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Sun, 31 Aug 08
Japan: Toyota to lease new fuel cell hybrid
http://news.theage.com.au/business/toyota-to-lease-new-fuel-cell-hybrid-200 80831-466w.html
Agence France-Presse: Toyota Motor Corp says it will start leasing its new fuel cell hybrid next month as part of its efforts to encourage the widespread use of the zero-emission vehicles. Japan's top automaker, which has already won strong interest in its fuel sipping petrol-electric hybrids, will lease one of its Toyota FCHV-adv vehicles to Japan's environment ministry. Toyota also plans to lease the five-seat sporty vehicle to local governments and companies in, or linked to, the energy ...

Sun, 31 Aug 08
The time has come to say Britain is full
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/aug/31/immigration.population
Observer: The science of demographic projection and the art of scaremongering enjoy a relationship akin to that of the sadist and masochist: first comes the threat, then the relish with which the punishment is anticipated. Thus forecasts of increasing population numbers are guaranteed to produce dystopian visions of social collapse. The godfather of apocalyptic demographics was the Rev Thomas Malthus, who famously proposed in the late 18th century that unchecked population growth would lead to ...

Sun, 31 Aug 08
Industry's next fear: 'Water is the oil of the 21st century'
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/376938_wateronline31.html
Economist: "Water is the oil of the 21st century," declares Andrew Liveris, the chief executive of Dow, a chemical company. Like oil, water is a critical lubricant of the global economy. And as with oil, supplies of water -- at least, the clean, easily accessible sort -- are coming under enormous strain because of the growing global population and an emerging middle-class in Asia that hankers for the water-intensive life enjoyed by people in the West. Oil prices have fallen from their ...

Sun, 31 Aug 08
Methane gas oozing up from Siberian seabed: Swedish researcher
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jyL0h8nTY1z29bAhYBsnFtXcj_RQ
Agence France-Presse: Methane, a potent greenhouse gas, is leaking from the permafrost under the Siberian seabed, a researcher on an international expedition in the region told Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter on Saturday. "The permafrost now has small holes. We have found elevated levels of methane above the water surface and even more in the water just below. It is obvious that the source is the seabed," Oerjan Gustafsson, the Swedish leader of the International Siberian Shelf Study, told the ...

Sun, 31 Aug 08
Oil Group Joins Alaska in Suing to Overturn Polar Bear Protection
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/30/AR200808300 1538.html
Washington Post: The American Petroleum Institute and four other business groups filed suit Thursday against Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director H. Dale Hall, joining Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's administration in trying to reverse the listing of the polar bear as a threatened species. On Aug. 4, the state of Alaska filed a lawsuit opposing the polar bear's listing, arguing that their populations as a whole are stable and that melting sea ice does not pose an ...

Sun, 31 Aug 08
Villagers in India desperate as flooding spreads
http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2008/08/30/villagers_in_indi a_desperate_as_flooding_spreads/
Reuters: Villagers were eating uncooked rice and flour mixed with polluted water, disaster relief officials said yesterday as rising river waters smashed embankments and flooded more areas in the northeast Indian state of Bihar. More than 2 million people have been displaced and about a quarter of a million houses have been destroyed in Bihar after the country's worst flooding in 50 years, officials said. A boat carrying dozens of flood victims overturned in eastern India yesterday, ...

Sun, 31 Aug 08
Aussies 'prepared to pay to fix climate'
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=623347
AAP: A major survey of Australians' views on climate change has found an overwhelming majority think it is happening, and they're prepared to pay to address it. The study by University of Technology Sydney (UTS) also found Australians wanted to see cuts in the nation's greenhouse gas emissions irrespective of the actions of other countries. Researchers quizzed 768 people, who were chosen randomly but with a method to ensure the sample was reflective of the Australian population, ...

Sun, 31 Aug 08
Calif. land use subject to global warming review
http://www.pe.com/ap_news/California/CA_XGR_Greenhouse_Gases_California_Spr awl_356443C.shtml
Associated Press: For decades, California cities and counties knew one way to grow by sprawling outward. That approach, which has led to ever longer commutes, jammed freeways and worsening air quality, is being challenged under a bill that was approved Saturday in the state Legislature. The bill would require local governments to plan their growth so homes, businesses and public transit systems are clustered together. The goal is to help California meet the emission mandates spelled out in a ...

Sun, 31 Aug 08
Australia: Cash woes spell end for Gunns' pulp mill
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24263157-664,00.html
Herald Sun: TASMANIA'S controversial pulp mill development was declared "dead" yesterday as leading opponents turned up the heat on Gunns Limited. Leading business figure Geoffrey Cousins, an outspoken mill critic, launched a scathing response after Gunns this week pushed the start of the project out to next March, well beyond deadlines set by the Federal and Tasmanian Governments. "Gunns' statement to the stock exchange rings a final bell on its proposed pulp mill in the Tamar Valley, " ...

Sun, 31 Aug 08
Hollywood A-listers forced to mothball their personal jets
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/hollywood-alisters-forced- to-mothball-their-personal-jets-913914.html
Independent: They probably won't get much sympathy from their hard-pressed fans, but America's stars of stage and screen are being forced to give up one of the traditional benefits of their celebrity status: private jets. The soaring price of aviation fuel, which is now twice the cost of a year ago, is adding tens of thousands of dollars to the cost of a typical flight, prompting members of Hollywood's élite to think the unthinkable and ground their personal Gulfstreams. Last week, the ...

Sun, 31 Aug 08
Hurricane Gustav strengthens en route to Cuba, gulf
http://uk.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUKN2541891320080830
Reuters: Powerful Hurricane Gustav roared toward western Cuba on Saturday with 125 mph (205 kph) winds on its way to the oil-rich Gulf of Mexico after a deadly pass through the Caribbean. Gustav ripped across the Cayman Islands and closed in on Cuba's Isle of Youth before it was set to strike the Cuban mainland later in the day as a major hurricane. Forecasters predicted Gustav would cross the Gulf of Mexico and hit central Louisiana on Tuesday with the same force that Hurricane Katrina ...

Sun, 31 Aug 08
Making Gore's Switch Isn't Quite So Simple
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/29/AR200808290 2332.html
Washington Post: Al Gore must be kidding. The former vice president, now in his second career as a climate Cassandra, has spent the past few weeks pushing the notion that the United States can be "repowered" -- that all its electricity needs can be met without producing greenhouse gases. He says it can be done within a decade. At the Democratic National Convention last week, he told the crowd in Denver that "we have everything we need" to start solving the climate crisis, ...

Sun, 31 Aug 08
Ministers take bold steps to address energy crisis in West Africa
http://www.afriquenligne.fr/ministers-take-bold-steps-to-address-energy-cri sis-in-west-africa-2008083011748.html
Afrique en ligne: Ministers of Energy from West Africa emerged from their one-day meeting in Bissau, Guinea Bissau, Friday resolved to deal, in concrete manner, with the energy crisis in the sub-region. In a communique, issued from the ECOWAS secretariat in Abuja, Nigeria's federal capital, and made available to PANA here, the ministers said they adopted six resolutions which hope would enhance measure to address the problem. The ministers, who reviewed the report of a preceding experts' meeting, noted ...

Sun, 31 Aug 08
Paper Or Plastic? It'll Cost You.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/156361
Newsweek: Economist Peter Nickerson, 56, is a proud resident of Seattle, arguably the capital of green America, so it almost goes without saying that he supports aggressive environmental policies. He'd like to see his city make public transit free to reduce vehicle emissions. He wants to ban pesticides in rivers where salmon swim. He's a devoted recycler who even composts his own trash. Surely, then, he must love Seattle's new bag tax? (Starting in 2009, it would require drug, grocery and convenience ...

Sun, 31 Aug 08
The wind of change is slow to blow through Britain's energy policy
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/the-wind-o f-change-is-slow-to-blow-through-britains-energy-policy-913624.html
Independent: In two years' time, the UK seems certain to miss one of the core environmental targets of the Blair-Brown years. The Government pledged that 10 per cent of the country's electricity would be generated from renewable sources, principally from wind farms, but also including tidal and solar power. Press releases from the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (Berr) still boast of the target, which was first promised in 2000 and enshrined three years later in the ...

Sun, 31 Aug 08
Throwing Caution to the Wind
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/31/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/31Rhome.html?re f=nyregionspecial2
New York Times: THE Jersey Shore is waiting for the Big One. It has been awhile since a major storm hit here, and there's a feeling that we're due. Every year brings dire predictions: global warming, El Niño, a few more named storms. The coast is always vulnerable, and it's easy to imagine Nature ridding herself of those palaces thoughtlessly built on barrier islands or at the edge of the mainland dunes. There is plenty of precedent. Not everyone is old enough to remember the hurricanes of ...

Sun, 31 Aug 08
New doubts on $2bn Gunns mill
http://www.news.com.au/business/story/0,27753,24260195-462,00.html
Herald Sun: GUNNS last night was scrambling to raise the cash needed to build its $2 billion pulp mill and meet a looming Federal Government deadline. In the latest blow to the company's stalled plans to build the mill in the environmentally-sensitive Tamar River valley, Gunns revealed it was unlikely to raise the necessary funding before next March. Gunns said it hoped to enter a joint venture with an as-yet-unnamed industry participant that may take a 50 per cent stake in the ...

Sun, 31 Aug 08
Palin questioned whether global warming is melting Arctic ice
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/260/story/51169.html
McClatchy Newspapers: Sen. John McCain's choice of a running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, favors drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, questioned the science behind predictions of sea ice loss linked to global warming and opposed a state initiative that would have banned metal mines from discharging pollution into salmon streams. The Alaska governor has said that she's tried to persuade McCain to agree with her on drilling in the wildlife refuge. She also has said that she was happy ...

Sat, 30 Aug 08
A Hard Habit to Break, Even With Gas at $10 a Gallon
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=105546
New York Times: Ten dollars a gallon may seem unthinkable to American drivers still smarting from the spike in gas prices to around $4 a gallon. But that was nearly the price that Marco Annarumi faced recently when filling his Jeep on his way home from work. "It hasn't changed my driving at all – not a bit – I just have to work harder," he said with seeming indifference. High oil prices and high taxes on gas pushed the average price of gasoline to new heights in much of Europe this summer. Yet ...

Sat, 30 Aug 08
California Moves on Bill to Curb Sprawl and Emissions
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=105578
New York Times: California, known for its far-ranging suburbs and jam-packed traffic, is close to adopting a law intended to slow the increase in emissions of heat-trapping gases by encouraging housing close to job sites, rail lines and bus stops to shorten the time people spend in their cars. The measure, which the State Assembly passed on Monday and awaits final approval by the Senate, would be the nation's most comprehensive effort to reduce sprawl. It would loosely tie tens of billions of dollars ...

Sat, 30 Aug 08
Climate fight hit by global slowdown, Russia fears
http://www.reuters.com/article/homepageCrisis/idUSLS676710._CH_.2400
Reuters: The fight against global warming is in danger of being downgraded on more urgent fears over energy security, heightened by a Russian war with Georgia, and a global economic slowdown. Added to the mix -- politicians are faced with a rising clamour of complaints from voters over record fuel bills, and racing gas and oil prices have sparked new interest in high-carbon coal as well as cleaner alternatives. "A few years ago it was all about climate change. Now energy security has ...

Sat, 30 Aug 08
Democratic Nominee Obama Vows to Defeat Climate Change
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/aug2008/2008-08-29-01.asp
Environment News Service: Climate change has made Senator Barack Obama's list of "threats of the 21st century" alongside terrorism and nuclear proliferation, poverty, genocide, and disease. Accepting the Democratic nomination for president Thursday night before 75,000 supporters at Denver's Invesco Field, Obama said he would "build new partnerships" to defeat these threats. "And for the sake of our economy, our security, and the future of our planet, I will set a clear goal as president - in 10 years, ...

Sat, 30 Aug 08
Energy, Environment Will Be Central to McCain-Palin Campaign
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/aug2008/2008-08-29-02.asp
Environment News Service: U.S. Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, today announced that he has selected Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to be his running mate and to serve as his vice president. His choice puts the twin issues of energy and environment at the center of the 2008 election campaign. "Governor Palin is a tough executive who has demonstrated during her time in office that she is ready to be president," McCain said today in Dayton. "Governor Palin has challenged ...

Sat, 30 Aug 08
Australia: Gunns nearly out of ammo on pulp mill
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,24258102-601,00.html?from=pub lic_rss
Australian: THE long battle over the proposed Tasmanian pulp mill may soon be over, with proponent Gunns unable to give an assurance that the controversial project will proceed. In a marked change of tone, the timber company last night told the Australian Securities Exchange that it was no longer certain that it could obtain sufficient finance or a joint venture partner. It also told the market it could not meet a deadline for the start of construction of November 30, set by the Tasmanian ...

Sat, 30 Aug 08
Hurricane Gustav roars toward Caymans, Gulf
http://uk.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUKN2541891320080829
Reuters: Hurricane Gustav gathered strength over the warm waters of the Caribbean on Friday roaring toward the Cayman Islands and the Gulf of Mexico on the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's deadly strike on New Orleans. The storm, which killed up to 77 people in the Caribbean, plowed toward superheated waters south of Cuba where it could absorb enough energy to strengthen into a major hurricane before ripping through the heavy concentration of U.S. oil and natural gas platforms off ...

Sat, 30 Aug 08
United States: Palin backs oil drilling in wildlife refuge
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/AP/story/665002.html
McClatchy Newspapers: Sen. John McCain's choice of a running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, favors drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, questioned the science behind predictions of sea ice loss linked to global warming and opposed a state initiative that would have banned metal mines from discharging pollution into salmon streams. The Alaska governor has said that she has tried to persuade McCain to agree with her on drilling in the wildlife refuge. She also has said that she was ...

Sat, 30 Aug 08
Palin Not Convinced on Global Warming
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/08/29/palin_not_convinced_o n_global.html
Washington Post: Some scientists believe Alaska will be among the first to feel the impact of global warming, but Sarah Palin told voters there she wasn't sure climate change wasn't simply part of a natural warming cycle. "I will not pretend to have all the answers," Palin said about global warming, according to the Anchorage Daily News. Her spokesman clarified at the time that "she's not totally convinced one way or the other. Science will tell us . . . She thinks the jury's still out." Palin ...

Sat, 30 Aug 08
Sarah Palin: Tough on polar bears
http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/green/greenblog/2008/08/sarah_palin_on_ener gy_and_the.html
Boston Globe: Alaska's governor, thrust Friday into national politics as John McCain's surprise pick for vice president, has a varied and complicated stance on green issues, supportive of some of Barack Obama's energy policies and opposed oil companies in the past. She also wants to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and has sued to stop the federal government from making the polar bear an endangered species. On Aug. 4, Sarah Palin was particularly enthusiastic about Obama's ...

Sat, 30 Aug 08
United States: Sea-Ice Melt Imperils Walruses, and Economy Based on Them
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/28/AR200808280 3489.html
Washington Post: Hubert Kokuluk squints with his one good eye to examine the tiny polar bear he has just carved from a fragment of walrus tusk. He isn't happy with the yellowish hue, but good ivory is hard to come by these days, since quickly melting sea ice has made it extremely difficult for his Inupiaq Eskimo community to carry out the traditional annual spring walrus hunt. Though walruses are federally protected, Alaska Natives have subsistence rights to hunt them and rely on the meat, skin, ...

Sat, 30 Aug 08
Wind and solar tax breaks setting
http://www.contracostatimes.com/business/ci_10337732
Contra Costa Times: Some $500 million in investment and production tax credits will expire Dec. 31 unless Congress renews them. Without that help, solar and wind power companies say they will reverse planned expansions and, in many cases, cut payrolls and capital investment. Schott Solar has visions of quadrupling its operation in Albuquerque, N.M., to reach 1,500 jobs and $500 million in investment. But the investment tax credit, company spokesman Brian Lynch said, is what makes solar power ...

Sat, 30 Aug 08
'Awful August' is greyest since records began
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2645467/Awful-August-is-greyest-since-recor ds-began.html
Telegraph (UK): Official Met Office figures show that Britain managed just 96.3 hours of sunshine in the first 26 days of the month - 40 per cent below the average of 165.1 hours the country would see in a typical August. Despite the prospect of sunny spells on Saturday in southern and eastern parts of England, forecasters are warning of thunder storms tomorrow to round off one of the wettest Augusts on record. Dubbed "awful August" by meteorologists, the damp conditions have led to fears of ...

Sat, 30 Aug 08
'Rich nations should give money to fight climate change'
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Rich_nations_should_give_money_to_fight_ climate_change/articleshow/3423709.cms
Times of India: Asian rivals India and China have joined forces to make a forceful demand that rich nations set aside 0.5%-1% of the GDP to help the developing world face the challenge posed by climate change and make good their unfulfilled commitments towards cutting back on greenhouse emissions. Supported by other developing countries as well, the demand that rich nations must pay up was formally articulated at the UN climate change negotiations here and could set the agenda over the next year. The ...

Sat, 30 Aug 08
'Unbreakable' greenhouse gas meets its doom at last
http://technology.newscientist.com/article/dn14623-unbreakable-greenhouse-g as-meets-its-doom-at-last.html?DCMP=ILC-hmts&nsref=news3_head_dn14623
New Scientist: The war on climate change just got a chemical weapon: a way to destroy the carbon-fluorine bonds that make a class of widely used industrial gases so dangerous in the atmosphere. Gases made from carbon, fluorine and chlorine, called chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), long used as refrigerants, were banned in the 1990s because they damage the ozone layer that protects the Earth from UV radiation. But similar compounds that don't contain chlorine, fluorocarbons, are still widely used ...

Sat, 30 Aug 08
As Biomass Power Rises, a Wood-Fired Plant Is Planned in Texas
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=105548
New York Times: The city of Austin, Tex., approved plans on Thursday for a huge plant that will burn waste wood to make electricity, the latest sign of rising interest in a long-dormant form of renewable energy. When completed in 2012, the East Texas plant will be able to generate 100 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 75,000 homes. That is small by the standards of coal-fired power plants, but plants fueled by wood chips, straw and the like – organic materials collectively known as biomass – ...

Sat, 30 Aug 08
Australia's carbon footprint
http://www.forbes.com/reuters/feeds/reuters/2008/08/28/2008-08-29T034120Z_0 1_SP112103_RTRIDST_0_AUSTRALIA-CARBON-FOOTPRINT-FACTBOX.html
Reuters: The Australian government is seeking to introduce one of the world's most inclusive carbon trading schemes by 2010 but needs the support of big business, which fears emissions trading will make them less competitive. Energy Minister Martin Ferguson met more than 70 large firms at parliament on Friday to talk over their concerns. Left-leaning Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has made tackling climate change and rising carbon emissions a top priority of his government. He ...

Sat, 30 Aug 08
Boris Johnson unveils climate crisis plan
http://uk.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUKLT35340420080829
Reuters: Mayor Boris Johnson unveiled a plan on Friday to help London tackle the challenge of climate change with less carbon dioxide, more trees, better drainage and increased water efficiency. Some 15 percent of London is deemed at high risk from flooding due to global warming -- an area including 1.25 million people, 480,000 properties, 441 schools, 75 underground and rail stations, 10 hospitals and one airport. At stake is an estimated 160 billion pounds worth of assets, not just in ...

Sat, 30 Aug 08
Canada encouraged to tap into water resources
http://www.canada.com/saskatoonstarphoenix/news/business/story.html?id=42bd 8436-10a1-4b09-b0d9-afb776c5583d
Canwest News Service: Canada is awash with the world's most precious commodity, and it's not oil, gold, potash or uranium. It's fresh water -- an essential element for life on Earth -- and a Quebec think-tank says the province should look at shipping it out for big profits. The controversial debate over bulk-exporting water is being revived by the report, which found Quebec could boost its gross annual income by $65 billion by taking advantage of water shortages in other parts of the world. The ...

Sat, 30 Aug 08
Australia: Carbon spike hits Kyoto gas pledge
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/local/news/general/carbon-spike-hits-k yoto-gas-pledge/1257289.aspx
Canberra Times: Australia's fossil fuel emissions are growing more than four times faster than figures quoted by the Federal Government, placing Australia's Kyoto target at risk. Figures published online yesterday by one of the world's top authorities on greenhouse emissions shows Australia's total fossil fuel emissions jumped by 8.3 per cent from 93 million tonnes in 2004 to just over 100 million tonnes in 2005. This includes a 12 per cent rise in carbon dioxide emissions from cement ...

Sat, 30 Aug 08
Clean power need gives India's solar mission a boost
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Clean_power_need_gives_Indias_sola r_mission_a_boost/articleshow/3419110.cms
Times of India: The government is looking to get India's 'national solar mission' underway with steps to set up research-industry partnerships, tariff structures and tax breaks to citizens aimed at promoting competitiveness and even seed 'solar valleys' for largescale energy generation. The recognition that solar power represents a huge untapped potential for relatively clean energy saw PMO call a meeting on Tuesday to discuss what could be done to make this form of energy more viable in the Indian ...

Sat, 30 Aug 08
Coal back-up for wind power 'will cost £100bn'
http://news.scotsman.com/latestnews/Coal-backup-for-wind-power.4442417.jp
Scotsman: A LEADING power company has claimed wind energy is so unreliable that even if 13,000 turbines are built to meet EU renewable energy targets, they could be relied on to provide only 7 per cent of the country's peak winter electricity demand. E.On has argued that, during the coldest days of winter, so little wind blows that 92 per cent of installed wind capacity would have to be backed up by traditional power stations. It argues this would require new coal-fired power stations to ...

Sat, 30 Aug 08
United Kingdom: Environment: Johnson unveils secret weapon in war on climate change - the roof garden
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/aug/30/climatechange.greenpoliti cs
Guardian: To some they are a rural escape in the centre of the city, to others they are a chance to test their green fingers and design skills. Now London mayor Boris Johnson has found a new use for urban roof gardens - as a key weapon on the front line against global warming. An increase in the number of rooftop gardens to soak up rainwater across the capital is among a series of measures suggested by Johnson yesterday, as part of efforts to prepare London for the effects of climate ...

Sat, 30 Aug 08
Europeans Back Tough Car Emission Targets - Poll
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/50007/story.htm
Reuters: A majority of Europeans back planned legislation to enforce big cuts in carbon dioxide emissions from new cars, a public opinion poll in the European Union's five biggest countries showed on Thursday. The survey, carried out by the TNS Opinion pollster for the Friends of the Earth lobby group, may strengthen the case for the European Parliament to keep tough targets for lowering emissions of one of the main gases blamed for global warming. A key committee at the legislature ...

Sat, 30 Aug 08
Europeans urged by Nordic nations to protect Arctic
http://www.canada.com/topics/news/story.html?id=502c992d-4952-4059-b5bb-694 8ac45fbcc
Canwest News Service: Just days after Prime Minister Stephen Harper unveiled his government's vision of the Arctic as a potential resource bonanza, a report commissioned by top ministers from Europe's Nordic countries is urging the European Union to embrace a new role as the Arctic's environmental guardian and to throw its considerable political and economic weight behind polar protection over exploitation. The report is the latest sign that economic and environmental interests are colliding in the Arctic, ...

Sat, 30 Aug 08
Indian villagers desperate as floods spread
http://www.iht.com/articles/reuters/2008/08/29/asia/OUKWD-UK-INDIA-FLOODS.p hp
Reuters: Villagers were eating uncooked rice and flour mixed with polluted water in an eastern Indian state, officials said on Friday, as hunger and diseases accompanied the worst-ever floods in 50years. The Kosi river burst a dam in neighbouring Nepal earlier this month and surged into Bihar state, swamping village after village as authorities failed to evacuate millions ontime. At least 10 more people drowned overnight, raising the toll to 65, as the rising river waters smashed ...

Sat, 30 Aug 08
Marine team sounds alarm for reefs
http://starbulletin.com/2008/08/29/news/story11.html
Honolulu Star-Bulletin: Recommendations to prevent what one scientist calls "osteoporosis of the reef" have been presented to the U.S. Coral Reef Task Force, holding its final meeting of the International Year of the Reef in Kona. Fourteen leading climate and marine scientists and coral reef managers from the U.S. and Australia developed the "Honolulu Declaration on Ocean Acidification and Reef Management" during a workshop convened here by the Nature Conservancy two weeks ago. Presenting the findings ...

Sat, 30 Aug 08
Only seven years left to avoid global climate catastrophe
http://www.sltrib.com/themix/ci_10330821
Salt Lake Tribune: The world may have only seven years to start reducing the annual buildup in greenhouse gas emissions that otherwise threatens global catastrophe within several decades. That means that between Inauguration Day in January 2009 and 2015, either John McCain or Barack Obama will face the most momentous political challenge of all time. Reflecting a consensus of hundreds of scientists around the world, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has affirmed that greenhouse gas ...

Sat, 30 Aug 08
Palin advocates drilling but spars with Big Oil
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/feedarticle/7762373
Guardian: Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is seen as a strong advocate for opening new areas to oil drilling, including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, but has taken a hard line in negotiations with oil companies and raised taxes on the state's energy producers. Palin, named by Sen. John McCain on Friday as presumptive Republican vice presidential candidate, has sparred with oil giants Exxon Mobil Corp, ConocoPhillips and BP Plc since her election as governor in 2006. But industry experts ...

Sat, 30 Aug 08
Papua New Guinea to Improve Power Supply
http://www.solomontimes.com/news.aspx?nwID=2431
Solomon Times: Papua New Guinea will draw up a detailed plan to improve power supply in the country where 90% of the population still has no electricity. The Japan Special Fund, administered by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), is providing a $1.2 million grant for Papua New Guinea to prepare a power sector development project design that will increase supply of reliable and sustainable power at reasonable cost. The government will contribute another $300,000 to the project. At present, more ...

Sat, 30 Aug 08
Prickly fish add genetic heft to Darwin's theory on its 150th anniversary
http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5jk7NroPT5vM7s8QixiOryXqKm_xQ
Canadian Press: A tiny, prickly fish is helping B.C. researchers understand how organisms evolve in response to new or changing environments. Scientists say that's a key factor in forecasting how different species might deal with climate change and other human-imposed environmental conditions. The difference between freshwater and marine stickleback, a minnow-sized fish found in lakes, rivers, streams and oceans across Canada, is the focus of a University of British Columbia study that adds ...

Sat, 30 Aug 08
Austria: Probe says IAEA nuclear leak did not reach environment
http://uk.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUKLT48990320080829
Reuters: A small amount of plutonium which leaked from an ageing International Atomic Energy Agency laboratory near Vienna did not reach the environment, according to an independent inquiry cited by the U.N. watchdog on Friday. The August 3 incident at the Seibersdorf analytical lab, which occurred overnight and caused no injury, raised a stir in Austria, which hosts the IAEA but rejects nuclear energy itself as fundamentally dangerous. In a statement, the agency said test samples of ...

Sat, 30 Aug 08
Small farmers to join Brazil sustainable cane move
http://uk.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUKN2947242720080829
Reuters: Dozens of small and medium-scale farmers in Brazil's Sao Paulo state will grow sugar cane certified as meeting strict social and environmental standards, the region's cane producers association said late on Thursday. Several ethanol companies like Cosan and Louis Dreyfus signed deals to produce and export verified sustainable ethanol in the last couple of months to address consumers' concerns over the impact of ethanol which powers almost all the country's new cars. But now ...

Sat, 30 Aug 08
Big fines looming as we fail Kyoto test
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/big-fines-looming--as-we-fail---kyo to-test-1465367.html
Irish Independent: THE State could be facing an even larger bill for off-setting greenhouse gasses after projections showed our emissions increased by nearly 5pc last year. Energy and Natural Resources Minister Eamon Ryan has admitted it will be a "real challenge" to meet the Government's target of reducing carbon emissions by 3pc every year during its term in office. But the opposition has warned that the State may have to pay even more than the €270m that has been set aside to buy the ...

Sat, 30 Aug 08
Boris warning over climate threat
http://ukpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5hecTpKQhEKk5SUNiGV_xFLusqnJQ
Press Association: Climate change could seriously threaten quality of life in London and the capital's position as a leading world city, Mayor Boris Johnson said. He issued the warning as he launched a strategy, the first for a major city, detailing action that needs to be taken in London to cope with global warming. It outlines measures to cut water use to cope with extreme weather.

Sat, 30 Aug 08
United Kingdom: Brown faces rebellion over windfall tax on energy firms
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brown-faces-rebellion-over-wi ndfall-tax-on-energy-firms-912327.html
Independent: Gordon Brown faces an embarrassing defeat at next month's Labour Party conference over the Government's refusal to impose a windfall tax on the energy companies. Supporters of a one-off raid on energy firms to fund help for people paying soaring fuel bills are planning to force a vote on the issue at Labour's Manchester conference, which opens on 20 September. They claim strong and growing support for the idea among trade unions and Labour constituency parties – which each have ...

Sat, 30 Aug 08
Business asks Australia to ease carbon trade
http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssIndustryMaterialsUtilitiesNews/idUSSYD16 14120080829
Reuters: Environment groups demanded on Friday that Australia ignore the "greenhouse mafia" as major energy and mining companies met the government to demand greater compensation for a coming emissions trading regime. The government is planning to introduce one of the world's biggest carbon trading schemes by 2010 that will force companies to buy permits to cover their emissions, putting a market price on carbon that will encourage firms to clean up their pollution. Big business told ...

Sat, 30 Aug 08
Solar energy is ideal choice for the UAE, expert says
http://www.gulfnews.com/nation/Environment/10241148.html
Gulf News: Solar energy is the way to go for the UAE, an expert on renewable energy has advised. Ray Noble, Director of BIPV (Building Integrated Photovoltaics) and a former UK government advisor on renewable energy, was addressing developers and members from the construction industry at a seminar titled "Global warming and its solutions". "The planet is a very clever thing. It can repair itself, provided you don't go too far," he said, pointing out the critical need to act now against ...

Sat, 30 Aug 08
United Kingdom: The mayor must act on global warming
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/29/boris.climatechange?gus rc=rss&feed=uknews
Guardian: I'm asking myself when the honeymoon period for the new mayor will be over, and when Londoners can be expected to see real progress rather than lots of erudite chatter and vague promises. This administration seems to lack any sense of urgency about the terrifying issue of climate change, preferring instead to tackle the issue of drinking on the tube (when was that a problem?) and cutting as much as they can from the GLA budget without first understanding what valuable work, and where, was ...

Sat, 30 Aug 08
Toyota Cuts 2009 Sales F'cast, Speeds Up Electric Cars
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/50014/story.htm
Reuters: Toyota Motor Corp cut its 2009 vehicle sales forecast by nearly 7 percent as high fuel prices hammer demand for large cars and pickup trucks, and said it will speed up the rollout of hybrid and electric cars as their popularity grows. The weaker outlook from the world's most profitable carmaker weighed on shares of European rivals and highlighted an increasingly difficult environment, where orders in the United States and Western Europe for high-margin, gas-thirsty vehicles is ...

Sat, 30 Aug 08
Australia: User pays key to climate
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24257615-7583,00.html
Australian: CLIMATE change is a global problem requiring a global solution. And, as Ross Garnaut has observed, the roadblock to a global solution is the prisoners' dilemma or free rider problem: if we all wait for others to act first, nothing gets done. But there is a flaw in the architecture the Government is proposing to cut carbon emissions. If the free rider problem is the obstacle to a global policy, then the first design criterion is not to make the problem worse than it has to ...

Sat, 30 Aug 08
Amazon Increasingly Oily
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43707
Inter Press Service: More than 180 oil and natural gas fields extend across the western Amazon, shared by five South American countries and threatening biodiversity and indigenous lands, warns a study by U.S.-based organisations. Peru is the most worrisome case: 72 percent of its jungle territory overlaps with plans for exploiting fossil fuels, says the report "Oil and Gas Projects in the Western Amazon: Threats to Wilderness, Biodiversity and Indigenous Peoples", published Aug. 13 by the open-access ...

Sat, 30 Aug 08
Biofuels 200 times more expensive than forest conservation for global warming mitigation
http://news.mongabay.com/2008/0827-avoided_deforestation_uk.html
Mongabay: The British government should end subsidies for biofuels and instead use the funds to slow destruction of rainforests and tropical peatlands argues a new report issued by a U.K.-based think tank. The study, titled "The Root of the Matter" and published by Policy Exchange, says that "avoided deforestation" would be a more cost-effective way to address climate change, since land use change generates more emissions than the entire global transport sector and offers ancillary benefits ...

Sat, 30 Aug 08
Climate talks: India, China join hands
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Climate_talks_India_China_join_hands/art icleshow/3413939.cms
Times of India: They are the fiercest economic rivals as well as neighbours that infrequently spar over international borders. But the 'Hindi-Chini bhai bhai' bonding is hard to miss at the climate change talks in Accra. Their close coordination, bilateral understanding and strategic moves have stumped the rich countries. The industrialized countries, such as the EU members and Japan, have over the past couple of days run a shrill campaign to draw a wedge through the powerful G77 countries and China ...

Sat, 30 Aug 08
Future Storms, Global Warming Could Devastate Louisiana Coast
http://www.abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=5677197&page=1
ABC News: http://www.abcnews.go.com/print?id=5677197

Sat, 30 Aug 08
Low level of Arctic sea ice indicates a "tipping point"
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2008143445_ice28.html
Associated Press: More ominous signs Wednesday have scientists saying a global-warming "tipping point" in the Arctic seems to be happening before their eyes: Sea ice in the Arctic Ocean is at its second- lowest level in about 30 years. The National Snow and Ice Data Center reported that sea ice in the Arctic covers about 2.03 million square miles. The lowest point since satellite measurements began in 1979 was 1.65 million square miles set last September. With about three weeks left in the ...

Sat, 30 Aug 08
Indonesia: Palm oil firms reject forest moratorium
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=105468
Jakarta Post: Palm oil companies operating in Indonesia have opposed any moratorium on forest and peat land conversions, saying it will play havoc with the industry and the national economy. The Indonesian Palm Oil Producers Association (GAPKI) said halting forest conversion would only slow the country's economy, causing more job losses and further poverty, beleaguering the country. "Indonesia does not need to apply a moratorium on its forest. GAPKI strongly rejects the forest conversion ...

Sat, 30 Aug 08
Rich or poor? New faultline in UN climate talks
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSLS64442520080828
Reuters: Rich countries are pushing developing nations with the strongest economies to do far more to combat climate change, opening a faultline between rich and poor in U.N. talks on global warming. The European Union, for instance, says that some developing nations such as Singapore, Argentina and some OPEC states have grown richer than some developed nations which have to shoulder the burden of cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. "We want some of the developing nations to do more," ...

Sat, 30 Aug 08
Shrinking Arctic Sea Ice Verges on New Record Low
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/aug2008/2008-08-28-02.asp
Environment News Service: Evidence that Earth's climate continues to heat up comes this week in the form of satellite data that shows the extent of Arctic sea ice this year has shrunk below the 2005 minimum to stand as the second-smallest since observations from space began 30 years ago. Last summer, the extent of Arctic sea ice shrank to more than 30 percent below average, its smallest extent in the satellite record. Each year, the Arctic Ocean experiences the formation and then melting of vast amounts ...

Sat, 30 Aug 08
Xcel agreement dims coal's future, critics say
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/08/28/coal_future/
Minnesota Public Radio: Xcel Energy is one of five big electric companies targeted last fall by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. Using a New York state law, he subpoenaed them to determine whether their reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission -- the agency that regulates Wall Street -- were adequate. The government will soon set limits on greenhouse gas emissions, and companies should start taking those limits into account, Cuomo and other investor watchdogs say. Coal-fired power plants ...

Sun, 17 Aug 08
Aust, NZ urged to cater for climate change refugees
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/08/17/2337705.htm
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: There has been an urgent call for Australia and New Zealand to tailor their immigration programs to help Pacific Islanders displaced by climate change. Over 100 NGOs from across the Asia-Pacific region have sent a letter to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and New Zealand's Prime Minister Helen Clark ahead of this week's Pacific Islands Leadership Forum. The leaders will be discussing climate change at a meeting in New Zealand tomorrow before Tuesday's Forum. The letter calls ...

Sun, 17 Aug 08
Cormac McCarthy's 'The Road' comes to the screen
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/movies/la-ca-road17-2008aug17,0,5 958148.story
LA Times: THE FATHER and son struggling to stay alive in "The Road" understand that everything they know is coming to an end. Ext. ROAD -- DAY In the burnt, barren landscape, through swirls of soft ash and smoggy air the MAN appears dressed as if homeless, a filthy old parka with the hood up, a knapsack on his back, pushing a rusted shopping cart with a bicycle mirror clamped to the handle and a blue tarp now covering its load. The little BOY, similarly dressed with a knapsack on his ...

Sun, 17 Aug 08
France Reaffirms Its Faith in Future of Nuclear Power
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=104970
New York Times: It looks like an ordinary building site, but for the two massive, rounded concrete shells looming above the ocean, like dusty mushrooms. Here on the Normandy coast, France is building its newest nuclear reactor, the first in 10 years, costing $5.1 billion. But already, President Nicolas Sarkozy has announced that France will build another like it. Flamanville is a vivid example of the French choice for nuclear power, made in the late 1950s by Charles de Gaulle, intensified ...

Sun, 17 Aug 08
McCain's Pitch for Safe Nuclear Power May Be Undercut by Leaks
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=axF9MBjUF_L0&refer=home
Bloomberg: Republican presidential candidate John McCain promotes nuclear power as a central element of his energy plan, boasting in particular about the safety record of the Navy's reactor-propelled fleet. ``We have been sailing nuclear ships around the world for 60 years, never had an accident,'' McCain, an Arizona senator and former Navy pilot, said July 22 in Rochester, New Hampshire. Only two days later, the Navy disclosed that one of its nuclear submarines, the USS Houston, had been ...

Sun, 17 Aug 08
Canada: Ontario to use forestry waste as biofuel but some critics unimpressed
http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5iwe34MKWc1f9mmgCQYmbC__OeW2g
Canadian Press: Ontario is touting a plan to wean one of the province's largest power users off fossil fuels and create jobs by turning forestry waste into energy, but some environmentalists say it could sacrifice more trees than necessary. The new five-year biofibre policy targets leftover waste such as tree tops, branches and unmarketable trees currently left on the forest floor or burned in a pile. Turning that waste into energy is a win-win since it will reduce the reliance on conventional ...

Sun, 17 Aug 08
Cameroon: Operation Green Sahel Resumes
http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=43581
Inter Press Service: "I have come to plant trees -- that is why I have left my jacket and tie in Yaoundé" declared Cameroon's Minister of Forest and Wildlife, Elvis Ngolle Ngolle, as he launched the tree planting at a small village near the town of Kousseri, in the north of the country. In four minutes, the minister and his staff planted a hundred trees as a bulwark against rapidly encroaching desert. About 80,000 trees have been planted in this area -- described by Kousseri mayor Mahamat Abdoulkarim as ...

Sun, 17 Aug 08
Save the planet? Buy it
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/08/16/eamillion aires116.xml
Telegraph: Sebastián Piñera, one of the richest men in Chile, has a CV that includes introducing credit cards to his country and many large-scale property developments. Now he has added what every chic millionaire Parque Tantauco, which Piñera created in 2005, is on one of South America's largest islands, Chiloé, off the coast of Patagonia. Piñera bought the land and immediately set about protecting the offshore habitat of blue whales and the inland virgin forests. Pulling out a ...

Sun, 17 Aug 08
Canada: As the ice melts, control ebbs in the Arctic
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080815.wcoessay0816/BN Story/specialComment/home
Globe and Mail: The Northwest Passage may be ice-free this summer, for only the second time in recorded history. The Canadian Arctic is being fundamentally transformed. As the ice diminishes, new actors and interests will arrive. Who is coming? What will they do? What does it mean for Canada? Many people expect international shippers to take advantage of the shorter distances between Europe and Asia to carry goods through an increasingly ice-free Passage. Most shipping experts, however, think that ...

Sun, 17 Aug 08
California plans world's largest solar plant
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/International_Business/California_ plans_worlds_largest_solar_plant/articleshow/3370329.cms
Economic Times: A California utility company has signed a deal to build the world's two biggest solar power plants in central California with solar panels covering 32.5 sq km and producing 800 MW of electricity. Pacific Gas & Electric will use the massive solar facilities to help it meet state requirements to generate 20 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2010, according to the deal announced on Friday. The company has signed a contract with two Silicon Valley firms to build ...

Sun, 17 Aug 08
Carbon credits tick all the boxes. What's the delay?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/16/carbonemissions.labour
Guardian: Awful August, the weather forecasters call this unseasonably cold, wet month, as holiday-makers huddle against intermittent monsoon downpours, reminded that global warming doesn't necessarily mean a Mediterranean Britain. Every month, reports from climatologists deliver worse predictions of the speed and tipping points for irreversible climate change. A 4C temperature rise is the latest warning: it would bring unimaginable horror in its wake. The time to act gets shorter, but the ...

Sun, 17 Aug 08
Australia: Farmers denied water to grow
http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=146&ContentID=91851
West Australian: Farmers in parts of the South-West food bowl are being refused permission to build dams in a bid to avoid a water crisis like that plaguing the Murray-Darling system. Reduced river flow and climate change fears have prompted the Department of Water to crack down on new surface water allocations around Manjimup, leaving farmers unable to expand or start new operations. WA Fruit Growers Association president Diane Fry said the region produced about 30 per cent of the State's ...

Sun, 17 Aug 08
Gore's challenge puts the heat on
http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200880811035
Asheville Citizen-Times: Former Vice President Al Gore, who brought us the 2006 blockbuster "An Inconvenient Truth," has made waves again by issuing a challenge to the United States to source all of its electricity from clean, renewable energy within a decade. Gore's call, made to a crowd assembled in the Constitution Hall of the Daughters of the American Revolution in Washington, D.C., is indeed revolutionary. It goes beyond the most aggressive proposals on the table from members of Congress – or even most ...

Sun, 17 Aug 08
In face of environmental disaster, more Chinese are going green
http://www.macon.com/world/story/434535.html
McClatchy Newspapers: While Olympic visitors from around the world get a firsthand glimpse this month at China's pollution problems, a homegrown movement is racing to ward off what many here predict could be epic environmental meltdown. Hundreds of millions of Chinese are taking the first steps to turn the tide, fueled by growing unhappiness with the plunging quality of life caused by out-of-control environmental degradation. Industrial districts such as Zibo in coastal Shandong province are closing ...

Sun, 17 Aug 08
McCain suggests raiding Colorado's water
http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_10218277
Denver Post: Memo to: John McCain. From: Five million thirst-crazed Coloradans. Subject: Forget about winning our nine electoral votes next November. We don't vote for water rustlers in this state; we tar and feather them! Yes, fellow citizens of the state whose official motto is "Whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting," John McCain has thunk the unthinkable – and proposed renegotiating the 1922 Colorado River Compact. To quote from Charles Ashby's story in the Friday ...

Sun, 17 Aug 08
Pelosi Softens Offshore Drilling Stance
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121889978439847053.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Wall Street Journal: In one of the clearest signs yet that the Democratic leadership is softening its stance towards expanded domestic oil production, the U.S. House Speaker outlined an energy bill Saturday that includes new offshore exploration. The policy shift follows a similar move in recent days by Democratic leaders in the Senate and by presidential candidate Barack Obama in the face of a public angered by high energy prices. In remarks prepared for the Democratic Radio Address Saturday ...

Sun, 17 Aug 08
Population policy demands attention
http://www.bangkokpost.com/160808_Business/16Aug2008_biz24.php
Bangkok Post: Thailand must brace for a possible crisis over the next 20 years from an increase in world population, climate change and food and energy shortages, warns Privy Councillor Kasem Wattanachai. Speaking at the Thailand Vision 2027 seminar held yesterday by the National Economic and Social Development Board, Mr Kasem said the world population was expected to increase to six billion by 2030, nine billion in 2050 and 10 billion in 2060 with rapid growth in the developing world. He ...

Sun, 17 Aug 08
Taiwan's Solar Industry May Reach NT$500 Billion in 2012
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601080&sid=aUjcJQkfUbXU&refer=asia
Bloomberg: Taiwan's solar industry may grow to NT$500 billion ($16 billion) by 2012 as the government promotes the use of renewable energy, the Cabinet said. Revenue from makers of solar-electricity components was NT$11.3 billion for the first six months of this year, the Cabinet said in a statement posted on its Web site last night, following a visit by Premier Liu Chao-shiuan to two manufacturers yesterday. ``The solar energy industry is the star of tomorrow,'' Liu was cited as saying. ...

Sun, 17 Aug 08
Electric power shortages in China
http://www.examiner.com/x-325-Global-Warming-Examiner~y2008m8d15-Electric-p ower-shortages-in-China
Examiner: China is again facing electric power shortages since 2004. This is being caused by their tremendous growth in the past couple of years and the inability for them to create enough new power generating capacity. A lot of this power is being used for industrial production. Power is now being rationed in many areas. They are reported to be opening a new coal-fired power plant each week and still can't keep up. Parts of China, particularly in the industrialized SE coastal areas are ...

Sun, 17 Aug 08
India may lose up to 17% of its farming income: Study
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Indicators/India_may_lose_up_to_17_of_i ts_farming_income_Study/articleshow/3371952.cms
Economic Times: India could lose between seven and seventeen percent of its income from farming because of climate change, a new study has claimed. Using data on weather and the economic success of farming to model the effect of future warming on the predicted income from farming, Robert Mendelsohn of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and Apurva Sanghi of the World Bank said that the focus of their study was on the biological relationship between weather and crop yield instead of ...

Sun, 17 Aug 08
United States: Panel: Climate change must begin at home
http://www.jconline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080816/NEWS0501/808160 335
Journal and Courier: A panel of Purdue University experts believe one of the best ways to reverse climate change is to set a good example. The panel members spoke to a crowd of about three dozen people at the Indiana State Fair as part of the Purdue Day activities there. "It's really easy for humans to change the atmosphere of the earth, and that's what is causing the climate change we're seeing," said Paul Shepson, director of Purdue's Climate Change Research Center. "It's our responsibility to ...

Sun, 17 Aug 08
United States: Support, concerns expressed on state climate change plan
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20080816-9999-1m16air.html
San Diego Union-Tribune: Dozens of people attended a meeting yesterday in San Diego to express support for California's climate change plan and to share concerns about specific parts of the blueprint. STATE GLOBAL WARMING PLAN California's proposed framework for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, which can be accessed at arb.ca.gov, would: Combine regulations, fees, voluntary measures and free-market programs. Set emissions caps for the transportation, electricity, natural gas and ...

Sun, 17 Aug 08
Western climate initiative may get us out of fossil fuel mess
http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_10218516
Salt Lake Tribune: Higher gas prices, global warming, health problems, stunted economic development and quality-of-life considerations lead many Utahns to be concerned about our energy picture. From backyard barbecues to the Farmer's Market, we're having discussions about the problems and solutions. People seem to agree on the desired outcome: to get us out of this fossil-fuel mess. While some laudable measures and efforts are under way at the local and state levels of government, Utah and our region ...

Sun, 17 Aug 08
Windmills split upstate NY town and families
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5ju-q8DEqg2hiO0dLmoYgfehwB1QwD92JGL2G0
Associated Press: "Listen," John Yancey says, leaning against his truck in a field outside his home. The rhythmic whoosh, whoosh, whoosh of wind turbines echoes through the air. Sleek and white, their long propeller blades rotate in formation, like some otherworldly dance of spindly-armed aliens swaying across the land. Yancey stares at them, his face contorted in anger and pain. He knows the futuristic towers are pumping clean electricity into the grid, knows they have been largely embraced by ...

Sun, 17 Aug 08
Califoria to build world's biggest solar power plants
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-08/16/content_9371938.htm
Xinhua: California's largest utility company has signed deals to build the world's two biggest solar plants that would supply electricity to 250,000 homes and reestablish the United States as the global leader in solar power, officials said Friday. Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E), which is based in San Francisco and serves most of northern California, will use the two massive solar facilities to help it meet state requirements to generate 20 percent of its electricity from renewable ...

Sun, 17 Aug 08
California Utility Mainstreams Solar Photovoltaic Power
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/aug2008/2008-08-15-094.asp
Environment News Service: Pacific Gas and Electric Company has entered into two utility-scale solar power contracts for a total of 800 megawatts of energy to be generated in California, the utility announced Thursday. The power purchase pacts bring solar photovoltaic cells out of the rooftop realm and into the mainstream. Both huge projects will be located in San Luis Obispo County's California Valley, although they are not adjacent to each other. When complete, they are expected to hold the record for the ...

Sun, 17 Aug 08
Experts Urge Industry To Broaden Carbon Footprint Calculations
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080815170631.htm
ScienceDaily:

Sun, 17 Aug 08
Japan: Government wants post-Kyoto framework to oblige developing nations to cut CO2
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20080817TDY01301.htm
Yomiuri Shimbun: The government plans to propose in U.N. talks that developing countries be obliged to join their industrialized counterparts in cutting greenhouse gas emissions under a new international framework to combat global warming to come into force in 2013, according to government sources. The government has submitted five documents related to the proposal to the secretariat of a special working panel meeting to be held in Accra beginning Thursday under the U.N. Framework Convention on ...

Sat, 16 Aug 08
Is solar power answer to rural energy crisis?
http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=50608
Daily Star: This piece is in response to a news item which appeared in The Daily Star on August 10 under the headline "1m solar household systems by 2012 to achieve target". The report said that over 2.30 lakh rural households have been brought under the solar power system in the last five years by Infrastructure Development Company Ltd (IDCOL) as an alternative source of energy. The report quoted the Executive Director of IDCOL, M Ehsanul Haque, as saying that they have set a target to install ...

Sat, 16 Aug 08
Australia: State 'failing to grasp' urgency of climate change
http://www.theage.com.au/environment/state-failing-to-grasp-urgency-of-clim ate-change-20080815-3wfl.html
Age: THE head of a new expert panel advising the Premier on climate change has criticised the State Government's performance in cutting greenhouse emissions, arguing that senior ministers fail to comprehend the scope and urgency of the problem. Professor David Karoly, a lead author with the UN's climate panel that last year shared the Nobel Peace Prize, said the Government was sending the wrong message by simultaneously backing a new brown coal power station and claiming it would cut ...

Sat, 16 Aug 08
Climate myths: Global warming stopped in 1998
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn14527-cl imate-myths-global-warming-stopped-in-1998.html
New Scientist: Imagine two people standing at the South Pole, one dressed in full Antarctic gear and the other wearing not much at all. Now imagine that you're looking through one of those infrared thermal imagers that show how hot things are. Which person will look warmest - and which will be frozen solid after a few hours? The answer, of course, is that the near-naked person will appear hotter: but because they are losing heat fast, they will freeze long before the person dressed more ...

Sat, 16 Aug 08
Farms in Brazil and India must adapt or roast in heat
http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn14547-farms-in-brazil-and-ind ia-must-adapt-or-roast-in-heat.html
New Scientist: Farmers in Brazil and India may suffer less from climate change than previously assumed – if they can continue to adapt to hotter weather, a new study suggests. Even so the devastation in these countries and other low-latitude countries is going to be much higher than in the northern regions of the rich west, says Robert Mendelsohn at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. Mendelsohn and Apurva Sanghi of the World Bank in Washington DC, used data on weather and ...

Sat, 16 Aug 08
Forest Defenders Target Snack Foods, Cosmetics
http://us.oneworld.net/article/081508-forest-defenders-target-snack-foods-c osmetics
OneWorld US: Major players in the food and cosmetics industries are coming under heavy pressure from environmental activists to stop manufacturing and selling products that contain palm oil. 'Warning: Product May Contain Rainforest Destruction' (c)Rainforest Action Network (flickr) "Companies like Hostess and Nestle are perpetuating rainforest destruction and human rights abuses by using palm oil in their products," said Leila Salazar-Lopez of the San Francisco-based Rainforest Action Network ...

Sat, 16 Aug 08
Frogs on the Verge of a Major Extinction
http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2008-08/frogs-verge-major-extinction
Popular Science: Lots of amphibians (a third to a half of all species) are dying, and their deaths are the breaking-edge of what many scientists are calling the first mass extinction since the dinosaurs checked out 65 million years ago, researchers say in a new paper published online in the Journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Scientists are not sure when this extinction crisis began–it could have started 10,000 years ago, or during the industrial revolution, or this century. But ...

Sat, 16 Aug 08
Aerosols' impact on Australia's climate
http://www.sciencecentric.com/news/article.php?q=08081532
Science Centric: The impact that human-generated and natural atmospheric particles (aerosols) could be having on Australia's climate will be discussed next week in Canberra at a workshop involving some of the world's leading experts in the area. CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research scientist, Dr Leon Rotstayn, says the influence aerosols have on climate is still one of the 'great unknowns' in climate science. 'We recently identified that the extensive pollution haze emanating from Asia may be ...

Sat, 16 Aug 08
Australia: Clean coal gets the green light
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24186137-12377,00.html
Australian: A FEDERAL parliamentary committee has given the green light to burying carbon pollution under the ground - and suggested taxpayers pay any clean-up bills. The world's first laws to allow companies to capture carbon dioxide emissions from power stations and bury them under the seabed are under consideration in Canberra. Called Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) - or "clean coal" - the technology is held by some to be central to Australia's efforts to tackle climate ...

Sat, 16 Aug 08
United States: Los Angeles doubles fines for residents who waste water
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-me-water15-2008aug15,0,3 644867.story
LA Times: Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa signed an ordinance Thursday that doubles fines for residents who repeatedly violate the city's "drought buster" rules, including a reworked ban on watering lawns between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. The measure bars restaurants from serving water to customers unless it is specifically requested. And the ordinance will quadruple fines for large customers of the Department of Water and Power, mainly businesses, that break the city's ...

Sat, 16 Aug 08
NASA study predicts aerosol effect on cloud more precisely
http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/world-news/nasa-study-predicts-aerosol- effect-on-cloud-more-precisely_10084504.html
Indo-Asian News Service: NASA researches have discovered how aerosols from human activity, like particles from burning vegetation, influence the cloud cover and ultimately affect the climate. 'We connected the .s to draw a critical conclusion, and found evidence over the Amazon that traces the direct path of the effect of human activity on climate change by way of human-caused aerosols,' said the study`s co-author Lorraine Remer, a physicist at NASA`s Goddard Space Flight Center. Aerosols are the tiny ...

Sat, 16 Aug 08
Question with carbon limits isn't whether, but how
http://kansascity.bizjournals.com/kansascity/stories/2008/08/18/focus2.html ?b=1219032000^1682975
Kansas City Business Journal: Westar Energy Inc. is buzzing about potential carbon emission limits, from top management on down. 'We're almost living and breathing it,' said Bill Eastman, the utility's environmental services director. 'Most feel it's imminent that there's going to be carbon dioxide legislation or regulation very shortly.' The form such a policy takes will determine how much energy costs continue to rise, he said. 'I don't think anyone has seen anything like the carbon debate we'll ...

Sat, 16 Aug 08
Report: Climate change to fuel wildfires in West
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2008/aug/15/report-climate-change-to-fuel-w ildfires-in-west/
Associated Press: Wildfires are projected to burn twice as much land in Nevada and other Western states by late this century if the climate warms as expected, a conservation group said in a report. Warmer springs and longer summers since the mid-1980s already have resulted in a fourfold increase in the number of wildfires and a sixfold increase in the amount of land burned compared with the period between 1970 and 1986, according to the National Wildlife Federation report. "I see these fires as ...

Sat, 16 Aug 08
Small Solar Power Generators Need Grid Interface Help
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/aug2008/2008-08-14-094.asp
Environment News Service: Trying to resolve technical difficulties that still prevent greater integration of solar energy into the nation's power grid, the U.S. Department of Energy has identified $2.9 million in private-sector solar projects it hopes to fund this fiscal year. The DOE funding, which requires Congressional approval, would pay two-thirds the cost of the projects, with another $1.7 million to be contributed by private industry. The program overseeing the projects, managed by Sandia ...

Sat, 16 Aug 08
Traditional Energy's Modern Boom
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/14/AR200808140 3321.html?hpid=moreheadlines
Washington Post: The guys on the derrick, filthy with mud and grease, have the best view in the county. Their drilling rig rises from a bulldozed, flattened patch of meadow near the top of a hill. To the south is an old farmhouse and a white barn. Hay bales dry in the sun. It's classically pastoral as far as the eye can see, which makes all the more dramatic the presence of this derrick, 160 feet high, and the construction trailers, and the mud gushing into a holding pond, and all the roaring ...

Sat, 16 Aug 08
U.K. Solicits Applications for Carbon Permit Auction
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601102&sid=arG6uYXS5YSM&refer=uk
Bloomberg: The U.K. invited utilities and organizations to apply to become primary participants in the country's auctions of European Union emissions allowances. Primary participants will be able to bid for allowances, or collect and submit bids on behalf of others to win permits for the current phase of the EU trading program, the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs said today in an e-mailed statement. Producers in the European Union are granted permits by national ...

Sat, 16 Aug 08
U.S. lab claims solar conversion efficiency record
http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=210100106
EE Times: Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have claimed a world record in solar cell efficiency with a photovoltaic device that converts 40.8 percent of the light that hits it into electricity. This is the highest efficiency of any photovoltaic device to date, NREL said in a statement. The figure was achieved with an inverted metamorphic triple-junction solar cell designed, fabricated and independently measured at NREL. The 40.8 percent ...

Sat, 16 Aug 08
Denmark: Wind turbine-maker powers ahead
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7562847.stm
BBC: A surge in demand for renewable energy has led to a large order backlog for the world's biggest wind turbine-maker, Vestas Wind Systems. The Danish firm said it had 7.2bn euros ($10.6bn; £5.7bn) worth of orders still to fulfil at the end of June, up 67% on a year earlier. Vestas made 98m euros profit after tax in the first six months of 2008, 44% higher than the same period in 2007. The firm is expecting further growth as the use of wind power grows globally. Wind ...

Sat, 16 Aug 08
A thousand scientists outweigh skeptical laymen
http://www.greeleytribune.com/article/20080815/READERS/818095829/1025&paren tprofile=-1
Greeley Tribune: Global warming: A fact or a myth? When I grew up in northwest Pennsylvania and lived in a company house across the street from the steel company that manufactured oil field equipment, I barely knew what "global" meant, let alone "global warming." The orange flashing glare sweeping across my bedroom ceiling at night as the large furnace doors were opened in the blacksmith shop across the street is a vivid memory of the Oilwell Supply Co. and its manufacturing of drilling ...

Sat, 16 Aug 08
Australia Carbon Plan Must Protect Petroleum Reserves
http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500/200808150209DOWJONESDJO NLINE000303_FORTUNE5.htm
Dow Jones: Government plans to regulate the capture and burial of carbon emissions under Australian seabeds, in a bid to clean up the country's coal industry, should be designed in a way that doesn't jeopardize existing investment in Australia's offshore petroleum reserves, a Parliamentary committee said Friday. The federal Labor government unveiled draft legislation in May that will create a framework for carbon dioxide capture and geological storage, or CCS. The legislation - which establishes ...

Sat, 16 Aug 08
Australia: Chinese company to seek NSW coal
http://news.theage.com.au/national/chinese-company-to-seek-nsw-coal-2008081 5-3w77.html
AAP: A state government decision to grant a Chinese company coal exploration rights in northern NSW has outraged the Greens and left farmers concerned about the impact on water catchment areas. The NSW government said China Shenhua Energy, one of the world's largest coal companies, would be given a five-year exploration licence for the Watermark area near Gunnedah. The licence is for an area of about 190 square kilometres believed to contain shallow coal resources of domestic and ...

Sat, 16 Aug 08
Indonesia to push renewable energy: president
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jxQJ_2zDZL8Tz1nz9b7XxezgDJzA
Agence France-Presse: Stung by high oil prices, Indonesia plans to tap more into renewable energies and change course from a "nation that splurges" to one that saves, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said Friday. "The soaring prices of oil on the global level during these last six years have reminded us of the importance of safeguarding energy security in our homeland," Yudhoyono said in his annual state-of-the-nation address. "We're raising the energy supply capacity through accelerated energy ...

Sat, 16 Aug 08
LA utility wary of California's emissions strategy
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/california_greenhouse_gases;_ylt=AiHvUg00Z1qIWMk gFIetvzXYeMUA
Associated Press: The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power has a storied place in California history. Its water grabs drained an eastern Sierra lake to make modern-day Los Angeles possible, and its backroom maneuvering to secure more water was the subject of the Roman Polanski film "Chinatown." At the start of the decade, it became one of the unlikely profiteers during the state's energy crisis. Today, the nation's largest municipal utility is back in the spotlight, and this time the ...

Sat, 16 Aug 08
New York paves way for microgeneration and green roofs
http://www.energyefficiencynews.com/policy/i/1086/
Energy Efficiency News: New York Governor David Paterson has signed in new legislation that will encourage homeowners and businesses to install microgeneration and green roof technologies. The legislation expands net metering so homeowners and businesses earn credits for any excess power they generate through wind turbines, solar panels or waste-based power generators. Utility companies will be required to develop standard contracts with reasonable rates, terms and conditions for residential and ...

Sat, 16 Aug 08
United Kingdom: Study: Birds laying eggs out of season
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/08/15/Study_Birds_laying_eggs_out_of_seaso n/UPI-70201218776375/
United Press International: A study of British birds finds common species are laying eggs an average of a week earlier than they did 40 years ago. The British Trust for Ornithology surveyed 30,000 nests, The Scotsman reports. The study focused on the species like swallows, robins and chaffinches, not on rare and endangered species. Ornithologists said they fear the changes in egg-laying put birds out of synch with the species they depend on for food. Graham Madge of the Royal Society for the Protection of ...

Fri, 15 Aug 08
United Kingdom: Climate change causes birds to lay eggs early
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/aug/15/wildlife.conservation
Guardian: Robins are one of Britain's popular birds hatching their eggs earlier because of climate change. Photograph: Sue Tranter/RSPB Climate change is making British birds lay their eggs earlier in the year, according to a major survey of how common species are changing their behaviour to cope with warmer temperatures. Analysis of 30,000 nests shows that birds such as the chaffinch and the robin are laying their eggs about a week earlier than in the 1960s. A similar pattern has been ...

Fri, 15 Aug 08
Ecuador Says Could Help Settle Chevron Suit
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/49787/story.htm
Reuters: Ecuador is willing to mediate a settlement between Chevron Corp and 30,000 Amazon jungle dwellers suing the oil company for up to US$16 billion in environmental damages, the country's top attorney said Wednesday. Peasants and Indians are suing the US company in an Ecuadorean court over charges its Texaco unit polluted the jungle and damaged their health by dumping 18 billion gallons (68 billion litres) of oil-laden water from 1972 to 1992. The case, which Chevron calls a ...

Fri, 15 Aug 08
Rudd forced to buy back more water
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/national/national/general/rudd-forced- to-buy-back-more-water/1244883.aspx
Canberra Times: KEVIN RUDD has bowed to rising anger in South Australia and announced an increased buyback of water from NSW and Queensland irrigators in an attempt to send more water down the Murray River and save its ravaged lower lakes. A cabinet meeting in Adelaide yesterday approved the purchase of water rights of entire farming communities and a Commonwealth-state initiative in which NSW and Queensland properties with large water entitlements could be purchased. The relevant state ...

Fri, 15 Aug 08
Two Large Solar Plants Planned in California
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=104917
New York Times: Two California companies said Thursday that they would each build solar power plants that were 10 times bigger than the largest now in service, creating the first true utility-scale use of a technology now mostly confined to rooftop supplements to conventional power supplies. The solar power will be sold to Pacific Gas and Electric, which is under a state mandate to get 20 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2010. The utility said that it expected the plants, both ...

Fri, 15 Aug 08
Call For Better Protection Of Older People From Climate Change Impact
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080814212323.htm
ScienceDaily: A new report published today by the Stockholm Environment Institute, University of York, in collaboration with Help the Aged, calls on Government and public authorities to take action to better protect older people from the future effects of climate change. The report Growing Old in a Changing Climate is the first national report to examine the impact of climate change on an ageing population. It aims to stimulate wider debate on the issue, and appropriate policy responses from ...

Fri, 15 Aug 08
Climate 'altering UK bird habits'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7561497.stm
BBC: A number of UK bird species are laying eggs significantly earlier than they were 40 years ago, a report reveals. A conservation coalition's report says some finches, robins and tits are all laying earlier and puts this down to warming caused by climate change. Overall, numbers of farmland birds remain about half of what they were in the 1970s, while wintering populations of water birds have risen considerably. The RSPB said birds were having to respond to climate change ...

Fri, 15 Aug 08
Climate change blamed for birds' early egg laying
http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/environment/display.var.2425917.0.Climate_c hange_blamed_for_birds_early_egg_laying.php
Herald: Many British birds are laying their eggs earlier in the year as a result of climate change, a report by conservation groups claimed yesterday. The report said birds were being forced to rapidly adapt their behaviour in order to survive, including altering their nesting and migration patterns and travelling further to find food. Work carried out by the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) surveying 30,000 nests showed species such as the chaffinch and robin are laying their eggs ...

Fri, 15 Aug 08
United Kingdom: Garden birds nest earlier
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/08/15/eabirds11 5.xml
Telegraph: Some of Britain's most common garden birds are laying their eggs earlier because of climate change, an annual survey has revealed. Birds such as the chaffinch and robin are nesting on average a week earlier than they did in the 1960s. The chaffinch (top) is nesting a week earlier but the song thrush (bottom), benefit from wet summers The State of the UK's Birds shows that in 1966, the average date for chaffinches laying their first egg was May 11 but by 2006 it was May ...

Fri, 15 Aug 08
Global warming brings an early laying season for Britain's birds
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/global-warming-brings-an-ea rly-laying-season-for-britains-birds-897555.html
Independent: Climate change is causing familiar British birds to lay their eggs earlier, according to a survey of UK bird populations. Species like the chaffinch are laying their eggs about a week sooner than 40 years ago and blue tits, great tits, robins and swallows arebehaving in a similar fashion, the State of the UK's Birds report for 2007, published today, has found. In 1966, the average date for chaffinches laying their first egg was 11 May, but it was 2 May in 2006. For the robin, ...

Fri, 15 Aug 08
Australia: MP rules out native forests power
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/08/15/2336280.htm
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: The federal Member for Eden Monaro, Mike Kelly, has ruled out the future possibility of using native forests in south-east New South Wales for electricity generation. A university study has found that untouched forests can absorb far more greenhouse gases than previously thought. Mr Kelly says biomass used to generate power, such as what is being proposed at the Eden chip mill, will only be permitted from industrial plantations. He says the contribution native forests ...

Fri, 15 Aug 08
Australia: Rudd plans to buy water and farms to aid Murray
http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=77&ContentID=91526
West Australian:

Fri, 15 Aug 08
Mitsubishi Corp to Support Brunei Solar Project
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/49798/story.htm
Reuters: Mitsubishi Corp said on Thursday it has signed a memorandum of understanding with Brueni's Energy Ministry to build and operate a test solar power plant in the western part of the sultanate in a three-year project starting in 2010. Mitsubishi, Japan's biggest trading company, will transfer needed technology, educate local staff and shoulder the project's total cost, estimated at 1.5 billion yen (US$13.7 million), a company spokesman said. The tiny but wealthy nation on Borneo ...

Fri, 15 Aug 08
Solar water heaters left out in the cold
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24183566-5013871,00.html
Australian: THE solar hot water industry fears that its business will be ruined and the cost of heaters will rise by at least $1000 if the Rudd Government proceeds with an option to exclude solar products from its 20 per cent mandatory renewable energy target. The federal Opposition said the move would be "ludicrous and destructive" and would breach an ALP election promise to leave the eligibility criteria for the MRET unchanged. Under the current MRET system, solar hot water installers ...

Fri, 15 Aug 08
African firms start to take action on climate change
http://africa.reuters.com/top/news/usnBAN447515.html
Reuters: With global warming expected to hit Africa hard, some companies in the "forgotten continent" are taking action themselves to fight climate change. "The environment is not being taken very seriously in most of the emerging markets, because we haven't started feeling the pressure yet," Adan Mohamed, chief executive of Barclays Bank Kenya, told Reuters. "But it has got to be addressed and it is up to us corporates to lead that." Poverty in Africa, where nearly three ...

Fri, 15 Aug 08
Brazil: Amazon Fund seen as 'paradigm shift' for forest
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN14183934
Reuters: An international fund to protect the Amazon forest launched by Brazil this month marks an important step in harnessing the forest's wealth in less destructive ways, a leading Amazon expert said on Thursday. The $100 million initially pledged by Norway would only have a marginal impact on deforestation even if it was repeated for 20 years, said Carlos Nobre, a senior scientist at the National Institute for Space Research. But by setting a precedent for alternative investments in ...

Fri, 15 Aug 08
Antarctic Climate: Short-Term Spikes, Long-Term Warming Linked to Tropical Pacific
http://www.innovationsreport.de/html/berichte/umwelt_naturschutz/antarctic_ climate_short_term_spikes_long_term_116027.html
Innovations Report: Dramatic year-to-year temperature swings and a century-long warming trend across West Antarctica are linked to conditions in the tropical Pacific Ocean, according to a new analysis of ice cores conducted by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the University of Washington (UW). The findings show the connection of the world's coldest continent to global warming, as well as to periodic events such as El Niño. "As the tropics warm, so too will West ...

Fri, 15 Aug 08
Canada: British ruling a hit to oilsands
http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/story.html?id=594b107f-e20a-406f-b19c-b 70b77ca01a2
Calgary Herald: The provincial government and petroleum sector -- already facing criticism over "dirty oil" from the oilsands -- experienced another setback Wednesday when a British advertising regulator ruled it's "misleading" for Shell to call Alberta's oilsands a sustainable energy source. The ruling from the United Kingdom's Advertising Standards Authority is a setback to the Stelmach government, which recently launched a public relations offensive declaring the oilsands are environmentally ...

Fri, 15 Aug 08
Dying frogs sign of a biodiversity crisis
http://www.innovationsreport.de/html/berichte/biowissenschaften_chemie/dyin g_frogs_sign_a_biodiversity_crisis_116072.html
Innovations Report: Devastating declines of amphibian species around the world are a sign of a biodiversity disaster larger than just frogs, salamanders and their ilk, according to researchers from the University of California, Berkeley. In an article published online this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers argue that substantial die-offs of amphibians and other plant and animal species add up to a new mass extinction facing the planet. "There's no ...

Fri, 15 Aug 08
Frogs and other amphibians dying at alarming rates, say scientists
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/aug/14/wildlife.endangeredhabita ts
McClatchy: New research led by two University of California at Berkeley biologists finds frogs and other amphibians worldwide need help, because they are dying at alarming rates. The researchers find that some frog populations are at 2 to 5% of their former size - that's a decline of 95 to 98% - which they argue is a warning sign of a larger global issue. An article published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports that scientists are not yet sure ...

Fri, 15 Aug 08
Global warming blamed for increased wildfire risk
http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,700250884,00.html
Deseret News: Global warming and past forest management are making forests in the western United States more susceptible to fire while large wildfires, like two in Utah last year, are blamed with making climate change worse and putting unnatural stress on ecosystems, according to a report released Thursday. In the National Wildlife Federation's 2008 "Increased Risk of Catastrophic Wildfires: Global Warming's Wake-Up Call for the Western United States," the report claims global warming is increasing ...

Fri, 15 Aug 08
It's not you, it's the sea: heat hurts shellfish relationships
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/national/national/general/its-not-you- its-the-sea-heat-hurts-shellfish-relationships/1244885.aspx
Canberra Times: OYSTERS, lobsters, mussels, sea urchins and abalone could be wiped off the menu by global warming, an Australian scientist warned yesterday. Jane Williamson, a Macquarie University marine ecologist, made the prediction after discovering that climate change is likely to take a dramatic toll on the ability of sperm from many marine creatures to swim to and fertilise eggs shed in the water. Even if sperm can find and fertilise the eggs, ...

Fri, 15 Aug 08
Lab says solar cell sets record for efficiency
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2008/08/14/ap5323031.html
Associated Press: The National Renewable Energy Laboratory says its scientists have developed a device that can convert a record 40.8 percent of the light that hits it into electricity. NREL spokesman George Douglas says the new device still has room for improvement. Its design differs from that of a company whose device converted 40.7 percent of concentrated sunlight that hit it into electricity for the previous record. The new inverted metamorphic triple-junction solar cell makes use of ...

Fri, 15 Aug 08
Ocean 'Dead Zones' Doubling
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/14/AR200808140 1910.html?hpid=topnews
Washington Post: In the latest sign of trouble in the planet's chemistry, the number of oxygen-starved "dead zones" in coastal waters around the world has roughly doubled every decade since the 1960s, killing fish, crustaceans and massive amounts of marine life at the base of the food chain, according to a study released today. "These zones are popping up all over," said Robert Diaz, a professor at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science who led of the study published online by the journal ...

Fri, 15 Aug 08
Oceans Returning to Primordial Stew
http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/oceans-47081403
Daily Green: As every one who has ever strapped on a snorkeling mask or flipped the channel to an undersea nature program knows, the oceans are a wondrous and diverse place, filled with colorful creatures in sometimes otherworldly shapes, all involved in life-and-death darting dances, strange mating displays and awe-inspiring long-distance migrations. But the future of the oceans is the past, with that vast and beautiful diversity reduced to a stew of jellyfish, bacteria and toxic algal ...

Fri, 15 Aug 08
United States: Subsidies Help Residents Go Solar
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/13/AR200808130 1926.html
Washington Post: In the house that Tim Dowd is building in Howard County, he wants to keep the monthly electricity bill as low as possible. He has done everything he can think of, installing thicker walls with more insulation and buying higher-grade windows. Early in the process, he studied wind and solar power and geothermal heating. The solar system he settled on cost $35,000. "There's no doubt about it: It takes a lot of green to be green," said Dowd, 31, of Woodbine, a D.C. ...

Fri, 15 Aug 08
Two Large Solar Plants Planned in California
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=104904
New York Times: Two California companies said Thursday that they would each build solar power plants that were 10 times larger than the largest now in service, creating the first true utility-scale use of a technology now mostly confined to rooftop supplements to conventional power supplies. The power will be sold to Pacific Gas and Electric, which is under a state mandate to get 20 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2010. The utility said that it expected the plants, both using ...

Fri, 15 Aug 08
US candidates resist diluting climate plans
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c1ddea7a-69a3-11dd-91bd-0000779fd18c.html
Financial Times: Voters in Indiana last week asked Barack Obama what his highest priorities would be in his "first 1,000 days in office". Ahead of universal healthcare and ending the Iraq war, the first item on Mr Obama's list was comprehensive energy reform. Observers of the increasingly commuter-focused presidential debate in the US could be forgiven for thinking that the pain of high petrol prices has driven the issue of global warming off the political agenda. But they would be ...

Fri, 15 Aug 08
Yearly price of smog in Canada: 2700 lives and $1 billion
http://www.canada.com/topics/technology/science/story.html?id=4827f6f4-47c6 -4303-b541-0ded23b91205
Ottawa Citizen: Smog this year will contribute to the premature deaths of 2, 700 Canadians and put 11,000 in hospitals, costing the economy and health-care system $1 billion, Canada's doctors say. A report by the Canadian Medical Association calculates that deaths linked to air pollution will rise over the next two decades, claiming nearly twice as many lives each year and costing $1.3 billion annually in health care and lost productivity. The study estimates that by 2031, more than 4,900 ...

Fri, 15 Aug 08
Tanzania: `Deforestation behind loss of Mt Kili snow`
http://www.ippmedia.com/ipp/guardian/2008/08/14/120550.html
IPP Media: A scientific theory has linked the loss of snow on Mount Kilimanjaro to deforestation and dismissed suggestions that the dwindling of glaciers on Africa`s highest peak was due to global warming. The theory is highlighted in a recent study report compiled by two researchers from Britain`s Portsmouth University, Nicholas Pepin and Martin Schaefer, who surveyed the mountain`s glaciers for 11 days. The researchers, who revealed their findings at a news conference in Dar es Salaam ...

Fri, 15 Aug 08
Australia: 20pc less water expected in 2030
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/08/14/2335318.htm
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: A New South Wales Government report is predicting climate change could result in a 20 per cent reduction in available water in some areas by 2030. The Government says the report is the first comprehensive modelling work done on the impact climate change could have on rainfall and run-off across the state. NSW Water Minister Nathan Rees presented the findings, the results of a joint study by the Department of Water and Energy and the CSIRO, to a conference for local government ...

Fri, 15 Aug 08
Australian report predicts 20 per cent water cut
http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/news/stories/200808/s2335741.htm?tab=lates t
Radio Australia: A report prepared by the eastern Australian state of New South Wales predicts that climate change could lead to a 20 per cent reduction in water availability in some areas by 2030. The state government says the report is the first comprehensive modelling work done on the impact climate change could have on rainfall and runoff across the state. Water Minister Nathan Rees says the results will help in planning river health and water strategies.

Fri, 15 Aug 08
Calif. utility agrees to buy solar power from two proposed plants
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/economics/story/48267.html
San Luis Obispo: Pacific Gas and Electric today announced that it has entered into agreements to purchase 800 megawatts of power from two solar plants to be built on the Carrizo Plain. The agreements will make the northern Carrizo Plain around California Valley one of the state's major producers of solar electricity. Three solar projects have now been proposed for the area, each with agreements to sell their power to PG&E. Senior executives with PG&E are calling the agreements a landmark in ...

Fri, 15 Aug 08
Climate change hot spots are identified
http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2008/08/14/Climate_change_hot_spots_are_ide ntified/UPI-53391218724140/
United Press International: A sophisticated U.S. climate modeling system suggests southern California, northern Mexico and western Texas will be this century's climate change hot spots. Scientists led by Purdue University Associate Professor Noah Diffenbaugh developed what they described as one of the most complete climate modeling programs in the world to identify hot spots based on the magnitude of temperature and precipitation response to greenhouse gas emissions. "It's estimated there will be a global ...

Fri, 15 Aug 08
Germany: Climate change may alter plant ranges
http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2008/08/14/Climate_change_may_alter_plant_r anges/UPI-46421218723436/
United Press International: A new study suggests one in five of Germany's plant species could lose parts of its current range due to global warming. Researchers from Germany's Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, along with the French Laboratory for Alpine Ecology, said such species distribution will be the result of climate change and might have a dramatic impact, particularly on the vegetation in southwestern and eastern Germany. The ...

Fri, 15 Aug 08
France's Reunion island aims for zero CO2
http://www.reuters.com/article/inDepthNews/idUSL146633820080814
Reuters: Ringed by volcanic rock, sandy beaches and the blue swell of the Indian Ocean, France's Reunion island is hardly a major polluter. But hit by rising fuel costs and worried about the impact of global warming, particularly on its delicate flora and fauna, the small island nation has set itself the ambitious goal of cutting its greenhouse gas emissions to zero. By 2025, the French territory wants to use renewable energy sources to produce 100 percent of its electricity, and to ...

Fri, 15 Aug 08
Australia: Govt plan aims to save SA's dying lakes
http://news.smh.com.au/national/govt-plan-aims-to-save-sas-dying-lakes-2008 0814-3vg1.html
Sydney Morning Herald: The federal government has dramatically stepped up efforts to save the dying lakes at the mouth of Australia's biggest river system, agreeing to buy up water-hoarding properties and send the water downstream. Federal cabinet has agreed to a suite of new measures in a last-gasp bid to save the Murray-Darling's lower lakes from turning into acid or being flooded with seawater. The government would try to buy out "appropriately located irrigation properties", Prime Minister Kevin ...

Fri, 15 Aug 08
Australia: Gunns asked for timetable of pulp mill planning
http://www.news.com.au/mercury/story/0,22884,24179124-3462,00.html
Mercury: GUNNS Limited has been asked by the Federal Government to outline a timetable for the submission of plans for the $2 billion pulp mill. The request comes as the October 4 deadline for finalisation of the 16 planning modules looms. Since the approval with conditions by former environment minister Malcolm Turnbull last year, Gunns has had four modules approved. The approved modules cover the environmental management plan overview, vegetation clearing, bulk earthworks on ...

Fri, 15 Aug 08
Heat Waves Will Intensify: Study
http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/heat-waves-47081402
Daily Green: Heat waves will become more intense throughout the century due to global warming, and the U.S. Midwest is among the most vulnerable to dangerous heat, according to a new study. While the news reported about high temperatures and global warming typically focuses on the rising average temperatures, it's the temperature extremes that matter most. While the average temperature by 2100 might rise 5.4 degrees, the hottest of the hot days will be 14.4 degrees warmer, according to the study ...

Fri, 15 Aug 08
How Warming Affects Storming
http://www.livescience.com/imageoftheday/siod_080814.html
LiveScience: Scientists who predicted a connection between global warming and rainstorm strength finally have some evidence to hang their hat on. A new study based on 20 years of satellite observations discovered a distinct link between tropical rainfall extremes and temperature, with heavy rain events increasing during warm periods and decreasing during cold periods. "A warmer atmosphere contains larger amounts of moisture which boosts the intensity of heavy downpours," said Brian Soden, ...

Fri, 15 Aug 08
India Shouldn't Allow Energy Costs to Hamper Growth, Patil Says
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601091&sid=auD3.Wdb1OHk&refer=indi a
Bloomberg: India shouldn't allow energy costs to hamper economic growth, said President Pratibha Devisingh Patil on the eve of the nation's Independence Day. ``We cannot let lack of energy become a constraint on our ability to deliver high levels of growth,'' Patil said in her address. ``With the challenges of increased oil prices and climate change, the question of energy security confronts us.'' India's energy requirement is rising as an expanding economy boosts demand for electricity ...

Fri, 15 Aug 08
Canada: Logging in Clayoquot at a crossroads
http://www.canada.com/westerly/news/upfront/story.html?id=7cdb4af6-6844-477 0-b1f0-0ad8a7c548ff
Westerly: Dear Editor, If a logging company says they can log sustainably in an old growth forest then they are lying. For it to be sustainable they would have to provide a logging plan that will allow for the reharvest of four, six, or 800 year old trees. Have you ever seen a logging plan that goes to the year 2525? Coulson Forest products needs to go into a pristine valley in Hesquiat because, as they admit, they will run out of trees to log. What happens when they have logged ...

Fri, 15 Aug 08
Massive solar photovoltaic plants are California-bound
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10017437-54.html
CNet: Pacific Gas & Electric has inked deals with OptiSolar and SunPower to establish 800 megawatts of solar farms in California, which could become the world's largest set of grid-tied photovoltaic installations. The new plants would provide 1.65 billion kilowatt hours each year, enough to serve nearly 250,000 homes, according to Jack Keenan, CEO and senior vice president of PG&E. "This commitment not only moves us forward in meeting our renewable goal, it's also a ...

Fri, 15 Aug 08
One in five of Germany's plant species threatened by climate change
http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/india-news/one-in-five-of-germanys-plan t-species-threatened-by-climate-change_10083905.html
Asian News International: A new study by scientists has indicated that one in five of Germany``s plant species could lose parts of its current range, all due to threatening climate change. The study has been carried out by scientists at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) in Germany, and the French Laboratoire d'Ecologie Alpine. Even moderate climate change and limited land use changes could have an adverse impact on flora, the ...

Fri, 15 Aug 08
Pelosi won't limit vote to offshore drilling
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/08/14/MNCD12BC0J.DTL
San Francisco Chronicle: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi today firmly rejected the idea of a House vote solely on the issue of offshore oil drilling, calling it "a hoax on the American people" backed by oil companies. Instead, she said, she wants Congress to tackle a compromise comprehensive energy plan that would include alternative energy sources and curtailing tax breaks for oil companies. "You want to drill? We want the royalties for the American people, and we want that to pay for renewable energy ...

Fri, 15 Aug 08
PG&E in new solar deals with OptiSolar, SunPower
http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN1327052520080814
Reuters: Pacific Gas & Electric Co on Thursday announced two solar power contracts that will generate enough electricity to serve about 239,000 homes and help the utility meet California's aggressive renewable energy requirements. The unit of PG&E Corp said it struck two deals with photovoltaic solar companies OptiSolar Inc and SunPower Corp for a total of 800 megawatts (MW) of solar energy. Both deals, however, are contingent upon the extension of key federal tax credits that ...

Fri, 15 Aug 08
Malaysia: Push To Use Renewal Energy In Bid To Mitigate Impact Of Energy Crisis
http://www.bernama.com.my/bernama/v3/news_business.php?id=352740
Bernama: The government will resort to the use of renewal energy as one of the strategies to mitigate impact of the energy crisis and solar photovoltaic (PV) has been identified as one of them. Energy, Water and Communications Minister, Datuk Shaziman Abu Mansor, said the ministry would consider a feed-in tariff mechanism as part of the drive to promote the widespread use of renewable energy, especially solar energy in the country. "The feed-in tariff will provide opportunity for owners ...

Fri, 15 Aug 08
The current: Coal in the crossfire
http://www.startribune.com/business/26967594.html?elr=KArks:DCiU1OiP:DiiUiD 3aPc:_Yyc:aULPQL7PQLanchO7DiU
Minneapolis Star Tribune: The nation's leading climate scientist had a pointed suggestion for policymakers interested in reducing carbon dioxide emissions: no more coal plants. "We need politicians with the guts to say that, but I don't see that," said James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, who was in town this week for a speech at the Science Museum of Minnesota in St. Paul. They "say the right words and set goals to reduce emissions, but their actions prove they don't mean ...

Fri, 15 Aug 08
The impact of continued population growth
http://upiasiaonline.com/Economics/2008/08/14/the_impact_of_continued_popul ation_growth/2198/
United Press International: The world's population is approaching 7 billion and apparently increasing at a rate of about 78 million per year. At the current annual growth rate of 1.16 percent, it is expected to double within 60 years. However, the projection of 9 billion by 2050 by the United Nations is an improvement over an earlier 40-year estimate (1960 to 2000) during which the population of the world practically doubled, from 3 to 6 billion. The point is that the world's population will continue to grow ...

Fri, 15 Aug 08
Australia: Tim Flannery says small engines are big polluters
http://www.news.com.au/mercury/story/0,22884,24178914-922,00.html
Australian: THE lawn mower and the outboard motor are the latest targets - albeit on a small scale - in the war against climate change. Environmentalist Tim Flannery wrote to Environment Minister Peter Garrett last month, appealing for the Federal Government to fast-track the introduction of world-standard emissions regulations for small engines. The US and Europe already regulate marine engine emissions, The Australian reports. Professor Flannery, the 2007 Australian of the Year ...

Fri, 15 Aug 08
Australia: Water buyouts to ease Murray River anger
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24183641-11949,00.html
Australian: THE Government will offer to buy out the water entitlements of entire irrigation communities as Kevin Rudd moved yesterday to appease growing outrage at the plight of the lower Murray River. The Prime Minister also caved in to demands for an external audit of water remaining in the drought-ravaged Murray-Darling Basin that spans Queensland, NSW, Victoria and South Australia. Federal cabinet, meeting in Adelaide, a centre of the unfolding crisis, signed off on $50million in ...

Thu, 14 Aug 08
Amazon threatened by new oil and gas exploration
http://www.mg.co.za/article/2008-08-13-amazon-threatened-by-new-oil-and-gas -exploration
Guardian: Vast swathes of the western Amazon are to be opened up for oil and gas exploration, putting some of the planet's most pristine and biodiverse forests at risk, conservationists have warned. A survey of land earmarked for exploration by energy companies revealed a steep rise in recent years, to about 180 zones, which together cover an area of 688 000 square kilometres, almost equivalent to the size of Texas. Detailed mapping of the region shows the majority of planned oil and gas ...

Thu, 14 Aug 08
Carbon tax will ease transition to sensible climate policy
http://news.mongabay.com/2008/0813-rood_thoumi.html
Mongabay: The management of carbon dioxide and the climate represent both an economic development challenge and the ecological problem of the next hundred years. Energy use, economic success and carbon dioxide emissions are, currently, intertwined. A carbon market that represents the true cost of energy and the disposal of our waste products in the environment is a potential long-term policy mechanism for carbon dioxide management. However, the strong interconnection between carbon dioxide emissions ...

Thu, 14 Aug 08
China raises tax on big cars to curb pollution
http://uk.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUKSHA12467020080813
Reuters: China said on Wednesday it would raise taxes on large passenger vehicles and cut the tax on small cars from next month to cut pollution and fuel use. But the policy may only have a limited impact on boosting fuel efficiency in the world's second-largest oil user, as majority of the cars will be spared the tax hike as Beijing seeks to prevent more damage to an already slowing auto market. The consumption tax on cars with an engine size of more than 4 liters will double to 40 ...

Thu, 14 Aug 08
Climate change threatens one in five plant species
http://www.innovationsreport.de/html/berichte/umwelt_naturschutz/climate_ch ange_threatens_plant_species_115973.html
Innovation Reports: One in five of Germany's plant species could lose parts of its current range, a study by scientists at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and the French Laboratoire d'Ecologie Alpine reveals. Species distributions will be rearranged as a result of climate change; this could have a dramatic impact particularly on the vegetation in south-western and eastern Germany. The researchers have modelled and recorded how ...

Thu, 14 Aug 08
Making a Solar Cell Component without Using Fossil Fuels
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=making-solar-energy-without-fossil-fuel
Scientific American: Solar energy is touted by some as the solution to the world's energy woes. But the process of making the various components requires fossil fuels, both for power and for the components themselves, some of which are based on petroleum. A new company, BioSolar, aims to kick petroleum to the curb, at least in the realm of building solar photovoltaics, cells of crystalline silicon that turn sunlight into electricity. Such photovoltaic cells rely on conventional plastic polymers to provide ...

Thu, 14 Aug 08
Canada: Advertising not sustainable, authority tells Shell
http://www.enn.com/business/article/37916
WWF: A Shell suggestion in advertising that oil sands were a sustainable energy source has been ruled out of order by the UK's Advertising Standards Authority, upholding a complaint lodged by WWF-UK. WWF-UK today launched its own advertising campaign via a video billboard at central London's busiest railway station, stating that "Shell can't hide the environmental impact of their oil sand projects". Examining the advertisement placed by Shell in the Financial Times earlier this ...

Thu, 14 Aug 08
Air pollution to cost Canadian economy more than $1 billion this year, doctors say
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=b6589ae4-dc61-4d50-a 548-f236d76ec6e8
Ottawa Citizen: Smog this year will contribute to the premature deaths of 2,700 Canadians and put 11,000 in hospitals, costing the economy and health-care system $1 billion, Canada's doctors say. A new report by the Canadian Medical Association calculates that deaths linked to air pollution will rise over the next two decades, claiming nearly twice as many lives each year and costing $1.3 billion annually in health care and lost productivity. The study estimates that by 2031, more than 4,900 ...

Thu, 14 Aug 08
Bigger, tougher fires bring Calif. to the brink
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080813/ap_on_re_us/california_wildfires_2
Associated Press: Faced with hundreds of big, hard-to-control blazes, California is struggling with what could be its most expensive firefighting season ever, burning through $285 million in the last six weeks alone and up to $13 million a day. With the worst of the fire season still ahead, lawmakers are scrambling to find a way to pay for it all and are considering slapping homeowners with a disaster surcharge that asks those in fire-prone areas to pay the most. "There is no more fire season ...

Thu, 14 Aug 08
Kenya: Boosting biofuels without compromising food security
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/b5b01f7f79749e764237d5f00f22c 8ec.htm
IRIN: The oil-rich seed of a poisonous shrub that thrives in arid climates with poor soil lies at the heart of plans by Kenya to reduce its dependence on imported fossil fuels without threatening food security. "We are definitely focusing on the jatropha plant for oil production," Faith Odongo of the Ministry of Energy told IRIN. In May 2008, the ministry unveiled a five-year strategy to develop the bio-diesel industry to "enable more Kenyans to enjoy and derive comfort from the ...

Thu, 14 Aug 08
Can the forest products industry play a role in tackling climate change?
http://csr-asia.com/weekly_detail.php?id=11452
CSR Asia: The world's forests play a vital role in regulating climate change. Covering almost 30 percent of the world's land surface area they store more than 283 metric gigatons of carbon in their biomass, i.e. about 50 percent more than the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. Deforestation and unsustainable harvest practices, however, set carbon free and already account for 18 to 25 percent of total anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Around 34 percent of forests are designated ...

Thu, 14 Aug 08
German firm to extend Asia's largest solar power plant
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gYLUbHOUHjUkROqJQLrGRbntD6Fg
Agence France-Presse: A German firm said Wednesday it has signed a deal to extend a South Korean solar energy plant which is already Asia's largest. Conergy said in a statement it has reached a framework agreement on a 20-million-euro (29.8-million-dollar) project to expand the plant at Sinan in the southwest of the country. The extension is expected to be completed by year-end and will add 4.35 megawatts to the existing 19.6 MW capacity of the plant, which became fully operational in June at a cost ...

Thu, 14 Aug 08
Global warming induced hurricanes of higher intensity
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Earth/Is_warming_making_hurricane_worse /articleshow/3361018.cms
Asian News International: Global warming will decrease hurricane activity, but if formed they would be of very high intensity, says a group of researchers. In the study, scientists have developed a new method for evaluating the frequency of hurricane formation in present and future tropical climates. In a study, Drs. David S. Nolan and Eric D. Rappin from the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science have described the new method that may out do the computer models used ...

Thu, 14 Aug 08
United States: Governor signs greenhouse gas reduction bill
http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2008/08/patrick_signs_g.html
Boston Globe: Governor Deval Patrick has signed a bill that would sharply curb greenhouse gas emissions in the state. The Global Warming Solutions Act requires the emissions -- which scientists say are causing global warming that could wreak havoc on the world's environment -- t