foreign journalists Friday. "But this ...

Sat, 26 Apr 08
China: Food prices dim biofuel glow
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/JD26Dj03.html
Asia Times: Studies debunking the environmental benefits of ethanol have made little impression in China, which is betting on biofuels as the green answer to coal and oil to help clear its increasingly smog-filled skies. But economic realities of surging food prices and global inflation are beginning to disturb the ethanol dream. Prices for cassava and other non-grain feedstock promoted in China as a safe alternative to the conversion of precious corn into ethanol fuel are quickly rising. ...

Sat, 26 Apr 08
Biodiversity significantly enhances ecosystem's productivity
http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/health/biodiversity-significantly-enhan ces-ecosystems-productivity_10041886.html
Asia News International: A new study, conducted by scientists at the Brown University , has shown that more plant diversity notably enhances an ecosystem's productivity. The scientists, who conducted the first experiment in a natural environment, say that their finding highlight the significance of biodiversity to an ecosystems value, such as capturing the global warming gas carbon dioxide. Researchers including Osvaldo Sala, director of the Environmental Change Initiative said that the results ...

Sat, 26 Apr 08
China to tie up with Chicago carbon emissions bourse
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hSJMdnpUiXOwJvD8b22yRKiiW49Q
Agence France Presse: China will join up with the US Chicago Climate Exchange to establish a carbon emission market in the city of Tianjin near Beijing, state media reported Friday. Tianjin authorities, oil giant PetroChina and the Chicago Climate Exchange will sign an agreement for the exchange, the first in the nation, as early as this month, the 21st Century Business Herald reported, citing unnamed sources. The exchange, part of government plan to develop the Binhai New Area in Tianjin, will ...

Sat, 26 Apr 08
British temperature climbs to hottest this year
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/25/nweather125 .xml
Telegraph: Britain is expected to bask in Mediterranean warm weather on Saturday as temperatures climb to their hottest so far this year - but the long-awaited appearance of the sun is sadly only a blip in the gloomy weather. Forecasters say a warm wave drifting up from Spain have helped temperatures climb as far as 70F (21C) in East Anglia, the Midlands and the south coast, making it feel more like June than April. The hottest it has been so far this year is a springlike 67F (19.5C) ...

Sat, 26 Apr 08
Climate 'fix' could deplete ozone
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7365793.stm
BBC: Research has cast new doubt on the wisdom of using Sun-blocking sulphate particles to cool the planet. Sulphate injections are one of several "geo-engineering" solutions to climate change being discussed by scientists. But data published in Science journal suggests the strategy would lead to drastic thinning of the ozone layer. This would delay the recovery of the Antarctic ozone hole by decades, and cause significant ozone loss over the Arctic, say US ...

Sat, 26 Apr 08
Canada: Climate change and forest fires
http://www.saultstar.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1001464
Sault Star: Forest fires are a significant, natural and necessary element of Canada's boreal forest, yet when they threaten our values, such as our communities and timber resources, they become unwanted and we try to limit their extent through suppression activities. Fire's occurrence, spread and suppression are strongly linked with day-to-day weather. The changing climate will cause many complex effects throughout the world, increasing temperatures, changing precipitation amounts and frequencies, and ...

Sat, 26 Apr 08
Hunger Plagues Haiti and the World
http://atlanticfreepress.com/content/view/3773/32/
Atlantic Free Press: Consumers in rich countries feel it in supermarkets but in the world's poorest ones people are starving. The reason - soaring food prices, and it's triggered riots around the world in places like Mexico, Indonesia, Yemen, the Philippines, Cambodia, Morocco, Senegal, Uzbekistan, Guinea, Mauritania, Egypt, Cameroon, Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Peru, Bolivia and Haiti that was once nearly food self-sufficient but now relies on imports for most of its supply and (like other ...

Sat, 26 Apr 08
India: Malaria epidemic likely due to climate change
http://www.ibnlive.com/news/malaria-epidemic-likely-due-to-climate-change/6 3933-17.html
CNN-IBN: Malaria kills over a million people around the world each year. Children in Africa are the worst sufferers. With one death reported every 30 seconds, they account for nearly 75 per cent of all global deaths from the disease. Back home in India, the situation is no less grim. Unofficial reports put the number of annual deaths to 30,000, but with rising temperatures, the death rate will only shoot up. Director, National Institute of Malaria, Professor A P Dash says, "Places ...

Sat, 26 Apr 08
UN body chief bats for India on climate change
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/PoliticsNation/UN_body_chief_bats_ for_India_on_climate_change/articleshow/2981322.cms
Indo-Asian News Service: Backing India's position in climate change negotiations, Georg Kell, executive director of the UN body Global Compact, has said emerging markets should be allowed to have the same standards of living as developed nations. "You can't deny emerging markets the right to the same living standards as OECD countries," says Kell, the first head of a UN body to publicly back India's position on the issue. The chief of the New York-based body that is the UN's interface with ...

Sat, 26 Apr 08
World focus back on malaria
http://southasia.oneworld.net/article/view/160125/1/
OneWorld South Asia: Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will announce a global initiative Friday that steps up the fight against malaria – seeking to eventually wipe out a tropical scourge blamed for killing a million people a year. In a video message for a World Malaria Day event at UN headquarters, Ban said the initiative would offer indoor spraying and bed nets treated with long-lasting insecticide "to all people at risk, especially women and children in Africa." It will also ensure that ...

Sat, 26 Apr 08
Arctic is thawing faster than expected, report says
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080425.CLIMATE25/TPStory /National
Canadian Press: Differences in everything from sea ice to permafrost show the Arctic climate is changing even more rapidly than scientists had predicted, says a new summary of the most recent research. The report, produced for the World Wildlife Fund and presented this week to the Arctic Council, adds that there could be factors contributing to climate change that were not even considered until recently. "What we see out there happening is already a much stronger response than any of the ...

Sat, 26 Apr 08
India spent 410 mln rupees on alternative fuel research
http://in.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idINIndia-33239520080425
Reuters: India has spent about 410 million rupees on research and development on alternative fuels during the last three years, junior minister for new and renewable energy, Vilas Muttemwar, said on Friday. The ministry has been given the responsibility for preparing the national policy on bio-fuels and setting up of a National Bio-fuel Development Board, he told lawmakers in the lower house of parliament, an official statement said. The draft policy, aims at promoting the cultivation, ...

Sat, 26 Apr 08
Maryland considers exemptions from carbon-credit auction
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/politics/bal-md.environment25apr25,0 ,5951495.story
Baltimore Sun: Maryland regulators are considering exemptions for a proposed Calvert County power plant and other generators from a regional auction of carbon credits that is designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The idea of granting free carbon credits to potential polluters had rankled some environmentalists and state lawmakers, but Maryland's projected energy shortage is so acute that many now support the idea as a way to get new electricity online and to head off potential rolling ...

Sat, 26 Apr 08
NTR buys stake in U.S. wind power firm, shuts unit
http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssTechMediaTelecomNews/idUSL25799187200804 25
Reuters: Irish renewable energy and waste management company NTR Plc has bought a controlling stake in American wind energy developer Wind Capital Group (WCG) for an investment of $150 million, it said. "NTR has also signed an agreement for the supply of 150 megawatts of GE (GE.N: Quote, Profile, Research) wind turbines on behalf of WCG for delivery in 2010 to accelerate the build out of WCG's portfolio of development projects," NTR said in a statement late on ...

Sat, 26 Apr 08
The slippery politics of carbon emissions
http://money.uk.msn.com/investing/articles/nicklouth/article.aspx?cp-docume ntid=8169916
MSN: More than 15,000 journalists, lobbyists, reporters and technicians from 180 countries descended on the Indonesian Island of Bali in December, and in a week-long orgy of first-class flights, air-conditioning and limousine travel emitted about as much carbon dioxide as a country like Malawi produces in a year. What were they there to do? It was a United Nations conference to discuss ways of lowering the world's carbon emissions. The organisation was rightly pilloried for this ...

Fri, 25 Apr 08
Carbon output goes off the chart
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/carbon-output-goes-off-the-chart/2008/04/2 4/1208743154045.html
Sydney Morning Herald: TWO KEY greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere rose sharply last year, and carbon dioxide levels this year are showing an alarming increase, the US Government has reported. In its annual index of greenhouse gas emissions, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found atmospheric carbon dioxide, the primary driver of global climate change, rose 0.6 per cent, or 19 billion tonnes, last year. The amount of methane rose 0.5 per cent, or 27 million tonnes, after ...

Fri, 25 Apr 08
Australia: Carbon tax adds 10c a litre to petrol
http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/carbon-tax-adds-10c-a-litre-to-petro l/2008/04/24/1208743154230.html
Sydney Morning Herald: THE country's largest oil refiner, Caltex, has stepped up its calls for the Federal Government to quarantine motorists from its proposed carbon-trading scheme, warning it could add an extra $1.4 billion or 10 cents a litre to the nation's fuel bill each year. In an abrupt U-turn on the 10-cents-a-litre carbon tax the refiner advocated several weeks ago, Caltex yesterday said the Government should "not impose a carbon cost on motorists". With unleaded fuel prices ...

Fri, 25 Apr 08
Panic as global food crisis reaches America
http://www.hindu.com/2008/04/25/stories/2008042556221800.htm
Hindu: The global food crisis reached the U.S. on Wednesday as big retailers began rationing sales of rice in response to bulk purchases by customers alarmed by rocketing prices of staple foods. Wal-Mart's cash and carry division, Sam's Club, announced it would sell a maximum of four bags of rice a person to prevent supplies from running short. Its decision followed sporadic caps placed on purchases of rice and flour by some store managers at a rival bulk chain, Costco, in parts of ...

Fri, 25 Apr 08
Humans had brush with extinction: Study
http://livenews.com.au/Articles/2008/04/25/Humans_had_brush_with_extinction _Study
AAP: A new genetic study suggests human beings may have had a brush with extinction 70 thousand years ago. The study says number of early humans may have shrunk as low as two-thousand before numbers began to expand again in the early Stone Age. Spencer Wells, a National Geographic Society explorer in residence says the study illustrates the extraordinary power of genetics to reveal insights into some of the key events in our species. "What could have led to that drop in ...

Fri, 25 Apr 08
Climate quick fix could destroy ozone layer
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/1953
Cosmos: A plan to inject sulphate aerosols into the stratosphere, as a quick fix to counteract global warming, may drastically increase Arctic ozone depletion and slow the recovery of the Antarctic ozone hole, researchers warn. A number of 'geoengineering' schemes have been proposed in recent years as possible ways for us to deflect the Sun's heat or reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Infeasible and costly Examples include positioning giant mirrors in orbit ...

Fri, 25 Apr 08
United States: 3 developers interested in offshore wind farms on Lake Michigan
http://www.startribune.com/local/18105924.html
Associated Press: Three developers are interested in building hundreds of wind turbines offshore on Lake Michigan, the state said. The developers have concepts but they haven't submitted formal plans, said Steve Ugoretz, lead wind energy analyst with the Department of Natural Resources. The projects are being discussed as a study group of the Public Service Commission, state Department of Natural Resources and the Board of Commissioners of Public Lands looks at offshore generation in Lake ...

Fri, 25 Apr 08
After Near Extinction, Humans Split Into Isolated Bands
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/04/080424-humans-extinct.html
National Geographic: After nearly going extinct 150,000 years ago, humankind split into small groups–living in isolation for nearly a hundred thousand years before "reuniting" and migrating out of Africa, a new gene study says. At one point our species may have been down to as few as 2,000 individuals, probably due to climate change–a longstanding theory bolstered by the new findings. The research fills a gap in our understanding of what was happening in Africa before humans first left ...

Fri, 25 Apr 08
China will go further in climate change talks, UN official says
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5ghMYOnPwBtI_pLXsna-KhdwyUypg
Agence France Presse: The impact of climate change on China's environment will likely lead Beijing to make greater concessions in negotiations on a new global warming pact, a senior UN official said Thursday. But developed nations must also put forward more equitable positions if talks for the new pact to replace the Kyoto Protocol can be finalised by next year, argued Yvo de Boer, the UN's top official on climate change. "I've seen major changes in Chinese policies on climate change in recent ...

Fri, 25 Apr 08
Philippines: Climate change to aggravate food crisis: PAGASA official
http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/storypage.aspx?StoryId=116062
ABS CBN: Changing weather patterns as a result of climate change could lower agricultural production in the Philippines and aggravate rising food prices, an official of weather bureau PAGASA said Thursday. Lourdes Tibig, chief of the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) climate data section, said the increase in greenhouse gases, which then affects weather patterns, is already having an effect on crop yields in some parts of the country. ...

Fri, 25 Apr 08
Global warming fix could damage ozone
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml= /earth/2008/04/24/sciatmos124.xml
Telegraph: A climate "fix" to curb global warming would have a serious side effect, damaging the Earth's protective ozone shield. Scientists have put forward several proposals to reduce the amount of sunlight that reaches the planet's surface, including the use of light-reflecting sulphate particles in the atmosphere and putting mirrors in orbit around the planet. But there have been warnings that using these radical "geoengineering" techniques to cool our overheated planet could well ...

Fri, 25 Apr 08
Greenhouse gas levels rose in 2007: US agency
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hWQzGPVOi1jaokoAG24HLH2tU61w
Agence France Presse: Global greenhouse gas emissions including main offender carbon dioxide rose in 2007 despite efforts to curb them, a US government agency said. Atmospheric CO2 increased by 0.6 percent or 19 billion tonnes over 2006 levels, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said in preliminary data from its annual update to its greenhouse gas index. "Viewed another way, last year's carbon dioxide increase means 2.4 molecules of the gas were added to every million ...

Fri, 25 Apr 08
Hints of methane's renewed rise
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7364679.stm
BBC: Levels of the greenhouse gas methane in the atmosphere seem to be rising having remained stable for nearly 10 years. Data from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) in the US suggest concentrations rose by about 0.5% between 2006 and 2007. The rise could reflect melting of permafrost, increased industrialisation in Asia or drying of tropical wetlands. The rise in carbon dioxide levels was significantly higher than the average annual increase ...

Fri, 25 Apr 08
How to End the Global Food Shortage
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1734834,00.html
Time Magazine: The world economy has run into a brick wall. Despite countless warnings in recent years about the need to address a looming hunger crisis in poor countries and a looming energy crisis worldwide, world leaders failed to think ahead. The result is a global food crisis. Wheat, corn and rice prices have more than doubled in the past two years, and oil prices have more than tripled since the start of 2004. These food-price increases combined with soaring energy costs will slow if not stop ...

Fri, 25 Apr 08
Parched US states could start water wars: experts
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080424/water_wars_080 424/20080424?hub=SciTech
Canadian Press: Parched U.S. states could start "water wars" in the years ahead and fight for access to Great Lakes resources as they become more desperate to meet growing needs, Canadian and American experts said Wednesday at a water conference. Southwestern U.S. states are already concerned about dwindling water resources, and the impacts of climate change are exacerbating their problems, said Environment Canada's Linda Mortsch, who worked on the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel ...

Fri, 25 Apr 08
Pine Beetles May Affect Climate Change - Study
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/48108/story.htm
Reuters: Mountain pine beetles that are destroying forests along much of the Rocky Mountain range are doing so much damage that they may affect climate change, Canadian researchers reported on Wednesday. The damage is nearly equivalent to the polluting effects of forest fires, they report in the journal Nature. "In the worst year, the impacts resulting from the beetle outbreak in British Columbia were equivalent to 75 percent of the average annual direct forest fire emissions ...

Fri, 25 Apr 08
Run on rice makes its way to U.S.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-rice24apr24,1,3902221.story
LA Times: The global run on food that has led to shortages and riots in Egypt, Haiti and other nations has made its way to U.S. shores. Concerned about rising prices and limited supplies of staples such as rice and flour, customers across the country have been cleaning out the shelves at big-box retailers, including Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s Sam's Club and Costco Wholesale Corp. stores. On Wednesday, Sam's Club said customers would no longer be allowed to purchase more than four bags of ...

Fri, 25 Apr 08
Survey Finds Bush Administration Interfering with EPA Scientists
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/apr2008/2008-04-24-10.asp
Environment News Service: The Bush administration has frequently meddled with scientists at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, according to a survey released today by a scientific advocacy group. The Union of Concerned Scientists reports that nearly two-thirds of the 1,586 staff EPA scientists who responded to a questionnaire complained of recent political interference with their work. The reported interference is greatest in offices where scientists write regulations and conduct risk ...

Fri, 25 Apr 08
US Environment Scientists Report Political Meddling
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/48113/story.htm
Reuters: Nearly 900 scientists at the US Environmental Protection Agency have experienced political interference in their work in the last five years, the Union of Concerned Scientists reported on Wednesday. The non-profit environmental organisation said its investigation of EPA was in line with previous probes of other US agencies which found "significant administration manipulation of federal science." A government spokesman denied this, and said scientific findings were ...

Fri, 25 Apr 08
South Africa: 'Demand for meat, biofuels main culprits'
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=139&art_id=vn20080 424091957493C545094
Daily News: The demand for agricultural products to produce biofuels is partly to blame for soaring food prices worldwide, but many other factors play a part. One of the other major factors affecting prices is the rising standard of living in the Far East, countries such as China and India, which has led to an increased consumption of meat and growing demand for animal feeds. The demand for feeds has pushed up the price of grains, the staple food of people in many countries. This ...

Fri, 25 Apr 08
A Hard Rain Is Gonna Fall
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42111
Inter Press Service: Having been hit by three hurricanes and 25 tropical storms in less than 10 years, Nicaragua is looking ahead to the next rainy season, due to begin in May, with wariness and trepidation. The government is alarmed by forecasts of an active cyclone season ahead. Colorado State University in the United States has forecast that during the North Atlantic hurricane season from June to November this year, there will probably be 15 named tropical storms, eight of which will become ...

Fri, 25 Apr 08
Allergies, Asthma on the Rise in Asia
http://www.voanews.com/english/2008-04-24-voa23.cfm
Voice of America: Adopting modern lifestyles, urbanization and even climate change are among some of the factors being blamed for an alarming rise in asthma in Asia. From New Delhi, VOA Correspondent Steve Herman has a preview of an upcoming first-of-its-kind medical report that details the seriousness of the problem. The prevalence of allergic diseases in Asia is nothing to sneeze at. The World Allergy Organization is preparing to release its first ever global study, the "State of the World ...

Fri, 25 Apr 08
Analysis: Energy's water demands worrisome
http://www.upi.com/International_Security/Energy/Analysis/2008/04/24/analys is_energys_water_demands_worrisome/5920/
United Press International: Add another requirement to the clean-energy checklist: low water usage. Two Virginia Tech researchers released a study this week examining the water-use requirements for 11 different energy sources, ranking them in terms of efficiency. One of the most important aspects of the study was to raise awareness of the role water plays in energy production, said Rachelle Hill, a recent Virginia Tech graduate who co-authored the study. "We need to do more research and really ...

Fri, 25 Apr 08
Arctic Ice Melting Faster Than Anticipated - WWF
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/48107/story.htm
Reuters: Arctic ice may be melting faster than most climate change science has concluded, the conservation group WWF said in a report published on Thursday. It found that ice in Greenland and across the Arctic region was retreating "at rates significantly faster than predicted in previous expert assessments". The Greenland Ice Sheet -- with an ice volume of about 2.9 million cubic kilometres -- is shrinking at a fast pace and "could contribute much more than previously ...

Fri, 25 Apr 08
Artificially cooling Earth may prove perilous: study
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gVrzr6O-TXzZjTxhlskoDd08EpLA
Agence France Presse: Radical proposals to inject sulfur particles into the Earth's stratosphere to cool it down and battle global warming could instead badly damage the ozone layer, a study warned Thursday. "Our research indicates that trying to artificially cool off the planet could have perilous side effects," said researcher Simone Tilmes from the National Center for Atmospheric Research. "While climate change is a major threat, more research is required before society attempts ...

Fri, 25 Apr 08
China seen committing to environmental targets; seeking technology transfer - UN
http://www.forbes.com/afxnewslimited/feeds/afx/2008/04/24/afx4927182.html
Thomson Financial: China will offer to commit to environmental targets in the current round of climate change negotiations, in exchange for technology transfer from developed countries, according to the head of the United Nations secretariat on climate change. China is seeking technology from developed countries that will help it deal with global warming and reduce carbon emissions, Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN's Framework on Climate Change, said. Speaking at a news briefing here, ...

Fri, 25 Apr 08
Climate change could lead to another war: study
http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/008200804241840.htm
Press Trust of India: Climate change could cause global conflicts as large as the two world wars and last for centuries unless adequate measures are taken to deal with it, a leading defence think thank has said. A ten-fold increase in research spending, comparable to the amount spent on the Apollo space programme, will be required if the world is to avoid the worst effects of changing temperatures, the Royal United Services Institute said in a report. Conflicts across the globe due to the climate ...

Fri, 25 Apr 08
Global Warming Is Affecting Arctic Faster, WWF Says
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601082&sid=afoaNpuF4BcM&re fer=canada
Bloomberg: Global warming is hitting the Arctic harder and faster than scientists expected, causing unforeseen changes to the frigid region's ice, wildlife, atmosphere and oceans, the conservation group WWF said. The most prominent differences observed over the last three years include a ``massively accelerated'' decline in summer sea ice and ``much greater'' shrinking of the Greenland Ice Sheet, the environmental campaign group, known in the U.S. as the World Wildlife Fund, said in a 123-page ...

Fri, 25 Apr 08
Group says wind energy an economic boon in Ohio
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/fn/5727020.html
Associated Press: Environmental advocates are seeing dollar signs in the hundreds of windmills they envision sprouting on the Ohio landscape, thanks to the commitment to renewable resources in the state's new energy plan. Gov. Ted Strickland proposed that Ohio utilities be required to have 12.5 percent of their total power portfolio come from renewable resources, such as wind, solar and water, by 2025. The House version of Strickland's bill spells out the percentages each utility must achieve each ...

Fri, 25 Apr 08
Hardiness Zone Maps Shifting With Climate
http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/hardiness-zone-map-4 7042401
Daily Green: You can grow Southern magnolia in Pennsylvania and kiwis in Oklahoma, but you wouldn't know that from the USDA's old hardiness zone map that gardeners use to plan their plantings, as USA Today details. They haven't been updated since 1990, and the past two decades have been marked by increasingly obvious climate changes. In 2006, the Arbor Day Foundation took it upon itself to update those hardiness zone maps, and the results were shocking in their breadth, even if many gardeners had ...

Fri, 25 Apr 08
China: High on Ethanol Despite Rising Food Prices
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42108
Inter Press Service: Studies debunking the environmental benefits of ethanol have made little impression in this country, which is betting on bio-fuels as the green answer to coal and oil to help clear its increasingly smog-filled skies. But even as the ethanol dream survives unscathed, economic realities of surging food prices and global inflation are beginning to bite. Prices for non-grain feedstock as cassava promoted here as a safe alternative to the conversion of precious corn into ethanol ...

Fri, 25 Apr 08
Indigenous Leader Warns of Effects of Climate Change
http://www.voanews.com/english/Africa/2008-04-24-voa27.cfm
Voice of America: In New York, the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues is holding a meeting this week – the first since the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was finalized last September. One of those addressing the forum today is Kiplangat Cheruyot, a leader of Kenya's Ogiek people. The Ogiek live mostly in the Mau Forest overlooking the Rift Valley and are among the few remaining hunter-gatherers in East Africa. From New York, he spoke to VOA English to Africa Service reporter ...

Fri, 25 Apr 08
Jeb Bush: Climate change proponents = religious zealots
http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/green/greenblog/2008/04/jeb_bush_climate_ch ange_propon.html?p1=Well_MostPop_Emailed7
Boston Globe: Chill out on climate change, Jeb Bush says. In comments that have stirred the blogosphere, President Bush's little brother said yesterday that those who advocate action to limit climate change are acting out of something like religious zeal. "I don't think our policies should be based on emotion; they should be based on sound science," The Associated Press quoted him as saying. Jeb Bush's comments stand in contrast to those of Charlie Crist, his successor as Florida ...

Fri, 25 Apr 08
United States: Local officials lag on preparedness for climate-created crises
http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/888915.html
Sacramento Bee: While California leads the nation's charge against global warming pollution, local health officials lag on preparedness for the expected fallout of more frequent and more severe heat waves, bad air days and disease epidemics. Sacramento County officials interviewed Thursday said they have yet to define their roles as first responders to climate-related illnesses and deaths. "We are starting the gather the data on what to expect and how to respond," said Val Siebal, ...

Fri, 25 Apr 08
Ozone hole recovery may reshape southern hemisphere climate change
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-04/uoca-ohr042408.php
EurekAlert: A full recovery of the stratospheric ozone hole could modify climate change in the Southern Hemisphere and even amplify Antarctic warming, according to scientists from the University of Colorado at Boulder, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA. While Earth's average surface temperatures have been increasing, the interior of Antarctica has exhibited a unique cooling trend during the austral summer and fall caused by ozone depletion, said Judith Perlwitz of the ...

Fri, 25 Apr 08
Plan to reverse global warming could backfire
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSN2435161220080424
Reuters: proposed solution to reverse the effects of global warming by spraying sulfate particles into Earth's stratosphere could make matters much worse, climate researchers said on Thursday. They said trying to cool off the planet by creating a kind of artificial sun block would delay the recovery of the Antarctic ozone hole by 30 to 70 years and create a new loss of Earth's protective ozone layer over the Arctic. "What our study shows is if you actually put a lot of sulfur ...

Fri, 25 Apr 08
Canada: Province bans clothesline bans
http://www.insidetoronto.com/news/parkdale/news/article/46476
Inside Toronto: The province of Ontario and Toronto Hydro have partnered to ensure that clean clothes do not preclude green practices. Premier Dalton McGuinty dropped by the Toronto Hydro offices near Yonge and Carlton streets last Friday to announce an end to restrictions preventing some Ontarians from using outdoor clotheslines. Toronto Hydro met the announcement by announcing their own Take A Load Off Toronto program, which will see 75,000 free retractable clotheslines distributed at select stores ...

Fri, 25 Apr 08
Scientist says New Zealand's biggest glacier shrinking
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gYkvL5d73RMikT3tBJ76iutvTlOgD908GDLG2
Associated Press: New Zealand's biggest glacier is melting at its fastest pace in recent history, a scientist said Thursday. The Tasman Glacier on South Island was 18 miles long in 1990, with virtually no lake at its front edge, Massey University glacier expert Martin Brook said. New measurements last week showed the glacier was 14 miles long, he said. Meanwhile, a lake that has formed next to the glacier is now 4.4 miles long, 1.2 miles wide and 800 feet deep, he said. Despite global ...

Fri, 25 Apr 08
Scientist slams spread of climate change 'misinformation'
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/04/24/2227109.htm?section=australia
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: A leading climate change scientist says there is too much misinformation being spread about the theory. Professor Barry Brook from the University of Adelaide says those who deny climate change often have ulterior motives. He has published an article calling for scientists to step up and support the research being done in the field. Professor Brook says it can take just a few minutes for popular opinion to undermine years of scientific research. "Anyone can ...

Fri, 25 Apr 08
Scientist: New Zealand's biggest glacier shrinking fast
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/04/24/asia/AS-GEN-New-Zealand-Melting-G lacier.php
Associated Press: New Zealand's biggest glacier is melting at its fastest pace in recent history, a scientist said Thursday. The Tasman Glacier on South Island was 29 kilometers (18 miles) long in 1990, with virtually no lake at its front edge, Massey University glacier expert Martin Brook said. New measurements last week showed the glacier was 22 kilometers (14 miles) long, he said. Meanwhile, a lake that has formed next to the glacier is now seven kilometers (4.4 miles) long, two ...

Fri, 25 Apr 08
Sun Cycles Not Key To Recent Global Warming - Expert
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/48111/story.htm
Reuters: Satellite data show that changes in the sun are contributing to global warming but to a smaller extent than human activity, a space scientist at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington told a group of petroleum geologists Wednesday. "The sun is playing a role that you can detect, but it's not the dominant role," Judith Lean told a crowded session at the 2008 convention of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists in San Antonio. Climate-change sceptics ...

Fri, 25 Apr 08
Top scientist objects to coal-based power plant
http://www.startribune.com/politics/state/18161109.html
Star Tribune: Gov. Tim Pawlenty won't speak out against a new coal-burning power plant on Minnesota's western border, despite a request from one of the nation's most prominent and controversial climate scientists. Dr. James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, cited Pawlenty's leadership on greenhouse gas reduction in a letter this week that asked the governor to take a strong stand against construction of the proposed Big Stone II power plant in Milbank, ...

Fri, 25 Apr 08
U.N. says Bush climate plan just a "first offer"
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSPEK34403320080424
Reuters: The top UN official on climate change said on Thursday that he sees a U.S. plan to cap rising emissions by 2025 as only a "first offer", adding that all three presidential candidates had promised a tougher stand. Yvo de Boer, head of the UN Climate Change Secretariat, also said that as the fight against climate change gets more urgent, the world will have to embrace nuclear power and provide more support to developing nations. "I see this very much as a first ...

Fri, 25 Apr 08
UN Climate Change Official: More Incentives Needed for Developing Countries
http://www.voanews.com/english/2008-04-24-voa26.cfm
Voice of America: The top U.N. official on climate change says industrialized countries need to offer more incentives to China and other developing countries to reduce gas emissions. Daniel Schearf reports for VOA from Beijing that China is fast overtaking the United States as the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gasses, believed by many scientists to be warming the planet. The U.N. official in charge of the framework convention on climate change, Yvo de Boer, says wealthy nations need to offer ...

Fri, 25 Apr 08
UN official