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Thu, 31 Jul 08
Birds Fly North in Climate Change Vanguard - Study
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/49587/story.htm
Reuters: Birds have been moving north in Europe over the past 25 years because of climate change in the vanguard of likely huge shifts in the ranges of plants and animals, scientists said on Wednesday. A study of 42 rare bird species in Britain showed that southern European bird species such as the Dartford warbler, Cirl bunting, little egret or Cetti's warbler had become more common in Britain from 1980-2004. And species usually found in northern Europe, such as the fieldfare, ...

Thu, 31 Jul 08
Congo Launches Review of Logging Contracts
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/49593/story.htm
Reuters: Congo, home to the world's second largest tropical forest, launched a review of all timber contracts on Wednesday in an effort to clean up a business rife with corruption and to recoup millions of dollars in lost taxes. The World Bank-sponsored initiative will look at 156 deals. Most were signed during a 1998-2003 war and subsequent interim government accused of awarding numerous dubious logging and mining contracts. In 2002, with the country partially under the control of ...

Thu, 31 Jul 08
United Kingdom: Environment: Climate activists occupy proposed site for coal-fired power station
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jul/31/activists.fossilfuels
Guardian: Climate change activists yesterday occupied the proposed site for Britain's first coal-fired power station in 30 years, claiming the development will cause huge damage to the environment if it goes ahead. More than 150 protesters descended on the site near the village of Kingsnorth in Kent ahead of next week's Camp for Climate Action, which is expected to attract thousands of environmentalists. Activist Connor O'Brien said: "The purpose of the climate change camp is to ...

Thu, 31 Jul 08
Future threats to the Amazon rainforest
http://news.mongabay.com/2008/0801-amazon.html
Mongabay: Between June 2000 and June 2008, more than 150,000 square kilometers of rainforest were cleared in the Brazilian Amazon. While deforestation rates have slowed since 2004, forest loss is expected to continue for the foreseeable future. Here mongabay.com takes a look at past, current and potential future drivers of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. Past drivers of deforestation in the Amazon Most deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has occurred since the late 1960s when ...

Thu, 31 Jul 08
Market Remedy to Climate Change Stalls
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/49594/story.htm
Reuters: The world's biggest source of private sector investment to fight climate change in the developing world has stalled pending complex global climate talks and uncertain demand. The US$13 billion trade in carbon offsets has also come under withering attack over profiteering and scam projects to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Carbon offsets allow people and businesses to pay others to cut emissions of planet-warming gases on their behalf, and is meant to cut the cost of fighting ...

Thu, 31 Jul 08
Arctic Ice Bigger Than 2007, But Thawing Long-Term
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/49595/story.htm
Reuters: Arctic sea ice is unlikely to shrink below a 2007 record low this year in a reprieve from the worst predictions of climate change even though new evidence confirms a long-term thaw is under way, experts said. The 2007 record raised worries of a melt that could leave the North Pole ice-free this year, threaten indigenous hunters and thaw ice vital for creatures such as polar bears. It would also help open the Arctic to shipping and oil and gas firms. "Most likely there ...

Thu, 31 Jul 08
China Readies Tougher Olympic Pollution Measures
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/49589/story.htm
Reuters: China is mulling emergency plans to keep Olympic skies clear and may push more cars off the road in Beijing and nearby cities if wind or rain do not disperse smog build-ups, government pollution advisors said on Wednesday. Scientists blamed a sultry haze that shrouded the host city over the weekend on an unusually long bout of hot, humid weather and say the combination is unlikely to be repeated during the Games, which start August 8. But they are readying back-up plans for ...

Thu, 31 Jul 08
Climate Change Could Hit Lebanon's Dwindling Cedars
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/49586/story.htm
Reuters: Sturdy cedars perched high in the mountains stand for many Lebanese as symbols of their fractured land's survival. But some environmentalists worry that the trees face a new threat from global warming. "The biggest challenge now for the cedars of Lebanon is climate change," said Nizar Hani, scientific coordinator of the Barouk Cedar Nature Reserve in the Shouf mountains. Only murmuring insects and breezes rustling through cedar branches disturb the stillness of the ...

Thu, 31 Jul 08
United Kingdom: How to go to Climate Camp - and enjoy it
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jul/31/activists.climatechange
Guardian: 'We don't want people who are thinking of coming for the first time to feel intimidated," says Peter McDonnell, a spokesperson for the Climate Camp, the week-long protest camp starting this Sunday at Kingsnorth in Kent which aims to highlight the "climate madness" of plans to build the UK's first coal-fired power station for 30 years near to the site. "That's really, really important. People mustn't be put off by scare stories." It's easy to see why the ...

Thu, 31 Jul 08
China: Its green medal hopes are lost but Beijing must race on
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/31/olympicgames2008.pollut ion
Guardian: Beijing made many promises to secure the 2008 Olympics - hostages to fortune, as it turned out, as the date approached. Some greater press and political freedoms, for instance, have clearly not been honoured: as Amnesty International pointed out yesterday, there has been more, not less, repression as the games approach. But other promises that may remain unfulfilled do not reflect bad faith so much as the scale of the task. When the world's most polluted country promised a green Olympics, it ...

Thu, 31 Jul 08
United Kingdom: New coal stations 'threaten emissions goal'
http://www.inthenews.co.uk/news/science/new-coal-stations-threaten-emission s-goal-$1234167.htm
InTheNews.co.uk: If plans to build new coal-fired power stations get the go-ahead then Europe's main climate policy could be in danger of collapsing, a thinktank claimed today. The European Union has set a goal of reducing emissions from the power sector and heavy industry by 21 per cent by 2020 through its emissions trading scheme (ETS). This scheme has been in place since 2005 and puts a price on carbon that businesses use and creates a market for carbon. A report from the IPPR ...

Thu, 31 Jul 08
Oceans to take center stage at int'l climate conference
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=103999
Jakarta Post: The first world conference in Manado next year will address the impact of climate change on oceans and the degradation of marine resources, an official says. "All this time, discussions and focus on climate change have been dominated by issues such as forests and alternative energy," secretary for the office of the coordinating minister for people's welfare, Dwisuryo Indroyono Soesilo, said here Tuesday. "In fact, oceans have a significant correlation with ...

Thu, 31 Jul 08
Offshore oil drilling more palatable to Californians
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=104005
New York Times: The United Nations has long been accused by its detractors of generating hot air. Starting in August, a glance at the thermostat in the Secretariat building will provide confirmation. To set an example in the effort to curb energy use that contributes to global warming, the secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, has approved a one-month pilot project to raise the thermostat throughout much of the landmark building to 77 degrees from 72 degrees. The thermostats in the often windowless ...

Thu, 31 Jul 08
Australia: Should we wait for other nations?
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/opinion/editorial/general/should-we-wa it-for-other-nations/1231593.aspx
Canberra Times: Few now seriously doubt the enormity and gravity of the climate change problem. In the Australian context, it seems as though the issue of climate change is finally receiving the attention it deserves. The Rudd Government clearly regards the issue of climate change as one of national priority. Accordingly, it has proposed that an emissions trading scheme be implemented no later than 2010. Earlier this month, the draft Garnaut report proposed a similar time frame for the ...

Thu, 31 Jul 08
Trade Failure Clouds Climate Talks and Beyond
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/49596/story.htm
Reuters: The collapse of world trade talks deals such a blow to international negotiations that the prospect of agreeing effective solutions to global warming or the spread of nuclear weapons seems more remote than ever. "If we cannot even manage trade, how should we then find ourselves in a position to manage new challenges like climate change?" said European agriculture chief Mariann Fischer Boel after talks at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in Geneva fell apart on Tuesday. ...

Thu, 31 Jul 08
Australia: CSR Sees Potential for Expansion in Renewable Energy
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601081&sid=adkcMITOjSq4&re fer=australia
Bloomberg: CSR Ltd., Australia's biggest sugar refiner, said it has scope for a ``significant'' expansion of renewable energy generation to tap expected increases in prices. The outlook for higher prices for both electricity and renewable energy credits supports investment in plants generating power from waste sugar products, Sydney-based CSR said today in a presentation sent to the Australian stock exchange. The viability of projects is being assessed, it said. The Australian ...

Thu, 31 Jul 08
Looming Turf War May Stymie Aussie CO2 Storage Plan
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/49590/story.htm
Reuters: Australia's ambitious plan to bury its carbon dioxide emissions under the seabed could be constrained by a potential conflict between petroleum companies and government entities seeking offshore sites to test carbon storage technology, industry leaders said on Wednesday. Australia, one of the world's biggest per-head polluters, is planning to establish a legislative framework for carbon capture and storage (CCS) under the sea in a bid to combat climate change. CCS could keep ...

Thu, 31 Jul 08
Australia: Nelson 'worse than Howard' on climate
http://news.theage.com.au/national/nelson-worse-than-howard-on-climate-2008 0731-3noq.html
Age: Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson is even worse on climate change than former prime minister John Howard, the Rudd government says. Dr Nelson has said the coalition is committed to introducing an emissions trading scheme "probably" by 2012. His refusal to commit to a firm starting date prompted Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner to say the coalition was in the climate change denier camp. "Dr Nelson is hostage to the deniers in his own ranks," he told ABC ...

Thu, 31 Jul 08
Australia: Sydney should be 'carbon trading hub'
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/07/31/2319801.htm?section=justin
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: New South Wales is calling on the Federal Government to make Sydney the base for the National Carbon Market. The State Government says Sydney should be the hub for carbon trading once the emissions trading scheme is up and running. The Minister for Climate Change and the Environment, Verity Firth, says the state is an ideal base. "Not a lot of people are aware but the Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme, which was introduced in 2003, was one of the world's first ...

Thu, 31 Jul 08
3 West Coast governors oppose new offshore oil drilling
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-me-ocean30-2008jul30,0,8 40601.story
Los Angeles Times: West Coast governors urged the federal government Tuesday to keep new oil drilling rigs out of their waters and to spend more money on programs to restore the health of the Pacific Ocean. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, joined with Democratic Govs. Ted Kulongoski of Oregon and Chris Gregoire of Washington to reaffirm their opposition to opening undersea oil fields to new drilling, as part of an elaborate action plan for preserving coastal waters. The 116-page ...

Thu, 31 Jul 08
Big Coal's Campaign of Lies
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/21918521/big_coals_campaign_of_l ies
Rolling Stone: It took Congress more than three decades to consider a major initiative to ward off global warming, but only a few days to kill it. In June, the Senate rejected the Climate Security Act, which would have put America on track to slash greenhouse-gas emissions by 71 percent by 2050. The bill was specifically crafted to soften the blow to the nation's coal industry – coal generates more than a third of all carbon-dioxide pollution – by providing coal-burning power companies with $300 billion in ...

Thu, 31 Jul 08
Biofuels Major Driver of Food Price Rise - World Bank
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/49574/story.htm
Reuters: Large increases in biofuels production in the United States and Europe are the main reason behind the steep rise in global food prices, a top World Bank economist said in research published on Monday. World Bank economist Don Mitchell concluded that biofuels and related low grain inventories, speculative activity, and food export bans pushed prices up by 70 percent to 75 percent. The remaining price rise reflected a weaker US dollar, higher energy costs and related rises in ...

Thu, 31 Jul 08
California considers ban on plastic bags to protect marine life
http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_10039462?source=rss
San Jose Mercury News: Should California become the first state to ban plastic bags? One of the state's top environmental officials embraced the idea Tuesday, citing the devastating impact on marine animals, which die after ingesting plastic bags or becoming entangled in them. Secretary of Resources Mike Chrisman is head of a cabinet-level panel - the California Ocean Protection Council - that is mulling over a list of proposals, including the bag ban, to improve the health of the ocean. While the ...

Thu, 31 Jul 08
California to sue EPA on greenhouse gas emissions
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/30/AR200807300 3437.html
Reuters: California will sue the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for "wantonly" ignoring its duty to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from ships, aircraft, and construction and agricultural equipment, state Attorney General Jerry Brown said on Wednesday. Brown said the lawsuit, to be announced at a news conference at the Port of Long Beach on Thursday and filed in Washington after a 180-day waiting period mandated by the Clean Air Act, was meant to force the EPA into action. ...

Thu, 31 Jul 08
China Unveils Emergency Pollution Plans for Games
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=104014
Reuters: China has announced a slew of emergency measures in and around Beijing in case air pollution remains poor during the Olympics, including taking more cars off the roads and slashing production at more than 220 factories. The radical plan would be carried out if air quality was forecast to be short of acceptable standards for the upcoming 48 hours due to "extremely unfavourable weather conditions", the Ministry of Environmental Protection said. A sultry haze has ...

Thu, 31 Jul 08
Climate fear as giant ice sheets break off Arctic shelf
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article4430931.ece
Times (UK): Giant sheets of ice measuring over seven square miles have broken off the largest remaining ice shelf in the Canadian Arctic, in a development consistent with climate change predictions. Officials said that the chunks of ice split off the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf off Ellesmere Island last week, forming two floating islands of 1.9 and 5.4 square miles. More could follow later this year, they warned. It was the largest fracture of its kind since the nearby Ayles ice shelf - roughly ...

Thu, 31 Jul 08
Giant Chunks Break Off Canadian Ice Shelf
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/49572/story.htm
Reuters: Giant sheets of ice totaling almost eight square miles (20 square km) broke off an ice shelf in the Canadian Arctic last week and more could follow later this year, scientists said on Tuesday. Temperatures in large parts of the Arctic have risen far faster than the global average in recent decades, a development that experts say is linked to global warming. The ice broke away from the shelf on Ward Hunt Island, an small island just off giant Ellesmere Island in one of the ...

Thu, 31 Jul 08
Global Warming Skews Fish Sexes
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1827881,00.html
Time Magazine: Once scientists began studying the impact of global warming on everything from tourism to asthma, it was only a matter of time before they got around to sex. Now two biologists at Spain's Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) have done just that, at least when it comes to fish. You may have missed it in biology class, but in some finned species like the Atlantic silverside – as well as in many reptiles – sex is determined not by genetics, but by temperature: the ...

Thu, 31 Jul 08
GOP blocks action on tax, renewable energy package
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5icrolgbXr0mlnZQmLr-1svIyNDpwD9289B8O0
Associated Press: For the fourth time this summer Republicans stopped the Senate from taking up wide-ranging legislation that extends tax breaks for teachers, businesses and parents and provides tax credits to an array of renewable energy entrepreneurs. Major business groups, usual GOP allies, have implored Congress to act on the tax credits, many which expired at the end of last year or will run out at the end of this year. But for many Republicans, it's a matter or principle and politics: many oppose ...

Thu, 31 Jul 08
Oceanic Acidification - The Scenario In 100 Years' Time
http://www.enn.com/ecosystems/article/37799
Environmental News Network: A new study by scientists into the future effects of acidic sea water shows that the reduced pH value of the oceans' surface waters will have drastic results in around 100 years' time. The scientists, from Sweden and Australia, carried out the world's first research into how a lowered pH of the sea's surface water affects marine animal life. In their project, they allowed sea urchins of the species Heliocidaris Erythrogramma to fertilize themselves in water where the pH has been ...

Thu, 31 Jul 08
Report finds US is world's top wind producer
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jul/30/windpower.energy
McClatchy Newspapers: The American Wind Energy Association is expected to release a survey next month that says the US has become the world's leading wind producer, and that the industry expects rapid growth to continue in places like Texas, the Great Plains and California. The survey calculates that the US wind industry now tops Germany in terms of how much energy is being produced from wind. Germany still has more installed capacity - 22,000 megawatts compared with 17,000 in the US at the end of ...

Thu, 31 Jul 08
Three senators call for EPA chief to resign
http://www.enn.com/climate/article/37796
Reuters: Democratic senators called on Tuesday for the resignation of Stephen Johnson, head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, saying he sided with polluters instead of fighting global warming and other ecological problems. The three senators, all active in the climate change debate, also asked the U.S. attorney general to investigate whether Johnson has made false or misleading statements in sworn testimony before the Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee. "Mr. ...

Thu, 31 Jul 08
5 states threaten to sue EPA to get emission rules
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jodZQcJBOZExjk-mC8fnZQmsde7wD928IND02
Associated Press: Five states intend to sue the Environmental Protection Agency if it does not act soon to reduce pollution from ships, aircraft and off-road vehicles. In a letter that California Attorney General Jerry Brown was to send Thursday to the EPA, the five states and New York City accuse the Bush administration of ignoring their requests to set restrictions. "It's a necessary pressure to get the job done," Brown said Wednesday in an interview with The Associated Press. ...

Thu, 31 Jul 08
Canada: 7-Square-Mile Ice Sheet Breaks Loose
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/07/080730-arctic-photo-AP.html
Associated Press: A chunk of ice spreading across 7 square miles (18 square kilometers) has broken off a Canadian ice shelf in the Arctic, scientists say. The sheet broke away last week from the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf off the north coast of Ellesmere Island in Canada's far north. (See map.) Large ice segments–including this 1.5-square-mile (4-square-kilometer) chunk, above–were seen drifting near the ice shelf. Derek Mueller, a researcher at Trent University in Ontario, was careful not to ...

Thu, 31 Jul 08
Australian opposition to support carbon emissions trading
http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/news/stories/200807/s2319627.htm?tab=austr alia
Radio Australia: The Australian opposition's climate change spokesman says public wrangling over the coalition's stance on emissions trading has produced a "sharper" policy. The coalition partyroom yesterday approved a policy to support an emissions trading scheme in principle, along with the development of clean energy sources. Opposition leader Brendan Nelson says a Coalition scheme would "probably" start in 2012, and the speed of emissions cuts would depend on other ...

Thu, 31 Jul 08
Australians Strongly Back Carbon Trade Scheme - Poll
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/49566/story.htm
Reuters: Australians overwhelmingly back government plans to introduce one of the world's biggest carbon trading schemes, a poll found on Tuesday, despite a lack of detail about how much it will cost and how it will work. More than eight in 10 people supported carbon trading, with 60 percent backing the introduction of a scheme even if other major polluting countries refused to cut their emissions, a Newspoll in The Australian newspaper showed. The poll of 1,200 people, the second in ...

Thu, 31 Jul 08
Beijing Says "Sauna" Haze Will Not Last Over Games
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/49570/story.htm
Reuters: Beijing authorities said sauna-like weather trapping hazy pollution in the Olympic host city will not last throughout the Games, state media reported on Tuesday, as organisers consider more pollution controls. The Chinese capital's skies remained grey on Tuesday morning, but a breeze overnight had scattered some of the sultry haze that has Olympic organisers worried the city's restrictions on vehicles and industry have not done enough to staunch pollution. Officials have ...

Thu, 31 Jul 08
Beyond the carbon tax
http://www.bclocalnews.com/bc_north/northernsentinel/opinion/26099904.html
Northern Sentinel: British Columbia's carbon tax holds the potential to inspire a new vision: to transform the economy from the brown, carbon-based solutions of the past to the clean, green sustainable solutions of the future. The citizens of British Columbia understand how crucial this transformation is. Poll after poll confirms that British Columbians and Canadians are worried about global warming and want action to reduce greenhouse gas pollution. British Columbians want to change; they just need ...

Thu, 31 Jul 08
Bush calls on Democrats to allow drilling
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/30/georgebush.usa?gusrc=rss&fe ed=networkfront
Guardian: President George Bush today called for Democrats to open American coastal waters to oil drilling, urging Congress to allow a vote on the matter before its members leave Washington for their August break. Although Bush's White House is winding down, Washington's and Congress is unlikely to overturn a decades-old policy within the next several days, Bush nevertheless took the podium to browbeat legislators he sees as blocking action that would lower fuel prices. "American ...

Thu, 31 Jul 08
Canada is melting
http://www.inthenews.co.uk/infocus/features/in-focus/canada-melting-$123412 3.htm
InTheNews.co.uk: A chunk of ice more than seven square miles has broken off an ice shelf in the Canadian Arctic, according to scientists. The ice broke free from the Ward Hunt ice shelf, a small area off the larger Ellesmere Island. Scientists have warned that further splitting could occur later this year. Derek Mueller, a researcher at Trent University, told the Associated Press that global warming is not necessarily to blame and said the event was consistent with the theory that the ...

Thu, 31 Jul 08
China Coal Shortages Strain Shanxi Environment - Media
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/49568/story.htm
Reuters: China's worsening coal shortages have exerted unprecedented pressure on Shanxi, the country's top coal-producing region, to push output beyond approved levels and worsening environmental strains, official media reported on Tuesday. Demand from users who normally get their coal from Shanxi is expected to exceed its output by more than 200 million tonnes this year, despite the region's all-out efforts to boost production, the official China Securities Journal said. Shanxi ...

Thu, 31 Jul 08
Climate change health problems foreseen
http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2008/07/30/Climate_change_health_problems_fo reseen/UPI-71741217466649/
United Press International: Most U.S. health department directors believe their cities or counties will have serious public health problems because of climate change, researchers said. Researchers at George Mason University in Washington reveal that the majority of health department directors believed that threats such as heat waves or heat-related illnesses, reduced air quality and reduced water quality or quantity were most likely to become more common or severe as a result of climate change. The study, ...

Thu, 31 Jul 08
Coal protesters at power station
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/kent/7533719.stm
BBC: Up to 100 activists have arrived at a power station in Kent where environmental campaigners are holding a climate camp next week. A week-long protest is getting under way on Monday against plans to build a coal-fired plant on the Hoo peninsula. Activist Phil Thornhill said the camp at Kingsnorth was the start of a global fight against burning coal. E.On UK has said it will demolish the existing power station and replace it with a 20% cleaner coal-fired unit. ...

Thu, 31 Jul 08
Democratic senators call for investigation of US environmental agency
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/29/usa.carbonemissions
Guardian: Amid intensifying scrutiny of the US environmental protection agency's (EPA) refusal to act on climate change, four Democratic senators today asked federal prosecutors to investigate the EPA chief for alleged perjury and obstruction of Congress. The call for a justice department probe of EPA administrator Stephen Johnson – coupled with a plea for his resignation from Democrats – follows a darkening cloud of controversy surrounding the agency. "Johnson's EPA has shown an ...

Thu, 31 Jul 08
Driscoll: US needs renewable energy
http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2008/07/30/news/local/news03.txt
Missoulian: John Driscoll, the Democratic challenger to U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., said Tuesday that America needs a crash course to wean itself from oil as its main energy source, switching to resources like solar, wind and nuclear power. "It's time to break an addiction," he said. "And there's only one way to do it, and that's to stop. (Petroleum) is not the mainstream any more." Driscoll, who uses solar energy to help power his Helena home, said he opposes calls by Rehberg and ...

Thu, 31 Jul 08
United States: Farmers can cut carbon for cash
http://gazettextra.com/news/2008/jul/30/farmers-can-cut-carbon-cash/
Janesville Gazette: It's like a commodity you can't see or feel. But it's still worth cash, and the Wisconsin Farm Bureau wants farmers and foresters to get in on the ground floor of this emerging market. The product for sale is carbon credits. Major manufacturers want those credits to supplement their attempts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Farmers using some environmentally friendly practices naturally create carbon credits by sequestering, or holding, carbon in fields and ...

Thu, 31 Jul 08
Firefighters Combat Blaze Near Yosemite
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/49582/story.htm
Reuters: More than 2,500 firefighters struggled in hot summer weather and across rugged terrain on Monday to prevent a wildfire that has charred more than 26,000 acres (10,522 hectares) from advancing toward world-famous Yosemite National Park. The so-called Telegraph Fire's northwest flank is approaching Coulterville, while its southeast flank threatens Mariposa, towns along rural roads leading to Yosemite in north-central California, fire officials said. Working in 90-degree ...

Thu, 31 Jul 08
China: In Beijing, Blue Skies Prove Hard to Achieve
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=103948
New York Times: Less than two weeks before the Olympics, Beijing's skies are so murky and polluted that the authorities are considering emergency measures during the Games beyond the traffic restrictions and factory shutdowns that, so far, have failed to clear the air, state media reported on Monday. For the past five days, Beijing has been a soupy caldron of humid, gray skies. Local pollution ratings have exceeded the national standard for acceptable air since last Thursday, despite a temporary air ...

Thu, 31 Jul 08
Japan Tackles Global Warming, Skeptics In Tow
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93079196
National Public Radio: Japan's government and Japanese companies are touting efforts to make their country one of the most energy-efficient, low-carbon places in the world. But some critics dismiss the publicity as "greenwash" that paints a deceptive picture of Japan's environmental status. The country's cabinet approved a trial plan Wednesday to trade carbon credits in an effort to lower emissions and fight global warming. And at a show at the G-8 Summit in Hokkaido this month, plug-in cars, ...

Thu, 31 Jul 08
Mass. House approves bill to curb greenhouse gases
http://www.bostonherald.com/business/general/view/2008_07_30_Mass__House_ap proves_bill_to_curb_greenhouse_gases/
Associated Press: House lawmakers raced to approve a pair of bills designed to help slow global warming and increase the number of so-called "green jobs" in Massachusetts. Approval of the two bills came on the second to last day of the Legislature's formal session and follows the recent passage of bills designed to increase the use of biofuels and require the state to boost its reliance on renewable energy sources. The global warming bill would require the state by the year 2020 to ...

Wed, 30 Jul 08
Alaska forests hit with more wildfires, infestations as climate changes
http://newsminer.com/news/2008/jul/29/alaska-forests-hit-more-wildfires-inf estations-cli/
Fairbanks Daily News-Miner: It was just getting cool when Glenn Juday went out to see his trees. The leaves were still on the birch and aspen, and the summer growing season was lingering. But it was already October, and gathering data would be much harder once it snowed. So Juday had to hurry. "I'll work till dark," he had declared that morning in his office at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, where he teaches forest ecology. "We're seriously behind." Now Juday was about 20 miles from the university – ...

Wed, 30 Jul 08
Japan adopts action plan against global warming
http://www.livemint.com/2008/07/29162430/Japan-adopts-action-plan-again.htm l?h=B
Agence France-Presse: Japan's cabinet on Tuesday adopted a plan to slash carbon emissions up to 80% by 2050 by starting carbon trading and stepping up research on carbon-capture technologies. "Japan must continue showing leadership on the issue of environment," Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda told the cabinet meeting. "To lead the world, Japan must take the initiative by achieving a low-carbon society." Japanese industry leaders, particularly steelmakers and the power industry, have strongly opposed ...

Wed, 30 Jul 08
Suppressed climate change report turns up heat on US lawmakers
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2222697/suppressed-climate -change
Business Green: Details of a suppressed US government report on the effects of climate change surfaced last week, just days after the agency that wrote it published another damning report linking carbon emissions to detrimental effects on human health. California Senator Barbara Boxer, chairing the Senate Environment Committee, was allowed to see a draft report from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that had been submitted to the White House in December. According to Boxer, who was not ...

Wed, 30 Jul 08
United Nations to raise thermostats
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/jul/29/united-nations-raise-thermo stats/
Washington Times: <body>Everyone worries about climate change and now the United Nations is doing something about it -- beginning Friday the temperature inside U.N. headquarters in New York will rise by five degrees. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who made global warming a top priority at the beginning of his five year term, has ordered the official U.N. "In House Climate Change Initiative." Officials said the August-long experiment -- also dubbed "Cool UN" -- will allow ...

Wed, 30 Jul 08
Australian carbon costs to hurt food exports: farmers
http://uk.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUKSYD8884420080729
Reuters: Australian food production and exports could be cut when carbon trading starts from mid-2010, Australia's biggest farmers' group said on Tuesday, with the price of carbon to add to already hefty price rises for fuel. The farmers' disquiet follows fears expressed by big business this month that Australian firms, particularly large energy companies, could lose out to global competitors or be forced to shelve projects due to the country's cap-and-trade carbon plan. "Any more ...

Wed, 30 Jul 08
Insubstantial Shadows
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43347
Inter Press Service: Amidst the cacophony of discussions and negotiations within the international climate change caucus, one particular group, the G8, had held out hope for effective implementation -- more than the United Nations Kyoto Protocol (KP), which remains bogged down in various degrees of non-compliance. Currently there is, along with United States' outright rejection of the KP, acrimonious debate on the 'common but differentiated' principle which sets differing emission-reduction targets on ...

Wed, 30 Jul 08
Japan says to start trial carbon trading in October
http://uk.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idUKT8025920080729
Reuters: Japan, under pressure to meet emission reduction targets set by the Kyoto Protocol, approved an October start for the trial trading of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas blamed for global warming. "We'll set down rules in September on how to take part in (a trial carbon trading scheme) and in October we'd like to get started," Hiroshi Kamagata, director for the cabinet secretariat at Cabinet Office, said at a briefing on Tuesday. Tuesday's cabinet agreement takes forward ...

Wed, 30 Jul 08
Japan to start trial carbon trading in October
http://uk.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUKT8025920080729
Reuters: Japan, under pressure to find other incentives than government spending to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, approved an October start for the trial trading of carbon dioxide, the main gas blamed for global warming. "We'll set down rules in September on how to take part (in a trial carbon trading scheme) and in October we'd like to get started," Hiroshi Kamagata, director for the cabinet secretariat at the Cabinet Office, said at a briefing on Tuesday. Tuesday's ...

Wed, 30 Jul 08
More problems from climate than pollution, say Spain
http://uk.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUKL931904420080729
Reuters: Heat and humidity levels will be of more concern to competing athletes at the Beijing Olympics than pollution levels, according to Spanish athletics chief Jose Maria Odriozola. "I was there two years ago at almost exactly the same time as the Olympics will be held for the world junior athletics championships," Odriozola told a news conference on Tuesday after announcing the Spanish athletics team for the Games. "My eyes didn't water and the athletes did not ...

Wed, 30 Jul 08
United States: Truckers sue LA ports over anti-pollution program
http://uk.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUKN2825718620080729
Reuters: The American Trucking Associations filed a federal lawsuit in a California court on Monday morning against the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to stop plans intended to reduce diesel fuel pollution. The Arlington, Virginia-based trade group estimates over 10,000 independent truckers will be prohibited from the Los Angeles port, which is banning independent truckers as of October 1 to tighten control over emissions. The ATA charged that the plans are unfair for ...

Wed, 30 Jul 08
U.S. beach warnings drop in '07 but still high: group
http://uk.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUKN2933136420080729
Reuters: The number of days U.S. beaches were declared unsafe for swimming due to pollution declined by 12 percent in 2007 from the previous year but was still the second highest in 18 years, an environmental group said on Tuesday. The National Resources Defense Council said it recorded 22,571 closures or advisory days at the nation's 3,516 most popular beaches last year, down from the record 25,643 in 2006. A decline in rainfall in areas of Hawaii and California appeared to be behind ...

Wed, 30 Jul 08
US environmental agency silences employees on climate change
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/29/usa.climatechange
Guardian: Amid intensifying scrutiny of its failure to act on climate change, the US environmental protection agency (EPA) has ordered employees not to talk to internal auditors, Congress or the media, according to a leaked email released yesterday by green campaigners. The EPA has refused repeated requests from Congress to explain its December denial of California's request to regulate greenhouse gas emissions - a move that overruled the agency's own career scientists. Three Democratic ...

Tue, 29 Jul 08
Oil: Campaigners seek an end to production of CO2-intensive 'unconventional fuels'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/jul/29/oilandgascompanies.royaldutc hshell
Guardian: Shell, BP and other oil companies at the centre of the tar sands revolution in Canada are facing a backlash from the Co-operative and other members of the ethical investment community determined to bring a halt to these operations for environmental reasons. A joint report from Co-operative Investments and the wildlife charity WWF released today will be followed up in September by a meeting of the UK Social Investment Forum (UKSIF) to press for an end to this carbon-intensive ...

Tue, 29 Jul 08
Australia: A heated grab for climate control
http://www.smh.com.au/news/gerard-henderson/a-heated-grab-for-climate-contr ol/2008/07/28/1217097144498.html
Sydney Morning Herald: It's not often that the media is more interested in the policy, or potential policy, of an opposition rather than a government. Especially when the government in question is not even a third of the way through its inaugural term. However, this seems to be the case in the lead-up to today's shadow cabinet deliberations and tomorrow's meeting of the Coalition parties. These get-togethers have been given greater attention due to the success (so far) of the merger of the Liberal and National ...

Tue, 29 Jul 08
Australia's shaky hold on greenhouse infamy
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24093591-5013871,00.html
Australian: IT is not a list you want to top, but the reality is set out in the Garnaut report: Australia is the largest per capita emitter of greenhouse gases in the world. However, the title is misleading. Australia does top the emissions table, excluding land-use change and forestry emissions. But include that measure and the Republic of the Congo is propelled right out in front, followed by Malaysia, Canada and then Australia. It is also apparent that a year or two can change these ...

Tue, 29 Jul 08
China: Beijing Shrouded in Haze 11 Days Before Olympics
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/49544/story.htm
Reuters: Olympic host city Beijing was shrouded in haze on Monday 11 days before the Games begin, raising anxieties about whether it can deliver the clean skies promised for the world's top athletes. The city's chronic pollution, a sometimes acrid mix of construction dust, vehicle exhaust and factory and power plant fumes, has been one of the biggest worries for Games organisers. Beijing has ordered many of its 3.3 million cars off roads and halted much construction and factory ...

Tue, 29 Jul 08
Australia: Don't wait for world on climate: poll
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24093601-5013871,00.html
Australian: AS the Coalition meets in Canberra today to forge a climate change policy that would delay an emissions trading scheme beyond 2010, it will be confronted with evidence that most Australians support the Rudd Government's position. Brendan Nelson is expected to adopt a policy with his shadow cabinet colleagues that opts to delay an ETS until greenhouse gas giants such as India and China act to cut their emissions. But the latest Newspoll survey has confirmed widespread public ...

Tue, 29 Jul 08
Australia: Wong stands by 2010 carbon trading start-up
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/07/29/2317310.htm
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Climate Change Minister Penny Wong says the Federal Government remains committed to its election commitment of a 2010 start-up date, despite the likelihood of tough opposition in Parliament when the laws are introduced. The laws will face tough opposition in the Senate from those who do not support any start-up date before 2012. Senator Wong has told Lyndal Curtis on ABC Radio's AM the issue demands attention by all governments. "Obviously these are matters which ...

Tue, 29 Jul 08
Athletes Face Mental Problem With Pollution Says Coach
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/49543/story.htm
Reuters: Athletes competing at the Beijing Olympics will face bigger mental issues than physical problems coping with China's pollution, Netherlands soccer coach Foppe De Haan said on Monday. De Haan told a news conference his players had undergone a rigorous training programme to get themselves in the best physical shape to handle the heat and humidity. But he said nothing could prepare them for the psychological challenge of playing under a thick blanket of haze. "This ...

Tue, 29 Jul 08
Australia must take lead on emissions trading: Lib backbencher
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/07/29/2317224.htm
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: An Opposition backbencher has spoken out against the plan for the Coalition to make its support for an emissions trading scheme conditional on India and China signing up to a similar scheme. The federal Coalition begins two days of meetings in Canberra today, which will focus on the Opposition's climate change policy. Western Australian Liberal Mal Washer chairs the Coalition's environment committee and says the shadow cabinet should not make any changes without consulting his ...

Tue, 29 Jul 08
Australian Athletes Free to Withdraw Over Pollution
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/49546/story.htm
Reuters: Australian athletes will be allowed to withdraw from their events at the Beijing Olympic Games if pollution poses a threat to their health and safety, the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) said on Monday. AOC vice president Peter Montgomery said athletes had the freedom to pull out of events if pollution levels remained high but doubted whether anyone would withdraw from their events. "For us the athlete's attitude to the event is paramount," he told reporters. ...

Tue, 29 Jul 08
Australia: Coalition to thrash out climate policy
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24094322-12377,00.html
Australian: THE Coalition frontbench will meet in Canberra today to thrash out its climate change policy. The Opposition is hoping to settle a split over whether emissions trading should start by 2012, or be delayed until big-emitting nations take action. Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson is pushing for delay. Shadow cabinet will discuss the issue today ahead of a party room meeting tomorrow.

Tue, 29 Jul 08
Australia: Solar rebate rules unplug electricians
http://www.theage.com.au/environment/solar-rebate-rules-unplug-electricians -20080728-3mb0.html
Age: A DOWNTURN in the solar energy market is already clear just two months after the Rudd Government changed the rules over rebates, according to the Electrical Trades Union (ETU). The claims that job opportunities were being "killed off" by the rebate changes were presented to a Federal Parliamentary committee hearing in Melbourne yesterday. Eligibility rules for the $8000 solar panel rebate were tightened in this year's federal budget, meaning that people earning more ...

Tue, 29 Jul 08
Alternative fuels 'risk disaster'
http://news.scotsman.com/world/Alternative-fuels-39risk-disaster39.4332637. jp
Scotsman: A DRIVE to get oil from unconventional fossil fuel sources in the face of soaring prices could have catastrophic effects on the Earth's climate, a report warned yesterday. With oil prices hitting record highs, the extraction of fuels from tar sands and oil shale is an increasingly attractive option. But according to a study by WWF and Co-operative Financial Services, the fuels are massively energy intensive – creatADVERTISEMENTing as much as eight times as many carbon emissions in ...

Tue, 29 Jul 08
As Ocean Warms, Coral Loses Anchor in Acidic Waters
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=coral-reefs-lose-grip-under-global-warm ing
Scientific American: new study confirms that coral reefs could become yet another casualty of climate change if something is not done to cool the warming globe. The reason: marine cements that bind together reefs can't form in waters full of dissolved carbon dioxide (CO2). Those off the west coast of Central America, particularly around the Galapagos Islands, are kept soft by the more acidic waters in that region–and may provide an early look at how coral reefs will fare in the rest of the world as ...

Tue, 29 Jul 08
China: Beijing's Air Pollution: It Isn't The Cars
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deborah-seligsohn/beijings-air-pollution-it_b _115484.html
Huffington Post: On July 20, half of private cars in Beijing went off the road in a sweeping attempt to improve air quality in advance of the Olympic games. Commercial and governmental vehicles, taxis and buses are all running as usual, but traffic is moving noticeably faster. I've been watching the plates, and drivers really are obeying the regulations. Furthermore, the Chinese have suspended tourism and visas for anyone not attending the Olympics, which is improving traffic even more. There are noticeably ...

Tue, 29 Jul 08
Climate change enables spread of disease worldwide
http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=223436&src=120
Bloomberg: Climate changes that enable Asian Tiger mosquitoes and other disease-carrying insects and animals to flourish in Europe threaten the region's residents, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said. Climate changes and the environmental alterations they cause may lead to an increase in the outbreaks of diseases such as hantavirus and dengue, West Nile and chikungunya fevers, which the animals carry and which have posed little, if any, threat to public health in the ...

Tue, 29 Jul 08
Canada: Deadline for a deal on Clayoquot old-growth is midnight tonight
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=ee530b9a-dc9d-4fa3-a3 28-fa523390c3d8
Vancouver Sun: A deadline set by environmentalists for a moratorium on logging in a pristine watershed in Clayoquot Sound is set to pass at midnight tonight. Environmental groups Sierra Club, Greenpeace, Friends of the Clayoquot, the Wilderness Committee and Forest Ethics have given Ma-Mook Natural Resources and its Port Alberni based partner Coulson Forest Products until midnight tonight to agree to a deal or face disruptions to logging operations and unspecified attacks on their markets around the ...

Tue, 29 Jul 08
EPA tells its staff: Don't answer watchdogs' queries
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/45773.html
McClatchy Newspapers: The Environmental Protection Agency has told its staff not to answer questions from the agency's internal watchdog, news reporters or the nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress, according an internal memo that an environmental group released Monday. The June 16 memo to the staff of the EPA's enforcement division told them that if they're contacted by the EPA inspector general's office, an independent internal watchdog that monitors the agency, or by the Government Accountability ...

Tue, 29 Jul 08
Oil From Sand: Canada Cashes In
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=5464319&page=1
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: The earth beneath Fort McMurray's pine and spruce trees holds as much oil as the United States, Russia and the United Arab Emirates combined. In this booming Alberta, Canada, town, the rush to get that oil becomes obvious a couple hundred miles north of Edmonton, where the forest disappears into the largest industrial zone in the world, crawling with some of the largest trucks ever made. Jennifer Sims, who drives one at the Muskweg River Mine, north of Ft. McMurray, said it's ...

Tue, 29 Jul 08
South African says it will shift energy policy from coal to combat climate change
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/07/28/business/AF-South-Africa-Energy.p hp
Associated Press: The South African government said Monday it would move away from cheap coal – long the engine of its economic growth – and embrace nuclear and renewable energy in a bid to combat climate change. South Africa relies on its coal mines for 90 percent of its energy and has sought to attract electricity guzzling industries such as aluminum smelters as a key plank of its foreign investment policy. But Environment Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk said that would now change under a ...

Tue, 29 Jul 08
U.S. should find way to price carbon emissions, say execs
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSN2850849720080728
Reuters: Two top executives from U.S. industry told a congressional panel on Monday that the country should assign a dollar cost to carbon emissions to encourage investment in efficiency and tackle climate change. "We need to reaffirm the principle of predictability," George David, chairman of United Technologies Corp, told the House of Representatives Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. "We need to say to our world that we are going to have a cost ...

Tue, 29 Jul 08
Climate change affects ecosystems in northern Bering Sea
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-07/28/content_8828355.htm
Xinhua: Latest research shows that in the last 20 years climate change has affected ecosystems in the northern Bering Sea which may threaten the life of apex predators, such as gray whale, walrus, seal in that region. The changes in the northern Bering Sea have coincided with a reduction in sea ice, and increases in air and ocean temperatures, said Cui Xuehua, a Chinese predoctoral student from University of Tennessee, U.S., who is one of the science party in the 3rd Chinese National Arctic ...

Tue, 29 Jul 08
India: Climate change awareness yet to translate into action
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Corporate_Trends/Climate_change_awarene ss_yet_to_translate_into_action/articleshow/3299193.cms
Economic Times: Climate change is an important issue for most Indian businesses, but more than half of the firms surveyed in a report on the matter said they do not have a clear strategy in place to tackle the challenge. Despite awareness, among 83% of the business leaders that consulting major KPMG spoke to, only 21% said they have measured carbon footprints. Measuring footprints is one of the strategies used to deal with the issue. The report says that the global market for low carbon energy ...

Tue, 29 Jul 08
Climate change will increase the erosion of coral reefs
http://news.mongabay.com/2008/0728-hance_reefs.html
Mongabay: Coral reefs are particularly susceptible to climate change. Warming waters have been shown to bleach coral, killing off symbiotic algae that provide them with sustenance, and often leading to the death of the coral itself. Much attention has been placed on bleaching coral, but now scientists have discovered an additional danger to coral reefs in a warming world: erosion. A study published in this week's issue of PNAS has shown that coral reefs in the waters off Panama and Galapagos, ...

Tue, 29 Jul 08
Australia: Coalition 'dinosaurs' putting off climate action: Garrett
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/07/28/2316889.htm?section=australia
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett has again ridiculed the Opposition's climate change policy. Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson says the Government's preferred 2010 start date for an emissions trading scheme is too early. The Shadow Cabinet will meet tomorrow to discuss its policy. Mr Garrett says the Opposition is not united and has an irresponsible approach to climate change. "It is extraordinary, when the climate change challenge is so evident, ...

Tue, 29 Jul 08
United Kingdom: Customers face having to pay for plastic bags
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2466178/Customers-face-having-to-pay -for-plastic-bags.html
Telegraph (UK): In a move that could see customers paying up to 10p a bag, new legislation is expected to be passed which will ensure shops no longer hand out single-use plastic bags. Climate Change minister Joan Ruddock said she hoped the supermarkets would follow the example of Marks and Spencer, which has cut plastic bag usage by 80 per cent by introducing a five pence charge. The Republic of Ireland has also reduced the number of plastic bags by 90 per cent with a charging system that has ...

Tue, 29 Jul 08
EPA analysis on global warming should be public
http://www.standardspeaker.com/articles/2008/07/28/editorial/hz_standspeak. 20080728.a.pg10.hz28edit_epa_s1.1837575_edi.txt
Standard Speaker: How the United States reacts to rising global temperatures should be based on science rather than political ideology. So action requires a dispassionate assessment. Apparently, however, the Bush White House doesn't want to know about such an assessment. According to Sen. Barbara Boxer, who reviewed such an analysis by the Environmental Protection Agency, White House officials declined to open an e-mail containing the assessment when they received it in December. Opening the ...

Tue, 29 Jul 08
EU Backs Away From Agrofuels
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43332
Inter Press Service: EU ministers for energy and the environment have revised their targets for renewable energy in the face of abundant new evidence that increased production of agrofuels is partly responsible for the worldwide increase of food prices. The EU has had a declared objective of increasing the share of agrofuels used in transport by 10 percent by 2010. This objective was announced during the spring of 2007, as part of the European Commission (EC) plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20 ...

Tue, 29 Jul 08
Europe hot on the heels of wind power development
http://cordis.europa.eu/fetch?CALLER=EN_NEWS&ACTION=D&SESSION=& RCN=29701
Cordis: The European Technology Platform for Wind Energy (TPWind) has unveiled in its latest Strategic Research Agenda (SRA) that wind power has the potential to meet 28% of the EU consumer's demand for electricity by 2030. Before this objective can be met, however, the TPWind Secretariat says that both policy-makers and sector players must establish and implement strategic action in technology and policy research. TPWind outlines in its SRA that wind power development will occur in three ...

Tue, 29 Jul 08
High oil prices breed bad ideas
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/200 8/07/28/high_oil_prices_breed_bad_ideas/
Boston Globe: THE AMERICAN Automobile Association reported last week that summer gasoline prices may have peaked – news that will be particularly welcome if it takes the steam out of two wrong-headed energy proposals from Washington. Democrats have rallied around a plan to raid the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, while the Bush administration has proposed a special rule to spur exploitation of oil shale in the West, a petroleum source that requires large quantities of water and energy to develop and will not ...

Tue, 29 Jul 08
Canada: Living off the grid: 'It was like camping at home'
http://www.nationalpost.com/life/story.html?id=685950
Canwest News Service: The idea to go a month without electricity, car or tap water came to Don Bissonnette on a road trip last fall. During one of those long silences that come up as the kilometres click by, the retired Quebec Court judge turned to his wife and said, "Maybe we should go off the grid for a while." There was a long pause. And then Deane Brebner, a retired CEGEP teacher, upped the ante: they should also eat only locally grown food. And that was how they found ...

Tue, 29 Jul 08
United States: New meters find power hogs and limit how much they use
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/27/BUN211VSNH.DTL& amp;type=tech
New York Times: While we all worry about where we're going to get more energy in an increasingly energy-obsessed world, there's also another alternative: Use less power. That may soon be simpler, thanks to the introduction of a bevy of inexpensive devices that let homeowners monitor how much energy appliances, TVs, PCs, and heating and cooling systems actually use. Even energy-conscious people can go only so far in managing their home energy use. Sure, we can fiddle with our thermostats, shun ...

Tue, 29 Jul 08
Oil prices and climate change fuel green gold rush
http://www.edie.net/news/news_story.asp?id=15022&channel=0&title=Oi l+prices+and+climate+change+fuel+green+gold+rush
Edie: Modern day prospectors are embarking on a "green gold rush" to invest in renewable energy in the face of rising oil prices and climate change. Fossil fuel prices, rising temperatures, the support of world governments and energy security concerns drove a record-setting year of renewable energy investment in 2007, according to a UN Environment Programme (UNEP) report. Achim Steiner, head of UNEP and UN under-secretary general, said: "Just as thousands were drawn ...

Tue, 29 Jul 08
France: Paris eyes plan for drivers to share electric cars
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hXxRwpfrAI6jY5V2p1UOpCG9HUvgD9270CS00
Associated Press: Parisians and tourists so eagerly embraced a citywide bike sharing plan launched a year ago that the mayor is setting his sights on a four-wheeled version: electric cars. Under the plan, a driver could pick up a car on the Left Bank, snake up the slopes of Montmartre, then drop it off – and only pay for the minutes spent behind the wheel. But cars, even electric, are already proving more divisive than bikes. With the price of gas steadily rising and Paris parking a permanent ...

Tue, 29 Jul 08
Australia: Poll show support for emissions trading
http://news.theage.com.au/national/poll-show-support-for-emissions-trading- 20080729-3me9.html
AAP: A big majority of voters supports the federal government's plan for emissions trading and a 2010 start-up date, a poll shows. A Galaxy survey found 80 per cent backed the emissions trading scheme and just 13 per cent opposed it. And more than two-thirds of respondents wanted emissions trading to start in 2010 or before. The poll commissioned by the Climate Institute comes as the federal opposition's shadow cabinet on Tuesday considers abandoning its policy of a 2012 ...

Tue, 29 Jul 08
Solar panel means test 'killing industry'
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24090566-5005961,00.html
AAP: THE Electrical Trades Union (ETU) says the Federal Government's means test is killing the solar panel industry. Giving evidence at a Senate Committee Inquiry in Melbourne today, ETU research officer Imogen Schoots said the industry had been damaged by the test introduced in the Federal Budget. In May the Rudd Government announced that families earning more than $100,000 would be ineligible for the $8000 rebate for installing solar panels. Ms Schoots told the committee ...

Tue, 29 Jul 08
South Africa to Set Greenhouse-Gas Emissions Targets
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601116&sid=aGTQw.PNqz40&refer=afri ca
Bloomberg: <body>South Africa's government said it will set targets for reducing emissions of climate-altering gases and may impose a carbon tax to limit the country's contribution to global warming. Greenhouse-gas emissions ``must stop growing at the latest by 2020 to 2025, stabilize for up to 10 years, and then decline in absolute terms,'' Environmental Affairs and Tourism Minister Martinus van Schalkwyk told reporters in Cape Town today. The aim is to ``limit global temperature increases to ...

Tue, 29 Jul 08
South Africa Unveils Plan to Combat Climate Change
http://voanews.com/english/2008-07-28-voa42.cfm
Voice of America: South Africa's government says it will move away from coal and promote use of wind and nuclear energy in an effort to fight global warming. Environment Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk told a news conference Monday that options being considered include mandatory energy efficiency targets and a possible tax on carbon dioxide emissions. South Africa generates most of its electricity using coal, a major source of the so-called greenhouse gases blamed for climate change. Van ...

Tue, 29 Jul 08
South Korea to up alternative energy spending
http://uk.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUKSEO8173820080728
Reuters: South Korea plans to raise its investment in alternative energy development by 60 percent this year to $193 million, the government said on Monday, as the resource-hungry nation seeks to diversify its energy sources. It plans to spend 194.4 billion won ($193 million) on alternative energy technologies, including solar and wind power as well as biofuels, the Ministry of Knowledge and Economy said in a statement. "The decision is to increase the domestic supply of renewable ...

Tue, 29 Jul 08
Academic criticises Govt's renewable energy policy
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/07/28/2316526.htm?site=northcoast
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: A Southern Cross University academic says governments are not doing enough to encourage people to switch to renewable energy. Michael Christie from the Graduate Research College says countries like Australia will be judged on how quickly they put in place efficient public policy to take the pressure off fossil fuels. Professor Christie is critical of the Government's recent imposition of a means test on the solar rebate, which excludes those with a household income of $100,000 ...

Tue, 29 Jul 08
African experts seek reforms in maize seed sector
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-07/28/content_8826929.htm
Xinhua: African policy experts on Monday called for reforms to be introduced in maize seed sector in order to meet farmers' needs. Senior policy makers from 13 sub-Saharan Africa countries meeting in Nairobi to deliberate ways to improve farmers' access to new maize seed including an increasing number of forthcoming drought tolerant maize varieties said at issue are policies that constrain the production, release and marketing of improved seed varieties. Citing a study undertaken in ...

Tue, 29 Jul 08
Ancient Ocean Cooling Sparked a Biodiversity Boom
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/07/080728-ancient-cooling.html
National Geographic: More than 400 million years ago, Earth's dramatically warmer sea temperatures plummeted to almost present-day levels, opening the door for a boom in biodiversity, new research shows. The cooler seas–which occurred during the Ordovician period–created a more hospitable environment for a range of species, researchers say. The find might also foreshadow a biodiversity crisis if the planet continues to warm due to climate change. "It's a warning of what happens to life ...

Mon, 28 Jul 08
Congress deadlocked over offshore drilling
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0728/p02s01-usec.html
Christian Science Monitor: As Congress heads into its last week before August recess and political conventions, there's one big item on the must-do list: Action to ease energy costs for American families. With a gallon of gas hovering at $4, energy prices are the No. 1 issue on voters' minds. But congressional leaders are increasingly deadlocked over what to do. In response, frustrated rank-and-file members on both sides of the aisle are stepping up efforts to find common ground. Last week, Republicans ...

Mon, 28 Jul 08
Subsidies help Germany stay top of world's solar power league
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e600cc6a-5c3d-11dd-9e99-000077b07658.html
Financial Times: Germany has reinforced its status as the world leader in solar power generation, after less stringent cuts in renewable energy subsidies than had been anticipated. Although not the world's sunniest country, Germany is among the global leaders when it comes to the number of solar panels adorning household roofs. Germans have cashed in on generous government incentives to boost the country's reliance on the sun's energy. Yet the industry needs to adapt to growing ...

Mon, 28 Jul 08
Why we never need to build another polluting power plant
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=103800
Salon: Suppose I paid you for every pound of pollution you generated and punished you for every pound you reduced. You would probably spend most of your time trying to figure out how to generate more pollution. And suppose that if you generated enough pollution, I had to pay you to build a new plant, no matter what the cost, and no matter how much cheaper it might be to not pollute in the first place. Well, that's pretty much how we have run the U.S. electric grid for nearly a century. The ...

Mon, 28 Jul 08
African famine threat to 14.5 million people
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/2463508/Afri can-famine-threat-to-14.5-million-people.html
Telegraph (UK): More than 14.5 million people living in five countries across east Africa need immediate help, according to the United Nations. Donors may be forgiven for asking whether these appeals will now become annual events. Aid workers fear they might be, due to rising food and fuel prices, as well as more frequent droughts caused by climate change. "The British public always responds generously to emergency appeals but they might be asking, "Why does this happen year after ...

Mon, 28 Jul 08
Australia: Choice praises solar systems, but admits they take years to pay for themselves
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24086770-661,00.html
Herald Sun: Choice spokesman Christopher Zinn said research showed a solar hot water system - which cost from $4000 to almost $10,000 - would take between four and six years to pay for itself. "Electric hot water systems are very inefficient and thirsty beasts when it comes to the power bills. "Solar hot water can substantially reduce household power consumption, but initial high outlays mean systems can take several years to pay for themselves," Mr Zinn said. ...

Mon, 28 Jul 08
Cut carbon emissions before its too late: Pachauri
http://www.hindu.com/2008/07/28/stories/2008072850420900.htm
Hindu: R.K. Pachauri, chairman of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has asked the developed nations to get serious about reducing carbon emissions before it is "too late." "Continued greenhouse gas emissions will lead to further [global] warming of 1.8 degree Celsius to 4 degree Celsius over the 21st century," he said while speaking at a seminar on "Global Warming and Climate Change Challenge – Issues and Challenges for India," organised by the Union Personnel, ...

Mon, 28 Jul 08
East Europeans fear climate policy pinch
http://uk.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUKMUD44860920080728
Reuters: Many pensioners in the Bulgarian village of Gorno Osenovo, who go to bed with the sunset and wake up at sunrise, have never heard of carbon dioxide. They don't get electricity either. But a new plan by Brussels to make European Union energy companies pay for the carbon dioxide they emit from 2013 threatens to lift energy costs to the point where building grids to remote places like Gorno Osenovo would be impossible. Perched on the hillsides of the Rila mountain in south-western ...

Mon, 28 Jul 08
Australia: Greenpeace begins coal protest off Qld
http://news.smh.com.au/national/greenpeace-begins-coal-protest-off-qld-2008 0728-3lvm.html
AAP: Environmental activists say they are spray-painting a queue of almost 50 coal ships at a central Queensland port to protest against the country's coal exports. Greenpeace spokesman Simon Roz on Monday said 10 activists in four inflatable boats began painting slogans such as "Barrier Reef Gone" and "Stop Coal Expansion" on the ships at Hay Point port at Mackay at 6am (AEST). He said nine ships had been painted by 7.30am with those aboard the coal ships only ...

Mon, 28 Jul 08
Australia: Greenpeace Paints Anti-Coal Slogans on Ships Off Queensland
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601081&sid=a_KakjBFtPHE&re fer=australia
Bloomberg: Greenpeace environmental activists painted anti-coal slogans on the sides of coal ships queuing outside Hay Point port in northeastern Australia, the largest export harbor for the fuel in Queensland state. The activists early today painted messages including ``Stop Coal Expansion,'' ``Barrier Reef Gone'' and ``Stop Exporting Coal'' on 10 carriers waiting outside the port to load, Greenpeace Australia Pacific said on its Web site, where it posted photographs of the vessels. ...

Mon, 28 Jul 08
Australia: Liberals gutless on climate change: Swan
http://news.smh.com.au/national/liberals-gutless-on-climate-change-swan-200 80728-3lva.html
AAP: Treasurer Wayne Swan has branded the opposition "gutless" on climate change, saying the issue has become a tool for leadership jostling. Coalition MPs are meeting in Canberra on Tuesday and Wednesday to formulate a policy response to the Rudd government's carbon emissions trading model. Division among Liberal MPs has exacerbated lingering leadership tensions. Mr Swan said on Monday the opposition should face up to the problem of climate change. "The ...

Mon, 28 Jul 08
United States: Pedal power challenges car culture as cyclists seize Los Angeles freeways
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article4412809. ece
Times (UK): Of all the least-expected consequences of soaring fuel prices, this has to be near the top of the list: swarms of cyclists are taking to the intimidating, multi-lane thoroughfares of Los Angeles, some even defying the law and whizzing between the stationary cars on the gridlocked freeways. The result is a city of diehard motorists in need of some anger management. Criminal charges have already been filed against one driver accused of deliberately braking in front of two cyclists in ...

Mon, 28 Jul 08
Women more anti-coal than men, says poll
http://www.livenews.com.au/Articles/2008/07/28/Women_more_worried_about_cli mate_change_than_men_poll
LIVENEWS.com.au: A new poll shows women are more worried than men about climate change and they're more anti-coal. The poll comissioned by Greenpeace shows 40 per cent of women think Australia's coal exports should be cut compared to 27 per cent of men. The burning of coal to generate electricity is considered a key driver of climate change and the largest source of Australia's greenhouse gas emissions. Greenpeace campaigner Simon Roz says it's contradictory and immoral for Prime ...

Mon, 28 Jul 08
United States: Change in the land of frozen ground, fish and hardy trees
http://newsminer.com/news/2008/jul/27/change-land-frozen-ground-fish-and-ha rdy-trees/
Fairbanks Daily News-Miner: Alaska is changing, and not just in the booming suburbs or shrinking villages, but in the trees on the hillsides, the fish in the oceans, and the climate itself – the very things that make Alaska what it is. The spruce and birch of the boreal forest are struggling with warm summers, and shrubs are moving into the tundra. Grizzly bear, moose, and king salmon are showing up in places they haven't been seen before, and subtropical fish are taking fishermen's bait in the Gulf of ...

Mon, 28 Jul 08
Few homes using renewable energy
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/26/MNF311T63S.DTL
Associated Press: Even as more Americans look to shrink their carbon footprints, relatively few have switched to providers of electricity generated by wind, water and sun. Green power programs allow consumers to purchase renewable energy, usually at a premium, without having to go through the far greater expense of erecting a windmill or installing a solar panel. The programs are widely available, yet there are estimates that fewer than 1 percent of residential consumers nationwide receive their ...

Mon, 28 Jul 08
Ice Free
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=103769
New York Times: Greenland's ice sheet represents one of global warming's most disturbing threats. The vast expanses of glaciers – massed, on average, 1.6 miles deep – contain enough water to raise sea levels worldwide by 23 feet. Should they melt or otherwise slip into the ocean, they would flood coastal capitals, submerge tropical islands and generally redraw the world's atlases. The infusion of fresh water could slow or shut down the ocean's currents, plunging Europe into bitter winter. Yet for the ...

Mon, 28 Jul 08
Industry Gushed Money After Reversal on Drilling
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/26/AR200807260 1891.html
Washington Post: Campaign contributions from oil industry executives to Sen. John McCain rose dramatically in the last half of June, after the senator from Arizona made a high-profile split with environmentalists and reversed his opposition to the federal ban on offshore drilling. Oil and gas industry executives and employees donated $1.1 million to McCain last month -- three-quarters of which came after his June 16 speech calling for an end to the ban -- compared with $116,000 in March, $283,000 in ...

Mon, 28 Jul 08
Market meltdown? Carbon trading is just warming up
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/market-mel tdown-carbon-trading-is-just-warming-up-877996.html
Independent: Is the carbon market a success or not? If you were to look at the share prices of companies involved in generating carbon credits, you would conclude that this was a business to steer clear of. Analysts New Energy Finance reported in May that shares in the carbon credit groups EcoSecurities, Camco International and Trading Emissions had plummeted 75 per cent, 50 per cent and 20 per cent respectively from their highs last year, while Agcert, once a leader in Clean Development Mechanism ...

Mon, 28 Jul 08
Scientists fear climate change tipping points
http://www.kauaiworld.com/articles/2008/07/27/news/news05.txt
Garden Island: A year ago James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, published a study in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics concluding that just 10 more years of business as usual emissions from the burning of coal, oil and gas will make disastrous global results all but impossible to avoid. The study described various climatic possibilities called tipping points. These tipping points, also called nonlinear events, both accelerate climate change and are ...

Mon, 28 Jul 08
UK scientists hit out at new coal station plans
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jul/27/carboncapturestorage.acti vists
Observer: British scientists have called on the government to deploy speedily a new technology which will almost completely eliminate carbon emissions from power stations. In a letter published in The Observer today, they say failure to capture emissions from dirty coal plants planned for Britain will have catastrophic environmental consequences. In addition, the group - which includes scientists from Imperial College London and Cambridge, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Bristol and Nottingham ...

Mon, 28 Jul 08
Unsettled tax credits stymie renewable laws
http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_10002233
Denver Post: The renewable-energy industry is the darling of Congress, with plenty of suitors and pledges of devotion. But there's trouble getting a long-term commitment. Tax credits that renewable companies say they rely upon expire at year's end, and Congress has failed to pass an extension despite repeated votes. Another effort is expected this week. But it's unclear whether lawmakers can get past partisan differences and agree on legislation. "No growing industry is ...

Mon, 28 Jul 08
India: 'Treat climate change tech as public'
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Treat_climate_change_tech_as_publi c/articleshow/3286258.cms
Times of India: Shyam Saran, PM's special envoy on climate change as well as his key nuclear deal negotiator, back from convincing Ireland to support India's bid at the Nuclear Supply Group, on Saturday said India wants climate change technologies to be treated as public and common goods. Speaking in the capital, Saran said that India was keen to see technologies that could make substantial impact in reducing climate change should be dealt with in the same manner as HIV drugs. Under the ...

Mon, 28 Jul 08
United Kingdom: Actions speak louder than a lot of government hot air
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jul/27/carboncapturestorage.acti vists1
Observer: There was a cleverly staged moment during last week's BBC eco-drama Burn Up, when oil company workers started poking holes in the icy Canadian tundra. To their consternation, flames of burning methane promptly whooshed out of the melting permafrost. It was a striking moment of television that demonstrated, vividly, how our warming world might soon change in uncontrollable ways. Melt our ice-caps and you release forces you cannot control: in this case, permafrost methane that would ...

Mon, 28 Jul 08
Baseball Team Clashes With Environmentalists Over Oil Company Advertising
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=103770
New York Times: When the Washington Nationals' season opened in March, the team unveiled a stadium any environmentalist could love – the country's first certified green major professional sports stadium, with energy-conserving lights and water-conserving plumbing. Now, the team is the focus of protests from environmentalists who say their issue is not with the stadium, but with the Nationals' advertising relationship with the oil giant ExxonMobil. The company's logo appears prominently on the ...

Mon, 28 Jul 08
Combating global warming could cost upto $3 trillion: Expert
http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/001200807271010.htm
Press Trust of India: The combating of global warming could cost upto a whopping USD three trillion. However, given that the GDP of the world today is over USD 65 trillion , the amount is affordable, a top expert on global warming has said. Shailesh Haribhakti, Chairman of industry body Indian Merchant Chambers' committee on 'Combating global warming' in a note said there are various estimates made on what might be the cost of achieving the 2050 target of 450 parts per million of CO2. These estimates ...

Mon, 28 Jul 08
GlobalWarmingSolution.Org: Aiming for the big 3-5-0
http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2008/07/26/news/local/news03.txt
Missoulian: 350. Three. Five. Oh. That's an important number for a Missoula nonprofit called GlobalWarmingSolution.Org. In fact, it's a figure the group's members hope will be shouted at Washington, D.C., and here's why. The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is somewhere around 385 parts per million - and climbing like the thermostat. According to the membership network, it needs to be pushed down to 350 ppm at the most. That's low compared with the 450 ppm ...

Mon, 28 Jul 08
United States: Governor vetoes climate change curriculum
http://www.mercurynews.com/politics/ci_10010291
San Jose Mercury News: California public students will stick to reading, writing and arithmetic, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger decided as he vetoed a bill late Friday that would have required climate change be added to schools' curriculum. The measure, sponsored by state Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, also would have required future science textbooks to include climate change as a subject. In January, the state Senate approved the bill, SB 908, by a 26-13 vote. Only two Republicans supported the ...

Mon, 28 Jul 08
Invest in water for farming, or the world will go hungry
http://www.monitor.co.ug/artman/publish/sun_business/Invest_in_water_for_fa rming_or_the_world_will_go_hungry_68824.shtml
Daily Monitor: A long list of factors have been blamed for the global food crisis which along with the energy crisis has hit developing countries, and the poor in particular, hardest. Prices of staple foods have risen by up to 100 per cent. A growing population, changes in trade patterns, urbanisation, dietary changes, biofuel production, climate change and regional droughts are all responsible, and commentators point to a classic pattern of price increases caused by high demand and low ...

Mon, 28 Jul 08
Legendary oilman Pickens sees wind as way out of energy bind
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content/business/epaper/2008/07/27/sunbiz _pickens_0727.html
Palm Beach Post: Billionaire oilman T. Boone Pickens is pushing an energy plan he calls vital to America's security - and its centerpiece is not drilling for more oil. "We've got $700 billion going out of the country every year" to pay foreign oil suppliers, Pickens said in an interview. "We can't afford to do that. ... The security of the country is in grave danger." The Pickens plan 1. Private industry funds the installation of thousands of wind turbines in the U.S. ...

Mon, 28 Jul 08
Liquid Assets: Why water is become a commodity
http://www.newsday.com/business/yourmoney/ny-bzcov275777632jul27,0,1208554. story
Newsday: Battles over water rights for survival and economic growth were dramatically depicted in the films "Chinatown" about Los Angeles and "The Milagro Beanfield War" about the American Southwest. The present-day story unfolding over water's future may offer opportunities for investors able to envision it as a valuable commodity that benefits companies involved in its sale, distribution, purification and infrastructure. Corporate raider and oilman T. Boone Pickens ...

Mon, 28 Jul 08
Living 'off the grid' is an achievable goal
http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/072708/opinion_2008072700280.shtml
Online Athens: This week, I visited a family so concerned about the environment that it lives a radically different life than most Americans. This family's lifestyle doesn't look much different. The family has a wife, a husband and a 10-year-old boy who loves to ride his bike and play in his treehouse. They live in a beautiful home amid a lovely garden. Like most people in this country, this family has a washing machine and a mixer, a chest freezer and a DVD player. The big difference between ...

Mon, 28 Jul 08
More federal coal eyed by energy companies
http://www.bismarcktribune.com/articles/2008/07/27/news/state/161013.txt
Associated Press: Energy companies are eyeing federal coal in North Dakota, possibly for gasification or coal-to-liquid plants over the next two decades. The Bureau of Land Management is holding meetings this week in Bismarck, Beulah and Dickinson to gather comments about the future management of the federal coal in the state. "We're asking coal companies to give us a 20-year look at their crystal ball," said John Hartley, a BLM project manager in Dickinson. "We're hopeful to get ...

Mon, 28 Jul 08
Oil May Become GOP's 2008 Issue
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/07/26/ST20080726020 46.html
Washington Post: Four-dollar-a-gallon gas has done something that few Republicans thought possible just a few months ago: given them hope. United behind a renewed push for offshore oil drilling, Republican members of Congress and the party's presumptive presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain, think they have found their best political issue of the 2008 campaign. McCain strategists and GOP leaders on Capitol Hill say the issue, which polls suggest Americans favor by healthy margins, lets ...

Mon, 28 Jul 08
Australia: Renewable energy for north-south pipe
http://www.theage.com.au/environment/renewable-energy-for-northsouth-pipe-2 0080726-3lfa.html
Age: THE energy needed to pump water over the Great Dividing Range to Melbourne in the north-south pipe – equivalent to powering 10,000 homes each year – will be offset by investments in renewable energy. Melbourne Water is also looking at harnessing the hydro power of the water, which may be used to help pump the water up the mountain. There will not be a wind farm or solar plant to "plug in" to the water pumping stations. Melbourne Water will instead negotiate with power ...

Mon, 28 Jul 08
Republicans See Oil Drilling As Plus For McCain Campaign
http://www2.tbo.com/content/2008/jul/27/na-republicans-see-oil-drilling-as- plus-for-mccain/
Associated Press: Four dollar-a-gallon gasoline has done something few Republicans thought possible a few months ago: given them hope. United behind a renewed push for offshore oil drilling, Republican members of Congress and the GOP's presumptive presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, think they have found their best political issue of the 2008 campaign. McCain strategists and GOP leaders on Capitol Hill said the issue lets Republicans demonstrate their plans to address the anger caused by ...

Mon, 28 Jul 08
United States: Scientist raises interest in seawater farming
http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2008/07/27/scientist_raises_inter est_in_seawater_farming/
LA Times: A few miles inland from the Pacific Ocean, amid cracked earth and mesquite and sun-bleached cactus, neat rows of emerald plants sprout from the desert floor. The crop is salicornia. It is nourished by seawater flowing from a manmade canal. And if you believe the American who is farming it, this incongruous swath of green has the potential to feed the world, fuel our vehicles, and slow global warming. He is Carl Hodges, a Tucson-based atmospheric physicist who has spent most of ...

Mon, 28 Jul 08
Tech giants rush to solar power
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/environment/2008-07-27-sola r-chips_N.htm
USA Today: Semiconductor companies are rushing into the solar power business faster than a Pentium-driven computer, promising to turn a niche form of renewable energy into a mass-market product. Since May, computer powerhouses Intel (INTC), IBM (IBM) and National Semiconductor (NSM) have barreled into solar energy, joining hundreds of fellow technology mainstays. Virtually every chipmaker is weighing a solar play, says Rhone Resch, head of the Solar Energy Industries Association. ...

Mon, 28 Jul 08
Carbon credits' dirty secret
http://www.torontosun.com/News/Columnists/Goldstein_Lorrie/2008/07/26/62754 21-sun.php
Toronto Sun: At the bottom of the house of sand on which the Kyoto accord and world carbon trading markets are built, there's a leaking foundation. Otherwise known as a carbon credit. A carbon credit is a permit or, alternatively, a unit of currency, allowing a country or corporation to emit one metric tonne of carbon dioxide, linked to man-made global warming. Carbon credits are the main mechanism by which Kyoto transfers wealth from developed nations like Canada to developing ...

Mon, 28 Jul 08
Canada: Carbon tax plan boosts Dion's image, if not Liberal fortunes
http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5h8NNB-v2T-W4b67yOyG4A_2QUV0g
Canadian Press: Stephane Dion's risky proposal to impose a carbon tax hasn't rocketed the Liberal party to the top of Canada's political charts, but it does seem to have given the leader's image a much-needed boost. During a swing through eastern Ontario last week to sell his "green shift," Dion met with criticism from farmers and truckers who fear a carbon tax on diesel fuel will put them out of business, notwithstanding the offsetting tax cuts and tax benefits the Liberal leader is ...

Mon, 28 Jul 08
China sends research expedition to Arctic Ocean
http://uk.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUKPEK27118620080727
Reuters: China plans to install its first long-term deep-sea subsurface mooring system in the Arctic Ocean, to monitor long-term marine changes, the Xinhua news agency said on Sunday. The system will collect data on the temperature, salinity and speed of currents at various depths around 75 degrees north in the Chukchi Sea, where Atlantic and Pacific currents converge above the Bering Strait. That will allow studies of the impact on China's climate of changes in the Arctic, Xinhua ...

Mon, 28 Jul 08
Australia: Coalition signals climate policy shift
http://news.smh.com.au/national/coalition-signals-climate-policy-shift-2008 0727-3ljb.html
AAP: The federal coalition has foreshadowed a change in its climate change policy as MPs prepare to meet in Canberra to thrash out the issue. The coalition has been split over emissions trading, sending out mixed messages on whether to wait for other nations to act first. The current policy appears to be to forge ahead with emissions trading by 2012 - but Liberal treasury spokesman Malcolm Turnbull has paved the way for a shift. "Inevitably our policy will change," ...

Mon, 28 Jul 08
Growing energy field creates a windfall of opportunity
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2008075135_windjob s27.html
Seattle Times: Oskar Villalobos was tired of telling people he worked at Les Schwab. He wanted a job that sounded more impressive and paid better. Part of him dreamed of making a global impact. So when he read about the renewable-energy-training program at Columbia Gorge College in The Dalles, he signed up. And after graduating from the six-month pilot program, he landed a job at the Biglow Canyon wind farm as a technician. Now Villalobos is a hot commodity. Several other wind-energy ...

Mon, 28 Jul 08
Scientists who study the Earth's climate say humans are making it warmer
http://newsminer.com/news/2008/jul/27/scientists-who-study-climate-say-huma ns-are-making/
Fairbanks Daily News-Miner: Twenty thousand years ago, it was so cold in North America -- and had been for so long -- that much of the continent was covered by ice two miles thick. A hundred and five thousand years before that, it was so warm that giant ice caps melted and the oceans rose 15 feet above their current levels. The climate has been changing on its own since long before coal-fired power plants and SUVs. In the last 150,000 years, the Earth as a whole has been a few degrees warmer than it is ...

Mon, 28 Jul 08
China: Smog in Beijing becomes overwhelming
http://www.foxsports.com.au/beijing_olympics/story/0,27313,24085024-5016791 ,00.html
Fox: Beijing Olympics organisers denied manipulating pollution statistics today as thick smog worsened in the Chinese capital with just 12 days before the opening ceremony. The first batch of Australian athletes were due to arrive in Beijing tomorrow night to be greeted by a wall of pollution that has built up in recent days. Australian Olympic team officials who arrived in China several days ago confirmed visibility had worsened around the Games precinct with the Main Press ...

Mon, 28 Jul 08
US Army works to cut its carbon "bootprint"
http://africa.reuters.com/wire/news/usnN26414212.html
Reuters: What if cutting greenhouse emissions could also save the lives of soldiers in Iraq, where fuel-laden convoys make them targets? The U.S. Army says it is happening now in a push to reduce its carbon "bootprint." From forward areas like Iraq and Afghanistan to training ranges in the United States, the Army has been working to limit its use of fossil fuels and make its operations more environmentally sustainable. The goal is to bring Army emissions of climate-warming ...

Mon, 28 Jul 08
Botanists sound the alarm as rare species face extinction
http://www.miamiherald.com/163/story/615849.html
Miami Herald: Six years ago, ecologists at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden painstakingly gathered the seeds of a vine found only in eight wild spots from Palm Beach County through Miami-Dade so they could be grown in a nursery and then reestablished in their natural habitat. But as seas rise with climate change, the beaches may be inundated and the dozen patches of beach jacquemontia, or clustervine, nourished with so much care may be lost. As climate change affects everything from human ...

Mon, 28 Jul 08
Climate change: market failures spread like wildfire
http://www.greenleft.org.au/2008/760/39249
Green Left: Less than a fortnight after the release of the Rudd government's Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme green paper, the potential losers are howling at the spectre of lost profits while the potential winners - global investment banks, hedge funds and commodities traders - are rubbing their hands at the thought of making millions from the permits to pollute that the scheme will create. Most importantly, as the detail of the scheme sinks in, it is clear that it will create a whole new ...

Sun, 27 Jul 08
United States: As wildfires get wilder, the costs of fighting them are untamed
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-wildfires27-2008jul27,0,4093174.sto ry
LA Times: It was day 42 of the zaca fire. A tower of white smoke reached miles into the blue sky above the undulating ridges of Santa Barbara's backcountry. Helicopters ferried firefighters across the saw-toothed terrain and bombed fiery ridges with water. Long plumes of red retardant trailed from the belly of a DC-10 air tanker. Bulldozers cut defensive lines through pygmy forests of chaparral. A few miles south, in a camp city of tents and air-conditioned office trailers, commanders ...

Sun, 27 Jul 08
Gore, Pickens now have common goal
http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=706738&category= OPINION
Albany Times Union,: Former Vice President Al Gore has navigated his crusade on behalf of environmental change into heavy waters, getting lots of attention but no credible nonpartisan denial of what he is saying. We have to listen up. He paints a grim picture of our national and global future if we don't face the pending change in the weather. He has already won an Oscar for his efforts on global warming and a shared Nobel Peace Prize to boot. The Supreme Court should be hanging its head in shame – five ...

Sun, 27 Jul 08
United States: State bid to limit emissions hits court snag
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/26/BA2111VLHU.DTL
San Francisco Chronicle: California's effort to limit vehicle emissions of gases that contribute to global warming hit a snag Friday when a federal appeals court ruled that the state and environmental groups acted too early when they sued the Bush administration in January for blocking the law. The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco dismissed a lawsuit filed by California, 15 other states and five environmental groups over the Environmental Protection Agency's refusal to let the state ...

Sun, 27 Jul 08
Australians Willing to Act to Curb Climate Change
http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/view/31355/australians_willing_to_act_to_cu rb_climate_change1
Angus Reid Global Monitor: The vast majority of Australians want their government to introduce policies to tackle climate change without waiting for consensus with other countries, according to a poll by AC Nielsen published in the Sydney Morning Herald. 77 per cent of respondents say Australia should begin cutting its greenhouse gas emissions regardless of what other countries do. Additionally, 68 per cent of respondents say they are prepared to pay more for goods and services as a result of the new ...

Sun, 27 Jul 08
Ireland: Biofuel targets abandoned
http://www.herald.ie/world-news/biofuel-targets-abandoned-1441599.html
Herald: ENERGY Minister Eamon Ryan has said the Government has abandoned targets to have biofuels make up almost 6pc of transport fuel by 2010. Mr Ryan's predecessor Noel Dempsey set the ambitious targets of making biofuels 5.75pc of total transport fuel just 15 months ago. However, the plans have been dropped after growing doubts about the benefits of biofuels, which have been blamed for steep rises in global food prices as well as for exacerbating climate change rather than ...

Sun, 27 Jul 08
Developed nations should get serious on emissions cut: Pachauri
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/News_By_Industry/ET_Cetera/Develop ed_nations_should_get_serious_on_emissions_cut_Pachauri/articleshow/3283010 .cms
Press Trust of India: Developed nations should pull up their socks and get "serious" about reducing carbon emissions before it was "too late", R K Pachauri, Chairman of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said. "Continued greenhouse gas emissions will lead to further (global) warming of 1.8 degree Celsius to 4 degree Celsius over the 21st century," the noted environment expert said. "The world can at best allow emissions to increase upto ...

Sun, 27 Jul 08
Ethanol carries huge costs to the environment, people
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/5908297.html
Houston Chronicle: For years, Congress has promoted corn ethanol, touting its purported environmental benefit. Mounting data now suggest these assumptions were wrong. Expanded use of food for fuel is exacerbating environmental threats, including pollution in U.S. waterways. New data out this week on the growing "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico starkly highlight this concern. Dead zones are created when large amounts of nitrogen and phosphorous run off into warm waters, spawning algae ...

Sun, 27 Jul 08
Making a climate crisis into a drama
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/26/climatechange.scienceof climatechange
Guardian: The BBC's two-part global warming thriller Burn Up, which concluded last night, brought imaginary sex and murder to the real-life world of the climate negotiations. Along the way, writer Simon Beaufoy did his level best to weave real-life climate science and politics seamlessly into the fictional drama. Most people who have spent any time at climate negotiations will conclude that he did a credible job. Those who have been influenced by the more effective pieces of contrarian propaganda, ...

Sun, 27 Jul 08
Scientists use latest technology to examine aerosol particles that influence clouds
http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/south-asia/scientists-use-latest-techno logy-to-examine-aerosol-particles-that-influence-clouds_10076057.html
Indo-Asian News Service: Scientists are using instruments like an aerosol mass spectrometer to examine the life cycles of atmospheric aerosols that can absorb and scatter light and influence the lifetime of clouds. Chemists from Aerodyne Research Inc. and Boston College (BC) have designed the instrument. According to Chemistry Professor Paul Davidovits and Aerodyne Principal Scientist Timothy B. Onasch from BC, the novel spectrometer allows researchers to better understand what happens to the ...

Sun, 27 Jul 08
United Kingdom: Airport protesters plan next move
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/7524141.stm
BBC: Anti-Heathrow expansion protesters are to discuss their next move if the airport gets the go-ahead to build a third runway and sixth terminal. Local residents, trade unionists and MPs will meet at a conference in Harlington, west London, on Saturday. They will be joined by green protesters from the Camp for Climate Action. The Heathrow Association for the Control of Aircraft Noise (Hacan) said plans could range from "mass letter-writing to mass direct ...

Sun, 27 Jul 08
United States: County looks to become electric car-friendly
http://www.mercurynews.com/centralcoast/ci_10005295
San Jose Mercury News: Your stop for gas and a candy bar could soon give way to an occasional shot of electricity. At least that's the thinking of a panel of county-appointed environmental leaders who see electric cars in our not-too-distant future. Planning for a network of vehicle charging stations is one of the projects that the county Commission on the Environment is considering as part of its charge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. "We know that the technology is coming forward. Let's ...

Sun, 27 Jul 08
Canada: Problem of population growth needs to be met
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=7f9a4538-3d67-4e83-b3 2c-73618f27fe9bc
Vanouver Sun: The most frightening -- and fascinating -- thing I know is a graph of human population growth over the past millennium. Starting in about 1800, the curve suddenly spikes almost straight upward, and this incredible growth in human numbers continues today. In my lifetime alone, population has increased by over four billion people. And thanks to technological innovations and cheap oil, the impact of each person on the globe has increased even faster. Under this onslaught, Earth's vast ...

Sun, 27 Jul 08
Report says West suffering from fed apathy
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/jul/25/reuteman-report-says-west -suffering-from-fed/
Rocky Mountain News: The folks from the Brookings Institute were in town this week to unveil their new study on the intermountain West: "Mountain Megas." Five "megapolitan" areas - the Front Range, Phoenix/Tucson, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City and Albuquerque/Santa Fe - are experiencing the fastest growth in the country. The federal government had better start paying more attention to our growing needs, the report says. "The federal government is largely impervious to the ...

Sat, 26 Jul 08
Ninety billion barrels of oil revealed in fragile Arctic
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/feature/story.cfm?c_id=26&objectid=10523555
Independent: The future of the Arctic will be less white wilderness, more black gold, a report on oil reserves in the High North has signalled this week. The first comprehensive assessment of oil and gas resources north of the Arctic Circle, carried out by American geologists, reveals that underneath the ice, the region may contain as much as a fifth of the world's undiscovered yet recoverable oil and natural gas reserves. This includes 90 billion barrels of oil, enough to supply the world ...

Sat, 26 Jul 08
Northern Wildfire Smoke May Cast Shadow On Arctic Warming
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080724220104.htm
ScienceDaily: The Arctic may get some temporary relief from global warming if the annual North American wildfire season intensifies, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Colorado and NOAA. Smoke transported to the Arctic from northern forest fires may cool the surface for several weeks to months at a time, according to the most detailed analysis yet of how smoke influences the Arctic climate relative to the amount of snow and ice cover. "Smoke in the atmosphere ...

Sat, 26 Jul 08
Philippines: Protecting our forests
http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2008/july/26/yehey/opinion/20080726opi7 .html
Manila Times: In summary, the reasons for the urgent need to pass the Sustainable Forest Management Act are obvious. Forests are essential for mitigating global warming, preventing the loss of lives, the loss of the cultural heritage of Indigenous Cultural Communities and Indigenous Peoples and the loss of biodiversity resources unique to Philippine forests. Forests are valuable in themselves. The law should reflect this reality. The only way that this can be done is to incorporate the following ...

Sat, 26 Jul 08
Canadian elections likely to focus on carbon tax
http://ca.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idCAN2549502220080725
Reuters: Elections to fill three seats in Canada's House of Commons will be held on September 8 with the major issue likely to be the opposition Liberal Party's proposal to introduce a carbon tax. Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced the date of the elections on Friday. Two of the seats had been held by the Liberals, one in Ontario and one in Quebec, and another in Quebec held by the separatist Bloc Quebecois. The outcome will not affect the balance of power in the House ...

Sat, 26 Jul 08
Democrats: White House must publish 'chilling' climate change document
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jul/25/carbonemissions.climatech ange
Guardian: The row over US inaction on carbon emissions reached new heights yesterday after the White House allowed Congress to look at last year's government proposal to officially deem climate change a threat to public health – a plan that aides to George Bush refused to acknowledge or read. The climate plan was finished in December by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in response to a supreme court ruling that required the Bush administration to state whether carbon emissions ...

Sat, 26 Jul 08
Indonesia: Last-Frontier Forest Is at Risk From Boom
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121695067248683475.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Wall Street Journal: The global resource boom is threatening one of the world's last tropical-forest frontiers: the Merauke region of Indonesia's remote Papua province. Indonesian companies are lining up to develop pulp-and-paper mills in Merauke; investors from South Korea want to expand palm-oil plantations; and Indonesian officials have tried to persuade International Paper Co to invest in the region. Merauke lies on the southern shore of Papua province, a California-size land of virgin forests ...

Sat, 26 Jul 08
Nigeria: 'Global Food Crisis is Effect of Climate Change'
http://allafrica.com/stories/200807250507.html
Leadership (Abuja): Architect Halima Tayo Alao, the Minister of Environment, Housing and Urban Development is a committed community leader who has served Nigeria in several professional and administrative positions before attaining her present status. She studied architecture at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, from where she graduated with a Master of Science (M.Sc) degree in 1981. After participating in the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) in Ibadan, Oyo State, she commenced a distinguished civil ...

Sat, 26 Jul 08
France: 'It feels like a sci-fi film' - accidents tarnish nuclear dream
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jul/25/nuclear.industry.france
Guardian: Sylvie Eymard's Provence farmhouse kitchen should be the picture of French rural calm. But the stockpiles of bottled water, disinfectant rinse and disposable paper plates hint at something strange. For the past two weeks, Eymard, 41, and her children, 13 and seven, have had a phobia of taps. To wash up, they go out to the yard and fill a bowl from a specially delivered plastic tank of purified water on a fork-lift tractor. They carry the water up to the bathroom to wash. Even the dog ...

Sat, 26 Jul 08
California dealt setback in greenhouse-gas fight with EPA
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/25/BA2111VLHU.DTL& amp;tsp=1
San Francisco Chronicle: A federal appeals court dealt a setback to California and environmental groups today in their battle with the Bush administration over the state's efforts to restrict vehicle emissions of gases that contribute to global warming. The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco dismissed a lawsuit filed by California and 15 other states in January over the Environmental Protection Agency's refusal to let the state enforce its limits on greenhouse gas emissions from new cars and ...

Sat, 26 Jul 08
In India growth trumps sustainability
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2008/07/25/lawre nce-solomon-in-india-growth-trumps-sustainability.aspx
National Post: India loves the UN's climate change policies and so does India's representative at the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Rajendra Pachauri. Why the love-in? The Indian government's new "National Action Plan on Climate Change," which Pachauri helped craft, plainly explains why: The UN formally establishes that global warming is a matter of secondary importance to India, allowing the world's largest democracy to pursue its own best interests. As the National Action ...

Sat, 26 Jul 08
Pickens pitches plans to shift US away from oil
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/business/20080725-9999-1n25pickens.html
San Diegno Union-Tribune: Texas billionaire T. Boone Pickens became one of the world's richest people by drilling for petroleum. But these days, he's spearheading a multimillion-dollar push to wean the nation from oil and onto wind power and natural gas. T. Boone Pickens Personal: Born May 22, 1928, in Holdenville, Okla. With a $3 billion net worth, Pickens is the 117th-richest person in the United States and 369th-richest in the world, according to Forbes magazine. Pickens' wife, Madeleine, ...

Sat, 26 Jul 08
Population growth in developing countries
http://nation.ittefaq.com/issues/2008/07/26/news0712.htm
New Nation: The world's population reached six and a half billion in 2006, and is quickly approaching 7 billion. It appears to be increasing at a rate of about 6.5 million a month or 78 million a year. From a purely mathematical point of view, at the current growth rate of 1.16 per cent per year, the world's population will double in 60 years. However, it is being projected to grow to 9 billion by 2050 (as per the United Nations). If this projection holds, it would be an improvement over an earlier ...

Sat, 26 Jul 08
Report: Warming a threat to skiing and Colorado's economy
http://www.aspentimes.com/article/20080725/NEWS/379637438/-1/rss03
Aspen Times: If greenhouse gas emissions aren't curtailed, climate change will reduce the snowpack in Eagle County – home to the ski resorts of Vail and Beaver Creek – by 57 percent by 2085, according to a new report. "The state's most popular tourist activity is at risk from climate change," said the latest report to address the impact of climate change on skiing. It was published Wednesday by the Center for Integrative Environmental Research at the University of Maryland in College Park. ...

Sat, 26 Jul 08
Australia: Coal-fired power stations to be redundant within decades: Wilson
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/07/25/2315055.htm?section=business
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Queensland Energy Minister Geoff Wilson says an emissions trading scheme will see the state's coal-fired power stations made redundant within decades. He says producing cleaner, greener energy will increase the cost of electricity to consumers, but it is a fair price to pay to combat global warming. Mr Wilson says although Queensland's power stations are among the most advanced in Australia, they are earmarked to be closed down within 20 years. "The extent to which ...

Sat, 26 Jul 08
Deadly jellyfish spotted in UK waters
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/07/25/eajellyfi sh225.xml
Telegraph (UK): Deadly Portuguese Man O' War jellyfish have been spotted off the British coast, prompting warnings to holidaymakers. The creature, one of the deadliest in the world, was identified near Land's End, Cornwall. Commonly thought of as a jellyfish, it is actually a siphonophore - a colony of organisms resembling jellyfish. Incapable of propelling itself, using the wind or current to move, it usually floating on the surface with its tentacles, on average one metre long, ...

Sat, 26 Jul 08
EPA Chief Warned White House On Global Warming, Senator Says
http://www.courant.com/news/nationworld/hc-epa0725.artjul25,0,5584555.story
Hartford Courant: The head of the Environmental Protection Agency told the Bush administration in December that high levels of man-made heat-trapping gases are causing global warming and endanger the American people, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., said Thursday after she reviewed the EPA finding, which has not been made public. The document is important because the Supreme Court ruled last year that if the EPA administrator finds greenhouse gases endanger the public, then the government must regulate ...

Sat, 26 Jul 08
Canada: Federal environment minister calls federal carbon tax proposal 'pay and pollute?
http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5gU7UKCUXyzreb-ED96wteAqu-iYw
Canadian Press: Federal Environment Minister John Baird says a Canada-wide carbon tax would be akin to a "pay-and-pollute" system. Baird was slamming Liberal Leader Stephane Dion's plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Dion says shifting to a carbon tax on polluters is the right thing to do for the country, even as consumers are facing much higher energy costs than they did a year ago. But his plan won't be getting Baird's vote. "A company could simply buy their ...

Sat, 26 Jul 08
Canada: Feds must prepare for climate change health effects
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080725/climate_change _080724/20080725?hub=CanadaAM
CTV: The federal government needs to put more resources into both preparing for and preventing the health effects of changing weather, says one of the authors of an as-yet-unreleased Health Canada report on climate change. Nobel Prize-winning climate change scientist Gordon McBean told CTV's Canada AM on Friday that the federal government needs to have a co-ordinated national warning system for potentially hazardous weather patterns such as extreme hot or cold temperatures. ...

Sat, 26 Jul 08
Scientists search for answers from the carbon in the clouds
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-07/bc-ssf072408.php
EurekAlert: An aerosol mass spectrometer developed by chemists from Aerodyne Research Inc. and Boston