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Wed, 31 Dec 08
Korea's Renewable Energy Stocks Gain on Public Plan
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601080&sid=aKGj_FJeJuu8&refer=asia
Bloomberg: Unison Co., a South Korean wind- turbine maker, led renewable energy-related stocks higher in Seoul trading after the government announced its final plans to boost the use of alternative resources. Unison rose 4.2 percent to 13,800 won at the close, after rising as much as 7.2 percent. It was the stock's strongest gain since Dec. 15. Odicorp Co., which makes biofuels, surged 13 percent. Sodiff Advanced Materials Co., which makes solar-cell materials, rose 0.8 percent. South ...

Wed, 31 Dec 08
Canada: Despite economy, emissions still issue for oil sands
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20081230.RESSAYMCCARTHY30/TPStory/Business
Globe and Mail: Conventional wisdom suggests that, as the economy tanks, corporations face less pressure to improve their environmental performance because governments are reluctant to impose additional costs on struggling employers. And certainly, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government - never an enthusiastic warrior in the climate change battle - is concerned about proceeding with new emissions regulations in the midst of a deep recession. Still, pressures are building that should ensure that a ...

Wed, 31 Dec 08
Chu is wise choice for US energy secretary
http://www.upiasia.com/Society_Culture/2008/12/30/chu_is_wise_choice_for_us_energy_secretary/1524/
United Press International: The nomination of Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, by U.S. President-elect Barack Obama for the position of energy secretary is to be applauded. If confirmed, Chu will become the first professional scientist to run the Department of Energy, thereby bringing fresh scientific thinking into the agency. The nomination, along with the selection of other top science advisors, shows the determination of the Obama administration to end eight years of official hostility to science ...

Wed, 31 Dec 08
In San Francisco, 'congestion pricing' is something they're sneezing at
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-me-sanfrancisco-traffic30-2008dec30,0,674932.story
LA Times: Reporting from San Francisco -- You've just driven from Oakland to San Francisco across the Bay Bridge and shelled out $4 for the toll. You'll be dinged upward of $30 to park for the day in the city. And if city officials have their way, you could be charged $3 to drive into downtown San Francisco during peak commute hours and another $3 to leave. America's second most congested city could become the first to institute so-called congestion pricing to try to reduce downtown ...

Wed, 31 Dec 08
Solar energy remains a hot idea, despite flap
http://www.dailynews.com/editorial/ci_11332273
Daily News: The flap over the city's March 3 solar energy ballot measure, Measure B, while unfortunate and avoidable, should not obscure the merits of the proposal. After all, solar energy should not be a partisan issue since harnessing the sun's power is in everyone's best interest. What is needed is more of a realistic view of this energy source that has bedeviled mankind for centuries. First, it isn't "free." Second, it will always cost a little more, but it carries broader economic and ...

Wed, 31 Dec 08
Britain's windfarm revolution tangled in red tape
http://www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=185897
Guardian: Britain's wind power industry is facing a double blow of lengthy planning delays and rapidly rising construction costs in a crisis that threatens to sink the government's climate-change goals. Dozens of projects are being held up by planning inquiries, with the average length of time taken to win permission being 15 to 20 months in England and far longer in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where the bulk of the schemes are being developed. There are 262 different projects ...

Wed, 31 Dec 08
United States: Lawmakers looking to put Austin on the renewable energy map
http://austin.bizjournals.com/austin/stories/2008/12/29/story11.html?b=1230526800^1754097
Austin Business Journal: TECO-Westinghouse Motor Co., based in Round Rock, manufactured 10 wind turbines for DeWind Inc. Here, the first of five turbines makes its way to Houston for transport to Chile. View Larger During the upcoming legislative session, lawmakers and industry experts are proposing several different approaches to the renewable energy issue that include tax incentives, infrastructure investment and revised renewable energy standards. The various tacts being considered are part of the ...

Wed, 31 Dec 08
United States: Wind Turbine of the Future Installed on Historic Oilfield
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/dec2008/2008-12-30-093.asp
Environment News Service: The installation of a six kilowatt wind turbine on a historic oil field about 35 miles north of Casper showcases a new type of smaller wind turbine that is growing in popularity for home, farm, or business use. The new turbine will serve both Casper College and the Rocky Mountain Oilfield Testing Center. Standing just 49 feet high, the wind turbine, manufactured by the Scottish company Proven Energy, will be used as a training tool to educate college students as they learn to be ...

Wed, 31 Dec 08
A sea of troubles
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12853926
Economist: NOT much is known about the sea, it is said; the surface of Mars is better mapped. But 2,000 holes have now been drilled in the bottom, 100,000 photographs have been taken, satellites monitor the five oceans and everywhere floats fitted with instruments rise and fall like perpetual yo-yos. Quite a lot is known, and very little is reassuring. The worries begin at the surface, where an atmosphere newly laden with man-made carbon dioxide interacts with the briny. The sea has thus become ...

Wed, 31 Dec 08
China: Climate mess: We all need to pitch in and clean up
http://www.shanghaidaily.com/sp/article/2008/200812/20081231/article_386499.htm
Shanghai Daily: TALK about commitments to action: Politicians, business leaders and other influencers attended the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) Asia meeting in Hong Kong early this month. Hundreds of movers and shakers got together for 48 hours and the upshot was a commitment to cleaner air, better-educated communities and protected green spaces. A day without sunlight sounds as dreary and fictitious as a Charles Dickens novel ?? but in reality, the skies above some Asian cities are clouded ...

Wed, 31 Dec 08
Creating 2 million new jobs at a price of $100 billion
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/obamas-going-green-policies-hold/story.aspx?guid={F3D68FBA-8CB6-48F2-8049-7D58057286A6}
MarketWatch: They're calling it the "transition to green." The motto, fashioned by environmental groups' pining for the first 100 days of Barack Obama's presidency, envisions increased funding for alternative energy to go with regulations designed to clamp down on facilities powered by fossil fuels. But pro-environment advocates also see a policy role in a "green recovery," in the form of federal outlays for new jobs in the alternative-energy sectors that would constitute a "massive" ...

Wed, 31 Dec 08
Climate change threatening turtles
http://www.radionetherlands.nl/news/international/6116320/Climate-change-threatening-turtles
Radio Netherlands: A report by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) says that some species are more threatened by climate change than others sea turtles, already an endangered species, are under serious threat. The warming of the earth is having a disastrous effect on turtle reproduction. Turtles lay their eggs in underground nests; the increased temperature in the nests is changing the sex of the embryos and far too few males are being born. The number of beaches where Turtles lay their eggs has also been ...

Wed, 31 Dec 08
Researchers study glaciers on Earth's coldest desert
http://www.physorg.com/news149872492.html
Physorg: It's December, and undergraduate Jenny Middleton bundles up to face the cold. While all across campus, students, and faculty don their winter gear, Middleton is not preparing for the New England winter; she is preparing for an expedition through the Earth's coldest desert: the McMurdo Dry Valleys in Antarctica. "Occasionally, like when the wind is blowing so hard that you can hear the harmonics of a 50-gallon drum as if it were an empty Coke bottle and you can't see anything due to ...

Wed, 31 Dec 08
Study: Climate change to mean shorter ski seasons in Rockies
http://wenatcheeworld.com/article/20081230/SPORTS/712309952
Associated Press: A study of two Rocky Mountain ski resorts says climate change will mean shorter seasons and less snow on lower slopes. The study by two Colorado researchers says Aspen Mountain in Colorado and Park City in Utah will see dramatic changes even with a reduction in carbon emissions, which fuel climate change. University of Colorado-Boulder geography professor Mark Williams said that the resorts should be in fairly good shape the next 25 years, but after that there will be less ...

Wed, 31 Dec 08
Can an Ancient Charcoal Put the Brakes on Global Warming?
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/research/4297513.html
Popular Mechanics: When pre-Columbian natives in the Amazon Basin first began to use biochar--a fine-grained, carbon-rich type of charcoal made from burning bone fragments and other food remains--some 7,000 years ago, they knew that it helped their crops grow. But they didn't realize that this charred biomass was extraordinarily good at absorbing and storing carbon dioxide, and that the process that made it released chemicals that could be used as fuel. (At the time, chemistry was still a few thousand years ...

Wed, 31 Dec 08
India: 5% energy to come from renewable sources from 2009-10
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Pune/5_energy_to_come_from_renewable_sources_from_2009-10/articleshow/3915658.cms
Times of India: Underlining the importance of electricity regulator in implementation of a national action plan on climate change, Pramod Deo, chairman of the central electricity regulatory commission (Cerc), on Saturday said that all power utilities in the country will have to buy at least five per cent of their grid purchase from renewable energy sources from 2009-10 onwards. The Cerc will fix the dynamic minimum purchase standard for renewal energy which will help reduce emission from the ...

Wed, 31 Dec 08
New Zealand: Biofuel for Jumbo Jets: Kiwis Take to the Sky on Jatropha
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=biofuel-for-jumbo-jets-from-jatropha
Scientific American: Air New Zealand became the second airline to fly partially on biofuel--and the first to use jet biofuel refined from a non-food crop. Fuel from the weed jatropha powered an Air New Zealand jet on a two-hour flight today--the world's second flight of a commercial jet on biofuel. One out of the four Rolls Royce engines on an Air New Zealand Boeing 747-400 burned a 50-50 blend of regular jet fuel and a bio-version made from jatropha. The flight more than doubled the air time of ...

Wed, 31 Dec 08
Vegetable oil tested on NZ flight
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7805499.stm
BBC: A passenger plane has successfully completed a two-hour test flight partly powered by vegetable oil. Air New Zealand hailed the flight as a "milestone" in the development of sustainable fuels that could lower aeroplane emissions and cut costs. One engine of the Boeing 747-400 was fueled by a 50-50 mixture of jatropha plant oil and standard A1 jet fuel. A Virgin Atlantic test flight in February used fuel derived from a blend of Brazilian babassu nuts and ...

Wed, 31 Dec 08
Portugal: Mega Solar Power Plant Begins to Operate
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45264
Inter Press Service: The most ambitious and innovative solar power project in the world kicked off Monday in this white-walled village in the southern Portuguese municipality of Moura, one of the most impoverished areas in the European Union. The Acciona Energy S.A. company has put into service the Amareleja photovoltaic power plant, located 150 km south of Lisbon, which is capable of producing enough energy to supply 30,000 households in the south-central region of Alentejo. Almost simultaneously, ...

Wed, 31 Dec 08
United States: At plant in coal ash spill, toxic deposits by the ton
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=114287
New York Times: In a single year, a coal-fired electric plant deposited more than 2.2 million pounds of toxic materials in a holding pond that failed last week, flooding 300 acres in East Tennessee, according to a 2007 inventory filed with the Environmental Protection Agency. The inventory, disclosed by the Tennessee Valley Authority on Monday at the request of The New York Times, showed that in just one year, the plant's byproducts included 45,000 pounds of arsenic, 49,000 pounds of lead, 1.4 ...

Wed, 31 Dec 08
"Nearly 15 million environmental refugees likely"
http://www.thenews.com.pk/print1.asp?id=154569
The News: Global warming and the ongoing thinning of Tibetan glaciers will result in as many as 15 million 'environmental refugees' in South Asia in the near future, said Chairperson Hisaar Foundation and member of Stockholm-based Global Water Partnership Technical Committee, Simi Kamal. She made the observation at a selected gathering of experts under the auspices of Leadership for Environment and Development (LEAD) at Karachi Water and Sewerage Board office here on Monday. She said that it is ...

Wed, 31 Dec 08
Spraying aerosols into atmosphere may reduce global warming
http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/health/spraying-aerosols-into-atmosphere-may-reduce-global-warming_100136519.html
Asian News International: Scientists are planning to put aerosols into the atmosphere to chemically unlock the greenhouse effect and allow more of the suns reflected heat to radiate back into space, thus reducing the effects of global warming. According to a report in Discovery News, the idea has been put forward by David Keith from the University of Calgarys Energy and Environmental Systems Group, and his colleagues. Scientists are concerned that Earth is growing increasingly warm due to greenhouse ...

Wed, 31 Dec 08
Carbon credits' value may grow
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20081230/NEWS01/812300351/1006
Tennessean: Bellevue resident Ed Polk hangs onto 350 acres of forestland, not to market its timber but because he loves wildlife and wants to preserve a sense of Tennessee wilderness for future generations. But soon, he and fellow owners of wooded land may be able to earn money from their trees anyway, simply because they're there -- soaking up carbon that otherwise would escape into the atmosphere and potentially warm the Earth. As industries that pollute face the possibility of ...

Wed, 31 Dec 08
Climate on the agenda
http://www.krakowpost.com/articles/2008/12/29/1206.html
Krakow Post: For the first two weeks of December, the Polish city of Poznan hosted the UN Climate Change Conference, a precursor to the all-important meeting planned for Copenhagen next year, where a successor to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol will be negotiated. As you might expect from an event that involved over 10,000 delegates from 190 countries, meeting in an industrial city in a nation where over 90 percent of electricity is generated by the very clapped out coal-fired power stations that are believed to ...

Wed, 31 Dec 08
United States: Panel backs CO2 storage bills
http://www.jacksonholestartrib.com/articles/2008/12/29/news/wyoming/5a393af771a41de18725752f00038495.txt
Associated Press: The Wyoming Legislature plans to continue work to regulate the underground storage of carbon dioxide emissions from coal plants and other sources. The Legislature early this year passed some of the nation's first bills regulating carbon capture and underground storage. State officials say commercial storage projects are likely still years away. The Joint Judiciary Interim Committee has sponsored three new carbon bills for the legislative session that begins next ...

Wed, 31 Dec 08
Philippines: House panels approve creation of climate change body
http://www.gmanews.tv/story/141695/House-panels-approve-creation-of-climate-change-body
GMA News: A government body that is specifically tasked to address climate change may soon be created with two House panels' approval of a bill seeking to establish a Climate Change Commission. An article posted on the House of Representatives website on Tuesday said the House committees on Government Reorganization and Appropriations have jointly approved a substitute bill consolidating House Bills No. 400, 1775, 3291, 4051, and 4853 which propose to create the country's climate change ...

Wed, 31 Dec 08
Arctic's untapped riches prompt fears of land grab
http://www.ftd.de/karriere_management/business_english/:Business-English-Arctic-s-untapped-riches-prompt-fears-of-land-grab/452891.html
Financial Times: Long frozen both politically and geographically, the Arctic is rapidly thawing into another slippery terrain on which Europe's twin desires to both preserve a planet in peril and secure a share of its dwindling resources are now playing out. In November, the European Com¬mission made its most sub¬stantive effort to reconcile those competing agendas with the release of an Arc¬tic initiative that urges nations to establish a bet¬ter system of international governance for the re¬gion, to ...

Wed, 31 Dec 08
United Kingdom: Queen goes green as her £10million Bentleys are converted to run on biofuel
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/motoring/article-1103028/Queen-goes-green-10million-Bentleys-converted-run-biofuel.html
Various: The Queen is to set to 'go green' by having her two gas-guzzling state Bentleys converted to run on biofuels. This is part of a move by the British luxury car-maker to become more environmentally friendly - and a new biofuel-burning high-performance car is expected in the New Year. The Volkswagen-owned, Crewe-based company is to produce a new range of engines which will offer a 40 per cent improvement in fuel economy by 2012, with all new vehicles able to run on the plant-derived ...

Wed, 31 Dec 08
Ecuador: Texaco toxic past haunts Chevron as $27 billion judgment looms
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aymV5i.4yp.E&refer=home
Bloomberg: Bolivar Cevallos walks around the farm where his family once lived amid the oil fields of Ecuador's Amazon rain forest. His boots sink ankle deep in tar. Everywhere he steps, oily muck seeps from the ground. A gasoline like smell hangs in the sweltering jungle air. The mess is a remnant of oil drilling in a 120-mile-long swath of the tropical jungle in northeastern Ecuador where Texaco Inc. and Ecuador's state-run oil company, PetroEcuador, have pumped billions of barrels of crude ...

Wed, 31 Dec 08
BP Australia cut greenhouse emissions 3.4 percent last business year
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601081&sid=a1PhYbg78HhA&refer=australia
Bloomberg: BP Plc's Australia unit said it reduced greenhouse gases by 3.4 percent last business year from a year earlier when pollution was boosted by refinery maintenance work and increased retailing sites. Emissions fell to the equivalent of 1.74 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in the year ended June 30, from 1.8 million a year earlier, BP Australia said in its 2007-08 sustainability report released today. Water consumption and emissions of sulfur oxides rose in the 2007 calendar year, ...

Wed, 31 Dec 08
United States: Carbon capture bill bubbling up in Senate
http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2008/12/30/news/state/23-legislaturemont.txt
Billings Gazette: On its face, carbon capture doesn't sound particularly complicated: Collect the carbon dioxide emitted by power plants and other coal-burning industries and pump it deep underground, where it can't cause global warming. But that simplicity comes with a host of questions: Who owns the space underground where the carbon will go? What happens if the carbon affects someone's groundwater or minerals? Who will be responsible for the carbon years from now? Lawmakers at the 2009 ...

Wed, 31 Dec 08
Tennessee coal ash spill highlights broad gaps in government oversight
http://wvgazette.com/News/200812290514
Charleston Gazette: Last week's collapse of a coal-ash dam in Tennessee revealed nationwide gaps in how the government oversees construction of power plant impoundments and how regulators watch over the country's largest source of industrial waste, environmental groups and safety experts say. Despite years of study - and prodding by the National Academy of Sciences and Congress - there are no federal standards for coal-ash waste disposal or dam construction. "Flying blind without federal rules ...

Wed, 31 Dec 08
Natural disasters 'killed more than 220,000 in 2008.'
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/4016881/Natural-disasters-killed-more-than-220000-in-2008.html
Telegraph: Although the number of natural disasters was lower than in 2007, the catastrophes proved to be more deadly and more expensive, Germany-based Munich Re said in its annual assessment. "This continues the long-term trend we have been observing. Climate change has already started and is very probably contributing to increasingly frequent weather extremes and ensuing natural catastrophes," Munich Re board member Torsten Jeworrek said. Most devastating in terms of human fatalities ...

Wed, 31 Dec 08
Emission rules changes worry farmers
http://www.sj-r.com/business/x1060490791/Emission-rules-changes-worry-farmers
State Journal-Register: Illinois` largest agricultural organization is gearing up for federal limits on methane and carbon dioxide emissions from farms, though just what form such limits would take remains far from decided. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency just completed the first step toward new rules on greenhouse-gas emissions linked to global warming, including emissions from livestock and poultry operations. A major concern is a so-called 'cow tax' on farm operations, though a specific ...

Wed, 31 Dec 08
Japan: Bakumatsu heat wave gives clues about global warming
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20081230p2a00m0na003000c.html
Mainichi Daily News: The summers of the Bakumatsu period were hot, according to analysis of records from the period done by the Mainichi Shimbun and academic experts; and the high temperatures may be an indicator of when global warming began. "Comparing this data with present day temperatures will help us understand long-term climate change, and the progress of global warming," says one expert. The records were kept by a Mito Domain merchant by the name of Otaka. Otaka consulted a thermometer ...

Wed, 31 Dec 08
Air New Zealand tests biofuel blend in Boeing 747 jetliner
http://businessmirror.com.ph/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3962:air-new-zealand-tests-biofuel-blend-in-boeing-747-jetliner&catid=51:world&Itemid=67
Bloomberg: Air New Zealand Ltd., the nation's biggest airline, said a test flight in one of the company's Boeing Co. 747-400 jetliners proved the commercial viability of jatropha oil as an alternative fuel. The trial, a joint program with the aircraft maker, Rolls Royce Group Plc and Honeywell International Inc.'s UOP Llc. unit, tested a 50-50 blend of jatropha oil and conventional jet fuel in one of the aircraft's four engines. Just under two hours of flight tests were conducted over the ...

Wed, 31 Dec 08
New Zealand: Biofuel test flight marks another 'green' step
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/394073_biofuel30.html?source=rss
San Francisco Chronicle: Air New Zealand conducted a two-hour test flight Monday in which one of four Rolls-Royce engines on a jetliner was powered by a biofuel blend, another step down the long path the airline industry is taking to reduce carbon emissions. Engine No. 1 of the Boeing 747-400 that departed Auckland International Airport was fueled by a 50-50 blend of standard Jet A1 fuel -- effectively kerosene -- and synthetic paraffinic kerosene derived from Jatropha oil, which comes from a shrub that grows ...

Wed, 31 Dec 08
German Scientist Warns Climate Change Accelerating
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,3907790,00.html?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf
Deutsche Welle: Climate change is happening more rapidly than anyone though possible, the German government's expert, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, warned in an interview. The threats posed by climate change are worse than those imagined by most governments, warned Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, the scientist who heads the Potsdam Institute for Research on Global Warming Effects and acts as an adviser to German Chancellor Angela Merkel on climate-change issues. Schellnhuber warns that previous ...

Wed, 31 Dec 08
Canada: Emissions still an issue for oil sands
http://www.globeinvestor.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081229.wressaymccarthy30/GIStory/
Globe and Mail: Canada's oil industry had a sharp reversal of fortunes in the second half of 2008. But even as oil sands producers struggle to cope with low crude prices, they will have to continue to plan how to adjust to a carbon-constrained world. Conventional wisdom suggests that, as the economy tanks, corporations face less pressure to improve their environmental performance because governments are reluctant to impose additional costs on struggling employers. And certainly, Prime Minister ...

Wed, 31 Dec 08
Greening the Supply Chain
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=greening-the-supply-chain
Scientific American: Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University are urging companies to broaden their carbon-footprint calculations. They report that many U.S. companies in a variety of industries do not account for the entire supply chain that results in final goods and services--overlooking up to 75 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions involved. Most factories, it seems, assess only carbon dioxide released directly and not from materials processing or production of parts done by suppliers, which ...

Wed, 31 Dec 08
Next Year to Be Among World's Five Warmest on Record
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601072&sid=aTHzt5EA3UXs
Bloomberg: Next year will be one of the world's five warmest years in a century and a half of record-keeping, according to a forecast by the U.K. Met Office and the University of East Anglia. The global temperature is forecast to be 0.4 degrees Celsius (0.72 Fahrenheit) more than the 1961-1990 average of 14 degrees Celsius, the Met Office said today in a statement. About 180 nations are midway through a series of eight rounds of negotiations to form a climate-protection agreement under ...

Wed, 31 Dec 08
2009 to be one of warmest years on record: researchers
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4BT49G20081230?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Next year is set to be one of the top-five warmest on record, British climate scientists said on Tuesday. The average global temperature for 2009 is expected to be more than 0.4 degrees celsius above the long-term average, despite the continued cooling of huge areas of the Pacific Ocean, a phenomenon known as La Nina. That would make it the warmest year since 2005, according to researchers at the Met Office, who say there is also a growing probability of record temperatures ...

Wed, 31 Dec 08
United States: Culture clash
http://www.dentonrc.com/sharedcontent/dws/drc/localnews/stories/DRC_Behind_the_Shale_3_1230.1d7804fb.html
Denton Record-Chronicle: EDITOR`S NOTE: Behind the Shale is a five-part series exploring urban gas drilling and one Argyle-area neighborhood`s struggle against it. Gene and Jennifer Cole stood in the backyard of their Argyle-area home, staring up at the mountain of rocks behind their fence, and then turned to a stranger in a black pickup. 'What`s the problem?' the stranger asked. It was not a simple question. For months, the Coles and their next-door neighbors, Jana and Darrin DeGrand, had ...

Wed, 31 Dec 08
High hurdles for Obama's green stimulus
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_02/b4115000923747.htm?chan=top%20news_top%20news%20index%20-%20temp_news%20%2B%20analysis
BusinessWeek: The scent of fast money in Washington has all manner of corporate interests scrambling to show they can create jobs, especially green ones. The prize is a slice of the Obama Administration's stimulus package, expected to range from $675 billion to $775 billion in scale. But the President-elect's transition team is warning interest groups that they won't see any of the money unless their pet projects meet strict criteria. First, the projects must be "shovel-ready"--that is, ready to go ...

Wed, 31 Dec 08
United States: Green goal of 'carbon neutrality' hits limit
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123059880241541259.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Wall Street Journal: Computer giant Dell Inc. said this summer that it has become "carbon neutral," the latest step in its quest to be "the greenest technology company on the planet." What that means, and what it doesn't, may surprise Dell customers and other consumers who have been bombarded with bold environmental promises from major corporations. In the two years since Al Gore's movie, "An Inconvenient Truth," helped make climate change a marquee issue, companies from Timberland Co., the shoe ...

Wed, 31 Dec 08
New environmental team suggests change is in air
http://newsok.com/new-environmental-team-suggests-change-is-in-air/article/3334015
Oklahoman: ENVIRONMENTAL groups have great expectations for the Obama administration. They see opportunity everywhere for their agenda -- countering climate change, bolstering air and water quality standards, developing renewable energies and more. Some of Obama`s key personnel selections suggest dramatic change. Others indicate a more moderate approach. Today, we examine how Obama`s team might shape environmental policy. There`s little question Obama wants a more aggressive, mandated ...

Wed, 31 Dec 08
Emphasis on weatherization represents shift on energy costs
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=114249
New York Times: In the basement of Phyllis Fick`s ordinary-looking suburban house, Tim Kenny of C&O Conservation, a nonprofit weatherization company, found black streaks of dirt on the yellow fiberglass insulation, evidence of air infiltration from the window beneath, a sure sign of an energy leak. Nearby on the basement ceiling, a drainpipe from the bathroom above had spider webs around it, another bad sign. Spiders build near air currents to draw insects to their webs, Mr. Kenny, C&O`s manager, ...

Wed, 31 Dec 08
Environmental pitfalls of drilling for natural gas in the US
http://www.propublica.org/feature/where-things-stand-environmental-pitfalls-of-drilling-for-natural-gas-in-th#6896
San Diego Union-Tribune: Drill, baby, drill. That clarion call to develop energy here on U.S. soil rallied fervid support in the past year when substantial natural gas deposits were identified from Connecticut to Louisiana -- anything but your typical drilling states. Since burning gas emits 23 percent less greenhouse gas than burning oil, finding new resources here at home targets two important priorities: climate change and energy independence. But it turns out drilling for gas may not be as clean as ...

Wed, 31 Dec 08
Air New Zealand jet completes world's first second-generation biofuel flight
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/30/biofuel-test-plane
Guardian: The search for an environmentally friendly fuel for airplanes took a leap forward today with the world's first flight powered by a second-generation biofuel, derived from plants that do not compete with food crops. An Air New Zealand jumbo jet left Auckland just before midnight GMT with a 50-50 mix of jet fuel and oil from jatropha trees in one of its four engines. The two-hour test flight, which took the Boeing 747 over the Hauraki Gulf, showed that the jatropha biofuel was suitable ...

Wed, 31 Dec 08
Airlines "shrinking by all measures": IATA
http://www.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idUSTRE4BT2AB20081230?feedType=RSS&feedName=businessNews
Reuters: International airlines saw a huge 13.5 percent fall in cargo traffic in November and a drop of 4.6 percent in passengers as business shrank across the industry, the carriers' grouping IATA said on Tuesday. The figures, reflecting what IATA has dubbed a "chronic crisis" with revenues tumbling and hundreds of thousands of jobs at risk, marked the sharpest declines since the months after the September 2001 attacks in the United States. "The 13.5 percent drop in international cargo ...

Tue, 30 Dec 08
Half of England and Wales at risk of extreme drought report warns
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/4001456/Half-of-England-and-Wales-at-risk-of-extreme-drought-report-warns.html
Telegraph: More than 24 million people, and 10.5 million households, have less water available per person than the population of Morocco and Egypt. The report, due to be published in the New Year, is the most comprehensive yet on the state of water resources in the UK. It concludes the huge pressure on water supplies from large and wealthy populations in areas with relatively low rainfall means that nearly half of England and Wales now live in areas of "water stress". It warns that ...

Mon, 29 Dec 08
An Emissions Plan Conservatives Could Warm To
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=114201
New York Times: CONSERVATIVES don`t support tax increases that are veiled as 'cap and trade' schemes for pollution permits. But offer us a tax swap, and we could become the new administration`s best allies on climate change. A climate-change bill withered in Congress this summer because families don`t need an enormous, and hidden, tax increase. If the bill`s authors had instead proposed a simple carbon tax coupled with an equal, offsetting reduction in income taxes or payroll taxes, a dynamic new ...

Mon, 29 Dec 08
Canada: Oilsands have trouble shaking dead ducks
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Oilsands+have+trouble+shaking+dead+ducks/1121009/story.html
Calgary Herald: As 2008 draws to a close, there's still no resolution to Alberta's seminal environmental event of the year. The provincial government has yet to decide whether to lay charges against Syncrude Canada Ltd. after discovering 500 dead ducks in April in one of the company's tailing ponds. Even if tens of thousands of ducks die every year through other means -- as Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach pointed out in the days after the ducks drowned in the oil slick -- the grim find made media ...

Mon, 29 Dec 08
United States: Bush moves to open state coast to drilling
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/28/MN4G14QMVE.DTL
San Francisco Chronicle: The federal government is taking steps that may open California's fabled coast to oil drilling in as soon as three years, an action that could place dozens of platforms off the Sonoma, Mendocino and Humboldt coasts along with the specter of spills, air pollution and increased ship traffic into San Francisco Bay. Millions of acres of oil deposits, mapped in the 1980s when then-Interior Secretary James Watt and Energy Secretary Donald Hodel pushed for California exploration, lie a few ...

Mon, 29 Dec 08
Climate change skeptics need to think again
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/blogs/monkey-wrench/climate-change-skeptics-need-to-think-again/1396399.aspx
Canberra Times: Anyone who thinks the global warming debate is done and dusted, need only type the words "climate sceptics'' into a search engine and hang on for a white water ride. It's pretty scary territory, especially if you're used to dealing with articulate, well-mannered climate scientists from the CSIRO or the Australian National University. They'll happily explain the implications of oscillations in global mean temperatures without snarling like a car yard guard dog if you question any of ...

Mon, 29 Dec 08
Californians Shape Up as Force on Environmental Policy
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/28/AR2008122801704.html?hpid=topnews
Washington Post: California Democrats will assume pivotal roles in the new Congress and White House, giving the state an outsize influence over federal policy and increasing the likelihood that its culture of activist regulation will be imported to Washington. In Congress, Democrats from the Golden State are in key positions to write laws to mitigate climate change, promote "green" industries and alternative energy, and crack down on toxic chemicals. Down Pennsylvania Avenue, Californians in the new ...

Mon, 29 Dec 08
Weather wreaks havoc on British wildlife
http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/environment/display.var.2477909.0.Weather_wreaks_havoc_on_British_wildlife.php
The Herald: British wildlife has struggled to cope with another year of erratic weather conditions, the National Trust has claimed. Butterflies, bees and other insects - along with birds which rely on them to feed their young - were all hit by a second summer of "foul and abusive" weather in a row. However, some species had a good year, including grasses, cabbage white butterflies and fungi - while some spring plants are already in bloom in gardens this winter, according to the trust's ...

Mon, 29 Dec 08
South Korea to invest $28.5 billion in new power plants
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20081228/twl-uk-korea-energy-20a4dd5.html
Reuters: South Korea plans to invest 37 trillion won (£19.3 billion) from 2009 to 2022 on new power plants, including 12 new nuclear plants, to boost fuel efficiency and cut emissions, Seoul's energy ministry said on Sunday. Skip related content South Korea, the world's fifth-largest crude importer, will also build seven new coal plants, 11 LNG plants and one heavy fuel plant by 2022, but it will get rid of three existing coal plants, six LNG plants and 13 heavy fuel units to boost efficiency, ...

Mon, 29 Dec 08
United Kingdom: Labour faces backbench revolts against third runway and privatised post
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/dec/29/labour-third-runway-post-office
Guardian: Loyal Labour MPs yesterday warned the government of a double rebellion early in the new year, predicting it will lose a Commons vote and suffer party resignations if it does not back down on proposals to part-privatise the Post Office and build a third runway at Heathrow. Labour MPs told the Guardian they were prepared to vote against the government even if it meant sacrificing the partial recovery Labour has been enjoying against the Conservatives. Those holding government or ...

Mon, 29 Dec 08
United Kingdom: Recycling firms backpedal after price crash
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/29/recycling-companies-raw-materials-prices
Guardian: Recycling companies are beginning to stockpile raw materials as local councils struggle to off-load materials amid falling prices. Closed Loop, one of Britain's biggest plastics recycling firms, is planning to increase its stocks of unwanted bottles by at least 5,000 tonnes and has stepped up its operation to full capacity of 3,000 tonnes a month to prevent a collapse in the relatively new industry. The price of mixed plastics has nearly halved in the past year as some far ...

Mon, 29 Dec 08
Extreme Weather Boosts Antioxidant Levels In Soybean Seeds
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081228195157.htm
ScienceDaily: Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists have found that weather and climate play key roles in levels of a family of antioxidants tucked inside soybean seeds. Lead plant physiologist Steven Britz of the ARS Food Components and Health Laboratory, part of the Beltsville Human Nutrition Research Center in Beltsville, Md., collaborated on the study with William Kenworthy with the University of Maryland in College Park. The researchers found that weather and climate are ...

Mon, 29 Dec 08
Texas lawmakers' priorities could include renewable energy, environmental jobs
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/chronicle/6184613.html
Houston Chronicle: Global warming might be critical to the future of the planet, but inside the Texas Capitol, it's never been much of a match for taxes and tuition. The upcoming legislative session, however, could be different, with lawmakers from both parties already talking about renewable energy, energy efficiency and so-called "green jobs" as priorities. "The climate has changed, atmospherically and politically," said Tom "Smitty" Smith, executive director of the Texas office for Public ...

Mon, 29 Dec 08
Australia: GetUp! attacks Rudd during the cricket
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24849782-12377,00.html
AAP: POLITICAL group GetUp! will be hoping Kevin Rudd is not in the loo, or checking on the sausages, when its latest ad runs during the Boxing Day Test coverage. The Prime Minister may be on holidays until mid-January, but GetUp! is trying to drag him from his Christmas relaxation, with an advertisement attacking his recent climate change policy. The 30-second ad compares Mr Rudd with his predecessor, saying even the famous climate sceptic John Howard would be happy with the Labor ...

Mon, 29 Dec 08
Australia: GetUp! Attacks Climate Policy During Test
http://en.epochtimes.com/n2/content/view/9244/
AAP: The Federal Government has again defended its climate change policy after a political activist group lambasted its carbon emissions limit in an advertisement screened during the Test cricket. The 30-second advertisement, aired once during the Test coverage in Melbourne and Sydney on Sunday, compares Prime Minister Kevin Rudd with his predecessor. Even the famous climate sceptic John Howard would be happy with Labor's policy, the advertisement says. The Rudd Government ...

Mon, 29 Dec 08
Worms help track climate change in Antarctica
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/globalwarming/2008-12-28-antarctic-worms_N.htm
Associated Press: Travelers who head to Antarctica are usually looking to see penguins. A group of Colorado State University researchers, however, is after a much humbler creature: worms. A CSU scientist has taken a research team of seven students to the frozen continent for a 19th year to study roundworms. Diana Wall says her annual studies of roundworms in Antarctica's McMurdo Dry Valleys help measure climate change. The students -- a team of seven that includes students from Brigham Young ...

Mon, 29 Dec 08
Creative solutions in tough times
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/12/29/arts/design29.php
International Herald Tribune: They cost more than the people who need them can afford. They belch out noxious fumes. They often cause fires, and it isn't safe to leave kids alone with them in case they accidentally burn themselves, or drink poisonous fluid. Why do people use them? Because they don't have a choice. If you lived in a home without electricity like most people in sub-Saharan Africa do, how else would you light it after dark other than with potentially lethal kerosene lamps? Candles? They're dangerous ...

Mon, 29 Dec 08
Humans, Oceans Shaped North American Climate Over Past 50 Years, NOAA Report Says
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081227230140.htm
ScienceDaily: Greenhouse gases play an important role in North American climate, but differences in regional ocean temperatures may hold a key to predicting future U.S. regional climate changes, according to a new NOAA-led scientific assessment. The assessment is one in a series of synthesis and assessment reports coordinated by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program. This latest assessment, Reanalysis of Historical Climate Data for Key Atmospheric Features: Implications for Attribution of Causes ...

Mon, 29 Dec 08
Abrupt Climate Change: Will It Happen this Century?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081227225501.htm
ScienceDaily: The United States faces the potential for abrupt climate change in the 21st century that could pose clear risks to society in terms of our ability to adapt. "Abrupt" changes can occur over decades or less, persist for decades more, and cause substantial disruptions to human and natural systems. A new report, based on an assessment of published science literature, makes the following conclusions about the potential for abrupt climate changes from global warming during this ...

Mon, 29 Dec 08
Coal plant supporters to try again for state permits
http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2008/dec/28/coal-plant-supporters-try-again-state-permits/?city_local
Lawrence Journal World and News: Supporters of the proposed coal-burning power plants in southwest Kansas will be back before the 2009 Legislature, trying to push the project through. "Certainly," said Cindy Hertel, a spokeswoman for Sunflower Electric Power Corp., when asked about whether legislation would be revived in the session that starts Jan. 12. "We continue to look at the cost (of the project) and believe it benefits our member-owners in a lot of ways." Hays-based Sunflower, along with its Colorado ...

Mon, 29 Dec 08
United States: Ash spill deepens safety debate
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20081228/NEWS01/812280397/1006
Tennessean: A deluge of coal ash sludge that broke through a dike at TVA's Kingston power plant onto a 300-acre stretch of fields, homes and rivers has made the site ground zero in a fight over how "clean" burning coal to produce electricity can be. In this case the focus is on the ash, which can hold even more lead, arsenic and other potentially toxic substances than ever as new technology makes plant air emissions cleaner. Several environmental and health advocacy groups, including Save ...

Mon, 29 Dec 08
United States: Scientists plan to ignite tiny man-made star
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/science/sciencenews/3981697/Scientists-plan-to-ignite-tiny-man-made-star.html
Telegraph: While it has seemed an impossible goal for nearly 100 years, scientists now believe that they are on brink of cracking one of the biggest problems in physics by harnessing the power of nuclear fusion, the reaction that burns at the heart of the sun. In the spring, a team will begin attempts to ignite a tiny man-made star inside a laboratory and trigger a thermonuclear reaction. Its goal is to generate temperatures of more than 100 million degrees Celsius and pressures billions ...

Mon, 29 Dec 08
Beauty spots to be surrendered to the sea
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/3966183/Beauty-spots-to-be-surrendered-to-the-sea.html
Telegraph: Coastal defences that currently protect huge swathes of farm land, natural habitat and housing are to be moved inland, allowing the sea to flood into low-lying areas. In some parts of the country, householders and land owners have been told they face spending millions of pounds of their own money to build and repair flood defences to try to protect their property. Among the areas affected are Medmerry, a popular tourist destination, near Selsey, West Sussex, where 612 acres are ...

Mon, 29 Dec 08
Australia: Businesses reap carbon bonanza
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/businesses-reap-carbon-bonanza/2008/12/27/1229998789966.html
Sydney Morning Herald: NSW businesses are reaping a bonanza from a new greenhouse fund, receiving more than five times the amount in subsidies from the State Government than they would from the Commonwealth, the NSW Opposition says. Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell said the inaugural report of the NSW Climate Change Fund revealed companies and government agencies had received $27 million to reduce their carbon footprint. But the report also confirmed that greenhouse gas emissions had only come down ...

Mon, 29 Dec 08
Clean-coal proponents dispute television ad
http://www.sj-r.com/business/x1060489054/Clean-coal-proponents-dispute-television-ad
State Journal-Register: The TV spot opens with a man saying he`s in a 'state of the art' facility. He dons a hard hat, opens a door and shows the audience a barren landscape of sand and rocks. 'This is today`s clean-coal technology,' he says with feigned enthusiasm. Seconds later, the words 'In reality, there is no such thing as clean coal' scroll across the screen. That statement, said Phil Gonet, president of the Illinois Coal Association, is 'a bald-faced lie.' 'There is considerable ...

Mon, 29 Dec 08
Canada's vast oil cache hides dirty environmental secret
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20081228/NEWS04/812280317
Poughkeepsie Journal: From here in the far north of Canada through a web of transcontinental pipelines down to a network of refineries ringing the Chicago area, a new supply of precious oil has begun flowing into the gas tanks of more Americans, tapped from a source so vast it could one day furnish close to half of U.S. oil needs for 50 years or more. This Canadian oil is stable and reliable. It promises to substantially reduce America's future dependence on volatile Middle Eastern sources of oil. And much ...

Mon, 29 Dec 08
United States: Power-plant battle a classic game of maneuver
http://www.nwanews.com/adg/Business/247901/
Arkansas Democrat Gazette: The coal-fired power plant under construction in Hempstead County has been the target of a number of appeals. There are so many appeals in the John W. Turk Jr. power plant project near Texarkana that it takes a scorecard to keep up with them. Despite approvals by two Arkansas agencies and utility regulators in three states, four appeals or similar reviews of Turk's authorization are being pursued by plant opponents - and possibly a fifth by Southwestern Electric Power Co. ...

Mon, 29 Dec 08
Farmers blanch at idea of cow tax
http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/jersey/index.ssf?/base/news-12/1230442061109180.xml&coll=1
Star-Ledger: It turns out "going green" may mean cutting back on those juicy steaks and burgers. The reason: Cattle and other livestock expel tons of methane gas, which wreaks havoc on the environment. The issue has become so heated, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has proposed taxing cows as a way to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act -- a suggestion that rankles dairy and cattle farmers. Pete Staats, whose family has owned Dutch Hollow Farms in ...

Mon, 29 Dec 08
'Eat local' movement catching on nationally
http://www.mydesert.com/article/20081228/LIFESTYLES02/812280307
Associated Press: Here's something you might not know about being a locavore, the new-fangled term for the old-school tradition of eating food grown close to home: Coffee is almost always negotiable. Here's another: The people practicing this new-old (and currently quite hot) trend may surprise you. Suburban moms? Check. Artisanal- cheese sniffing foodies? Double check. And how about denizens of the decidely un-hippie halls of Wal-Mart? 'It's really amazing how it's just exploded,' says Jennifer ...

Mon, 29 Dec 08
Wind, water and biomass in Ohio's alternative energy future
http://www.daytondailynews.com/n/content/oh/story/news/local/2008/12/28/ddn122808ohioalternativeinside.html
Various: The largest number of proposals for alternative energy in Ohio represent wind power followed by hydro and biomass, said Art Meyer, a DP&L senior vice president. Many are from out of state. "Most of the proposals are still in the design or developmental phase," he said. DP&L does not expect to forge an agreement for renewable power before 2011, but that won't stop new energy conservation initiatives starting in 2009. Here's what the future looks like. Bet on ...

Mon, 29 Dec 08
Canada: Caution to the wind
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20081223/wfive_windmills_081227/20081227?hub=WFive
CTV: Ontario Energy Minister George Smitherman is all smiles at the opening ceremony of the Melancthon EcoPower Centre, near Orangeville. With133 gleaming white turbines, standing 80 meters tall and poised to generate enough energy for 52,000 homes, this is the largest wind farm in Canada -- and a symbol of Ontario's commitment to green energy. "When by 2014, our collective actions allow us to close the Nanticoke coal fired generating station," Smitherman told to the gathered crowd, "we ...

Mon, 29 Dec 08
N.J. to counter global warning
http://www.courierpostonline.com/article/20081228/NEWS01/812280355/1006/news01
Gannett News Service: Imagine a "zero-waste" Garden State, widespread use of electric or hydrogen fuel cell cars and green buildings that conserve energy and water. That's one vision for the future to 2050 in a draft state report released recently. The plan will cost billions of dollars to implement and details on funding sources are lacking, but it can result in thousands of jobs and save money down the road, advocates said. "There are very aggressive goals in the plan, and it's only going ...

Mon, 29 Dec 08
United States: Homeowners tapping into state solar panel fund
http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2008/12/26/homeowners_tapping_into_states_solar_panel_fund/
Associated Press: Homeowners and businesses are tapping a state fund designed to encourage them to install solar panels at a far quicker pace than officials first anticipated. In less than a year, the Commonwealth Solar program granted nearly $15 million in rebates out of an initial $17 million block of funding that was supposed to last until next April. Energy Resources Commissioner Phil Giudice said a second $17 million block of funding has already been approved. He also said the state is ...

Mon, 29 Dec 08
'On the verge of an energy revolution'
http://wvgazette.com/News/200812270535
Charleston Gazette: New technologies will move the world economy away from coal and other fossil fuels much more rapidly than experts from the energy industry would have the public believe, according to a new study by the Worldwatch Institute. Hundreds of old coal-fired power plants that provide 40 percent of the world's power could be retired in the process, eliminating up to one-third of global carbon dioxide emissions, while creating millions of new jobs, the study asserted. "We are on the ...

Mon, 29 Dec 08
Hydro power shows signs of comeback
http://wvgazette.com/News/200812270116
Associated Press: America's search for cleaner electricity has developers studying dozens of government flood-control dams from North Carolina to Oregon to see if it makes financial sense to retrofit them with hydroelectric turbines. The studies are part of a broader trend that has developers looking at everything from millpond dams in New England to locks and dams on navigable waterways such as the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. Factors ranging from the difficulty in obtaining permits for new ...

Mon, 29 Dec 08
Australia: It's power to the people as self-help groups fight climate change
http://www.theage.com.au/environment/its-power-to-the-people-as-selfhelp-groups-fight-climate-change-20081227-75xg.html
Age: THE cracked bed of Ballarat's Lake Wendouree is a sorry place for the birth of one of Victoria's leading climate change groups. Tired boat ramps lead down to dusty dirt, weeds and straggly scrub sprouting through a few stagnant puddles. Years of drought and water restrictions have reduced this site of the Melbourne Olympics rowing and canoeing to a dried mud pit. On these dry banks in late 2006, the climate change group Ballarat Renewable Energy and Zero Emissions, or Breaze, ...

Mon, 29 Dec 08
A dry continent demands creative solutions
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/editorial/a-dry-continent-demands-creative-solutions-20081227-75v8.html
Age: BEFORE Melbourne's climate became hotter and drier, a cool December was considered a sign that the summer might be a fizzer. How times have changed. With Melbourne's catchments at a low 34.9 per cent many are now wishing for a season of long rainy summer days. Unfortunately, no one is predicting an end to the drought any time soon. Despite heavy rains in December and late November our water storages are 4.4 percentage points below what they were last year. September was the driest on record ...

Mon, 29 Dec 08
Blackout fear as UK power plants face axe
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/utilities/article5404061.ece
Times (UK): A TENTH of the UK's power plants could be forced to close by the spring of 2013 -- two-and-a-half years ahead of schedule, new research shows. The revelation will stoke fresh concern that the government has not done enough to head off a looming energy generation gap that could lead to blackouts across the country. Under an EU directive, companies operating old coal and oil-fired plants were given the option to spend hundreds of millions of pounds to upgrade them to comply with ...

Mon, 29 Dec 08
United States: Phoenix opens $1.4 billion light-rail system
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE4BQ1W420081227
Reuters: With a hearty "All Aboard," Phoenix launched a sleek new $1.4 billion light-rail system on Saturday amid uncertainty people will hop out of their cars and onto the train. About 75 people became the first riders of the 20-mile (32-km) system that snakes through a sprawling desert metropolitan area that includes the cities of Tempe and Mesa. Planners project building 30 additional miles of light-rail lines by 2025, but it has yet to be determined if the area's love of cars will ...

Sun, 28 Dec 08
The melting of the Arctic ice cap
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article5405126.ece
Times: The Arctic ice cap has been shrinking for the last three decades but recently that shrinkage has accelerated sharply. In 2007 the area covered by summer ice shrank to its smallest extent ever. The extent of sea ice cover in September 2008 was the second lowest ever recorded. The latest Met Office Hadley Centre results strengthen the evidence that human activity is a significant factor in the shrinkage of the Arctic summer ice cap and suggests that this will lead to ice-free summers ...

Sun, 28 Dec 08
UK's holiday waste smashes all records
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/uks-holiday-waste-smashes-all-records-1213858.html
Independent: This is a toy story, but it has no happy ending. As millions of households wade through crumpled wrapping, plastic ties and discarded boxes, the sheer weight of refuse in coming days is expected to smash all records. Waste watchdogs warned yesterday that rubbish from the estimated 100 million toys unwrapped last week is likely to burn big holes in the ozone layer as well as in parents' pockets. The Waste and Resources Action Programme (Wrap) said toy manufacturers are not ...

Sun, 28 Dec 08
Third of Britain's mammals 'at risk'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/28/wildlife-animals-conservation
Observer: The hedgehog, water vole and hazel dormouse are among a number of British mammals that face becoming seriously endangered, research published today reveals. Climate change and habitat loss have led to a dramatic increase in the number of mammals whose future survival is a cause for concern among conservationists, the study commissioned by the People's Trust for Endangered Species concludes. The Bechstein's bat, one of the country's rarest mammals, has shown a marked decline while the ...

Sun, 28 Dec 08
Demand for oil will fall by largest margin in 25 years
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/dec/28/oil
Guardian: Gloibal demand for oil in 2009 will fall by the largest amount for 25 years, according to the chief energy economist of Deutsche Bank. Adam Sieminski said oil prices could hit a low of $30 a barrel next year, a fall of a quarter from today's price, because of the sickly global economy. He forecast an average price of $47.5 for the whole year for oil traded in New York. Deutsche Bank predicts global demand will contract by 1 per cent, or 1 million barrels a day, three times the fall ...

Sun, 28 Dec 08
Obama misfired with Interior pick
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/viewpoints/articles/2008/12/28/20081228suckling28-vip.html
Arizona Republic: President-elect Barack Obama's nomination of Ken Salazar to be secretary of the Interior has been one of his most controversial Cabinet picks. The Colorado senator will certainly be leagues better than President Bush's choices, but most conservationists and scientists are looking for someone who will do much more than best the disastrous policies of Gale Norton and Dirk Kempthorne. We are looking for someone to bring a fundamentally new direction to an agency that, during the past ...

Sun, 28 Dec 08
NASA Study Links Severe Storm Increases, Global Warming
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081227214927.htm
ScienceDaily: The frequency of extremely high clouds in Earth's tropics -- the type associated with severe storms and rainfall -- is increasing as a result of global warming, according to a study by scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. In a presentation today to the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, JPL Senior Research Scientist Hartmut Aumann outlined the results of a study based on five years of data from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder ...

Sun, 28 Dec 08
United States: Getting renewable power to the people
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/27/MN5C14VFGS.DTL
San Francisco Chronicle: The Southern California desert could produce a gusher of renewable energy. Strong sunlight bathes its open plains, even in winter. Powerful winds stream through its mountain passes. Fractures in the earth along the San Andreas Fault heat pools of underground water - the perfect fuel for geothermal power plants. Santa gunman lost job, wife before gory attack 12.27.08 Israeli assault on Hamas kills more than 200 12.27.08 Midwesterners fear floods could follow the freeze 12.27.08 ...

Sun, 28 Dec 08
Pen Hadow to measure retreating Arctic ice
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article5404373.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=3392178
Times (UK): Pen Hadow, the explorer, is to embark on a 700-mile expedition to the North Pole to measure the thickness of the shrinking Arctic icecap. The information will be used to refine computer models of the impact of climate change, helping to show whether their figures are accurate. Some of the models have suggested the poles are warming much faster than the rest of the world and that the Arctic could be ice-free in summer within a decade. Hadow, 46, is leading a team of polar ...

Sun, 28 Dec 08
United Kingdom: Ecotown proposals receive fresh blow
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/3966142/Eco-town-proposals-receive-fresh-blow.html
Telegraph: The Pennbury plan for a 12,000 home development near Leicester is one of 12 shortlisted by ministers as part of their plans to build a string of environmentally sustainable new towns across the country. But a leading consultancy on urban design and planning has damned the Pennbury scheme, submitted by the Co-operative supermarket and property group, as economically "unsustainable", "ambiguous" and "fundamentally weak". The Halcrow Group, which was commissioned by four local ...

Sun, 28 Dec 08
Food needs 'fundamental rethink'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7795652.stm
BBC: A sustainable global food system in the 21st Century needs to be built on a series of "new fundamentals", according to a leading food expert. Tim Lang warned that the current system, designed in the 1940s, was showing "structural failures", such as "astronomic" environmental costs. The new approach needed to address key fundamentals like biodiversity, energy, water and urbanisation, he added. Professor Lang is a member of the UK government's newly formed Food ...

Sun, 28 Dec 08
Changing climate devastates UK species
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/changing-climate-devastates-uk-species-1212416.html
Independent: Much of Britain's wildlife, from butterflies to puffins to bats, suffered severely at the hands of the weather in 2008, the National Trust says. A month-by-month diary compiled by wardens and conservationists on its hundreds of gardens, estates and properties in England and Wales shows that wild creatures were badly hit from the cold late spring and the sodden summer -- the second in a row -- although things picked up with the dry autumn. Insects in particular, and creatures that feed ...

Sun, 28 Dec 08
There's no such place as away for UK domestic waste
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/27/waste-recycling
Guardian: There are days when I feel my only achievement has been a successful trip to the recycling centre. It's an age thing. "The waste remains, the waste remains and kills," as William Empson insisted in perhaps his best known villanelle, Missing Dates. We need to get it out of the system. At the end of the year, it weighs more heavily upon us. Christmas means rubbish, piles of rubbish. Cardboard, paper, polystyrene, bubble wrap, plastic, the withering leaves of sprouts and the scraggy bones of ...

Sun, 28 Dec 08
How the weather affected Britain's wildlife in 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/27/national-trust-wildlife-audit-weather
Guardian: January The first butterflies - red admirals - are spotted. Snowdrops and crocuses emerge earlier than normal. February A sunny February means white-tailed bumblebees fly most days. March A bit of good news. The large tortoiseshell butterfly, thought to have been extinct in the UK, is bred successfully on National Trust land in south Devon. April Frost and snow hit bees hard. The first chough eggs are laid in south ...

Sun, 28 Dec 08
British wildlife may not survive third wet summer, warns National Trust
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/27/national-trust-audit-wildlife-weather
Guardian: A third miserable summer in parts of the UK could spell disaster for many species of insects, birdlife and mammals, the National Trust warns today. The charity says three wet summers in a row in many regions could mean that creatures - ranging from craneflies (often called daddy-long-legs) to species of butterflies, members of the tit family, puffins and bats - may struggle to survive in some places. Matthew Oates, a nature conservation adviser for the trust, said: "After two ...

Sun, 28 Dec 08
Climate change takes its toll on British countryside
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/3966715/Climate-change-takes-its-toll-on-British-countryside.html
Telegraph: The National Trust saw plants emerge early because of a warm spring only to be washed out by a wet summer. Poor weather led to a bad breeding season for birds and mammals due to a lack of insects. Scientists blamed climate change and said further extreme weather could wipe out many species altogether. Matthew Oates, the National Trust nature conservation adviser, said a warm January and February brought out plants and encouraged birds to nest early. However, the spring ...

Sun, 28 Dec 08
Germany: The Energy Challenge: Houses With No Furnace but Plenty of Heat
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=114124
New York Times: From the outside, there is nothing unusual about the stylish new gray and orange row houses in the Kranichstein District, with wreaths on the doors and Christmas lights twinkling through a freezing drizzle. But these houses are part of a revolution in building design: There are no drafts, no cold tile floors, no snuggling under blankets until the furnace kicks in. There is, in fact, no furnace. In Berthold Kaufmann`s home, there is, to be fair, one radiator for emergency backup in the ...

Sun, 28 Dec 08
United States: Ash flood is found to be larger than initial estimates
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=114120
New York Times: A coal ash spill in eastern Tennessee that experts were already calling the largest environmental disaster of its kind in the United States is more than three times as large as initially estimated, according to an updated survey by the Tennessee Valley Authority. Officials at the authority initially said that about 1.7 million cubic yards of wet coal ash had spilled when the earthen retaining wall of an ash pond at the Kingston Fossil Plant, about 40 miles west of Knoxville, gave way ...

Sun, 28 Dec 08
United States: Solar plant brightens hope for renewable energy
http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2008/12/solar_plant_brightens_hope_for.html
Associated Press: A sun-powered generating station in southern Colorado's San Luis Valley will finish this year as the nation's most productive utility-scale solar electricity plant. The 8.22-megawatt SunEdison plant, with its photovoltaic arrays on 82 acres, produced enough power for 1,652 homes, making it the largest plant of its kind in the country. But the Alamosa plant might not be the biggest for long. Construction was recently completed on a 10-megawatt photovoltaic plant in southern ...

Sun, 28 Dec 08
Wind farms could bring Wyoming ranchers windfall
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98741271
National Public Radio: It's been a rough year for the ranching industry as fuel and hay prices skyrocketed and Americans ate less beef. Many ranchers are beginning to look for extra sources of income, and they're finding it in their backyards -- wind. In Wyoming, some landowners are forming "wind associations" by pooling their land together to market it to companies eager to harness and profit from the wind power of the plains. Kathy Speiser, who owns a farm in Laramie Valley with her husband Pep, ...

Sun, 28 Dec 08
Burning coal at home is making a comeback
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=114116
New York Times: Kyle Buck heaved open the door of a makeshift bin abutting his suburban ranch house. Staring at a two-ton pile of coal that was delivered by truck a few weeks ago, Mr. Buck worried aloud that it would not be enough to last the winter. "I think I'm going through it faster than I thought I would," he said. Aptly, perhaps, for an era of hard times, coal is making a comeback as a home heating fuel. Problematic in some ways and difficult to handle, coal is nonetheless a ...

Sun, 28 Dec 08
Making green choices stylish
http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081227/FRONTPAGE/812270315/1043/NEWS01
Concord Monitor: Scott Lawson doesn't do crunchy. Lawson hopes to build New Hampshire's first LEED platinum building - a certification denoting the highest environmental standards. Lawson wants the public to know that there won't be composting toilets and weeds. But there may be a decorative waterfall cascading into a geothermal well. "The intention is to make the right choices," Lawson said. "Don't waste money, don't waste energy, don't waste effort." Lawson is the owner of The Scott ...

Sun, 28 Dec 08
Warming fuels rise in tropical storms
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/local/news/general/warming-fuels-rise-in-tropical-storms/1395641.aspx
Canberra Times: Warming ocean temperatures are creating more violent storms across the Earth's tropics, new research has found. Sophisticated infra-red satellite technology has detected an increase in ''thunderheads'' towering cumulus clouds formed by the rising of warm moist air over tropical oceans. A study by the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration estimates if current global warming trends continue, the frequency of severe tropical storms and their devastating ...

Sun, 28 Dec 08
The curse of over-packaging
http://www.canada.com/saskatoonstarphoenix/news/weekend_extra/story.html?id=f645812c-4bdd-4f60-9f78-4889330bdd45
Canwest News Service: You received a large package in the mail. A Christmas gift perhaps? Given the size of the box, it couldn't possibly be your most recent online purchase: a novelty USB flash drive shaped like sushi. You grab a pair of scissors with anticipation. Pulling back the lid, you are confronted by a sea of packing peanuts. You dive in. Five minutes later -- and with wayward peanuts now scattering the floor and attracting the attention of your pekinese -- you discover another ...

Sun, 28 Dec 08
Green wave shallows up in recession
http://www.caller.com/news/2008/dec/27/green-wave-shallows-up-in-recession/
Associated Press: Homebuilders slapped on solar panels and added other eco-friendly enhancements as energy prices soared this year, hoping greener homes would lure reluctant buyers. But since July, the cost of oil has plunged from $147 a barrel to about $36, while home prices continued to fall. Together, these headwinds have stalled low-energy housing developments around the country, including projects by Meritage Homes and Shea Homes. "The program doesn't necessarily pencil out at the moment," ...

Sun, 28 Dec 08
United Kingdom: Green leader 'ambivalent' over rail link
http://news.scotsman.com/environment/Green-leader--39ambivalent39-over.4824194.jp
Scotsman: THE co-leader of the Scottish Greens has said he is increasingly "ambivalent" on the idea of a high-speed railway linking Scottish and English cities. Patrick Harvie MSP said the proposal for a fast link between Edinburgh, Glasgow and London – which has been touted as an eco-friendly alternative to flying – may not be the best use of money. He said: "The more I look at it the more ambivalent I become." He said it was already possible to make the journey by train in under ...

Sun, 28 Dec 08
Australia: Coal-fired generators escape the blacklist
http://wauchope.yourguide.com.au/news/national/national/general/coalfired-generators-escape-the-blacklist/1390604.aspx
Sydney Morning Herald: FEW if any of Australia's 30 coal-fired power generators will be shut down by 2020 under the Federal Government's scheme to reduce greenhouse gases by a target of 5 per cent, according to the findings of its white paper made public this week. About $3.9 billion will be handed out to the most-polluting generators in the form of free permits to emit greenhouse gases under the scheme announced by the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, on Monday. But modelling in the Government's white paper on ...

Sun, 28 Dec 08
World Crops Threatened by Strengthening La Nina Weather Pattern
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=aj1nH.0owWcY
Bloomberg: Grain and oilseed crops may be threatened next year by a weather pattern known as La Nina, according to a private forecaster. La Nina conditions have developed rapidly across the equatorial Pacific Ocean during the past few weeks, said Drew Lerner, president of World Weather Inc. in Overland Park, Kansas. He said that may indicate more dry weather in parts of South America in the next three months and a wet, cold start to the U.S. planting season in March. La Nina, which means ...

Sun, 28 Dec 08
United Kingdom: Erratic weather 'harms wildlife'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7800869.stm
BBC: UK wildlife is struggling to cope as erratic and unseasonal weather has taken its toll for a second consecutive year, the National Trust says. It says birds, mammals and particularly insects have all suffered from a cold, late spring, a wet summer with little sunshine and a long, dry autumn. The trust says species under threat include puffins, marsh fritillary butterflies and lesser horseshoe bats. They warned another wet summer in 2009 could be a disaster for ...

Sun, 28 Dec 08
The Gas Tax
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=114103
New York Times: President-elect Barack Obama and the Democrats in Congress seem to have a clear vision of the auto industry they think the country needs. It must be financially self-sufficient. It also must be capable of producing highly fuel-efficient, next-generation vehicles that can help the nation cope with climate change and finite supplies of oil. Yet for all the conditions attached to it, the multibillion-dollar aid package for Detroit's carmakers approved by the White House (with Mr. Obama's ...

Sun, 28 Dec 08
The war on carbon
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article5400827.ece?openComment=true
Times (UK): At the last full-scale United Nations conference on global warming, in Bali, the man in charge broke down and wept. American opposition to mandatory carbon cuts had been implacable. Canada and Japan had joined the US in demanding cuts from the big developing economies before promising any themselves. Then China accused Yvo de Boer, head of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, of a minor breach of protocol. After two weeks of trying and failing to save the world, it was the last ...

Sun, 28 Dec 08
United States: Leaving Las Vegas: Are Americans Ready to Put Cataclysmic Consumption and Hedonism Behind Them?
http://www.alternet.org/environment/114033/leaving_las_vegas:_are_americans_ready_to_put_cataclysmic_consumption_and_hedonism_behind_them/
AlterNet: There is something especially unsettling about visiting Las Vegas these days -- and it is not the town's lascivious culture. A voyage to Sin City in this moment of ecological and economic crisis is a journey to a giant concave mirror reflecting back the magnified -- and ugly -- truths about this epoch of cataclysmic consumption and hubristic hedonism. Like most flights into Vegas, mine last week soared over a shrinking Lake Mead. Visually, the white strip around the manmade reservoir ...

Sun, 28 Dec 08
Minnesota's iconic moose are dying off
http://www.courant.com/news/nationworld/chi-moose_jonesdec28,0,824814.story
Chicago Tribune: It wasn't long ago that thousands of moose roamed the gentle terrain of northwestern Minnesota, affirming the iconic status of the antlered, bony-kneed beast from the North Woods. In just two decades, though, their numbers have plummeted, from 4,000 to fewer than a hundred. They didn't move away. They just died. The primary culprit in what is known as the moose mystery, scientists say, is climate change, which has systematically reduced the Midwest's already dwindling moose ...

Sun, 28 Dec 08
It's 'attack of the slime' as jellyfish jeopardize the Earth's oceans
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20081227.ZOE27/TPStory/Environment
Globe and Mail: It has been dubbed the "rise of slime." Massive swarms of jellyfish are blooming from the tropics to the Arctic, from Peru to Namibia to the Black Sea to Japan, closing beaches and wiping out fish, either by devouring their eggs and larvae, or out-competing them for food. To draw attention to the spread of "jellytoriums," the National Science Foundation in the U.S. has produced a report documenting that the most severe damage is to fish: In the Sea of Japan, for example, schools of ...

Sun, 28 Dec 08
United States: Coal Ash May Pose Health Hazard
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98741603&ft=1&f=1025
National Public Radio: As cleanup continues on the giant sludge spill from a Tennessee coal plant, government officials are trying to figure out how much of a disaster it is. It could pose a hazard to people and the environment.

Sun, 28 Dec 08
Workers Struggle To Contain Tenn. Coal Ash Spill
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98741600&ft=1&f=1025
National Public Radio: In the hill country of eastern Tennessee, residents of the town of Kingston surveyed the vast spread of 5.4 million cubic yards of wet coal ash that swamped a dozen homes and hundreds of acres in their community on Monday. The sludge, waste from the Tennessee Valley Authority's coal-burning Kingston Fossil Plant, spilled out of an earth dam, and work crews are still struggling with the mess. Near the site of the spill, big yellow earth movers and back hoes and dump trucks are busy as ...

Sat, 27 Dec 08
United Kingdom: National Trust abandons beach to erosion
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/3965052/National-Trust-abandons-beach-to-erosion.html
Telegraph: Studland beach, which includes a nudist stretch, is part of 180 miles of trust coastline in the south west that is slowly disappearing. In the last quarter of a century the sea has encroached about 300 feet in some parts of the Dorset beach that was said to be Princess Diana's favourite. The National Trust has tried to stem the erosion with gabions, metal grilles filled with rocks, which are supposed to soak up the force of the waves. However, they were washed away. ...

Sat, 27 Dec 08
United Kingdom: Festive spending tradition starts to disappear
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/retailing/article5397670.ece
Times (UK): The credit crunch has helped to change the attitude of some parents towards Christmas, a poll for The Times suggests. They have increasingly come to believe that undisciplined consumption, often a feature of the festive season, can damage the environment and that they should take into account ethical sourcing and sustainability when choosing presents. The Populus survey of ethically and environmentally aware parents - concerned consumers - also found a slight reversal of the trend ...

Sat, 27 Dec 08
Fully recyclable, the bike made out of cardboard
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article4221806.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=3392178
Times (UK): Sheffield A student of industrial design has made a working £15 bicycle out of industrial-strength cardboard. Phil Bridge, 21, of Sheffield Hallam University, said the bike was strong enough for a rider weighing up to 12 stones and would not go soft in the rain, although it has a life expectancy of only about six months. The bike is made almost entirely from recyclable and recycled materials, using mechanical parts that can be reused. Mr Bridge said: 'The lightweight quality of the ...

Sat, 27 Dec 08
Green Industry In Need Of Trained Workers
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98706080&ft=1&f=1025
National Public Radio: President-elect Barack Obama wants to create five million new green jobs in just 10 years. One of the most promising fronts in the green economy is solar energy. What will the future solar workforce look like? And do the prospects look promising enough for people to make the leap?

Sat, 27 Dec 08
Pining away
http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2008/dec/25/lz1c25pine20294-piningaway/
San Diego Union-Tribune: That tree in your living room is probably OK. It likely came from a commercial farm, where it was carefully nurtured and harvested at a relatively young age. But for vast swaths of mature, wild pine forests – lodgepoles, ponderosas, sugars, whitebarks and other species – the future seems much more bleak. In some places, there may be no future at all. Millions of pine trees from Mexico to Alaska and Canada are dead and dying, victims of an apparent catastrophic ...

Sat, 27 Dec 08
Canada: Migratory birds endangered by tar sands mining
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/25/AR2008122500928.html
Washington Post: About half of America's migratory birds fly from destinations as far-flung as Chile to nest in Canada's boreal forest. In Alberta, that forest lies above tar sands that contain oil reserves second only to Saudi Arabia's. The excavation of the tar sands -- projected to pump $2.4 trillion into Canada's economy between 2010 and 2030 -- could reduce the region's migratory-bird population by almost half, according to a peer-reviewed study released Dec. 2 by U.S. and Canadian environmental ...

Sat, 27 Dec 08
United States: Air permit granted to coal plant
http://www.upstatetoday.com/news/2008/dec/26/air-permit-granted-coal-plant/
Upstate Today: Santee Cooper took another step closer to constructing a 1,320-megawatt coal-fired power plant along the Pee Dee River in Florence County when Department of health and Environmental Control (DHEC) and the Bureau of Air Quality granted the project an air permit on Dec. 16. Plans are to build the plant on 2,709 acres of land near Kingsburg, 25 miles southeast of Florence, and according to Laura Varn, Santee Cooper spokeswoman, the news is uplifting. "This is the major permit that ...

Sat, 27 Dec 08
Antarctic men on a mission: to bring back global warming clues
http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/news/display.var.2477682.0.Antarctic_men_on_a_mission_to_bring_back_global_warming_clues.php
The Herald: Scientists could glean vital clues about the effects of climate change from ice samples which are being brought back from the Antarctic. Thanks to a team of three British adventurers, experts will be able to analyse material from the Beardmore Glacier for the first time in nearly 30 years. The Shackleton centenary expedition team will collect "blue ice" samples. They will aid understanding of how the glacier is responding to climate change. Sir Ernest Shackleton, a ...

Sat, 27 Dec 08
Australia: $7bn BHP Billiton mine giant to go ahead
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24843468-2702,00.html
Australian: MIKE Rann has moved to end uncertainty over development of the nation's biggest mine, revealing advice from BHP Billiton that the Olympic Dam project would proceed as an open-cut operation. The South Australian Premier's declaration, in an interview with The Australian, will shore up confidence in the $7billion expansion of the copper, gold and uranium mine when falling commodity prices and the slowing world economy had raised concerns that BHP would back away from converting the ...

Sat, 27 Dec 08
Widespread flooding forces state of emergency in Marshall Islands
http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Widespread_flooding_forces_state_of_emergency_in_Marshall_Islands_999.html
Agence France-Presse: A state of emergency was declared in the Marshall Islands late Christmas Eve as widespread flooding displaced hundreds of islanders, damaged dozens of homes and threatened public health. Government officials said Wednesday the flooding showed how vulnerable the western Pacific atoll nation is to very small changes in weather conditions. The islands have been pounded three times in the past two weeks by powerful waves caused by storm surges that coincided with high tides, ...

Sat, 27 Dec 08
Disasters warning for Asia-Pacific
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/disasters-warning-for-asiapacific/2008/12/25/1229998661989.html
Sydney Morning Herald: AUSTRALIA'S neighbours in the Asia-Pacific region face an era of "mega-disasters" affecting hundreds of thousands of people as urbanisation, climate change and food shortages amplify the impact of natural catastrophes such as earthquakes and cyclones in coming years, scientific research has shown. The research - which has prompted the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, and the Indonesian President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, to establish a joint disaster training and research centre - ...

Sat, 27 Dec 08
Green groups take on clean coal claim with new website
http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/green-groups-take-on-clean-coal-claim-with-new-website/2008/12/25/1229998662025.html
Sydney Morning Herald: THE war of words over "clean coal" technology has escalated with the launch of a new website by US environmentalists proclaiming: "In reality, there is no such thing as clean coal." The site, www.thisisreality.org, is sponsored by prominent US conservation organisations, including the National Wildlife Federation, the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council. The website links to a spoof video on clean coal showing an engineer walking through a door to a "clean coal ...

Sat, 27 Dec 08
Dengue, typhoid cases up due to global warming
http://www.gmanews.tv/story/141221/Dengue-typhoid-cases-up-due-to-global-warming
GMA News: The number of dengue fever, typhoid fever, and cholera cases in the country in 2008 rose due to the effects of global warming, Health Secretary Francisco Duque said Friday. In an interview over radio dzBB, Duque said the effects of global warming were becoming evident in the type of diseases that spread across the country over the past year. "Mukhang yun ang lumalabas ayon sa aming mga datos, at bunsod na rin ito ng global warming (That's what our data indicate, and this is ...

Sat, 27 Dec 08
Italian dash for oil sounds rural alarm
http://www.ftd.de/karriere_management/business_english/:Business-English-Italian-dash-for-oil-sounds-rural-alarm/452705.html
Financial Times: Empty deserts conceal the oil wealth of the Middle East, and frozen wastelands cover Russia's. Unfortunately for the inhabitants of Basilicata in southern Italy, Europe's largest onshore oilfield lies beneath forests, farmland and ancient communities. Wolves, deer and the occasional bear wander through mountain ranges designated as a national park, where clattering oil rigs rise incongruously through tree-tops. Trenches carved through oak and beech take pipelines down to a ...

Sat, 27 Dec 08
Early ice cover bucks trends
http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/108137/
Duluth News Tribune: The trend for nearly 30 years has been less ice cover on the big lake, with water temperatures rising. A UMD study found the lake's temperature has risen 4.9 degrees since 1979, about twice as fast as the rise in air temperatures in our area. The Lake Superior water-temperature increase has been cited as one of the most pronounced examples of global warming anywhere on the planet. Another study of ice-cover data for Lake Superior between Bayfield and Madeline Island by ...

Sat, 27 Dec 08
Nigeria loses $2.5 billion daily to gas flaring
http://www.dailytrust.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1546&Itemid=7:testset
Daily Trust: The much awaited December 31, 2008 for the elimination of gas flaring in the country is almost here. Today, it is few days for Nigeria to bid good bye to routine gas flaring believed to have severe consequence to the environment. There has been apprehension in some quarters in recent time as to the suitability of the date, even as observers say there have been frosty ties between stakeholders in the gas sector and the Federal government. In other words, observers believe ...

Sat, 27 Dec 08
Time to phase out light bulbs to save energy
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-12/25/content_7341895.htm
Xinhua: China's top economic planner said Thursday that it has started outlining an action plan to phase out light bulbs and promote green lighting to save energy. An employee shows a traditional light bulb (R) and two low-energy consumption bulbs at the Osram factory in Molsheim, eastern France December 11, 2008. China's top economic planner said Thursday that it has started outlining an action plan to phase out light bulbs and promote green lighting to save energy. [Agencies] The ...

Sat, 27 Dec 08
Australia: Wasting food 'can harm environment.'
http://news.smh.com.au/national/wasting-food-can-harm-environment-20081225-750a.html
AAP: Christmas feasts are an environmental problem, according to an environmentalist. More than three million tonnes of food wasted every year rots on landfills and creates methane gas, said John Dee, founder of sustainable living group Do Something. He said each year we spend at least $5 billion on food we buy but don't eat. `And December is the worst month. "What many Australians don't realise is that methane from Christmas food waste is 20 times more potent a ...

Sat, 27 Dec 08
United States: Conservation begins at home
http://www.sltrib.com/business/ci_11311005
Salt Lake Tribune: Homeowners in rural areas are paying thousands of dollars more for power than city dwellers, and experts argue that they must get their houses in order, then turn their attention to making their agricultural operations go green. Park City » Looking out at his audience, Tom Potter knew what he had to say would be a hard sell. "The first step in controlling the nation's energy future begins in our own homes," he told farmers and ranchers at the Utah Farm Bureau's midyear ...

Sat, 27 Dec 08
China: Environmentalists target ski resorts
http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/?id=385909&type=National
Xinhua: SOME nature lovers have begun to criticize snow country resorts for threatening the environment as they attempt to remain in business during warmer, shorter winters with diminishing snowfall. With less natural snow in some areas, skiing resorts are producing more artificial white stuff, and many environmentalists are concerned about the massive amounts of energy needed to run the snow-making equipment. In a recent skiing competition in northeast China's Jilin Province, which ...

Sat, 27 Dec 08
United States: Later snow, earlier melt: High anxiety
http://www.sacbee.com/ourregion/story/1499249.html
Sacramento Bee: Finally, snow. After weeks of waiting, mountain residents awoke to their first glimpse of winter on Dec. 13, a few fluffy inches of powder that clung to the tops of boulders like chefs' hats. More fell over the past two weeks, enough to bury the camel-colored meadow grass and wine-red willows in a deepening blanket of white. The magic, though, came late, just days before Christmas – one of the tardiest winter debuts ever. How much more snow will fall is anyone's guess. A ...

Sat, 27 Dec 08
Cow tax unlikely
http://www.riverreporter.com/issues/08-12-25/news-cowtax.html
River Reporter: It's long been known that cows create a lot of methane; from 50 to more than 100 gallons per day according to some studies. And it's also long been known to some that methane is a much more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide in terms of global warming. Other farm animals also produce large amounts of methane. So the question is: should cows and other farm animals be taxed because of the green house gases they emit? It was a question put forward by the U.S. Environmental ...

Sat, 27 Dec 08
US Bechtel wins Egypt nuclear power contract
http://www.nuclearpowerdaily.com/reports/US_Bechtel_wins_Egypt_nuclear_power_contract_999.html
Agence France-Presse: The US company Bechtel Power has won a 10-year contract worth one billion pounds (180 million dollars) to consult on and help design Egypt's first nuclear power station, state media said on Monday. A committee formed from different government bodies selected Bechtel from seven other corporations, Egypt's state news agency MENA quoted Minister of Energy and Electricity Hassan Younis as saying. Younis said Bechtel would be charged with evaluating and selecting from different ...

Sat, 27 Dec 08
United States: How Dangerous Is Ash-Filled Sludge?
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98718813&ft=1&f=1025
National Public Radio: Environmentalists are concerned about a Tennessee neighborhood after an earthen dam holding back a 40-acre retention pond at a coal-burning power plant collapsed. They are worried that sludge, which is filled with ash from the coal-fired plant, could pose a health risk. But initial tests found no threat to drinking water.

Sat, 27 Dec 08
Sludge Coats Tenn. Neighborhood After Dike Bursts
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98718810&ft=1&f=1025
National Public Radio: The Tennessee Valley Authority is reporting progress in cleaning up the sludge that coated a Tennessee neighborhood after a dike burst at a power plant Monday. Preliminary tests suggest there is no danger to millions of people who get their drinking water from the 652-mile Tennessee River. Hundreds of acres in east Tennessee remain under a thick layer of coal ash sludge. The Kingston Fossil Plant, where the spill took place, generates electricity for hundreds of thousands of ...

Sat, 27 Dec 08
Women farmers toil to expand Africa's food supply
http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-37187320081226
Reuters: Like many African women, Mazoe Gondwe is her family's main food provider. Lately, she has struggled to farm her plot in Malawi due to unpredictable rains that are making her hard life even tougher. "Now we can't just depend on rain-fed agriculture, so we plant two crops - one watered with rain and one that needs irrigating," she explained. "But irrigation is back-breaking and can take four hours a day." Gondwe, flown by development agency ActionAid to U.N. climate change talks ...

Sat, 27 Dec 08
Himalayan villagers on global warming frontline
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hrojJeVKsmco3DFefIfyQOtHH_hg
Agence France-Presse: Standing in the Himalayan valley of Langtang, Rinjin Dorje Lama remembers where he used to play as a child in the 1960s. "When I was a kid, it was a lot longer," said Lama, pointing at the Lirung glacier surrounded by snowy peaks on Nepal's northern border with Tibet. "We used to play on the glacier, and it came right down to the monastery, but now it's about two kilometres (1.2 miles) further back." Temperatures in the Himalayas are rising by around 0.06 degrees Celsius ...

Sat, 27 Dec 08
'Code Green' is America's new red, white and blue
http://www.tallahassee.com/article/20081226/OPINION05/812260303/1006/OPINION
Tallahassee Democrat: On that historic morning, Sept. 12, 2001, I woke up with the strong conviction that our path to national security lay in becoming energy independent. In his brilliant, yet common-sense book, "Hot, Flat and Crowded," Thomas Friedman has reached the same conclusion with an airtight case. He has had the opportunity to speak to the top echelons of government and industry the world over and has deeply researched this idea: America must fully create and implement "Code Green," which is a ...

Sat, 27 Dec 08
Going with climate's flow
http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/green/articles/2008/12/26/going_with_climates_flow/
Boston Globe: Environmental advocates, wildlife officials, and land trusts charged with protecting the natural world are beginning to take a new approach to climate change: rather than focus only on stopping it, they are also thinking about how to adapt to what's coming. That may mean accepting that certain northern species - such as moose or loon - may not be part of Massachusetts' future ecology. More immediately, it means restoring bogs that could help prevent flooding, or serve as a fallback ...

Sat, 27 Dec 08
Solar Meets Polar as Winter Curbs Clean Energy
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=114052
New York Times: Old Man Winter, it turns out, is no friend of renewable energy. This time of year, wind turbine blades ice up, biodiesel congeals in tanks and solar panels produce less power because there is not as much sun. And perhaps most irritating to the people who own them, the panels become covered with snow, rendering them useless even in bright winter sunshine. So in regions where homeowners have long rolled their eyes at shoveling driveways, add another cold-weather chore: cleaning ...

Sat, 27 Dec 08
India committed to global climate equity
http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/story.aspx?Title=India+committed+to+global+climate+equity&artid=jhsA3b7ASwA=&SectionID=xAV59odivTs=&MainSectionID=xAV59odivTs=&SEO=Chaitanya;+IYCN;+Indian+Youth+Climate+Network;+UNF&SectionName=BUzPVSKuYv7MFxnS0yZ7ng==
Express Buzz: A joke doing the rounds in environmental circles is that half of the global warming is caused by hot air emitted by climate change experts at international conferences! As Gen X increasingly goes green, they are demanding action, not words. That's the credo of the Indian Youth Climate Network (IYCN), a coalition of Indian youth, which has just returned from the recently concluded 14th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) held in Poznan, Poland, from December ...

Sat, 27 Dec 08
Asia at risk of era of mega-disasters: report
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iRSFJfkyD8GdBg-sQVTA12KLunrg
Agence France-Presse: The Asia-Pacific faces an era of large-scale natural disasters which could kill up to one million people at a time, with Indonesia, the Philippines and China most at risk, according to an Australian report. The Sydney Morning Herald cited a scientific report which found that the impact of natural events such as earthquakes and tsunamis would in coming years be amplified by rising populations and climate change. The paper said the report, by government body Geoscience Australia, ...

Sat, 27 Dec 08
Thailand: Coral reefs recovering quickly from tsunami damage
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/12/26/asia/AS-Tsunami-Coral-Reefs.php
Associated Press: Indonesia's coral reefs damaged by the 2004 tsunami are recovering rapidly, helped by natural colonization and a drop in illegal fishing, scientists said Friday. Surveys taken after the Dec. 26, 2004, disaster showed up to a third of reefs were damaged and experts predicted it would take a decade for full recovery. Scientists from the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society, working with the Indonesian government and the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for ...

Sat, 27 Dec 08
Indonesia To Hold Coral Triangle Initiative Summit
http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsindex.php?id=380472
Bernama: The Coral Triangle Initiative (CTI) Summit is expected to be held in North Sulawesi of Indonesia from May 11-15 next year, Indonesia's Antara news agency reported. The summit will discuss efforts to save the sea from the threats of climate change, global warming and criminal acts as well as seek ways to safeguard coral reefs in the region, the news agency on December 26 quoted Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono as saying. The six countries which are directly involved ...

Sat, 27 Dec 08
United States: High-speed rail optimistic about more funding
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/26/MNP914KAQU.DTL
San Francisco Chronicle: With the economy in recession, California's plan to ask the federal government for billions of dollars to help build the nation's first high-speed rail system might seem like wishful thinking rather than a feasible financial strategy. But transportation officials say that California's high-speed rail project seems to be on a fast track to a hefty federal contribution - perhaps as much as $15 billion to $20 billion. That optimism in the face of a dire economic outlook is the ...

Sat, 27 Dec 08
United States: Forest Service ready to clear way for gas pipeline
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008560776_pipeline26m.html
Associated Press: The U.S. Forest Service plans to alter its environmental standards to allow a proposed $800 million natural-gas pipeline to run through 47 miles of Mount Hood National Forest. The proposed Palomar pipeline would require opening a path measuring 120 feet wide. The path would stretch through forest areas that have been protected from clear-cutting and other disturbances under the department's management plans. The Forest Service would also have to revise other rules, such as ...

Sat, 27 Dec 08
Global warming might lead to birth of too many male fish
http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/health/global-warming-might-lead-to-birth-of-too-many-male-fish_100135239.html
Asian News International: A new study has determined that global warming might be leading to the birth of too many male fish. According to a report in Live Science, some experts believe that the gender of many fish is determined by temperature, because temperature-dependent sex determination, or TSD, occurs in many species. But, a critical analysis of the fish literature by Natalia Ospina-Alvarez and Francesc Piferrer, both of the Marine Science Institute in Barcelona, Spain, casts doubt on that ...

Sat, 27 Dec 08
United States: Despite Fay, we may face another drought
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/weather/orl-drought2608dec26,0,5868445.story
Orlando Sentinel: Central Florida should brace for another drought in 2009. The Climate Prediction Center shows a big part of Florida -- from near Tallahassee to Lake Okeechobee -- will be withering in a dry spell by early spring. The federal agency's experts think sparse rainfall will persist across much of the Southeast until late spring. It would be the state's fourth year in a row for drought, and the eighth this decade. State officials are standing by with response plans that include ...

Fri, 26 Dec 08
Uganda: Act Now Before Country Becomes Desert
http://allafrica.com/stories/200812250332.html
Weekly Observer: A report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) issued in September 2008 warned that 80% of Uganda will become desert within 100 years. This warning should be taken very seriously. Already, there are some parts of the country where desert conditions are evident, especially during the dry season. It is important to remember that the present day Sahara Desert was once fertile and green where crop cultivation and herding thrived. Around 5000 BC, ...

Fri, 26 Dec 08
The electric car that can break the speed limit signals a new road order
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/the-electric-car-that-can-break-the-speed-limit-signals-a-new-road-order-1211420.html
Independent: Forget milk float. Forget golf buggy. The tarnished image of the electric car is about to be smartened up. The first proper-performance, four-seater electric car from a major manufacturer is about to be launched on the UK market. The i-MiEV -- pronounced eye-meev -- from Mitsubishi, is a saloon car which will carry four adults and reach a top speed of 87mph. It will be available in the UK, initially for leasing, from the middle of 2009 and can travel up to 100 miles without ...

Fri, 26 Dec 08
Enhancing Solar Cells With Nanoparticles
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081223172705.htm
ScienceDaily: Deriving plentiful electricity from sunlight at a modest cost is a challenge with immense implications for energy, technology, and climate policy. Scientists are developing a relatively new approach to solar cells: lacing them with nanoscopic metal particles. As the authors describe in a new article, this approach has the potential to greatly improve the ability of solar cells to harvest light efficiently. Like plants, solar cells turn light into energy. Plants do this inside ...

Fri, 26 Dec 08
Modified Plants May Yield More Biofuel
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081222163051.htm
ScienceDaily: Plants, genetically modified to ease the breaking down of their woody material, could be the key to a cheaper and greener way of making ethanol, according to researchers who add that the approach could also help turn agricultural waste into food for livestock. Lignin, a major component of woody plant material,, is woven in with cellulose and provides plants with the strength to withstand strong gusts of wind and microbial attack. However, this protective barrier or "plastic wall" also ...

Fri, 26 Dec 08
Fewer Americans Worried About Climate Change
http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/view/32472/fewer_americans_worried_about_climate_change
Angus Reid Global Monitor: While still high, the proportion of people in the United States who are concerned about climate change has dropped this year, according to a poll by Rasmussen Reports. 65 per cent of respondents believe global warming is a very or somewhat serious problem, down eight points since April. In addition, 43 per cent of respondents believe global warming is primarily caused by human activity, while 43 per cent blame long term planetary trends. The term global warming refers to an ...

Fri, 26 Dec 08
United States: Melting Yosemite glacier an omen
http://www.modbee.com/local/story/541293.html
Modesto Bee: As melting water gushed off the ice in a tinseled maze of rivulets and tumbled through a gaping chasm, the hikers watched, wondered and worried. Unlike most backcountry travelers who pitch their tents along the John Muir Trail in the upper reaches of the Lyell Fork of the Tuolumne River, these visitors had not pushed on to scale the summit of Mount Lyell -- Yosemite's highest peak. Instead, they scrambled up a ridge of rose-tinted granite and over a mound of dark, unstable ...

Fri, 26 Dec 08
Financial crisis cash stuns scientist
http://www.capeargus.co.za/?fSectionId=3571&fArticleId=vn20081203052812146C830170
Cape Argus: The head of the world's top climate scientists said he was stunned at the trillion-dollar cheques that had been signed to ease the banking crisis when funding for poverty and global warming was scrutinised or denied. In an interview on the sidelines of the United Nations climate talks, Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Nobel-winning Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change, said he was both astonished and dismayed at the imbalance. "It seems very strange what has happened in ...

Fri, 26 Dec 08
United States: Coal ash spill revives issue of its hazards
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=114029
New York Times: What may be the nation`s largest spill of coal ash lay thick and largely untouched over hundreds of acres of land and waterways Wednesday after a dam broke this week, as officials and environmentalists argued over its potential toxicity. Federal studies have long shown coal ash to contain significant quantities of heavy metals like arsenic, lead and selenium, which can cause cancer and neurological problems. But with no official word on the dangers of the sludge in Tennessee, ...

Fri, 26 Dec 08
Faster climate change feared
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/24/AR2008122402174.html
Washington Post: The United States faces the possibility of much more rapid climate change by the end of the century than previous studies have suggested, according to a new report led by the U.S. Geological Survey. The survey -- which was commissioned by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program and issued this month -- expands on the 2007 findings of the United Nations Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change. Looking at factors such as rapid sea ice loss in the Arctic and prolonged drought in the ...

Fri, 26 Dec 08
Senator attacks EPA coal-power ruling
http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_11303202
Salt Lake Tribune: A U.S. senator wants the Justice Department to step in against the nation's top environmental cop after he cleared the way last week for new, coal-fired power plants -- including some in Utah -- to be built without regard to their impact on global warming. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., says EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson "has run amok." She wrote Monday to U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey to demand that he have the "blatantly illegal" policy suspended. A "renegade" ...

Fri, 26 Dec 08
Spain producers see bioethanol deficit, diesel glut
http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-GreenBusiness/idUSTRE4BN1SE20081224
Reuters: Spanish producers of plant-based fuel forecast they will easily be able to market bioethanol after new legislation comes into force in the New Year, but will still face a surplus of biodiesel due to U.S. imports. Spain's government has a mandatory target of 3.4 percent of automotive fuel used in 2009 to be derived from biofuel -- measured by energy content -- a level that will rise to 5.83 percent in 2010. Renewable energy association APPA estimates the new law will require at ...

Fri, 26 Dec 08
While Canada focuses on military in North, EU could 'steal' Arctic agenda: experts
http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5iumhccjtcLyrJOFu-kCzRLAMHNbQ
Canadian Press: Canada is being slowly pushed aside as the rest of the world sets the agenda for opening up the rapidly melting Arctic, say leading northern experts. With Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government focused on building a military presence in the North, agencies such as the European Union are seizing the initiative over developing rules which will eventually govern fisheries, energy exploration and transportation in the region. "The opportunity for us to take constructive steps ...

Fri, 26 Dec 08
Australians face water shortage from over-extraction of great underground lake
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1101382/Australians-face-water-shortage-extraction-great-underground-lake.html
Daily Mail: Australians face a dire water shortage because of excessive extraction from an underground lake the size of Libya, scientists warned today. Falling pressure in the Great Artesian Basin -- which lies 1.2 miles below ground -- means less water is being forced to the surface through sources and bore holes. If this process continues the ancient supply will be unreachable, except through costly pumping. The basin, which covers a fifth of Australia, holds 65 million gigalitres ...

Fri, 26 Dec 08
United States: Offshore Wind Farm Project in U.S. Moves Foward
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1615387/offshore_wind_farm_project_in_us_moves_foward/index.html?source=r_science
redOrbit: On Tuesday, a plan to build the United State's first offshore wind farm took another step forward, after the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection approved its proposed undersea cables to transmit power to the mainland. The state review found that the Cape Wind project, which would place 130 turbines about 4.7 miles off upscale Cape Cod, would provide "greater public benefit than detriment." The wind farm would provide enough power for about 400,000 homes, but is ...

Fri, 26 Dec 08
Bid To Save Fish Could Reduce Water Supply In Calif
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98694355&ft=1&f=1025
National Public Radio: A new effort to save an endangered fish may cut southern California's water supply by as much as 50 percent. To preserve water for the state's Delta Smelt, water is being taken away from farmers and cities such as Los Angeles.

Fri, 26 Dec 08
Tennessee Valley Coal Ash Spill Buries 400 Acres, Damages Homes
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/dec2008/2008-12-23-091.asp
Environmental News Service: A retaining wall at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston coal-fired power plant collapsed early Monday morning, causing 2.6 million cubic yards of fly ash to be spilled across hundreds of acres. The Kingston Steam Plant in Harriman, about 50 miles west of Knoxville, at the confluence of the Emory and Clinch Rivers is owned and operated by the nation's largest public utility. The wet gray sludge buried about 400 acres six feet deep. One house was torn from its foundations, ...

Fri, 26 Dec 08
In reversal, court allows a Bush plan on pollution
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=114007
New York Times:

Fri, 26 Dec 08
Australia: PM Kevin Rudd backs green machine
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24835885-2702,00.html
Australian: HOLDEN will receive more than $180 million in government subsidies to build a new fuel-efficient, four-cylinder car at its Adelaide plant, a decision Kevin Rudd presented as a vindication of his $6.2 billion car plan. The money is for "retooling" the company's Adelaide plant to produce the new car, which will run on either petrol or diesel, alongside the six-cylinder Holden Commodore. The Prime Minister said the decision was evidence the Government's industry policy was ...

Fri, 26 Dec 08
Australia: State climate programs under review
http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/global-warming/state-climate-programs-under-review/2008/12/23/1229998526710.html
Sydney Morning Herald: NSW Premier Nathan Rees has called on the independent pricing tribunal to review the state's biggest climate change programs. Residential rebates for solar hot water systems and insulation, an energy efficiency program for schools and the building sustainability, or BASIX, program that requires every new home or renovation to meet set environmental standards will go under the microscope. The Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal will examine the efficiency and ...

Fri, 26 Dec 08
United States: S.F. fliers may pay their way in carbon usage
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/23/MNIR14PSQF.DTL&tsp=1
San Francisco Chronicle: Environmentally conscious travelers flying out of San Francisco International Airport will soon be able to assuage their guilt and minimize the impact of their air travel by buying certified carbon offsets at airport kiosks. The experimental program, scheduled to start this spring, would make SFO the first airport in the nation - possibly the world - to offer fliers the opportunity to purchase carbon offsets. "We'd like people to stop and consider the impacts of flying," said ...

Fri, 26 Dec 08
Stop idling vehicles to help environment
http://www.portclintonnewsherald.com/article/20081224/NEWS01/812240318
Port Clinton News Herald: Drivers that are in the habit of leaving their cars running while they make a quick stop in a store may not realize the negative effect that simple action is having on the environment, as well as on their own pocketbook. Ernie Scarano knows how harmful it is, and he's trying to spread the word to other drivers. Scarano opened Mantiques, a male-oriented antiques and collectible shop in Elmore, earlier this year. The store sits in the middle of the town's downtown merchant area, and ...

Fri, 26 Dec 08
Climate change opens northeast route to foreign ships - Ivanov
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20081224/119152400.html
RIA Novosti: Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said Wednesday that he is concerned that global warming is opening up the Northern Sea Route for the uncontrolled movement of foreign ships. Many Arctic specialists agree that global warming is causing ice to retreat around the outer edges of sea ice drifting on the Arctic Ocean which is opening up previously closed maritime routes like Russia's Northeast Sea Route and Canada's Northwest Passage. "I ask you once again to pay special ...

Thu, 25 Dec 08
Report maps out investment strategy for fighting climate change
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2233104/climate-change-investment
Business Green: The world needs a significant investment now to kick-start climate change mitigation, according to a new study from European researchers. However, subsequent investments will have a more pronounced effect. And if we invest 2 per cent of global GDP in averting climate change, we have a 90 per cent chance of keeping global temperatures at 2 per cent above 19th century levels. In a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences called Near-linear cost increase to ...

Thu, 25 Dec 08
Japan to bring back solar power subsidy for homes
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4BN1U820081224?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Japan plans to bring back subsidies for solar panel equipment from January, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said on Wednesday, as the world's fifth-biggest emitter struggles to cut its greenhouse gas emissions. METI said the government would offer 9 billion yen ($99.6 million) in the first quarter of 2009 and possibly more in the fiscal year starting next April to foster use of solar panel equipment in homes. To meet its long-term goal of cutting greenhouse gas ...

Thu, 25 Dec 08
Arctic Peoples Claim Their Right to Cold Temperatures
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45215
Inter Press Service: "Terrifying" is the word that best describes the situation of a hunter who is lost on shifting ice, or of the homeowner whose house splits in two when its foundation sinks, says Canadian indigenous leader Mary Simon when asked about the effects of global warming on the Inuit people. Climate change is rapidly changing the ecology of the Arctic and creating a crisis for the 160,000 indigenous people in the region, collectively known as Inuit, who are thinly spread along the edges of the ...

Thu, 25 Dec 08
Court reinstates clean air rule during EPA fix
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gbxOhRbC5B8oEFQBjaInpi27rS4wD958JO3O0
Associated Press: In a ruling hailed by environmentalists, a federal appeals court on Tuesday reinstated one of President George W. Bush's clean air regulations while the Environmental Protection Agency makes court-mandated changes. In July, the U.S. Appeals Court for the District of Columbia Circuit threw out the Clean Air Interstate Rule, which required 28 mostly Eastern states to reduce smog-forming and soot-producing emissions that can travel long distances in the wind. The court said the ...

Thu, 25 Dec 08
Global warming might cook up too many male fish
http://www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=185441
LiveScience: Many reptiles have no sex chromosomes. Instead, their gender is determined by temperature. In crocodiles, for example, males are hot: eggs incubated in sand above a certain ""pivotal temperature"" almost always hatch males. That could spell trouble, because Earth is warming so fast that natural selection may not have time to adjust pivotal temperatures. Female crocodiles may become scarce. Some experts think fish are in the same hot water because temperature-dependent sex ...

Thu, 25 Dec 08
Climate-change meeting stalls
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/ed20081224a2.html
Japan Times: There is near-unanimous agreement -- the few stubborn holdouts will likely never be convinced -- that climate change is real and the world must respond aggressively to it. The existing framework for action, the Kyoto Protocol, expires in 2012 and its effectiveness has been limited by the failure of key countries, notably the United States, to ratify the treaty, and its exclusion of other significant polluters from obligations to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. On Dec. 12, delegates ...

Wed, 24 Dec 08
Survivalist businesses surge in uncertain times
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1224/p02s02-ussc.html
Christian Science Monitor: Four years ago, after years spent working in construction administration, Viola Moss wanted to leave Florida. She was looking for a home that offered her and her family a chance to grow their own food and live free of dependence on society. But realtors kept showing her homes in retirement communities. Ms. Moss finally found what she was looking for in a home in remote Libby, Mont.: room to raise crops, distance from big-city crime, and proximity to good hunting and fishing, just in ...

Wed, 24 Dec 08
Australia: Festive feasts 'contributing to climate change'
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/12/24/2454262.htm?section=australia
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Wasted food at Christmas time is now being highlighted as an environmental problem. Jon Dee, the chairman of Do Something, says gases from leftover food rotting in landfill are 20 times more potent than the carbon pollution from car exhausts. Mr Dee says there are simple ways to avoid over-catering at Christmas and damaging the environment. "Australians waste more than 3 million tonnes of food every year and of course a lot of that food is wasted at Christmas," he ...

Wed, 24 Dec 08
EPA Administrator Bans Limits on Greenhouse Gases in Clean Air Act Permits
http://www.environmentalleader.com/2008/12/23/epa-administrator-bans-limits-on-greenhouse-gases-in-clean-air-act-permits/
Environmental Leader: Out-going EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson recently issued a memorandum setting an agency-wide policy that prohibits controls on CO2 emissions from being included in air permits, coal-fired power plants and other facilities. Johnson states air permits issued under the Clean Air Act cannot require limits on greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, since there are currently no regulations on greenhouse gases. The Environmental Law and Climate Change Law Blog wrote that the memorandum ...

Wed, 24 Dec 08
United Kingdom: Generation of green electricity showing a big surge
http://news.scotsman.com/scotland/Generation-of--green-electricity.4821047.jp
Scotsman: NEW statistics have shown that the amount of energy produced by renewable sources in Scotland has dramatically increased. Government figures have revealed that a fifth of the electricity used in Scotland last year came from renewable sources. The statistics from the Department of Energy and Climate Change showed that 20.1 per cent of electricity used in 2007 came from green sources, up from 16.9 per cent the previous year. The figures have been taken as evidence that the ...

Wed, 24 Dec 08
Environmentalists push Obama on stimulus priorities
http://www.mercurynews.com/nationworld/ci_11298462
Washington Post: In one of the first internal struggles of the incoming Obama administration, environmentalists and smart-growth advocates are trying to shift the priorities of the economic stimulus plan that will be introduced in Congress next month from allocating tens of billions of dollars to highways, bridges and other traditional infrastructure spending to more projects that create so-called "green collar" jobs. The debate has centered on two competing principles in the evolving stimulus plan: ...

Wed, 24 Dec 08
U.S. Back in the Fold?
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45212
Inter Press Service: After nearly a decade of defiance by Washington toward international efforts to protect the environment, notably its disengagement from the Kyoto treaty to limit greenhouse gas emissions, there are high hopes that the United States will soon play a leading role in addressing what U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has described as "the defining challenge of our era". If 2008 was the "the year of multiple crises... 2009 will be the year of climate change," Ban told an end-of-year news ...

Wed, 24 Dec 08
CDM Takes Off Around the World
http://www.greenbiz.com/news/2008/12/23/cdm-takes-off-around-world
Business Green: The United Nations is claiming its Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is causing a boom in emission-saving initiatives around the world. The CDM regulates approval of projects that allow developed nations to offset a part of their own carbon emissions by investing in carbon-reducing projects in the developing world. The U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP)'s year-end snapshot of CDM projects revealed that all regions had massively increased the number of projects between 2004 and ...

Wed, 24 Dec 08
Engineers: Efficient organic LEDs a step toward better lights
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-12/uof-eeo122308.php
EurekAlert: For those who love "green" compact fluorescent bulbs but hate their cold light, here's some good news: Researchers are closer to flipping the switch on cheaper, richer LED-type room lighting. University of Florida materials science and engineers have achieved a new record in efficiency of blue organic light-emitting diodes, or OLEDs. Because blue is essential to white light, the advance helps overcome a hurdle to lighting that is much more efficient than compact fluorescents -- but ...

Wed, 24 Dec 08
Want green jobs? Watch California
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1224/p09s02-coop.html
Christian Science Monitor: The last time the federal government tried to play a large role in stimulating the development of renewable-energy projects, it failed miserably. Instead, states such as California were the ones that ended up jump-starting today's wind, solar, geothermal, and biomass industries. As President-elect Barack Obama and Congress craft a federal stimulus program package designed to add 2.5 million jobs, many of them green, across the country, they should remember some important lessons from the ...

Wed, 24 Dec 08
Ancient water source vital for Australia
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4BN00U20081224?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: An ancient underground water basin the size of Libya holds the key to Australia avoiding a water crisis as climate change bites the drought-hit nation. Australia's Great Artesian Basin is one of the largest artesian groundwater basins in the world, covering 1.7 million sq kms (656,370 sq miles) and lying beneath one-fifth of Australia. The basin holds 65 million gigaliters of water, about 820 times the amount of surface water in Australia, and enough to cover the Earth's land ...

Wed, 24 Dec 08
First U.S. offshore wind farm project moves forward
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4BM4QE20081223?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: A plan to build the United States' first offshore wind farm took another step forward on Tuesday, after the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection approved its proposed undersea cables to transmit power to the mainland. The Cape Wind project, which would place 130 turbines about 4.7 miles off upscale Cape Cod, would provide "greater public benefit than detriment," the state review found. The proposed wind farm, opposed by beachfront homeowners who complain the ...

Wed, 24 Dec 08
U.S. court reinstates EPA power plant pollution rule
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4BM4C920081223?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday reinstated a Bush administration rule to reduce air pollution from power plants and help states downwind from the facilities meet federal clean air standards. A top broker in emissions allowances said trading in some pollutants soared on the news. One environmental advocate called the ruling a "holiday gift to breathers." Tuesday's ruling reversed a decision the same court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, made in July to ...

Wed, 24 Dec 08
Genetically Modified Plants Could Yield More Biofuel
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1615032/genetically_modified_plants_could_yield_more_biofuel/index.html?source=r_science
redOrbit: Plants, genetically modified to ease the breaking down of their woody material, could be the key to a cheaper and greener way of making ethanol, according to researchers who add that the approach could also help turn agricultural waste into food for livestock. Lignin, a major component of woody plant material, is woven in with cellulose and provides plants with the strength to withstand strong gusts of wind and microbial attack. However, this protective barrier or "plastic wall" also ...

Wed, 24 Dec 08
Sweden: Pollen Grain Study Yields New Picture Of Ice Age
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081222113522.htm
ScienceDaily: According to a new doctoral dissertation at Stockholm University in Sweden, based on analyses of deposits of pollen grains, it is possible that all of Sweden was virtually free of ice for long periods during the latest ice age. The findings show that the glaciation might have started some 20,000 later than was previously assumed. 'It's important that we get to the bottom of when the great ice sheets covered Sweden and how warm it might have been when there was no ice. At present there ...

Wed, 24 Dec 08
EPA Chief Says CO2 Output Not a Factor in Approving Coal Plants
http://www.climatebiz.com/news/2008/12/22/epa-coal-plants
ClimateBiz: U.S. EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson has issued a memorandum saying that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant that is subject to regulation when approving new power plants. Johnson's 19-page memo last Thursday produced a swift reaction from the Natural Resources Defense Council, which said the finding flies in the face of a November decision by the EPA's Environmental Appeals Board rejecting the same line of reasoning Johnson laid out in his memo. "It's a marvel to behold an EPA ...

Wed, 24 Dec 08
Fix For Global Warming? Scientists Propose Covering Deserts With Reflective Sheeting
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081222114546.htm
ScienceDaily: A radical plan to curb global warming and so reverse the climate change caused by our rampant burning of fossil fuels since the industrial revolution would involve covering parts of the world's deserts with reflective sheeting, according to researchers writing in the International Journal of Global Environmental Issues. Engineers Takayuki Toyama of company Avix Inc in Kanagawa, Japan, and Alan Stainer of Middlesex University Business School, London, UK, complain that there have been ...

Wed, 24 Dec 08
United Kingdom: Government criticised over carbon footprint
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/audio/2008/dec/23/guardian-daily-podcast
Guardian: UBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> Guardian Daily: Government criticised over carbon footprint | World news | guardian.co.uk Jump to content [s] Jump to comments [c] Jump to site navigation [0] Jump to search [4] Terms and conditions [8] Sign in Register Text largersmaller Search: guardian.co.uk World news Web <!--option value="pluck-comments" id="search-pluck-comments">Reader comments ...

Wed, 24 Dec 08
A Japanese town that kicked the oil habit
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1867805,00.html?xid=rss-topstories
Various: Shin Abe doesn't find it odd that the picturesque little Japanese town of Kuzumaki, where he has lived all his life, generates some of its electricity with cow dung. Nor is the 15-year-old middle school student blown away by the vista of a dozen wind turbines spinning atop the forested peak of nearby Mt. Kamisodegawa. And it's old news to Abe that his school gets 25% of its power from an array of 420 solar panels located near the campus. "That's the way it's been," he shrugs. "It's ...

Wed, 24 Dec 08
Greenland's glaciers losing ice faster this year than last year
http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Greenland_Glaciers_Losing_Ice_Faster_This_Year_Than_Last_Year_999.html
Agence France-Presse: The research team has been monitoring satellite images of Greenland to gauge just how much ice flows from landlocked glaciers towards the ocean to form floating ice shelves. Eventually, large pieces of these ice shelves will break off into the sea, speeding up the flow of more glacial ice to add to the shelves. Warming of the climate around Greenland is believed to have added to the increased flow of ice outward from the mainland via these huge glaciers. by Staff Writers Researchers ...

Wed, 24 Dec 08
Warmer oceans would fuel more thunderstorms
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/39511/title/Warmer_oceans_would_fuel_more_thunderstorms_
Science News: Inhabitants of the tropics can expect to see more severe storms if sea-surface temperatures in the region continue to rise as Earth's climate changes. The growth of "thunderheads" -- the massive and extremely tall clouds that generate the most severe thunderstorms -- is driven by the rise of warm, moist air. A NASA satellite designed to monitor such deep convective clouds detects about 6,000 of them each day, says George Aumann, a climate scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in ...

Wed, 24 Dec 08
CAP report: Where's the (coal) money?
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1208/16794.html
Politico: A major coal industry group has spent an estimated $45 million on an ongoing advertising campaign promoting the clean energy potential of coal, but its members are spending relatively little on the research that would make the technology a viable solution, a report by the Center for American Progress finds. The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity's 48 member companies have only invested $3.5 billion in carbon capture research over the past several years, a fraction of the ...

Wed, 24 Dec 08
Australia: Rudd's climate call
http://www.odt.co.nz/opinion/editorial/37129/rudd039s-climate-call
Otago Daily Times: New Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd resembled nothing so much as a white knight ranged on his charger against the dark forces of global climate change as he assumed office. He had campaigned for a world-leading role in the battle to save the world and had appeared to have received a resounding mandate. No sooner had the votes been counted than had he ratified the Kyoto Protocol and was off to play a starring role at a world climate conference in Bali. Environmental ...

Wed, 24 Dec 08
Obama's picks underline climate focus
http://www.nature.com/news/2008/081222/full/457010a.html
Nature: Holdren, as is normal for US science advisers, has a background in physics. At the time of his appointment, two eminent biologists were named to co-chair the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) with him. One will be Harold Varmus, the former director of the National Institutes of Health, who led Obama's science advisory team during the campaign. The other is Eric Lander, founding director of the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who helped lead the ...

Wed, 24 Dec 08
United States: Environmentalists, utilities disagree on how to promote using less electricity
http://www.miamiherald.com/business/v-fullstory/story/823484.html
Miami Herald: To reduce her energy bill, Eckels added insulation throughout her house made from recycled blue jeans. The meter shows energy generated from Eckels' solar panels. What she doesn't use is added to the FPL grid. Her lap pool helped motivate Eckels to go solar -- the state- of-the-art panels now help to power the pool pump. In all the complex discussions about how to combat global warming, Vicki Eckels does her small part in her Fort Lauderdale home: She sets her air ...

Wed, 24 Dec 08
Larger climate spending can give reasonable returns: study
http://www.livemint.com/2008/12/23002622/Larger-climate-spending-can-gi.html
Wall Street Journal: The costs and benefits of climate change mitigation programmes continue to confuse governments. New research in Tuesday's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says that this cost may not be as high as previously estimated and that a larger investment in reducing global warming enhances the chance of achieving a desired result. "Our work suggests that spending larger amounts of money to control carbon dioxide levels or temperatures skewed by climate ...

Wed, 24 Dec 08
At last, science gets a champion
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/21/obama-john-holdren
Guardian: The decision by Barack Obama to appoint John Holdren as his chief scientific adviser deserves widespread welcome. The Harvard academic and former energy expert at the University of California, Berkeley, commands international respect among physicists, climate experts and other researchers. He is an able scientist and is also a vociferous critic of those who still deny our planet is overheating because of humanity's industrial activities. Sceptics such as academic Bjørn Lomborg have ...

Wed, 24 Dec 08
Philippines: Bill seeks to require foreigners to plant trees
http://www.gmanews.tv/story/140756/Bill-seeks-to-require-foreigners-to-plant-trees
GMA News: Foreigners seeking admission to the Philippines may soon be required to plant trees prior to the issuance of their visas, if a bill in the House of Representatives is passed into law. House Bill 5577 seeks to amend Sections 9 and 13 of The Philippine Immigration Act of 1940 for foreigners to plant at least 10 trees in the region they plan to stay. "Southeast Asia could have three-fourths less forest cover and 42% less biodiversity by 2010 at the current rate of logging, forest ...

Wed, 24 Dec 08
United States: Braley says Congress eager for carbon emission controls
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20081223/BUSINESS01/812230349/-1/ENT05
Des Moines Register: Congress cannot wait for the economy to recover to enact reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, according to an Iowa congressman positioned to play a significant role in addressing the issue. "We have ignored this problem for far too long," said Rep. Bruce Braley, a Democrat who was recently awarded a seat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. "It's time to start working." Business groups warn that imposing limits on emissions will drive up energy costs at a time when ...

Wed, 24 Dec 08
Big benefits for Connecticut in CO2 emissions auction
http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-gasmoney1123.artdec23,0,5805242.story
Hartford Courant: Connecticut will reap more than $4.6 million to promote energy conservation and clean technology from the latest sale of greenhouse gas permits for power plants, the first such program in the nation to put a price tag on emissions of carbon dioxide. A consortium of 10 Northeastern states held its second carbon dioxide auction last week, a key step in creating a market-based program to cut the emissions that contribute to global warming. Advocates say the regional program could be a ...

Wed, 24 Dec 08
Obama science adviser supports long-term coal, nuclear development
http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500/200812221752DOWJONESDJONLINE000519_FORTUNE5.htm
Dow Jones: President-elect Barack Obama's next senior science adviser, Harvard academic and vociferous climate change advocate John Holdren, is a proponent for clean coal and advanced nuclear energy, according to his previous speeches and policy work. But the types of coal and nuclear generation that Holdren advocates is years away from commercial development, and it's questionable whether he will encourage near-term private-sector expansion of the two sectors. Obama Saturday named ...

Wed, 24 Dec 08
Suggestions for flooding problems aired
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/12/21/suggestions_for_flooding_problems_aired/?p1=Well_MostPop_Emailed7
Boston Globe: Climate change is causing more intense storms in Boston's suburbs, scientists say. That means more storm water is expected to flow over local streets in the coming years, picking up more oil, salt, and lawn fertilizer as it travels and dumping more of those pollutants in local lakes and streams. To handle the predicted deluges, scientists at a recent regional conference in Maynard recommend following the example of officials in Littleton: Plant perennials. For years, Littleton ...

Wed, 24 Dec 08
State pursuing pared-down climate change agenda
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008551261_apwaclimatechange1stldwritethru.html
Associated Press: Recognizing a tough budget situation, the state is planning to pursue a less aggressive plan to curb climate change than many had hoped. The centerpiece of the plan is a regional cap-and-trade system that would limit the amount of greenhouse gases that industrial polluters emit while allowing them to buy and trade credits for the amount they can produce. But some of the ambitious recommendations put forth by a task force Gov. Chris Gregoire established last year likely won't be ...

Wed, 24 Dec 08
Colorado tightens reins on energy extraction
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122999246547828591.html
Wall Street Journal: Colorado's Oil and Gas Conservation Commission is asserting control over the state's booming energy industry with its approval of the most far-reaching drilling restrictions in the nation. Regulations laid out this month in a 177-page document immediately drew fire from the industry and from some lawmakers, who say the restrictions will drive energy companies out of the state at a time when Colorado needs more high-paying oil and gas jobs. The rules, which take effect in the ...

Wed, 24 Dec 08
EPA to help lower methane emissions
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2233063/epa-help-lower-methane
Business Green: The Environmental Protection Agency has earmarked $7m (£4.7m) in grant funding for projects that can reduce methane emissions in transitional and developing countries. The EPA has issued an RFP for methane reduction grant applicants under Methane to Markets, a global initiative designed to reduce methane emissions in four sectors: landfill, oil and gas, coal mining and agriculture. The agency, which forms the steering committee for the initiative, expects to award about 40 projects ...

Wed, 24 Dec 08
Groups call for regulatory shakeup to boost renewable ocean energy sector
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2233067/ocean-renewables-boost
Business Green: The renewable ocean energy community has become the latest renewables group to call for regulatory reform as the next US administration prepares to take office. Renewable ocean energy groups met transition team members to present a list of seven recommendations on more co-ordinated regulation to help encourage growth in the nascent sector. "Development of the industry in this country is hampered by a number of challenges, not the least of which is a regulatory system that is ...

Wed, 24 Dec 08
African Proposal Yet to Gain Foothold
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45206
Inter Press Service: Africa's bid to expand carbon-trading mechanisms and create rewards for sustainable farming practices on the continent made little headway at the recently concluded climate change conference in Poznan, Poland. Reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) were one of the main topics for discussion at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (Dec. 1-12), with several rival proposals under consideration including the African Climate Solution (ACS) fronted by the ...

Wed, 24 Dec 08
Ambitious climate goals make economic sense
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16332-ambitious-climate-goals-make-economic-sense.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=climate-change
New Scientist: Despite the global economic downturn, spending money now to keep climate change in check makes sense as it will save us money in the long run. A new analysis has found that boosting spending is worth it because the chances of preventing catastrophic warming increases linearly with the amount invested. Michiel Schaeffer at the University of Wageningen in the Netherlands and colleagues used data from climate models to look at how the cost of cutting emissions is linked to the ...

Wed, 24 Dec 08
Australia: Changes to solar rebates 'complex'
http://news.theage.com.au/national/changes-to-solar-rebates-complex-20081222-73h9.html
AAP: Households earning less than $100,000 have just six months to install solar panels or they will probably pay thousands of dollars more. The federal government last week announced it would change its rebate for solar panels, and said all households would get "up to" $7,500. The change was billed as good news but it is fiendishly complicated. Now it appears the rebate will be worth considerably less than $7,500. This means any household earning less than $100,000 a ...

Wed, 24 Dec 08
Scientists sea salty solution
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/12/22/2453125.htm?site=science&topic=latest
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: A number of international scientists have developed a new definition of saltwater which they say will improve the accuracy of climate change and weather predictions. Until now, climate change models have assumed saltwater and freshwater absorb heat at the same rate. Trevor McDougall from the CSIRO, says the scientists have now measured how much more energy it takes to heat saltwater than freshwater. He says the findings will have implications for climate change ...

Wed, 24 Dec 08
Brazil sees jump in logged Amazon areas
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28352592/
Associated Press: A new system for mapping destruction of Brazil's Amazon rainforest is reporting a surge in areas that have been partially cut but not yet cleared. Brazil's National Institute for Space Research said the system shows that an area roughly the size of Belize or the state of Vermont was partially knocked down this year. The institute tracked 9,600 square miles of partially decimated forest this year, up 67 percent from 5,750 square miles in 2007, according to statistics on its Web ...

Wed, 24 Dec 08
Boxer Blasts EPA Claim That CO2 Is Not a Pollutant
http://washingtonindependent.com/22767/boxer-blasts-epa-claim-that-co2-is-not-a-pollutant
Washington Independent: Sen. Barbara Boxer, who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, has never been much a fan of Stephen Johnson, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator with a long record of putting Bush administration orthodoxy above the environment he`s charged to protect. But the California Democrat was particularly rankled after Johnson ruled last week that carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are not subject to the Clean Air Act, and therefore the EPA has no business regulating them ...

Wed, 24 Dec 08
'Little Ice Age' hastened fall of Aztecs, Incas
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28353083/
Discovery: The vast empires of the Incas and Aztecs were highly advanced. They kept detailed tax records, built elaborate temples, and at their height, Central and South America boasted a thriving population of as many as 60 million souls. But their grand civilizations bore another trapping of modernity, scientists have found, one that until recently was thought unique to our industrialized world: human-induced climate change. In the 16th century, the diseases Europeans brought to the New ...

Wed, 24 Dec 08
In America, Millions Breathe Too Much Soot
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/12/22/tech/main4683513.shtml
Associated Press: More than 100 million people living in 46 metropolitan areas of the United States are breathing air that has become fouled with too much soot on some days, and now those cities have to clean up their air, the federal Environmental Protection Agency said Monday. The EPA added 15 cities to the sooty air list, mostly in states not usually thought of as pollution-prone, such as Alaska, Utah, Idaho and Wisconsin. That probably is because of the prevalence of wood stoves in western and ...

Wed, 24 Dec 08
Australia: Data shows mining pollution is worsening
http://news.theage.com.au/national/data-shows-mining-pollution-is-worsening-20081223-740n.html
AAP: The mining industry might have secured significant concessions in the government's plan for emissions trading, but fresh data shows it is becoming a worse greenhouse gas polluter with each passing year. Mining companies are heading in the wrong direction on climate change, using more energy and becoming less energy-efficient. The industry more than doubled its energy use over the 15 years to 2006. And the amount of energy used per unit of output - called energy intensity ...

Wed, 24 Dec 08
Vietnam braces itself for climate change
http://english.vovnews.vn/Home/Vietnam-braces-itself-for-climate-change/200812/100506.vov
VOV News: A national-level target programme integrating climate change issues into socio-economic strategies and plans was announced by a Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MNRE) official on December 22. The programme, which formulates and develops programmes to help ministries, agencies and localities to deal with the effects of climate change, demonstrates the determination of the whole country to join together in tackling this big issue, said MNRE Minister Pham Khoi ...

Wed, 24 Dec 08
Australia: Activist airs climate change protest fears
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/12/23/2453808.htm?site=southqld
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: A protester who helped shut down a coal-fired power station near Kingaroy for five hours says he is worried about the future of legitimate climate change protests in Australia. No convictions were recorded against John MacKenzie, Bradley Smith and Eleanor Smith for entering the Tarong power station last month, but each must complete 90 hours community service. The Smiths must also each pay a $375 fine. John Mackenzie says it is unfortunate the penalties to protect energy ...

Wed, 24 Dec 08
Bigger Sea Creatures, Like Squid, May Feel Effects of Higher CO2
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=113920
New York Times: Increased emissions of carbon dioxide affect more than the atmosphere. Much of the CO2 is absorbed by the oceans, causing them to become more acidic. Recent research has looked at the impact of the acidification on corals and other small calcifying organisms. But increasing CO2, coupled with gradual warming of the oceans, may have other effects, and may affect bigger creatures, because there will be less oxygen at the surface and deep oxygen-poor zones will expand vertically. A ...

Wed, 24 Dec 08
Growing More Corn for Ethanol Makes Pest Control Harder
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=113919
New York Times: As American farmers have grown more corn for ethanol production, concerns about the practice have increased, too. Critics say turning more acreage over to corn to make fuel can lead to higher prices for other crops, increased soil erosion and other negative effects. Here`s another potential problem: biological pest control. In a report in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Douglas A. Landis of Michigan State University and colleagues show that increasing the ...

Wed, 24 Dec 08
United Kingdom: Activists ejected after presenting greenwash award to BP
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/3903090/Activists-ejected-after-presenting-greenwash-award-to-BP.html
Telegraph: The Emerald Paintbrush was launched by Greenpeace to highlight the companies they claim are using green issues to advertise while doing little for the environment. The first award was given to BP, the oil and gas company, which regularly refers to their investment in renewable energy in adverts. Greenpeace claim the firm is guilty of "greenwash" because the majority of the company's investment is still in fossil fuels. According to the environmental group, BP allocated ...

Wed, 24 Dec 08
Scientists Hail Return to Fact-Based Policies
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45196
Inter Press Service: Key appointments announced by President-elect Barack Obama suggest that science will soon make a major comeback in the U.S. government. The outgoing administration of President George W. Bush has been harshly criticised by many members of the nation's scientific community for allowing ideology to distort or eliminate findings on reproductive health, stem cell research, climate change, and a host of other critical issues. But Obama's choices indicate that a 180-degree turn is in ...

Sun, 21 Dec 08
Severe Storm Increases Linked To Global Warming
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1614137/severe_storm_increases_linked_to_global_warming/index.html?source=r_science
redOrbit: The frequency of extremely high clouds in Earth's tropics -- the type associated with severe storms and rainfall -- is increasing as a result of global warming, according to a study by scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. In a presentation yesterday to the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, JPL Senior Research Scientist Hartmut Aumann outlined the results of a study based on five years of data from the Atmospheric Infrared ...

Sun, 21 Dec 08
Climate experts get key US posts
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7793779.stm
BBC: US President-elect Barack Obama has nominated two leading global warming specialists for key science posts in his administration. Harvard physicist John Holdren will be Mr Obama's scientific adviser while marine biologist Jane Lubchenco will head the US oceanic research body. Both have advocated greater government action on climate change. Their appointments have been seen as a sign of Mr Obama's commitment to tackling environmental issues. In his weekly address, ...

Sun, 21 Dec 08
Australia: Bush v city: the great climate divide
http://www.watoday.com.au/environment/bush-v-city-the-great-climate-divide-20081220-72pe.html
WA Today: Many farmers in central Victoria are sceptical that global warming is real, despite the scientific evidence and the world-wide push for a carbon trading scheme. Peter Munro reports. HOT air hitting the dusty road ahead of Tom Lucas' farm resembles a dirty big puddle, which pools across the dividing line. Far beyond Mr Lucas' stunted wheat crops, soaked by an ill-timed wash of summer rain, the Prime Minister is calling climate change "an inconvenient truth" we can no longer ...

Sun, 21 Dec 08
Global warming hits Greenland: disaster or profit?
http://www.russiatoday.com/features/news/35038
Russian Today: Melting ice caps mean that one of the world's largest islands, Greenland, is getting closer to discovering the vast oil reserves, thought to exist beneath its icy waters. During these tough economic times, Greenland could be reaping the benefits from climate change, but global warming could also freeze-out some of the country's most-lucrative businesses. The coastal town of Ilulissat is one of the few places on earth where climate change is happening so fast you can almost see ...

Sun, 21 Dec 08
Obama picks climate specialist as science adviser
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE4BI5UZ20081220
Reuters: President-elect Barack Obama underscored on Saturday his intent to push initiatives on climate change by naming John Holdren, an energy and climate specialist, as the new White House science adviser. Holdren is a Harvard University physicist who has focused on the causes and consequences of climate change and advocated policies aimed at sustainable development. He has also done extensive research on the dangers of nuclear weapons. Obama pledged to put a priority on encouraging ...

Sun, 21 Dec 08
Obama names John Holdren, Jane Lubchenco to science posts
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2008/12/20/2008-12-20_obama_names_john_holdren_jane_lubchenco_.html
New York Daily News: A New Yorker who captured the Nobel Prize for his genetics research will become one of President-elect Barack Obama's top science advisers. Obama has tapped Dr. Harold Varmus, a Long Island native and head of the city's Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, as part of a new science and technology team that will tackle climate change, energy independence and health. Taking a page straight out of Al Gore's global warming playbook, Obama said Saturday that advancing American ...

Sun, 21 Dec 08
Lifecycles Of Tropical Cyclones Predicted In Global Computer Model
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081219092050.htm
ScienceDaily: The initial results of the first computer model that simulates the global atmosphere with a detailed representation of individual clouds have been analyzed by a team of scientists at the International Pacific Research Center (IPRC) at the University of Hawai`i at Mānoa, Japan-Agency for Marine Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC), and the University of Tokyo. The model, called the Nonhydrostatic ICosahedral Atmospheric Model (NICAM), was developed for the supercomputer Earth ...

Sun, 21 Dec 08
Russia: Solar Activity Between 1250-1850 Linked To Temperature Changes In Siberia
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081219180532.htm
ScienceDaily: An ice core drilled at the Belukha glacier in the Siberian Altai by a Swiss-Russian research team under the leadership of the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) in 2001 has now provided new findings in climate research. Oxygen isotopes in the ice were used to reconstruct the temperatures in the Altai over the past 750 years. The scientists discovered a strong link between regional temperatures and the solar activity in the period 1250-1850, concluding that the sun was an important driver ...

Sun, 21 Dec 08
United States: Stronger Coastal Winds Due To Climate Change May Have Far-reaching Effects
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081219172037.htm
ScienceDaily: Future increases in wind strength along the California coast may have far-reaching effects, including more intense upwelling of cold water along the coast early in the season and increased fire danger in Southern California, according to researchers at the Climate Change and Impacts Laboratory at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Earth scientist Mark Snyder will present the findings in a poster titled "Future Changes in Surface Winds in the Western U.S. due to Climate Change" ...

Sun, 21 Dec 08
Interview: Global climate deal a 'tall order' for Obama
http://www.euractiv.com/en/climate-change/interview-global-climate-deal-tall-order-obama/article-178205?Ref=RSS
EurActiv: Next year's UN climate conference in Copenhagen may not be able to thrash out all the details of a post-Kyoto agreement, but "something important" will come out of it, Stuart Eizenstat, former US ambassador to the EU and once a presidential advisor, told EurActiv in an interview. Speaking on the fringes of a Friends of Europe debate, Stuart Eizenstat, who has served several political mandates under the Clinton and Carter administrations, is convinced that despite all the effort, it ...

Sun, 21 Dec 08
Cameroon: Pupils Introduced to Climate Change
http://allafrica.com/stories/200812190863.html
IRIN: The kids were on break. Some were playing football on a dust-filled pitch. Some just stood in small groups chatting. Others clustered under the only two shade trees that have survived the unscrupulous hands of vandals. There were no dragon flies to announce the advent of the dry season. Neither were there praying-mantises to frighten the schoolchildren nor grasshoppers hopping in the grass. The weather in Tiko though, was very friendly, thanks to an early morning shower next door in ...

Sun, 21 Dec 08
United Kingdom: Brown signals support for third Heathrow runway
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/dec/20/heathrow-third-runway-brown
Guardian: Gordon Brown yesterday gave his strongest public hint that he will approve a third runway at Heathrow airport next month. In the face of ministerial unease, the prime minister insisted that it was right to press ahead with major infrastructure investments in the downturn. "We are making the investment in transport to ensure our infrastructure is fit for the needs of the 21st century including a decision on the third runway at Heathrow," he said at his last monthly press ...

Sun, 21 Dec 08
United Kingdom: Met Office warns of 'catastrophic' rise in temperature
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article5371682.ece
Times (UK): When it comes to climate change, scientific evidence provides critical information for decision making. Because governments need to understand the consequences of choosing one strategy over another they also need to understand what will happen if targets are missed or cannot be agreed by all countries. Failures could have far-reaching consequences and so the Met Office has conducted a series of 'what if?' climate projections, to give a better understanding of what those consequences might ...

Sun, 21 Dec 08
Australia: Ross Garnaut attacks climate compensation as funding crisis looms
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24826236-2702,00.html
Australian: THE Rudd Government's own climate adviser has lashed its compensation deal for heavy polluters in the climate change white paper as "over the top", arguing it could outstrip collections from the emissions trading scheme and force taxpayers to foot the bill. Ross Garnaut, who carried out extensive research on the shape of a carbon pollution reduction scheme for the Government, described deals that provided compensation for industries such as LNG as "political". He said they could be ...

Sun, 21 Dec 08
Australia: Climate adviser takes aim at Australia emissions plan
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4BJ0A520081220
Reuters: Australia's top government adviser on climate change has criticized Canberra's decision to include extensive compensation to electricity generators in its official policy on greenhouse gas emission reductions. Climate change economist Ross Garnaut, who authored a landmark report that set the stage for last Monday's 'white paper', endorsed the government's overall target of a minimum five percent emissions cut from 2000 levels by 2020. However, in an article published by The ...

Sun, 21 Dec 08
Brazil maps partially destroyed areas of Amazon
http://www.nrtoday.com/article/20081219/NEWS/812199724/1055&title=Brazil%20maps%20partially%20destroyed%20areas%20of%20Amazon
Associated Press: A new system for mapping destruction of Brazil's Amazon rainforest is reporting a surge in areas that have been partially cut but not yet cleared. Brazil's National Institute for Space Research said the system shows that an area roughly the size of Belize or the state of Vermont was partially knocked down this year. The institute tracked 24,932 square kilometers (9,600 square miles) of partially decimated forest this year, up 67 percent from 14,915 square kilometers (5,750 ...

Sun, 21 Dec 08
Auction to decrease greenhouse gas emissions raises $15 million for state
http://www.northjersey.com/environment/Auction_to_decrease_greenhouse_gas_emissions_raises_15_million_for_state.html
NewJersey.com: New Jersey raised more than $15 million from power companies and other bidders this week through its participation in a regional auction designed to lower greenhouse gas emissions. The auction is part of the first market-based cap and trade program in the nation to make polluters pay for the right to emit carbon dioxide and ultimately lower emission amounts. Each power company in the 10-state coalition must purchase allowances for every ton of carbon they emit each year. The proceeds ...

Sun, 21 Dec 08
Utilities seek stimulus money to improve energy efficiency
http://www.newsobserver.com/1573/story/1340097.html
McClatchy Newspapers: A utility association that represents 70 percent of the U.S. power industry joined environmental and energy groups Friday in calling on Congress and the new administration to jump-start the economy by helping Americans save energy. The groups suggest that any economic recovery package Congress passes early next year include $33 billion that mostly would go to state and local governments for programs such as weatherizing houses, schools, businesses and government buildings. To get some ...

Sun, 21 Dec 08
Is Steven Chu too chummy with BP?
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2008/12/is-steven-chu-bff-with-bp.html?welcome=true
Mother Jones: Steven Chu, President-elect Barack Obama's choice to lead the Department of Energy, seems about as climate friendly as they come. As a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and director of the DOE-funded Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, he has dedicated his career to weaning the globe from petroleum. But Chu, who declined to comment for this story, is also more industry friendly than his rhetoric suggests. Last year he sealed a deal between the Berkeley Lab, two public universities, and oil ...

Sun, 21 Dec 08
Obama sends strong signal on global warming
http://www.macon.com/577/story/562554.html
McClatchy Newspapers: President-elect Barack Obama's choice of John P. Holdren as his science adviser sends a strong signal that Obama sees global warming as an urgent problem and wants bold suggestions for action. The Harvard University environmental policy professor has argued that the world already is experiencing dangerous climate change as a result of fossil fuel combustion. He's said there's still time to avert catastrophe, but only with a strong and rapid global effort. At a recent talk in ...

Sun, 21 Dec 08
United Kingdom: Zero-carbon pioneers home in on Shetland
http://news.scotsman.com/environment/Zerocarbon-pioneers-home--in.4810796.jp
Scotsman: If you travel to Unst in Shetland you may come across a worldwide eco-phenomenon – a self-built zero-carbon house has been built on this remote, windy island. It has been designed, constructed and powered to minimise its impact on the environment. Even the food eaten by its residents is considered. The story of the zero-carbon house is being followed by thousands of people, some of them very influential. It is the brainchild and retirement project of an English couple, Michael ...

Sun, 21 Dec 08
United Kingdom: Hydrogen plan will fill in when wind turbines stop
http://news.scotsman.com/environment/Hydrogen-plan-will-fill-in.4810948.jp
Scotsman: A MAJOR criticism of wind farms is that they are intermittent. Wind does not blow consistently and, as a result they do not provide a continuous supply of power, but must be backed up by conventional fossil fuel plants. However, a renewables firm believes it has hit on a solution, and is hoping to use it in Scotland. A hydrogen plant would store energy from the wind farm, creating a reserve that could be dipped into on demand, so that even when the wind was not blowing, an ...

Sun, 21 Dec 08
Carbon plan fuels meltdown
http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/carbon-plan-fuels-meltdown/2008/12/19/1229189886133.html
Sydney Morning Herald: THE national climate change adviser, Ross Garnaut, has damned the Rudd Government's carbon policy as a threat to the environment, the national budget and global prosperity. Professor Garnaut has called on the Government to make urgent changes to the policy that the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, announced this week. Writing in today's Herald, Professor Garnaut urges the Government to keep open the option of a more ambitious cut to carbon emissions to keep alive the prospect of ...

Sun, 21 Dec 08
Carbon auction nets $106.5 million for 10 states
http://www.silive.com/newsflash/index.ssf?/base/business-3/122970057458120.xml&storylist=simetro
Associated Press: The nation's second auction of carbon dioxide emissions allowances will bring $106.5 million to the 10 northeastern states in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. Pete Grannis, the organization's chairman, said the results prove that distributing allowances through auctions in a carbon dioxide cap-and-trade program can be successful. RGGI is seen as a blueprint for a national program to curb global warming by reducing carbon emissions. RGGI reported Friday that all 31.5 ...

Sun, 21 Dec 08
Continental Rift: Geothermal power in Africa
http://www.economist.com/world/mideast-africa/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12821590
Economist: SINCE 1904, when Prince Piero Conti managed to get a light bulb to flicker in an Italian lava field, geothermal power has depended on volcanic heat. The earth's crust needs to be thin, with high temperatures just below the surface. Cold water is pumped down a deep borehole and returns superheated to spin a turbine. To power its tiny and now spluttering economy, Iceland has already made use of what scientists call volcanism. Fiery bits of the Philippines also run on geothermal ...

Sun, 21 Dec 08
Fiddling as the world melts
http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12815686
Economist: IMAGINE that some huge rocky projectile, big enough to destroy most forms of life, was hurtling towards the earth, and it seemed that deep international co-operation offered the only hope of deflecting the lethal object. Presumably, the nations of the world would set aside all jealousies and ideological hangups, knowing that failure to act together meant doom for all. At least in theory, most of the world's governments now accept that climate change, if left unchecked, could become ...

Sun, 21 Dec 08
Now China is growing slower, can it grow cleaner?
http://www.reuters.com/article/reutersEdge/idUSTRE4BI1HS20081219
Reuters: China's dramatic economic slowdown is paying an environmental dividend, slashing emissions levels from the world's biggest greenhouse gas emitter as its highest-carbon industries begin to contract. The question Beijing will soon face is how it will manage to sustain those curbs once growth is restored. Some say it's moving in the right direction; others are far less certain, as the government, facing a threat to the economic miracle on which its credibility was built, rushes to pump ...

Sun, 21 Dec 08
Obama Appoints Climate Change Experts
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=113751
New York Times: President-elect Barack Obama on Saturday named Harvard physicist John Holdren and marine biologist Jane Lubchenco to top science posts, signaling a change from Bush administration policies on global warming that were criticized for putting politics over science. Both Holdren and Lubchenco are leading experts on climate change who have advocated forceful government response. Holdren will become Obama's science adviser as director of the White House Office of Science and Technology ...

Sun, 21 Dec 08
Let Detroit die
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2008/dec/19/automotive-useconomy
Guardian: It's not often that I find myself on the same side as right-wing Republican politicians. But for the past two weeks I've been cheering the neocon nutcases as they tried to prevent the big motor manufacturers from receiving government money for their failed business model. The Democrats, by contrast, thought the handout was an excellent idea. So did George Bush, who has just driven the senate's decision, and his own party, off the road. Bush maintained that letting GM and Chrysler ...

Sun, 21 Dec 08
Trade deals must protect environment: Obama
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4BI5WG20081219?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: The United States will insist on strong protections for the environment and for workers in future trade deals, President-elect Barack Obama said on Friday as he introduced his nominee to be chief U.S. trade negotiator. Former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk "will help make sure that any agreement I sign as president protects the rights of all workers, promotes the interests of all Americans, strengthens American businesses, and preserves the planet we all share," Obama said at a news conference ...

Sat, 20 Dec 08
Utah energy exploration lease sale deal reached
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4BI5KN20081219?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: The Interior Department has reached an agreement with environmental groups over the controversial sale of energy exploration leases for 100,000 acres of land in Utah scheduled for Friday. The lease sale will proceed as planned, but the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management will not finalize any sales of leases on 80 parcels of environmentally sensitive land for 30 days, giving a judge time to issue a ruling on the lease sales. The 80 parcels of land include areas adjacent to ...

Sat, 20 Dec 08
Swiss glaciers 'in full retreat'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7770472.stm
BBC:

Sat, 20 Dec 08
A handbag? For £500? Let's get real
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/19/creditcrunch-automotive
Guardian: Since when did it become acceptable to pay £500 for a handbag? This is now the going rate for a must-have bag, I am told by my younger colleagues. That is way over the top for me. I recently demurred at paying £35 for one from a market near work. Surely this rampant consumerism will not survive the credit crunch? I can't imagine anyone is going to be paying hundreds of pounds for accessories when they are worried about losing their job. But I'm worried that we now know nothing ...

Sat, 20 Dec 08
Energy policy expert to be tapped for US science adviser
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16310-energy-policy-expert-to-be-tapped-for-us-science-adviser.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=climate-change
New Scientist: Barack Obama's growing all-star science team is poised to pick up another heavy hitter. As first reported in the blog ScienceInsider, the president-elect will nominate John P Holdren of Harvard University to be his science adviser and director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy. On paper, Holdren is not exactly a radical departure from previous holders of the office. A physicist with expertise in nuclear arms control, he was a member of President Bill Clinton's science and ...

Sat, 20 Dec 08
The best eco protest songs
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2008/dec/18/activists-eco-protest-songs
Guardian:

Sat, 20 Dec 08
Goodbye winter wonderland?
http://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/features/Goodbye-winter-wonderland.4802553.jp
Yorkshire Evening Post: IF the bookies are anything to go by, there's a good chance we'll have a white Christmas this year. William Hill recently slashed odds of a single snowflake being spotted on December 25 from 6/1 to 9/2 and if you ask BBC TV weatherman Paul Hudson he'll tell you we're "long overdue" a bad winter. The only problem with that is global warming theory says otherwise. It says that in terms of the long term forecast, things are only going to get warmer and when it comes to white Christmases, ...

Sat, 20 Dec 08
'Death map' study: heat waves kill more than any other natural disaster
http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/heat-waves-47121801
Daily Green: A new "death map" compiled by researchers at the University of South Carolina shows that heat waves kill more Americans than any other type of natural disaster, despite the common perception that hurricanes and tornadoes are the most dangerous weather event. Published in BioMed Central's International Journal of Health Geographics, the map dispels common misperceptions, and though the study doesn't deal explicitly with the threat of global warming, it is a reminder that the greatest ...

Sat, 20 Dec 08
State PUC approves $1.9-billion Sunrise Powerlink
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-fi-sunrise19-2008dec19,0,6419254.story
LA Times: Regulators gave a San Diego utility the go-ahead Thursday to build a $1.9-billion transmission line that it says is needed to move nonpolluting geothermal, wind and solar power from inland deserts to energy-hungry coastal cities. The California Public Utilities Commission, meeting in San Francisco, voted 4-1 to approve a proposed decision by President Michael Peevey to allow San Diego Gas & Electric Co. to use ratepayer funds to string 123 miles of new high-voltage lines. Massive ...

Sat, 20 Dec 08
Analysis calls ambitious L.A. solar plan 'extremely risky'
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-solar19-2008dec19,0,3308872.story
LA Times: When members of the Los Angeles City Council agreed last month to put an ambitious solar energy plan on the March 3 ballot, they talked effusively about their desire for cleaner air and "green" technology jobs -- the kind that could boost the economy during a recession. What they didn't discuss was an analysis by a city-hired consulting firm that called the solar plan "extremely risky" and considerably more expensive than was being portrayed by the Department of Water and ...

Sat, 20 Dec 08
Netherlands to strengthen flood fortifications
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hkSoKgvK_w85DtuwAA7SwEkAcL7A
Agence France-Presse: The Dutch government on Thursday unveiled a multi-billion dollar plan to reinforce dykes and the coastline and augment fresh water supplies in the face of rising sea levels due to global warming. Two-thirds of the Netherlands lies below sea-level and the country is increasingly worried about the threat of devastating floods. The government's national water plan proposes strengthening hundreds of kilometres (miles) of dykes along the North Sea, adding massive sand deposits to ...

Sat, 20 Dec 08
Restraints planned for coal-fired plants
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ef9f9d36-cbab-11dd-ba02-000077b07658,Authorised=true.html
Financial Times: Environmental regulators are laying the groundwork for tougher controls on new coal-fired power plants in the administration of president-elect Barack Obama. The industry was put on notice last month, when the Environmental Protection Agency's appeals panel rejected a permit for a coal power plant in Utah issued by its Denver office. It found the office had not justified its failure to consider carbon emissions in the application. A 2007 Supreme Court ruling found the EPA ...

Sat, 20 Dec 08
Plan to clean up power plants could create pollution
http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2008/12/19/plan_to_clean_up_power_plants_could_create_pollution/
Boston Globe: A regional effort by 10 states, including Massachusetts, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from area power plants could actually add to the pollution problem elsewhere, according to a new report from the Union of Concerned Scientists, a Cambridge nonprofit. The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI, is a multistate coalition stretching from Maine to Maryland that requires 233 local power plants to purchase an allowance for every ton of carbon dioxide they emit. The coalition ...

Sat, 20 Dec 08
Australia: Warm summer brings high bleach risk for Barrier Reef
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/12/19/2451325.htm
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Predictions of a long, hot summer may please many Australians, but it is not good news for one of the country's top tourist attractions. Satellite images show sea surface temperatures in the Coral Sea are already higher than average and the Bureau of Meteorology and the American National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have both forecast a high risk of coral bleaching. Dr Russell Reichelt, the chairman of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, says scientists are ...

Sat, 20 Dec 08
DOE anticipates drop in coal use
http://wvgazette.com/News/200812180744
Charleston Gazette: Coal's share of the U.S. energy supply is expected to drop slightly over the next two decades as regulators, investors and utilities drop plans for new coal-fired power plants, the U.S. Department of Energy said this week. Read the report DOE's Energy Information Administration has dropped its project of new coal plants that would come online by 2030 from 104 gigawatts to 46 gigawatts, the equivalent of nearly 100 typical new facilities not being built. The DOE analysis assumes ...

Sat, 20 Dec 08
Coal River mine permit challenge by wind proponents
http://wvgazette.com/News/200812180734
Charleston Gazette: Environmental groups said Thursday they are appealing the Manchin administration's approval of a key permit change for a Massey Energy strip mine at a site where citizen groups are promoting alternative plans for a wind-energy facility. Lawyers for Coal River Mountain Watch and the Sierra Club were finalizing their formal appeal papers late Thursday afternoon before filing them with the West Virginia Surface Mine Board. Both groups argue that the state Department of ...

Sat, 20 Dec 08
United States: Renewable energy is pushed statewide
http://thetundradrums.com/news/show/4289
Tundra Drum: The state's energy czar says his new energy initiative could put Alaska entirely on clean, renewable power. That is, if someone's willing to pay for it. Such an effort could reach into the billions of dollars. The main feature of the initiative -- scheduled to be released Dec. 17 -- will include a database that could help some 350 Alaska communities decide whether they should build renewable energy projects in their area, such as wind turbines, said Steve Haagenson, ...

Sat, 20 Dec 08
United Kingdom: Linking offshore wind farms to grid to cost £10bn -- and public will pay
http://news.scotsman.com/environment/Linking-offshore-wind-farms-to.4808019.jp
Scotsman: IT WILL cost more than £10 billion to build the infrastructure needed to connect offshore wind farms around the UK to the electricity grid, a new report reveals. The research investigated the options for building a network of cables to transport electricity from offshore sites to areas of demand on shore. The study, commissioned by the Crown Estate, which owns the seabed, said the cost of connecting nine offshore areas identified as potential sites for wind farms would be £10.4 ...

Sat, 20 Dec 08
Biochar and its role in mitigating climate change
http://news.mongabay.com/2008/1217-zafar_biochar.html
Mongabay: 11:53:18 AM--> <MAP Name="1"> </MAP> Biochar and its Role in Mitigating Climate Change Salman Zafar December, 17, 2008 The growing concerns about climate change have brought biochar, a charcoal produced from biomass combustion, into limelight. Biochar is a carbon-rich, fine-grained residue which can be produced either by ancient techniques (such as covering burning biomass with soil and allowing it to smolder) or state-of-the-art modern pyrolysis ...

Sat, 20 Dec 08
Japans first solar cargo ship
http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Tech%2Band%2BScience/Story/STIStory_316371.html
Agence France-Presse: THE world's first cargo ship partly propelled by solar power took to the seas on Friday in Japan, aiming to cut fuel costs and carbon emissions when automakers ship off their exports. Auriga Leader, a freighter developed by shipping line Nippon Yusen K.K. and oil distributor Nippon Oil Corp, took off from a shipyard in the western city of Kobe, officials of the two firms said. The huge freighter capable of carrying 6,400 automobiles is equipped with 328 solar panels at a cost ...

Sat, 20 Dec 08
Weather watch: A record year of extreme events
http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/global-warming/weather-watch-a-record-year-of-extreme-events/2008/12/17/1229189709651.html
Sydney Morning Herald: AUSTRALIAN temperatures remained hotter than average this year, the World Meteorological Organisation reports, summing up the year as one marked by extreme weather events. They included floods, severe and persistent droughts, snowstorms, heatwaves, cold waves and the shrinking of the Arctic sea ice to its second-lowest level on record. The year is expected to rank as the 10th-warmest on record for the planet. Temperatures were about one-third of a degree above average despite ...

Sat, 20 Dec 08
Ethanol could be weak link in California energy network
http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/?p=18085
San Francisco Sentinel: What happens if, all of a sudden, you need to change the entire energy infrastructure on which California's transportation system runs? Most Californians probably haven't noticed, but that's exactly what a combination of Midwestern farmers, Big Oil companies, railroad operators, and fuel terminal owners have done over the last decade. I. How to Take Some Oil Out of An Energy System -- Fast In switching out MTBE, a former component of California gasoline, in favor of ...

Sat, 20 Dec 08
Group stresses climate-friendly energy policies
http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/business/article04/indexn2_html?pdate=191208&ptitle=Group%20stresses%20climate-friendly%20energy%20policies
Guardian: COUNTRIES can save money, help poor people and protect the climate by cutting energy subsidies and promoting energy efficiency, according to a new report from the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG), released recently. The report, entitled: "An Evaluation of World Bank Win-win Energy Policy Reforms," examines support for vital energy policies that promise domestic and global benefits. The report comes at a time when the World Bank Group has outlined a new Strategic Framework on ...

Sat, 20 Dec 08
Arctic melt 20 years ahead of climate models
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16307-arctic-melt-20-years-ahead-of-climate-models.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=climate-change
New Scientist: Though scientists tend to agree that summer ice at the North Pole will eventually disappear, they haven't settled on a date. And one group now claims to have evidence that Santa may have to start swimming much sooner than we thought. US researchers claim to have found evidence that accelerated melting has crossed a "tipping point" from which there is no going back. The amount of summer ice at the North Pole has steadily declined since 1979, according to satellite images. ...

Sat, 20 Dec 08
Marine life threatened by massive coral bleaching
http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/what_we_do/climate_change/news/index.cfm?uNewsID=153321
WWF: A widespread and severe coral bleaching episode is predicted to cause immense damage to some of the world's most important marine environments over the next few months. A report from the US Government's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicts severe bleaching for parts of the Coral Sea, which lies adjacent to Australia's Great Barrier Reef, and the Coral Triangle, a 5.4 million square kilometre expanse of ocean in the Indo-Pacific which is considered the centre ...

Sat, 20 Dec 08
Carbon reporting on the rise in India
http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/what_we_do/climate_change/news/index.cfm?uNewsID=153302
WWF: Significantly more of India's leading companies have signed up to voluntarily disclose carbon emissions and climate policies, a second round of reporting has shown. The quality of reporting is up as well as the quantity, project sponsor WWF-India noted at the release of the India Carbon Disclosure Project Report 2008. (CDP-India 2008) "The report demonstrates a positive and proactive attitude among the Indian companies towards addressing the challenges of climate change," said ...

Sat, 20 Dec 08
Mixed reactions as Parliament approves EU climate deal
http://www.euractiv.com/en/climate-change/mixed-reactions-parliament-approves-eu-climate-deal/article-178163?Ref=RSS
EurActiv: MEPs voting in plenary yesterday (17 December) triumphantly endorsed the energy and climate deal agreed by EU leaders at last week's summit, while green lobbies complained that the agreement did not go far enough in fighting global warming. Background: EU leaders wrapped up negotiations on the climate change and energy "package" of legislation during a summit on Brussels on 11-12 December (EurActiv 12/12/08). The deal translates into detail a political commitment by the ...

Sat, 20 Dec 08
New World Post-pandemic Reforestation Helped Start Little Ice Age, Say Scientists
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081218094551.htm
ScienceDaily: The power of viruses is well documented in human history. Swarms of little viral Davids have repeatedly laid low the great Goliaths of human civilization, most famously in the devastating pandemics that swept the New World during European conquest and settlement. In recent years, there has been growing evidence for the hypothesis that the effect of the pandemics in the Americas wasn't confined to killing indigenous peoples. Global climate appears to have been altered as ...

Sat, 20 Dec 08
Heat Waves And Crop Losses Predicted For California
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081215091019.htm
ScienceDaily: Global warming will likely put enormous strain on California's water supply and energy systems and have a devastating impact on certain crops. Stanford researchers predict this outcome based on projections from two different emission scenarios. One assumes a continuing moderate increase in greenhouse gas emissions until 2100; the other assumes emissions would increase until mid-century and then start dropping off. Both of the scenarios indicate there will be more frequent heat waves ...

Sat, 20 Dec 08
EPA Eases Emissions Regulations for New Power Plants
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/18/AR2008121803687.html?wprss=rss_nation
Washington Post: The Environmental Protection Agency ruled yesterday that new power plants are not required to install technology to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, rejecting an argument from environmental groups. The ruling, in a memorandum signed by EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson, turns on a seemingly arcane regulatory question that could govern the future of new fossil fuel-burning buildings and power plants under the Clean Air Act. During the Bush administration, the EPA has rejected ...

Sat, 20 Dec 08
E.P.A. Ruling Could Speed Up Approval of Coal Plants
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=113705
New York Times: Officials weighing federal applications by utilities to build new coal-fired power plants cannot consider their greenhouse gas output, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency ruled late Thursday. Some environmentalists fear the decision will clear the way for the approval of several such plants in the last days of the Bush administration. The ruling, by Stephen L. Johnson, the administrator, responds to a decision made last month by the Environmental Appeals Board, a panel ...

Sat, 20 Dec 08
United States: Proposed gas drilling upstate raises concerns about water supply
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=113704
New York Times: For most of the 30 years that they have lived in the West Village, Buck Moorhead and his family have driven north a few times a month to their other home in the Catskills to enjoy the forests, the wildlife, the peace. And for the last several months, they have attended meetings with scores of other upstate residents who fear that those attractions will be marred by pollution, new roads and plummeting property values if ambitious plans to expand drilling for natural gas proceed. 'We ...

Sat, 20 Dec 08
Advocates for action on global warming chosen as Obama's top science advisers
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/18/AR2008121803640.html
Washington Post: President-elect Barack Obama has selected two of the nation's most prominent scientific advocates for a vigorous response to climate change to serve in his administration's top ranks, according to sources, sending the strongest signal yet that he will reverse Bush administration policies on energy and global warming. The appointments of Harvard University physicist John Holdren as presidential science adviser and Oregon State University marine biologist Jane Lubchenco as head of the ...

Sat, 20 Dec 08
It's still the right time to combat global warming
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/12/17/pope.climate/
CNN: Global warming data is released constantly these days -- and all of it shows that our planet is in peril. We know that pollution taints our air, water and land, and global warming threatens humans and wildlife in all corners of the globe. Just this week, NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that based on records dating back to 1880, 2008 is on track to be one of the 10 warmest years globally, even though it was the coolest year since the turn of ...

Sat, 20 Dec 08
New study: Ethanol is worst form of renewable energy
http://voices.kansascity.com/node/3085
Kansas City Star: A fascinating new study ranks alternative energies from best to worst -- and showing up last is ethanol. It's time to ban all federal subsidies for this wasteful taxpayer investment in Midwest farmers and this inefficient use of corn to power vehicles across America. Meanwhile, the federal government and all state governments that mandate increased uses of ethanol (including Missouri) should rescind those requirements. The new study is by Mark Jacobson, professor of ...

Sat, 20 Dec 08
World's oceans turning acidic faster than expected
http://features.csmonitor.com/environment/2008/12/18/world%E2%80%99s-oceans-turning-acidic-faster-than-expected/
Christian Science Monitor: Parts of the world's oceans appear to be acidifying far faster than scientists have expected. The culprit: rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere pumped into the air from cars, power plants, and industries. The Southern Ocean represents one of the most high-profile examples. There, scientists estimate that the ocean could reach a biologically important tipping point in wintertime by 2030, at least 20 years earlier than scientists projected only three years ago. Among ...

Sat, 20 Dec 08
Canadian firm to take clean coal underground
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2232912/canadian-firm-clean-coal
Business Green: A Canadian company that plans to colve the problem of coal-based carbon emissions by burning it underground has emerged from stealth mode with $8.5m (£5.7m) in funding. Laurus Energy is hoping to use the funds to advance its work on underground coal gasification projects in North America. The company received the series A funding came from Mohr Davidow Ventures. The technology, which it is licensing from Ergo Exergy, involves burning coal in situ underground by pumping air into ...

Sat, 20 Dec 08
Opec humbled as price of crude tumbles
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/dec/18/oil-oilandgascompanies
Guardian: The once-feared Opec was further humbled today when the price of crude fell to its lowest level in four and a half years despite the cartel's decision to slash production by record levels. The price of a barrel of oil fell to $39.19 compared with a high of $147 in the summer, leaving Opec struggling to decide whether it will make deeper cuts or accept defeat. The organisation has announced two output reductions since September, amounting to 4.2m barrels a day, to try to counter ...

Sat, 20 Dec 08
United Kingdom: 'We need to unleash the power of the masses'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/19/climatechange-scienceofclimatechange
Guardian: Ed Miliband is right to call for a popular mobilisation on climate change. There is undoubtedly "an opportunity and a need" for this mass mobilisation in order to provide elected decision makers with a mandate to act decisively. But a Make Poverty History-type campaign is not the right route for climate change. Climate change is a much more diffuse and socially embedded problem than international development. A commitment to action on climate change may mean changing your choice of ...

Sat, 20 Dec 08
Public 'misled' over Heathrow pollution
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article4276798.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=3392178
Times (UK): The government's adviser on air quality has warned that ministers are 'pulling the wool' over the public's eyes to justify building a third runway at Heathrow. Mike Pilling, who chairs the government's expert group on air quality, said the public were being misled over claims that Heathrow's expansion would not cause unlawful and dangerous levels of pollution. His comments came as it emerged that Ruth Kelly, the transport secretary, has been forced by the scale of the public ...

Sat, 20 Dec 08
Ocean Acidification Could Have Broad Effects On Marine Ecosystems
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081217190334.htm
ScienceDaily: Concern about increasing ocean acidification has often focused on its potential effects on coral reefs, but broader disruptions of biological processes in the oceans may be more significant, according to Donald Potts, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and an expert in coral reef ecology and marine biodiversity. Potts will give an invited talk on "Geobiological Responses to Ocean Acidification" at the Fall Meeting of the ...

Sat, 20 Dec 08
Oil Demand Slowing, Says Energy Agency
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/12/17/business/main4674632.shtml?source=RSSattr=U.S._4674632
Associated Press: U.S. oil consumption is expected to level off with virtually no growth between now and 2030 because of increases in energy efficiency, greater use of renewable fuels and an expected rebound in oil prices, the government said Wednesday. The Energy Information Administration said overall energy use will continue to increase but at a slower rate than predicted only a year ago. The agency projected a 3 percent annual increase of renewable energy use, including solar, wind and ...

Sat, 20 Dec 08
Australia: Indigenous health linked to climate change fight
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/12/18/2449996.htm
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: A new report by the Desert Knowledge Co-operative Research Centre says pastoralists and Aboriginal people have a key role to play in helping reduce the effects of climate change. One of its authors, Alice Springs-based economist David Campbell, says closing the gap in Indigenous health is critical, particularly in desert regions where the effects of climate change are likely to be felt first. He says keeping people in desert regions healthy will mean they are better equipped to ...

Sat, 20 Dec 08
New ban imposed on regulating global warming gases
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2008/12/18/new_ban_imposed_on_regulating_global_warming_gases/?rss_id=Boston.com+--+Latest+news
Associated Press: The Bush administration is trying to make sure in its final days that federal air pollution regulations will not be used to control the gases blamed for global warming. In a memorandum sent Thursday, outgoing Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen Johnson sets an agency-wide policy prohibiting controls on carbon dioxide emissions from being included in air pollution permits for coal-fired power plants and other facilities. The decision could give the agency a ...

Sat, 20 Dec 08
European car makers demand cash for hitting CO2 targets
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2232894/european-car-makers-demand-cash
Business Green: European car companies are lobbying governments for financial support to meet new CO2 emissions legislation laid down this week. After months of being pressured by car makers to water down CO2 targets, the European Parliament announced that new car fleets will have to cut emissions to 120g CO2/km by 2015 from an average of 160g CO2/km today. Car makers say they need financial support from governments to help them with the combination of the CO2 regulations and an economic ...

Sat, 20 Dec 08
Clean tech investment sees record first three quarters
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2232893/clean-tech-investment-sees
Business Green: Venture capital investment in the world's largest clean tech markets almost doubled during the first three quarters of the year, according to the latest research from Ernst & Young and DowJones Venture Source. The study found that venture capital investment in clean tech firms in the US, Europe, China and Israel during the first three quarters climbed 82 per cent year on year to a record $4.6bn (£3bn). Gil Forer, Ernst & Young's global director of clean tech, IPO and ...

Sat, 20 Dec 08
Information key to climate change adaptation, say small farmers
http://www.scidev.net/en/agriculture-and-environment/information-key-to-climate-change-adaptation-say-s.html?utm_source=link&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=en_agricultureandenvironment
SciDev.Net: One of the first studies to explore what persuades small farmers to adapt to climate change has found that access to information and technical institutions are the most important factors. A survey of 1,000 Ethiopian cereal crop farmers, carried out by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in the Nile River basin, Ethiopia, found that poor access to technology and weak informal networks are also hampering farmers' ability to adapt. The results were presented ...

Fri, 19 Dec 08
Olympic Pollution Controls In Beijing China Had Big Impact On Air Pollution Levels
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081216131016.htm
ScienceDaily:

Fri, 19 Dec 08
United Kingdom: Tidal energy system on full power
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/7790494.stm
BBC: A tidal turbine near the mouth of Strangford Lough has begun producing electricity at full capacity for the first time. The SeaGen system now generates 1.2MW, the highest level of power produced by a tidal stream system anywhere in the world. The system works like an "underwater windmill" but with rotors driven by tidal currents rather than the wind. It has been undergoing commissioning trials since May. SeaGen will now move towards full-operating mode for periods ...

Fri, 19 Dec 08
No Quick, Easy Technological Fix For Climate Change
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1613076/no_quick_easy_technological_fix_for_climate_change/index.html?source=r_science
redOrbit: Global warming, some have argued, can be reversed with a large-scale "geoengineering" fix, such as having a giant blimp spray liquefied sulfur dioxide in the stratosphere or building tens of millions of chemical filter systems in the atmosphere to filter out carbon dioxide. But Richard Turco, a professor in the UCLA Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences and a member and founding director of UCLA's Institute of the Environment, sees no evidence that such technological ...

Fri, 19 Dec 08
Ethiopians switched on by free, low-energy light bulbs
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7790686.stm
BBC: Ethiopians are rushing to get their hands on free energy-saving light bulbs which are being handed out by a utility to stop power cuts. Four million low-energy light bulbs are being given away in exchange for old-style incandescent ones by the Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation. Nearly all Ethiopia's electricity comes from hydro-power. But without rain the dams cannot fill and the lights go out. The new bulbs will cut peoples' power bills and are supposed to last ...

Fri, 19 Dec 08
Cap and Dividend, Not Trade: Making Polluters Pay
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=cap-and-divident-not-trade
Scientific American: If you tried to dump harmful waste on the property next door, your neighbor would either stop you or require you to pay a fee. But if you dump carbon dioxide into the air, no one charges you a penny because no one, as yet, owns the air. This free ride results in what economists call a market failure. The actual costs of polluting the atmosphere are enormous, but polluters don't pay them. Instead future generations are stuck with the tab. A carbon tax, or a carbon cap-and-trade system, ...

Fri, 19 Dec 08
Coal Poses Climate Catastrophe as "Peak Oil" Approaches
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=coal-poses-climate-catastrophe-after-peak-oil
Scientific American: As the world runs out of oil, the prospect of increased use of coal is bade news for the climate. When will oil production peak and begin to decline? Scientists, engineers and economists have debated the point for years, on the assumption that emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere will decline when less oil is burned. Not so, says Ken Caldeira, a climate scientist with the Carnegie Institution in Stanford, Calif. That assumes society switches to low-carbon fuel. But ...

Fri, 19 Dec 08
Gotcha'ed, by George
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/18/george-monbiot-shaun-spiers
Guardian: I've been Monbioted. It is flattering, if rather ludicrous, to be listed among "the top decision-makers who shape the global environment", but I am aware that George Monbiot's interview with me has the potential to be used for years in media training courses as a lesson in how not to handle a hostile interview. As your first gleeful comment on the website has it, "watch Shaun Spiers squirm". Merry Christmas to Bluecloud and the rest of George's fan club. The basis of George's argument ...

Fri, 19 Dec 08
South Africa: Building Regional Water Management
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45166
Inter Press Service: As southern Africa braces for the negative effects of climate change, calls for integrated water resources management become more strident. The Southern African Development Community is working to build regional capability, address weaknesses in data collection and ultimately coordinate management of shared resources to benefit citizens throughout the region. IPS: Widespread poverty is among the challenges facing Southern Africa. What role can water play in poverty eradication ...

Fri, 19 Dec 08
United Kingdom: Campaigners fear clampdown on direct action protests
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/3832564/Campaigners-fear-clampdown-on-direct-action-protests.html
Telegraph: Environmental groups have successfully used a "lawful excuse" in a number of high profile cases recently by arguing the protests are to prevent greater harm to the public in the future. In the most recent case six Greenpeace protesters were acquitted at of causing criminal damage to the Kingsnorth coal-fired power station in Kent after arguing that the protest was intended to prevent greater damage to property from global warming. However the six now face having their case ...

Fri, 19 Dec 08
Scientists Find Increased Methane Levels In Arctic Ocean
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081217203407.htm
ScienceDaily: A team led by International Arctic Research Center scientist Igor Semiletov has found data to suggest that the carbon pool beneath the Arctic Ocean is leaking. The results of more than 1,000 measurements of dissolved methane in the surface water from the East Siberian Arctic Shelf this summer as part of the International Siberian Shelf Study show an increased level of methane in the area. Geophysical measurements showed methane bubbles coming out of chimneys on the ...

Fri, 19 Dec 08
Environmentalists wary of Obama's choice for Interior Dept
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=113628
New York Times: President-elect Barack Obama`s choice to lead the Interior Department, Senator Ken Salazar of Colorado, will inherit an agency demoralized by years of scandal, political interference and mismanagement. He must deal with the sharp tension between those who seek to exploit public lands for energy, minerals and recreation and those who want to preserve the lands. He will be expected to restore scientific integrity to a department where it has repeatedly been compromised. He will be ...

Fri, 19 Dec 08
Australia: Scientists predict widespread coral destruction
http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=28&ContentID=113910
AAP: Northern parts of the Great Barrier Reef are likely to suffer severe coral bleaching this summer, the conservation group WWF Australia warns. A report from the US government's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecasts severe bleaching for parts of the Coral Sea, the Coral Triangle and the reef, WWF said. Coral bleaching is a process in which coral loses its colour and can't exist in balance with its symbiotic algae, which causes coral to deteriorate and/or algae ...

Fri, 19 Dec 08
Australia: Rudd has surrendered on carbon, says climate chief
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24816553-11949,00.html
Australian: SOUTH Africa has quickly rejected the Australian Government's climate change package as an inadequate "opening bid", warning that unless it is strengthened developing countries will refuse to sign a global climate package. South Africa has emerged as one of the most influential developing nations in climate negotiations and is widely seen as a potential bridge between rich and poor nations. Environment Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk said in London yesterday that the Rudd ...

Fri, 19 Dec 08
India: New club to save mother Earth
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1081218/jsp/jharkhand/story_10268717.jsp
Telegraph: There have been enough talks on global warming, pollution, deforestation, ozone layer depletion, change of weather, -- now its time to put them into practice. Eco Task Force, the concept that was born in 1981, finally saw the light of the day today when teachers and students got together at Centre For Excellence. At the launch, about 90 principals and teachers (eco club co-ordinators) from 35 schools were present. The club would work on various environment issues and create ...

Fri, 19 Dec 08
United Kingdom: Prince Charles warns environmental threat even more alarming than recession
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/theroyalfamily/3813910/Prince-Charles-warns-environmental-threat-even-more-alarming-than-recession.html
Telegraph: In an address to some of Britain's business leaders he said the principal factors which caused the collapse in the international banking system also lie at the heart of the "climate crunch". He said: "There are a number of parallels that can be drawn between the current financial crisis and the looming, and even more alarming, environmental crisis." He cited, overconsumption, indebtedness, overconfidence in market and regulatory systems and short-termism, as features that lay ...

Fri, 19 Dec 08
Maldives plans against becoming Atlantis
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/waikatotimes/4796479a6413.html
Reuters: The Maldives new president said his eye-catching plan to buy land to relocate his low-lying archipelago nation when the seas rise was exaggerated by the media, but highlighted the need to plan for climate change. Mohamed Nasheed, a former democratic activist who was jailed repeatedly by former president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, made history in October when he defeated the three-decade incumbent in the Indian Ocean nation's first-ever multi-party elections. Shortly after his ...

Fri, 19 Dec 08
Clouds on the horizon for solar power industry
http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,597195,00.html
Spiegel: As oil prices have plunged, solar has become less cost-competitive. At the same time, the credit squeeze has made it harder to finance solar projects. If the recent five-year boom in solar energy marked the birth of a global industry, the next half-decade should be its coming of age. But like most adolescents, solar is experiencing growing pains. The economic crisis has weakened demand for everything from polysilicon to rooftop panels, just as manufacturers have spent billions ...

Fri, 19 Dec 08
Study lists global-warming risks to Ohio
http://www.ohio.com/news/36363404.html
Akron Beacon Journal: Global warming poses a big threat to Ohio's health, environment and economy. That assessment came in a report released Wednesday by the statewide eco-group Environment Ohio at news conferences in Cleveland, Columbus, Toledo and Cincinnati. ''It's not just about polar bears and Arctic ice caps anymore,'' said Amy Gomberg, program director of Environment Ohio. ''Climate change poses threats to Ohio's environment that could have a negative impact on our economy as ...

Fri, 19 Dec 08
Human-induced climate change began thousands of years ago
http://www.newspostonline.com/sci-tech/human-induced-climate-change-began-thousands-of-years-ago-2008121820003
Asian News International: New evidence has emerged that suggests human-induced climate change began not 200 years ago, but thousands of years ago with the onset of large-scale agriculture in Asia and extensive deforestation in Europe. The prevalent view is that the invention of the steam engine and the advent of the coal-fueled industrial age 200 years ago marked the beginning of human influence on global climate. But now, using powerful simulations on the world`s most advanced computer climate models, ...

Fri, 19 Dec 08
Cool spell, but the earth's climate is warming
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24815877-662,00.html
Herald Sun: WE may be wondering where the sun is this December, but it has been our 15th-hottest year on record, according to the world's peak weather body. The World Meteorological Organisation yesterday released its results for the year, which showed that Australia was heading for an average temperature of 22.18C for the year, 0.37C warmer than average. Globally, we are experiencing our 10th-hottest year on record and have an average temperature of 14.31C, which is 0.31C above ...

Fri, 19 Dec 08
Carbon hedge fund to launch in early 2009
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4BH22P20081218?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: London-based CF Partners will launch early next year a new 50 million euro ($70.06 million) hedge fund aiming to profit from volatility in carbon markets. The European Union's emissions trading scheme may be a surer investment following final EU endorsement on Wednesday of climate goals reaching out to 2020, and recent volatility in commodities markets has opened shorting opportunities. "To date in the carbon space the majority of the players from a fund point of view have been ...

Fri, 19 Dec 08
Renewable Energy Doing Well In Spain, Portugal
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98435458&ft=1&f=1025
National Public Radio: One industry in Spain and Portugal seems immune to the global recession: renewable energy. With hardly any fossil fuel resources, both countries have invested heavily in alternatives in the past decade. The Iberian peninsula is home to some of the world's biggest renewable energy companies – and some are conquering the U.S. market.

Fri, 19 Dec 08
United Kingdom: Government outlines zero carbon home definition
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2232847/government-outlines-zero-carbon
Business Green: The government yesterday launched its long-awaited consultation on the proposed legislation governing its zero-carbon homes strategy, outlining the standards builders will have to meet to achieve the target of ensuring all new homes qualify as zero carbon by 2016. The proposals secured a cautious welcome from the UK Green Building Council (GBC), which said that they would give construction firms the regulatory certainty they had been looking for. However, it also warned that some of ...

Fri, 19 Dec 08
Nasa set to launch 'CO2 hunter'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7769619.stm
BBC: The US space agency is set to launch a satellite that can map in detail where carbon dioxide is in the atmosphere. Nasa's Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) will pinpoint the key locations on the Earth's surface where CO2 is being emitted and absorbed. CO2 from human activities is thought to be driving climate changes, but important facts about its movement through the atmosphere remain elusive. The agency believes the technology on OCO can end some of the ...

Fri, 19 Dec 08
United Kingdom: Supermarkets cut back on handing out carrier bags by half
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/18/plasticbags-waste
Guardian: Seven major supermarkets today reached an agreement with the government to halve by spring 2009 the number of single-use carrier bags being handed out in stores around the UK. The deal, between the British Retail Consortium and the Department for Food, Environment and Rural Affairs, will see 5m fewer bags being handed out each year -- enough to fill 60 Olympic-sized swimming pools, the government has estimated. Asda, the Co-op, Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury's, Somerfield, ...

Fri, 19 Dec 08
Climate outcome 'hangs on coal'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7789249.stm
BBC: If growth in carbon dioxide emissions is to be constrained and even reversed then the world cannot afford a coal renaissance, scientists have said. Some commentators have argued that falling reserves of oil and gas will automatically limit CO2's rise. But at an American Geophysical Union meeting, researchers said reserves of coal dwarfed those of other fuels. It was even possible oil's demise could trigger an acceleration in emissions through more coal use, they ...

Fri, 19 Dec 08
Why emotional literacy holds the key to green marketing success
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/comment/2232822/why-emotional-literacy-holds
Business Green: Significant progress has been made in recent years in the way that businesses approach their sustainability programmes. Three years ago only 50 per cent of the top 250 companies around the world included sustainability in their business reporting. This is now up to 80 per cent and shows that companies are increasingly integrating environmental responsibilities into core business plans. This trend has also been reflected in the way that environmental credentials are communicated. Many ...

Fri, 19 Dec 08
U.S. will fail to meet biofuels mandate: EIA
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4BG4EQ20081217?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: The United States will fall well short of biofuels mandates on the uncertain development of next-generation fuels made from grasses and wood chips, the government's top energy forecasting agency said on Wednesday. "The key risk factor is rate of development of cellulosic biofuels technology," Howard Gruenspecht, the Energy Information Administration's acting head, said at press conference in Washington introducing the agency's annual energy forecast. "Near term growth of cellulosic ...

Fri, 19 Dec 08
Exxon to pay about $6.1 mln for EPA violations
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4BG71F20081217?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Exxon Mobil will pay nearly $6.1 million in civil penalties for violations of a court-approved Clean Air Act agreement, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Justice Department said on Wednesday. The EPA said Exxon failed to monitor the sulfur content in some fuel gas streams at four refineries, breaching a 2005 settlement between the oil company and federal regulators. Under the original agreement, Exxon was already required to pay a $7.7 million civil penalty, $6.7 ...

Fri, 19 Dec 08
Glut of hot years a coincidence? Fat chance
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16292-glut-of-hot-years-a-coincidence-fat-chance.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=climate-change
New Scientist: Thirteen of the hottest years since records of global temperatures began in 1880 have clustered in the last 17 years. It is tempting -- and it sure makes good headlines -- to blame it on climate change. But does science support such a claim? According to new statistical research, it does. The recent glut of unusually hot years is incredibly unlikely to happen in a stable climate. Eduardo Zorita of Germany's Institute for Coastal Research and colleagues calculated the ...

Fri, 19 Dec 08
Meet the plane stoppers
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article5337653.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=3392178
Times (UK): At a community centre in west London an unlikely new front in the battle against global warming is forming over milky tea and homemade cakes. A group of 50 middle-aged housewives and retired professional women have assembled in a wooden hall in Hounslow decorated with bunches of flowers and photographs of local events. Biscuit tins are passed around and chocolate cake is shared, but the talk is subversive. Bold plans are being hatched. Maggie Thorburn, Jean Bland and more than ...

Fri, 19 Dec 08
This year enters record books for crazy climate
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,24813004-953,00.html
Courier-Mail: THE world has had its coolest year of this millennium in 2008 but global warming sceptics should put the champagne on a dwindling supply of ice. Despite a drop in the mercury, 2008 still remained in the top 10 hottest years on record since global data keeping began in 1850. There is also less ice on the planet than ever before. In 2008, the planet was a third of a degree hotter than average; a trend, say experts from the World Meteorological Organisation, that is ...

Thu, 18 Dec 08
Latest Obama environment picks raise eyebrows
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/17/usa-barackobama
Guardian: Environmental groups have given a guarded response to Barack Obama's newest cabinet picks, just days after hailing his assembly of the "green dream team". Obama rolled out the latest additions to his team at a press conference in Chicago, choosing the Colorado Senator, Ken Salazar, as his secretary of the interior and the former Iowa governor, Tom Vilsack, for agriculture. Obama said with Salazar that the interior department would be led by a man with a more "pro-active vision" ...

Thu, 18 Dec 08
United Kingdom: Kelp-fuel cars on the horizon in Scotland
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/17/biofuels-scotland
Guardian: Motorists may soon be driving cars powered by kelp and algae after scientists in Scotland and Ireland won European funding today for a new research project to create "mari-fuels" - the marine equivalent to plant-based biofuels. Marine scientists based in Oban north of Glasgow are to lead a 6m (£5m) research programme which will investigate ways of converting seaweeds and plant algae into fuel as an alternative to the increasingly controversial use of food crops to produce bio-fuels. ...

Thu, 18 Dec 08
Britain to get £7m flood forecast centre
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/17/flooding-greenpolitics
Guardian: A flood forecast centre is to be set up as part of the government's response to last summer's devastating floods, the environment secretary Hilary Benn has announced. The £7.7m centre, to be run by the Met Office and Environment Agency, will take responsibility for warning people and businesses, as well as helping emergency services prepare and respond. Benn also announced councils will be responsible for assessing and managing local flood risk, as part of the government's ...

Thu, 18 Dec 08
U.S. carbon output slower than thought by 2030: EIA
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4BG4HW20081217?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: U.S. energy-related emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide by 2030 will be 9.4 percent less than forecast last year as renewable energy develops and prices cut demand, the Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday. Energy-related carbon dioxide emissions will hit 6.410 billion metric tons in 2030, the EIA said in its Annual Energy Outlook 2009. In its 2008 outlook, the EIA had forecast the emissions to hit 6.851 billion metric tons by 2030. "Efficiency ...

Thu, 18 Dec 08
A green scorecard for stimulating the economy
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/17/network-usa
Guardian: President-elect Barack Obama has spent two years talking about how badly this country needs change, particularly on green issues. Now he has a chance to deliver it. But so far, when it comes to his economic stimulus package, the rush to get quick results seems to be pushing the environment to the background and sending the process down a familiar path, as lobbyists and contractors jostle for handouts in another round of what one commentator recently dubbed "K Street ...

Thu, 18 Dec 08
'From EU, 4 Percent Less Reduction Till 2020'
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45147
Inter Press Service: Greenhouse gas emissions from the European Union may fall by as little as four percent between now and 2020 as a result of a new decision by the bloc's law-makers. In a Dec. 17 vote, members of the European Parliament (MEPs) approved the broad thrust of a package of measures to address climate change agreed by the EU's governments last week. Officially, this commits the Union's 27 countries to reducing its emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other gases that trigger climate ...

Thu, 18 Dec 08
Global Warming Impacts On U.S. Coming Sooner Than Expected
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081216201404.htm
ScienceDaily: A report released at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union on December 16 provides new insights on the potential for abrupt climate change and the effects it could have on the United States, identifying key concerns that include faster-than-expected loss of sea ice, rising sea levels and a possibly permanent state of drought in the American Southwest. The analysis is one of 21 of its type developed by a number of academic and government agency researchers for the U.S. ...

Thu, 18 Dec 08
Ecosystem Changes In Temperate Lakes Linked To Climate Warming
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081216133442.htm
ScienceDaily: Unparalleled warming over the last few decades has triggered widespread ecosystem changes in many temperate North American and Western European lakes, say researchers at Queen's University and the Ontario Ministry of the Environment. The team reports that striking changes are now occurring in many temperate lakes similar to those previously observed in the rapidly warming Arctic, although typically many decades later. The Arctic has long been considered a "bellwether" of what will ...

Thu, 18 Dec 08
Canada: Rising sea levels, earthquakes to hit B.C., says study
http://www.thestarphoenix.com/Rising%20levels%20earthquakes%20says%20study/1083823/story.html
Canwest News Service: With global warming raising sea levels worldwide, parts of B.C. may be kept high and dry by the same geological forces that bringing earthquakes to the province, a government report says. Then again, the safety zones, where those earth-moving tectonic shifts will keep pushing the land higher out of the water, don't extend much past the west coast of Vancouver Island. Meanwhile, other geological forces at work in the Fraser River Delta of the Lower Mainland will push the land ...

Thu, 18 Dec 08
Climate change: 2008 is world's 10th hottest year
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24813289-11949,00.html
Australian: THE year 2008 is set to be the 10th warmest on record for the globe, with a temperature 0.31°C above average. And Australia is on track for its 15th warmest year on record, with a temperature 0.37°C above average, according to the World Meteorological Organisation. Senior Climatologist with the Bureau of Meteorology, Andrew Watkins, said 2008 was a La Nina year, in which the Pacific Ocean cools and temperatures tend to be lower across Australia. "In spite of that La Nina ...

Thu, 18 Dec 08
Floods and drought mark Australia's climate: World Meteorological Organisation
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24812993-11949,00.html
AAP: PARTS of Australia endured their driest and hottest year on record as 2008 goes down as the planet's 10th warmest year. The World Meteorological Organisation has released its annual statement on the global climate. The Geneva-based world weather body said climate extremes - including floods, persistent droughts, snow storms and heatwaves - were recorded in many parts of the world. While Arctic Sea ice dropped to its second-lowest level since satellite measurements began ...

Thu, 18 Dec 08
New Hampshire joins final test of greenhouse gas cap-trade system
http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081217/BUSINESS/312179961/-1/ARTSANDLIVING
Nashua Telegraph: If it's true that the country tends to follow New Hampshire's lead – which is the whole idea of our presidential primary, after all – then today's auction of the right to send 1.2 million tons of carbon into the air has extra significance. New Hampshire is participating for the first time in the 10-state Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI, or "reggie"), the hemisphere's first cap-and-trade system designed to curtail the gas that most contributes to global warming. The ...

Thu, 18 Dec 08
China: Energy efficient home, easy to maintain and no mortgage
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/226/story/57952.html
McClatchy Newspapers: Like millions of other Chinese, Li Zhanjun lives in a dwelling that is fireproof, noise proof, warm in winter, cool in summer and the epitome of an eco-friendly design. Moreover, it's cheap. Li lives in a cave. About 20 million Chinese still reside in caves and dirt-covered dwellings on the Loess Plateau that straddles the middle and upper reaches of the Yellow River in China's northwest. Some of the caves have been passed down for generations, with hard-packed earthen ...

Thu, 18 Dec 08
NASA reports 2008 is ninth warmest year since 1880
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/200/story/57966.html
McClatchy Newspapers: The year 2008 was the ninth warmest year since instrumental temperature measurements began in 1880, and all of the nine warmest years have occurred in the past 11 years, NASA reported on Tuesday. The new data from NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and other government agencies on Tuesday adds to the evidence scientists have been observing about a warming Earth as fossil fuel burning emits heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere. NASA also reported that the January to ...

Thu, 18 Dec 08
Australia: Industry revolt on green plan as miners sacked
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24811768-11949,00.html
Australian: HEAVY industry is demanding further concessions in the Rudd Government's modest emissions trading scheme, saying it will still cost jobs, stymie investment and exacerbate the effects of the economic downturn. Conservationists have panned the scheme for pandering to "dirty" industry, saying it will not help the environment and offers overly generous compensation that transfers $2.24 billion from taxpayers to major polluters in 2010, potentially rising to $12.25billion in ...

Thu, 18 Dec 08
Electronics firms slow on climate change: Greenpeace
http://www.terradaily.com/2007/081216071907.elrnnlq8.html
Agence France-Presse: Electronics manufacturers are finally taking climate change seriously but have been slow on the uptake, environmentalists said Tuesday. Companies have been going green by reducing power consumption and the toxic substances in their products but have been "slow to get serious about climate change", Greenpeace campaigner Beau Baconguis said. Her comments followed the launch of the group's Guide to Greener Electronics, now in its 10th edition. "While there have been some ...

Thu, 18 Dec 08
Last decade is the warmest on record, scientists say
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/3794475/Last-decade-is-the-warmest-on-record-scientists-say.html
Telegraph: In parts of the region air temperatures were 7C higher than normal for the season Photo: AP Global warming has pushed the world's temperature up by more than 1.26F (0.7C), said the Met Office, as they unveiled figures that show the dramatic effect human influence has had on the Earth's climate. They predict that this year will be the tenth warmest worldwide since records began in 1850, with a global mean temperature of 58F (14.3C). This would have been "exceptionally ...

Thu, 18 Dec 08
New Jersey to join carbon auction as part of regional climate group
http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/184/story/348300.html
Press of Atlantic City: In an attempt to slow down climate change, New Jersey officials and energy companies are gearing up for the country's second Internet auction that will charge power plants money to compensate for carbon dioxide pollution. The auction is organized by the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI (pronounced "Reggie"), a group of 10 states from Maine to Maryland that promises to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 10 percent by 2018. In New Jersey, the law will affect 47 fossil-fuel power ...

Thu, 18 Dec 08
Energy secretary nominee sees coal as 'nightmare'
http://wvgazette.com/News/200812160723
Charleston Gazette: President-elect Barack Obama's pick for U.S. energy secretary isn't sold on the idea that technology to capture greenhouse emissions and pump them underground will save the coal industry. Watch Chu's speech, the coal section is 28 minutes in. Click here. Carbon capture and storage research is still in its early stages, said Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist announced by Obama this week as his nominee to run the U.S. Department of Energy. Real-world projects to pump millions ...

Thu, 18 Dec 08
Could text messages improve water quality?
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2232758/text-messages-helping-improve
Business Green: As the number of victims from Zimbabwe's cholera outbreak reaches 1,000, the disaster highlights the need for small-scale, low-cost water projects. Now a new non-profit project called Avko is aiming to help accelerate the deployment of water quality initiatives using a system based on the humble mobile phone. The organisation, which describes itself as an "open source" initiative, offers a service that seeks to serve as a "Wikipedia, eBay and YouTube for water and sanitation ...

Thu, 18 Dec 08
Study warns UN sea rise estimates are too conservative
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2232768/study-warns-current-sea-rise
Business Green: The risk presented by rising sea levels is likely to be far worse than official UN projections, according to a major new study from the US Geological Survey on the threats presented by "abrupt" climate change. The report claims that while predictions on sea level changes arising from climate change are predictions are "highly uncertain due to shortcomings in existing climate models" the latest evidence suggests rises will "substantially exceed" UN estimates and could reach one and a ...

Thu, 18 Dec 08
From milk bottles to laptop packaging - Dell unveils green packaging plan
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2232772/milk-bottles-laptop-packaging
Business Green: Dell has continued in its quest to establish itself as the self-proclaimed "greenest technology company on the planet", announcing a wide ranging packaging reduction strategy designed to eliminate about 20 million pounds of packaging materials and cut costs by more than $8m (£5m). Under the new strategy, the company announced what it has claimed are the industry's first targets for cutting packaging for PCs and laptops, committing to reduce packaging levels by 10 per cent worldwide by ...

Thu, 18 Dec 08
EU lawmakers approve deal to fight climate change
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4BG2SH20081217?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: The European Union finalized plans for its battle against global warming on Wednesday, seeking to lead the way toward a broad alliance including other big polluters like China and the United States. The European Parliament approved a cut in carbon dioxide emissions to 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, heeding warnings of severe weather, famine and drought as the atmosphere heats up. The deal takes on a greater importance coming just before Barack Obama assumes the U.S. ...

Thu, 18 Dec 08
OPEC moves to shore up oil prices
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2232775/opec-moves-shore-oil-prices
Business Green: Businesses hoping that the recession may at least result in a prolonged period of low oil prices look set to be disappointed today by the news that OPEC is prepared to cut oil production by a record two million barrels a day. The price of oil rose by more than a dollar to more than $45 (£29) a barrel this morning as OPEC oil ministers gathered for a meeting in Algeria amid reports they are set on cutting supplies as part of a concerted effort to halt the slide that has seen oil prices ...

Thu, 18 Dec 08
Euro MPs seal major climate deal
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/7787504.stm
BBC: The European Parliament has backed a package of measures to combat global warming - seen as a key EU initiative. The plan, agreed by EU leaders last week, sets out how the 27 member states will cut carbon emissions by 20% by 2020, compared with 1990 levels. With the backing of MEPs, the package - hailed by French President Nicolas Sarkozy as "historic" - becomes law. But critics say concessions made to some industrial sectors will lessen the package's long-term ...

Thu, 18 Dec 08
Norway: TH!NK halts production and warns of lay-offs
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2232780/th-nk-halts-production-warns
Business Green: Norwegian electric car maker TH!NK has halted production due to financial difficulties. The company has cited the global financial crisis as the cause of its troubles, and is now seeking fresh capital and warning that it may make staff redundant. "We are in a very serious situation," chief executive Richard Canny told a news conference this week. Asked about risk of bankrupty, he told Reuters: "We would not have take these actions if it was not serious. We need to intensify efforts to ...

Thu, 18 Dec 08
United Kingdom: Energy firms join forces on offshore wind safety standards
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2232791/energy-firms-join-forces
Business Green: Risk management firm DNV is leading a push for fresh safety standards on offshore wind farms. The new standards are being discussed in partnership with energy companies including SatoilHydro, Vattenfall, Dong Energy, E.ON and Energinet, and a technical review group is also working with the UK Health and Safety Executive and the Danish Energy Authority. DNV said in a statement: "Due to the rapid wind farm developments, DNV together with industry partners and authorities is now ...

Thu, 18 Dec 08
EU Parliament approves poisoned climate deal
http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/what_we_do/climate_change/news/index.cfm?uNewsID=153101
WWF: Today the European Parliament accepted the compromise agreement on climate change hammered out last week by EU Heads of State and Government. The deal is said to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2020 compared to 1990. WWF says that, far from being an example for the world, the package is poisoned by the large amount of carbon credits allowed from non-European countries instead of focusing on actions within Europe. "This is not quite the third industrial revolution ...

Thu, 18 Dec 08
Shame on EU for poor climate deal
http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/what_we_do/climate_change/news/index.cfm?uNewsID=152824
WWF: Today's agreement by EU leaders on the most contentious aspects of the EU's planned response to climate change, known as the climate and energy package, has been condemned as a failure by Climate Action Network Europe, Friends of the Earth Europe, Greenpeace, Oxfam and WWF. Green and development groups described today's deal on the Effort Sharing law (which sets national emission targets for sectors not included in the EU's emissions trading) as inconsistent with the EU's ...

Thu, 18 Dec 08
European Council about to betray EU climate policy
http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/what_we_do/climate_change/news/index.cfm?uNewsID=152782
WWF: European leaders have gathered for a summit that should give a green light to a package of measures to tackle climate change. While negotiations between delegations continue behind closed doors, the draft compromise presented by the EU Presidency looks abysmal. If the EU climate package goes through like that, it means that Europe will reduce its own greenhouses gas emissions significantly less than the proclaimed 20% target by 2020. The EU has set a target of 20% emissions ...

Thu, 18 Dec 08
Cosmic Rays Do Not Explain Global Warming
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081217075138.htm
ScienceDaily: A new study supports earlier findings by stating that changes in cosmic rays most likely do not contribute to climate change. It is sometimes claimed that changes in radiation from space, so-called galactic cosmic rays, can be one of the causes of global warming. A new study, investigating the effect of cosmic rays on clouds, concludes that the likelihood of this is very small. A group of researchers from the University of Oslo, Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU), CICERO ...

Thu, 18 Dec 08
Costa Rica Promotes Greener Air Travel
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45145
Inter Press Service: MENT: Costa Rica Promotes Greener Air Travel Homepage Latest News Search Languages Contact Us About Us Wednesday, December 17, 2008 16:45 GMT IPS Direct to Your Inbox! <NOBR></NOBR> - Global Affairs - Africa - Asia-Pacific Afghanistan Iran - Caribbean Haiti - Europe Union in Diversity - Latin America - Mideast & Mediterranean Iraq Israel/Palestine - North America Neo-Cons Bush at War - Development MDGs City Voices Corruption - Civil Society - Globalisation - Environment ...

Thu, 18 Dec 08
Corn pests to thrive as global climate warms: study
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4BG45X20081217?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Populations of insects that feed on corn and other crops in the United States may flourish and expand to new territory as global climate change brings warmer summers and milder winters in the decades ahead, according to a new study. More frequent or more severe pest infestations may cut crop yields and drive up the price of corn, used for food and animal feed and to produce renewable fuels. "Our projections showed all of the species studied spreading into agricultural areas ...

Thu, 18 Dec 08
United Kingdom: Recession threatens zero carbon homes, say campaigners
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/17/ethicalliving-housingmarket
Guardian: The government's zero carbon homes initiative is in danger of being "devalued" say campaigners who have previously lauded the scheme as pioneering. They say the definition of zero carbon risks being diluted in the face of the worst economic conditions for housebuilding since the 1920s. However, launching a government consultation on the definition of zero carbon today the housing minister Margaret Beckett said despite the economic crisis she was "absolutely committed to our 2016 ...

Thu, 18 Dec 08
Changes 'amplify Arctic warming'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7786910.stm
BBC: Scientists say they now have unambiguous evidence that the warming in the Arctic is accelerating. Computer models have long predicted that decreasing sea ice should amplify temperature changes in the northern polar region. Julienne Stroeve, from the US National Snow and Ice Data Center, told a meeting of the American Geophysical Union that this process was under way. Arctic ice cover in summer has seen rapid retreat in recent years. The minimum extents reached in ...

Thu, 18 Dec 08
Global methane levels move upward again
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2008/12/16/2447483.htm?site=science&topic=latest
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Methane levels in the atmosphere have started to rise after almost eight years of near-zero growth, an international study says. And the increase may lead to an acceleration of global warming, the scientists behind the study warn. Dr Paul Fraser of the CSIRO, who co-authored the study that appears in Geophysical Research Letters, says samples taken from 12 stations across a global network showed a trend upwards in methane levels. "After seven years [of zero growth] ...

Thu, 18 Dec 08
EU giant isolated as Merkel puts Germany first
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/12/merkel-germany-european-union-summit
Guardian: Angela Merkel arrived in Brussels last night a lonely figure. For years, German chancellors have been consensual participants at EU summits, drawing on Germany's formidable status as the paymaster of Europe and the powerhouse of its economy. Not any more. The pastor's daughter from east Germany suddenly finds herself isolated on the biggest issues of the times - economic gloom and global warming. She is out of step with her partners on Nato expansion and Afghanistan. She disagrees ...

Thu, 18 Dec 08
Carbon May Rise to $400 a Ton Unless Spending Surges, OECD Says
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601072&sid=amJ9zaczXaPE
Bloomberg: Carbon permits will rise more than 18-fold to $400 a metric ton by 2050 unless spending on new technologies that curb emissions is increased, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development forecast. Carbon prices may be held to about $200 a ton if there's more spending on developing technology such as hydrogen fuel- cell vehicles over the next decade, Romain Duval, a senior OECD economist, said last week in an interview in Poznan, Poland. "The big difference is you ...

Wed, 17 Dec 08
Arctic Ice Volume Lowest Ever as Globe Warms: UN
http://planetark.org/enviro-news/item/50927
Reuters: Ice volume around the Arctic region hit the lowest level ever recorded this year as climate extremes brought death and devastation to many parts of the world, the U.N. weather agency WMO said on Tuesday. Although the world's average temperature in 2008 was, at 14.3 degrees Celsius (57.7 degrees Fahrenheit), by a fraction of a degree the coolest so far this century, the direction toward a warmer climate remained steady, it reported. "What is happening in the Arctic is one of the ...

Wed, 17 Dec 08
German Wind Industry in Talks for State Aid: Report
http://planetark.org/enviro-news/item/50929
Reuters: The German wind energy federation BWE is in talks with the German environment ministry over state support for companies in the sector as the financial crisis bites, a German newspaper reported. "The expansion of renewable energy and climate protection will stall unless the current situation improves," Hermann Albers, president of BWE, told Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in an interview to be published on Wednesday. The financial crisis was slowing growth in the sector, mainly ...

Wed, 17 Dec 08
Believe it or not, this was the tenth hottest year ever
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/believe-it-or-not-this-was-the-tenth-hottest-year-ever-1192822.html
Independent: You may not have realised, as you shivered under the grey and drenching skies of August, that you were living through the 10th hottest year ever recorded -- but you were. Figures released by the UK Met Office show the last 12 months constitute the 10th warmest year in the global register, which dates back to 1850. The world's average temperature for 2008 was just over 14.3C, which is 0.3 degrees above the long-term average for 1961-1990. Yet Britain experienced one of its ...

Wed, 17 Dec 08
What price will the world pay to prevent environmental change?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/17/climate-change-environment-2008
Guardian: No one could have predicted quite how dramatically 2008 would have ended. Even as President Bush was slashing his way through US environmental protection laws, president-elect Obama appointed Nobel prize-winning physicist Steve Chu as the next US energy secretary. Chu is seen as the repudiation of everything that Bush stood for, and predicts temperatures will rise by a staggering 6.1C by the end of the century if nothing is done. Although it does not mean the oil age is over, if you want a ...

Wed, 17 Dec 08
United Kingdom: Watchdog tells energy firms to speed up price cuts
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/dec/17/ofgem-energy-companies-prices
Guardian: The regulator Ofgem's threat to refer the energy industry to the Competition Commission over unfair charges has received a lukewarm response from consumer groups and charities. The regulator acknowledged yesterday that the companies were on the way to stripping out up to £500m in unfair premiums for customers such as those using pre-payment meters, including many disadvantaged households. But it said it wanted faster action. It announced that it was launching a consultation ...

Wed, 17 Dec 08
Seas will rise faster than predicted, say scientists
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article5355574.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=3392178
Times (UK): Sea levels will rise much faster than previously forecast because of the rate that glaciers and ice sheets are melting, a study has found. Research commissioned by the US Climate Change Science Program concludes that the rises will substantially exceed forecasts that do not take into account the latest data and observations. The adjusted outlook, announced at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, suggests that recent predictions of a rise of between 7in ...

Wed, 17 Dec 08
Ireland: First hybrid public bus gets rolling
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2232750/uk-first-hybrid-public-bus-gets
Business Green: Transport firm Dublin Bus yesterday cut the ribbon on what it claims is the first public hybrid-electric bus to be used in the British Isles. The bus, which will go into service next week, will be powered by a 2.4 litre diesel engine that is less than a third the size of normal bus engines but is supplemented by a Siemens hybrid-electric drive system supported by Lithium ion batteries. The company said it expects the trial model to cut fuel consumption by a third compared to ...

Wed, 17 Dec 08
500 businesses join Japan's emissions trading scheme
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2232749/500-businesses-join-japan
Business Green: Less than two months after its launch, the Japanese government announced this week that over 500 businesses have now joined its voluntary emissions trading scheme. Critics might argue that businesses have only flocked to join the scheme, which began in October, as they are able to set their own caps, and face no punitive action if reductions are not achieved. However, the Japanese government maintains that it is planning to use the scheme as the foundations for a broader ...

Wed, 17 Dec 08
Sea level rise could top 1.5m by 2099, experts warn
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/16/climatechange-scienceofclimatechange
Guardian: Sea level rise due to global warming will "substantially exceed" official UN projections and could top 150cm by the end of the century, according to a report from the US Geological Survey on the risks of abrupt climate change. Such a rise would be catastrophic, seeing hundreds of millions of people affected by flooding. Many scientists now fear the warming world is on the verge of "tipping points", in which climate change and its effects accelerate rapidly. The science is evolving ...

Wed, 17 Dec 08
Coolest year since 2000 but trend still shows global warming
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/16/scienceofclimatechange-climatechange
Guardian: The last 12 months have been the coolest since 2000, according to an analysis by Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. The meteorological year - which runs from December 2007 to November 2008 - was 0.42C warmer than the global average temperature between 1951 and 1980. Nasa's calculations agree closely with a similar analysis by the UK Met Office which was released officially this morning, but reported by the Guardian earlier this month. According to Met Office figures for the ...

Wed, 17 Dec 08
This year is coolest since 2000
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7786060.stm
BBC: The world in 2008 has been cooler than at any time since the turn of the century, scientists say. Cooling La Nina conditions in the Pacific brought temperatures down to levels last seen in the year 2000. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) notes that temperatures remained about 0.3C above the 1961-1990 average. Computer models suggest that natural cycles may cool the Earth's surface in the next few years, masking the warming impact of rising greenhouse gas ...

Wed, 17 Dec 08
Canada: Alberta mulls new wind power lines
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4BF58H20081216?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Wind power developments planned in the Canadian province of Alberta will require C$1.83 billion ($1.5 billion) in new transmission lines to connect the electricity to markets, the province's system operator said on Tuesday. The Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO) is recommending construction of a 240 kilovolt loop system to connect 2,700 megawatts of electricity to be generated by wind farm projects planned for the province's south over the next decade. AESO said it expects ...

Wed, 17 Dec 08
EU agrees to cut pollution from lorries
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4BF58Z20081216?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Polluting particles from new European lorries and buses will have to be cut by two thirds by 2014, after the European Parliament voted in favor of new emissions curbs on Tuesday. The Euro VI emissions limits aim to cut sooty particles to 66 percent below the existing limits, which took effect in October, with an 80 percent cut to nitrogen oxides. The report was adopted with 610 votes in favor and 11 against. "Since particles are responsible for more than 348,000 early ...

Wed, 17 Dec 08
EU parliament asked to reject climate package
http://www.peopleandplanet.net/doc.php?id=3464
People and Planet: There has been widespread criticism from environmentalists at the outcome of last week's summit of EU leaders which aimed to lead the world to a low carbon future. And WWF has called on the EU parliament to reject parts of it. The two-day summit ended a two-year effort to agree mandatory reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in Europe. It was claimed as a triumph by President Sarkozy of France, who is coming to the end of his six-month stint as president of the EU. The agreed ...

Wed, 17 Dec 08
Likely EPA pick hit for Jersey record
http://www.propublica.org/article/likely-epa-pick-hit-for-jersey-record-1215
Politico: isa Jackson, who President-elect Barack Obama is expected to name Monday evening to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, is already being hailed as a historic choice. The former head of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and transition team member would be the first African-American EPA chief, and supporters have praised her work ethic, approachability and efforts to regulate greenhouse gases in New Jersey. But Jackson's critics, including a senior scientist ...

Wed, 17 Dec 08
United Kingdom: Heathrow third runway would drive coach and horses through green plans, says Boris Johnson
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/dec/16/boris-johnson-heathrow
Guardian: Boris Johnson warned today that a third runway at Heathrow airport would "drive a coach and horses" through his plans to reduce London's carbon emissions by 60% by 2025. The mayor used a question-and-answer session with the London assembly on his draft budget to urge assembly members to join him in opposing the controversial airport expansion. "I hope you will all join me in deprecating this government's plans to build a third runway, which would drive a coach and horses ...

Wed, 17 Dec 08
Emissions: Where do you draw the line?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/ethicallivingblog/2008/dec/16/climate-change-carbon-emissions
Guardian: IBM's World Community Grid is currently attracting quite a lot of attention online after it was announced earlier this month that this vast network of public-spirited computer users - 418,972 users to date, offering 1,143,230 machines - would pool their collective computing power for a brand new project called the Clean Energy Project. Harvard University's department of chemistry and chemical biology has set itself a mission to discover organic materials that might create an ...

Wed, 17 Dec 08
WWF applauds British call for ship emission trading
http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/what_we_do/climate_change/news/index.cfm?uNewsID=153083
WWF: WWF-UK has welcomed a call from the British shipping industry for a global emissions trading scheme which would help to combat greenhouse gases. The British Chamber of Shipping yesterday became the first major global shipping body to call for such a solution. It claims a scheme of this nature would combat carbon emissions more effectively than regional schemes operated by the European Union. The trade body said it recognised that there was no effective way to include shipping ...

Wed, 17 Dec 08
Drive for electric gathers speed
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1c23093e-cad9-11dd-87d7-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1
Financial Times: Dale Brooks' garage houses a vehicle that is testament to stalled innovation. His 1980, white Jet Electrica, with 21 batteries under the hood, was made for the US Department of Energy. Black lettering on the car's side notes that this was an "electric vehicle demonstration project''. The car, made from a gutted Dodge Omni, can travel up to 70 miles per hour for 70 miles before recharging. It was never mass-produced. Instead, Mr Brooks, president of the Houston Electric Auto ...

Wed, 17 Dec 08
United States: Vail, ski areas face world with less snow
http://www.vaildaily.com/article/20081215/NEWS/812159952/1078&ParentProfile=1062&title=Vail,%20ski%20areas%20face%20world%20with%20less%20snow%20
Rocky Mountain News: Vail and Colorado's other ski areas will have to carve runs higher up the mountains and triple their snowmaking if they are to co-exist with global warming over the coming decades, a new study says. That extra snowmaking will require a lot more water at a time when it is very expensive to buy senior water rights, says the study presented today to the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco. And it would have to come from a distance away, because any diversion close by ...

Wed, 17 Dec 08
Climate change takes the fight out of cannibalistic Humboldt squid
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article5348708.ece
Times (UK): One of the ocean's most ferocious predators will be tamed by global warming, researchers say. Warmer, more acidic water is making the cannibalistic Humboldt squid lethargic, to the relief of weaker squid and of fishermen. Humboldt squid -- aka jumbo squid, or Dosidicus gigas -- come to oxygen-rich surface waters at night in swarms of up to 1,200 individuals and feed with such ferocity that injured members of their own species are torn apart. They are even said to have attacked ...

Wed, 17 Dec 08
Last 10 years the warmest ever due to climate change
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23602363-details/Last%2010%20years%20the%20warmest%20ever%20due%20to%20climate%20change/article.do
Evening Standard: THE 10 warmest years on record have all been since 1997 because of man-made climate change, scientists revealed today. Global warming has pushed the world's temperature up by more than 0.7C, said the Met Office, as it unveiled figures that show the dramatic effect of human influence on the Earth's climate. In a new report, it says this year will be the tenth warmest worldwide since records began in 1850, with a global mean temperature of 14.3C. This would have been ...

Wed, 17 Dec 08
Australia: Murray-Darling authority wrestles with climate change
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24806037-5006784,00.html
Australian: CLIMATE change will be one of the greatest challenges for the new Murray-Darling Basin Authority, which begins operations this week. Wendy Craik, chief executive of the Murray-Darling Basin Commission for the past four years, warned that the potential climate changes could be "quite significant", particularly in the south of the basin. The Rudd Government's white paper says average streamflow in the Murray-Darling Basin is projected to drop by 10 to 25 per cent, while the ...

Wed, 17 Dec 08
In breezy Britain, wind farm cooperatives take off
http://www.terradaily.com/2007/081216031134.lg96vcnv.html
Agence France-Presse: With annual returns of 10 percent coupled with low risk, wind farm cooperatives are drawing growing numbers of investors in Britain -- good news for Europe's hopes to lead the world in renewable energy. Along with being a safe investment during turbulent economic times, the cooperatives are drawing interest from those concerned not just with global warming and climate change, but also with energy security. "It's not only a climate issue, but it's also a problem with energy ...

Wed, 17 Dec 08
United States: Climate change could hit Rogue Valley hard
http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2008/12/climate_change_could_hit_rogue.html
Oregonian: If global warming continues unabated, summer temperatures in the Rogue River Valley could rise up to 15 degrees by 2080, making the weather in the southern Oregon valley similar to Sacramento's, Oregon researchers said in a report released today. The changes would likely boost wildfires, the researchers said, and spell trouble for fish, forests, pears, pinot noir and people, who would see snowpack and water supplies dwindle. The report, drafted by the University of Oregon's ...

Wed, 17 Dec 08
Squids in acid: What future oceans hold in store
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16278-squids-in-acid-what-future-oceans-hold-in-store-.html
New Scientist: Swimming through warmer, more acidic oceans will feel like swimming through molasses for jumbo squid. Jumbo squid (Dosidicus gigas), also known as Humboldt squid or red devils, are best known for their voracious appetite and for decimating fish stocks. But according to new research, climate change could make them sluggish - and turn the hunter into the hunted. Rui Rosa of the University of Lisbon in Portugal and Brad Seibel of the University of Rhode Island, put jumbo squid in ...

Wed, 17 Dec 08
Collapse of civilisations linked to monsoon changes
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn10884-collapse-of-civilisations-linked-to-monsoon-changes.html
New Scientist: The downfall of the one of the greatest Chinese dynasties may have been catalysed by severe changes in climate. The same climate changes may have simultaneously led to the end of the Maya civilisation depicted in Mel Gibson's new film Apocalypto. So says Gerald Haug of the GeoForschungsZentrum in Germany and colleagues, who studied geological records of monsoons over the past 16,000 years. They have found a startling correlation between climate extremes and the fall of two great ...

Wed, 17 Dec 08
Talks and more climate change talks in 2009
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/5c3e2a5a508c7770e5ebfe9e37d54840.htm
IRIN: Maldives, an archipelago off the southeastern coast of India, told the climate change conference in Poznan, Poland, that even a 2°C rise in temperature would take the world into the "danger zone" of irreversible climate change. The world's 50 Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) - some of which are among the most vulnerable to climate change - urged a limit of 1.5°C temperature rise and greenhouse gas concentrations of no more than 350 parts ...

Wed, 17 Dec 08
United States: Ski resorts face chilling vision: less snow, time
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_11240672
Denver Post: As the global climate warms in the next two decades, the snowpack on Aspen Mountain will retreat about 650 feet up the slope and ski season will be trimmed by almost a week, a new study says. One way to fight that will be with snow guns, according to the study on the impact of and adaptation to climate change at two iconic ski resorts -- Aspen and Park City, Utah. Aspen, the study calculates, may have to triple its snowmaking in the coming decades. "This is just a way ...

Wed, 17 Dec 08
Climate science must evolve to tackle the challenges of warming, researchers say
http://www.dailyclimate.org/tdc-newsroom/agu-2008/climate-science-must-evolve-to-tackle-the
Daily Climate: As the science of climate change matures and the need to prepare for its consequences presses, scientists must change their focus to advise local and regional leaders on how best to adapt to a warmer future, two senior climate researchers said Monday. Rather than being curiosity driven, we need to be end-user driven. - Jonathan Overpeck, University of Arizona "We need to change the way we do our climate science," said Jonathan Overpeck, director of the Environmental ...

Wed, 17 Dec 08
Momentum builds for energy independence
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-energy_tuesdec16,0,1364023.story
Chicago Tribune: Breaking America's foreign-oil addiction was all the rage on Capitol Hill when gas cost $4 a gallon. Now that it's under $2 and falling, history suggests the enthusiasm for alternative fuels and more-efficient cars will subside. It did that in the mid-1970s and again in the '80s and '90s. But this time could be different. A confluence of factors that didn't exist or played lesser roles in previous "energy independence" efforts has congressional leaders and environmental groups ...

Wed, 17 Dec 08
Canada: Cities threatened by global warming
http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/story.html?id=79c486a5-ab0c-4043-a3c7-cb2dc60627e5
Canwest News Service: The federal government was warned nearly two years ago by its own experts that climate change was threatening critical infrastructure across the country, putting public health and the economy in jeopardy, according to newly released federal reports and memorandums obtained by Canwest News Service. The documents, sent to the senior levels of Transport and Infrastructure Canada late in 2006 and early in 2007, warned water resources were particularly vulnerable to climate changes and ...

Wed, 17 Dec 08
Revving China's auto industry
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/7779261.stm
BBC: Cars leave me cold, but not the BYD F3DM. I drove it the other day, and it really is remarkable. In one way, it is a rather ordinary compact saloon car, though it did have exceptional acceleration when I put my foot down zooming round the factory grounds in Shenzhen, the vast new Chinese city just north of Hong Kong. This is a plug-in electric car, hence the acceleration, but when the electric battery runs out after 80 miles (128km), the petrol engine switches in ...

Wed, 17 Dec 08
Pace of global warming slows
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20081216a3.html
Kyodo News: The pace of global warming appears to be slowing, with the average temperature in the world in 2008 registering a rise of 0.2 degree compared with the average rise between 1971 and 2000, according to preliminary data released Monday by the Meteorological Agency. This was the 10th largest margin of increase from an immediate benchmark average since 1891, the year in which the oldest data are available, the agency said. The 2008 average for Japan rose 0.41 degree, the 13th ...

Wed, 17 Dec 08
Tiny Ecosystem May Shed Light On Climate Change
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081215121555.htm
ScienceDaily: MIT researchers have created a microbial ecosystem smaller than a stick of gum that sheds new light on the plankton-eat-plankton world at the bottom of the aquatic food chain. The work, reported in the January print issue of American Naturalist, may lead to better predictions of marine microbes' global-scale influence on climate. Through photosynthesis and uptake of carbon compounds, diverse planktonic marine microorganisms -- too small to be seen with the naked eye -- help ...

Wed, 17 Dec 08
Turning Over A New Leaf For Future Energy Supplies
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081215112659.htm
ScienceDaily: A global energy supply based on biomass grown to generate electricity and produce fuel is a real possibility. According to Prof. Jürgen O. Metzger from Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg in Germany and Prof. Aloys Huettermann from the University of Goettingen in Germany, it is both a sustainable and economical scenario, contrary to current thinking which suggests it is unrealistic. Fossil fuels including oil, natural gas and coal - which provide almost all of our global ...

Wed, 17 Dec 08
Does Global Warming Lead To A Change In Upper Atmospheric Transport?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081215111305.htm
ScienceDaily: Most atmospheric models predict that the rate of transport of air from the troposphere to the above lying stratosphere should be increasing due to climate change. Surprisingly, Dr. Andreas Engel together with an international group of researchers has now found that this does not seem to be happening. On the contrary, it seems that the air air masses are moving more slowly than predicted. This could also imply that recovery of the ozone layer may be somewhat slower than predicted by ...

Wed, 17 Dec 08
Goose Eggs May Help Polar Bears Weather Climate Change
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081215111303.htm
ScienceDaily: As polar bears adapt to a warming Arctic--a frozen seascape that cleaves earlier each spring--they may find relief in an unlikely source: snow goose eggs. New calculations show that changes in the timing of sea-ice breakup and of snow goose nesting near the western Hudson Bay could provide at least some polar bears with an alternative source of food. This new analysis appears in Polar Biology. "Over 40 years, six subadult male bears were seen among snow goose nests, and four of them ...

Wed, 17 Dec 08
Poznan climate talks leave 'heavy lifting' for 2009
http://www.euractiv.com/en/climate-change/poznan-climate-talks-leave-heavy-lifting-2009/article-178051?Ref=RSS
EurActiv: Despite great expectations, UN climate talks in Poznan have failed to deliver a coherent plan for action, with activists and environmentalists voicing disappointment that much of the "heavy lifting" negotiations had been postponed until next year. Delegates will seek to strike a deal on a new international climate change agreement in Copenhagen next December. Background: The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC ) conference, which took place in Poznan ...

Wed, 17 Dec 08
U.K. Aviation Will Grow but Emissions Expected to Level Off
http://www.climatebiz.com/news/2008/12/15/uk-aviation-will-grow-emissions-expected-level-off
ClimateBiz: The United Kingdom aviation industry could see its passenger counts increase threefold through 2050, but carbon dioxide emissions are expected to sink to 2000 levels, according to an industry group. Sustainable Aviation released a report Friday assessing the environmental impact of the U.K. air transport industry, finding that emissions will peak around 2020 before falling back to 2000 levels in 2050 based on new aircraft and traffic management technology and lower carbon fuels. It ...

Wed, 17 Dec 08
Poznan: What about Africa?
http://www.climatebiz.com/blog/2008/12/15/poznan-what-about-africa
ClimateBiz: You don't hear much about Africa during the global debate over climate change policy. The world's big greenhouse gas emitters -- China, the U.S., Europe, Russia and India -- get most of the attention, for obvious reasons. But Africans may already have begun to suffer the impacts of climate change: Some people including Jared Diamond and U.N. chief Ban Ki Moon say the war in Darfur is the world's first climate-related conflict. So Africans would be beneficiaries of a new emphasis on finding ...

Wed, 17 Dec 08
Mass. ramping up production of renewable energy
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2008/12/15/mass_ramping_up_production_of_renewable_energy/
Various: Massachusetts is accelerating its production of renewable energy, for the first time giving electric companies the chance to buy more green power than they are required to under a set of goals established a decade ago. Much of the electricity -- from solar and wind to landfill methane gas and low-emissions biomass -- comes from within Massachusetts, but other New England states, New York and neighboring Canadian provinces also add to the total amount of green power available to local ...

Wed, 17 Dec 08
Obama names energy secretary, environmental team
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/12/16/2447294.htm
Agence France-Presse: US President-elect Barack Obama has named his energy and environmental chiefs and vowed to bring in a new dawn for US leadership to combat climate change after eight years of Republican foot-dragging. Mr Obama nominated Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Chu as his energy secretary, placing the expert in renewable energy on the frontlines of climate change policy and the drive to end the nation's dependence on foreign oil. "This will be a leading priority of my presidency and ...

Wed, 17 Dec 08
United Kingdom: Government plan to increase number of treelined streets
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/3777316/Government-plan-to-increase-number-of-tree-lined-streets.html
Telegraph: The five year plan for England's woods and forests was drawn up by Natural England and the Forestry Commission, and will be distributed to local government as well as more than 100 organisations, representing woodland owners, forestry businesses, conservation and local communities. The action plan suggests ways to increase the amount of woodland in the UK in order to boost the timber industry but also to increase the benefits to the public of living near woodlands. It includes ...

Wed, 17 Dec 08
California gives green light to cap-and-trade action plan
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2232673/california-makes-carbon
Business Green: The state of California has formally adopted the strictest environmental regulations anywhere in the US last week, committing to a package of measures designed to cut emissions 15 per cent by 2020. Under the wide-ranging plans, the state will require utilities to generate a third of power from renewable sources by 2020 and will also introduce a raft of binding targets governing emissions from cars, oil refineries, buildings and landfill sites. The primary mechanism for ...

Wed, 17 Dec 08
Obama focuses on alternative energy, environment
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4BE6D720081216?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Insisting on the need to develop new forms of energy, U.S. President-elect Barack Obama on Monday chose as his energy secretary a Nobel physics laureate who is a major promoter of alternative fuels. Obama named Steven Chu, the winner of the 1997 Nobel Prize in physics who was an early advocate for finding scientific solutions to climate change, to head the Energy Department. Chu will work closely with former Environmental Protection Agency head Carol Browner, whom Obama named ...

Wed, 17 Dec 08
Rise in CO2 'affects jumbo squid'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7783971.stm
BBC: Jumbo squid, common to the eastern tropical Pacific, may become rarer if current climate change continues. Writing in the journal PNAS, researchers say the squids' lifestyle could be strongly influenced by changes in ocean acidity. Climate models suggest oceans are becoming more acidic as a result of absorbing the carbon dioxide released by human activities. Rises in acidity have already been shown to affect shellfish and corals. Metabolic change An ...

Wed, 17 Dec 08
United Kingdom: Plea for wind farm legal review
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/north_west/7781657.stm
BBC: Campaigners opposed to one of the world's largest offshore wind farms being built off the north Wales coast are planning to seek a judicial review. The UK government announced earlier this month that the 250-turbine Gwynt y Môr farm would go ahead 10 miles from Llandudno in Conwy county. Save our Scenery is taking legal advice about its next move. Campaigner Prof David Bellamy told a meeting in Llandudno on Sunday that the development would "trash" the area. The ...

Wed, 17 Dec 08
United Kingdom: Seeds of hope: Freezing vaults guard Earth's flora
http://www.physorg.com/news148483583.html
Associated Press: The underground bunker can block nuclear fallout, withstand a direct hit by a jetliner, and is cooled to a deathly chill. The ultramodern facility in the tranquil English countryside looks like a perfect lab for a James Bond villain, but it doesn't hide anything sinister. The only thing kept here are seeds, lots of them - more than a billion, in fact. Scientists say this is the world's most diverse seed bank, but its keepers worry that the global financial crisis could cut its ...

Wed, 17 Dec 08
Indigenous communities warned over 'carbon-baggers'
http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/latest/5213684/indigenous-communities-warned-over-carbonbaggers/
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: There are claims that unscrupulous carbon brokers have been approaching Indigenous communities and trying to sign them up to questionable carbon trading deals. The newly created Australian Indigenous Chamber of Commerce has urged Indigenous communities to be wary of entering any agreements. The Labor party's former national president Warren Mundine now heads the new body, which was set up to advise Indigenous communities on how to navigate the complex issue of emissions ...

Tue, 16 Dec 08
Obama picks Nobel man for energy
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7784802.stm
BBC: US President-elect Barack Obama has named physics Nobel Prize winner Steven Chu as his energy secretary. Dr Chu is an energy specialist and the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Mr Obama also picked former head of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection Lisa Jackson to head the environmental protection agency (EPA). Carol Browner, EPA chief under Bill Clinton, will co-ordinate White House policy on energy and climate change. Mr ...

Tue, 16 Dec 08
Obama names energy secretary, environmental team
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4BE6D720081215?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: U.S. President-elect Barack Obama on Monday chose a Nobel physics laureate to be his energy secretary and picked a former top federal environmental regulator to coordinate his energy and environmental policies. Steven Chu, who won the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics and now directs the government's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, will head the Energy Department. Chu will work closely with Carol Browner, former head of the Environmental Protection Agency under ...

Tue, 16 Dec 08
Paraguay: Rural Associations Protest Land Occupations
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45124
Inter Press Service: Agribusiness and landowners' associations in Paraguay began two days of demonstrations around the country Monday, demanding a stop to invasions of large estates by landless farmers. The measure drew fire from social organisations, especially small farmers' associations. The landowners parked tractors and other agricultural machinery along the sides of roads early Monday morning, mainly in the farming departments (provinces) of San Pedro in central Paraguay and Itapúa and Alto ...

Tue, 16 Dec 08
Climate change, ocean acidification may doom jumbo squid
http://news.mongabay.com/2008/1215-squid.html
Mongabay: Ocean acidification -- driven by rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere -- may hurt the Humboldt squid, report researchers writing in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Humboldt squid, also known as jumbo squid, are found in the eastern Pacific and can measure 8-feet long (2.5 meters) and weigh up to 110 pounds (50 kg). The species has made news recently as it has expanded its range northward from the tropical Pacific. Humboldt squid are now ...

Tue, 16 Dec 08
Corn expansion is hurting ladybugs
http://news.mongabay.com/2008/1215-corn.html
Mongabay: Expansion of corn acreage to meet ethanol targets is reducing the ability of beneficial insects to control pests, a loss valued at $58 million in the four states studied (Michigan, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin), report researchers writing in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "Corn is a less favorable habitat for many ladybird beetles (ladybugs) and other beneficial insects that feed on pests such as the soybean aphid," said Doug Landis, a professor of ...

Tue, 16 Dec 08
Future 'Energy Czar' On Addressing Climate Change
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98300588&ft=1&f=1025
National Public Radio: President-elect Barack Obama recently chose Nobel-prize winning physicist Steven Chu to be his energy secretary. Director of the Dept. of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Chu is an advocate of renewable energy research and finding scientific solutions to climate change. Chris Joyce spoke with Chu in October 2007. Here are some excerpts from that conversation. On Reducing Energy Consumption I am actually optimistic -- I will be dead before this will be true ...

Tue, 16 Dec 08
EPA Abandons Attempts to Change Clean Air Rules
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/dec2008/2008-12-11-093.asp
Environment News Service: The Bush administration has dropped plans to adopt two Clean Air Act rules that would have allowed power plants and other polluters to increase smog and soot pollution. The first rule concerned the Clean Air Act's New Source Review program. It would have allowed coal-fired power plants to increase their power output by installing new equipment without adopting pollution controls. The second abandoned rule would have weakened special air quality protections that Congress adopted ...

Tue, 16 Dec 08
California First State to Limit Big Rig Diesel Pollution
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/dec2008/2008-12-12-092.asp
Environment News Service: The California Air Resources Board today adopted two regulations aimed at cleaning up harmful emissions from the estimated one million heavy-duty diesel trucks that operate in California. The regulations are the first of their kind in the United States. Heavy-duty big rigs are the largest remaining source of unregulated diesel emissions, responsible for 32 percent of the smog-forming emissions and nearly 40 percent of the cancer-causing emissions from diesel mobile sources. Other ...

Tue, 16 Dec 08
European Leaders Agree on Climate Change Plan
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/dec2008/2008-12-12-02.asp
Environment News Service: European leaders today agreed to hold fast to their plan to battle climate change through growth in renewable energy sources and 20 percent cuts in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, and on ways to share the costs. The plan includes concessions to heavy industry and to countries in Eastern Europe concerned that the cost of curbing greenhouse gas emissions would also curb their economic growth. "This is really historic," French President Nicolas Sarkozy, holder of the EU's ...

Tue, 16 Dec 08
Slow Progress in Poznan While Climate Threats Mount
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/dec2008/2008-12-13-01.asp
Environment News Service: The annual UN climate change conference ended shortly before 3:00 am today in Poznan with a commitment from governments to shift into full negotiating mode next year in order to shape a effective international response to climate change, to be agreed in Copenhagen at the end of 2009. Negotiators agreed that the board of the Kyoto Protocol's Adaptation Fund would have the legal capacity to grant developing countries direct access to about $60 million to help them adapt to the effects ...

Tue, 16 Dec 08
Global Year-End Snapshot of the Clean Development Mechanism
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/dec2008/2008-12-15-02.asp
Environment News Service: Wind and geothermal power projects alongside projects promoting energy efficiency and even the preservation of onions are emerging around the world under the carbon market brokered by the Kyoto Protocol, the UN treaty to curb global warming by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. A year-end review of the protocol's Clean Development Mechanism shows that more than 4,200 projects are up and running, or in various phases of the pipeline, up from 60 in the CDM's first year, ...

Tue, 16 Dec 08
Coral Reef Loss Suggests Global Extinction Event
http://www.enn.com/climate/article/38850
Worldwatch Institute: The world is on the brink of a massive extinction event, according to the United Nations. Rapid releases of greenhouse gas emissions are changing habitats at a rate faster than many of the world's species can tolerate. "Indeed the world is currently facing a sixth wave of extinctions, mainly as a result of human impacts," said Achim Steiner, executive director of the U.N. Environment Programme in a statement. A study earlier this year in the Proceedings of the National ...

Tue, 16 Dec 08
Chasm Widens Between Science and Policy
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45121
Inter Press Service: The roof of our house is on fire while the leaders of our family sit comfortably in the living room below preoccupied with "political realities" -- that was essentially the message from 1,000 scientists from around the world along with northern indigenous leaders gathered in Quebec City for the International Arctic Change conference that concluded last weekend. "Climate change and its impacts are accelerating at unexpected rates with global consequences," delegates warned in a ...

Tue, 16 Dec 08
Africa eyes geothermal power
http://news.mongabay.com/2008/1215-geothermal.html
Mongabay: Geothermal -- the tapping of steam from hot underground rocks -- could provide a source of clean, renewable energy in parts of Africa where electricity is currently limited, according to an assessment by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and the Global Environment Facility (GEF). The project, funded by the GEF and involving UNEP and the Kenyan power company KenGen, found a number wells of steam in the Rift Valley capable of generating 4-5 MW of electricity. Harnessing this ...

Tue, 16 Dec 08
Australia makes a stand on climate... sort of
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16274-australia-makes-a-stand-on-climate-sort-of.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=climate-change
New Scientist: Australia has pledged to cut its greenhouse emissions by 5 to 15% by 2020 as it unveiled the world's broadest carbon-trading scheme. Australia is now second only to the EU in its drive to cut emissions by establishing a cap-and-trade system that puts a price on carbon output. However, environmentalists have blasted the trading plan, saying that it will give free credits to some of the economy's most polluting industries. Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd says the carbon ...

Tue, 16 Dec 08
United Kingdom: The vilification of green protesters by police must stop
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/15/kingsnorth-climate-change-protest
Guardian: The £5.9m bill to police the climate camp at Kingsnorth is not only a colossal waste of money, but yet another example of the increasingly aggressive and authoritarian attitude the police are taking to peaceful green protests. Clearly, in the eyes of the police, playing board games and dressing up as climate clowns are now classified as criminal acts. And why, rather than being straight with the public, did the truth about police "injuries" have to be dragged out of the government by ...

Tue, 16 Dec 08
Plans to tax polluting ships
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/3777519/Plans-to-tax-polluting-ships.html
Telegraph: Heavy industry in Europe already pays to pollute through an "emissions trading scheme". This system limits pollution by charging any business that emits more than a certain amount of carbon dioxide. Now the UK-based Chamber of Shipping has called for a similar scheme for the global shipping business. It would be very difficult to police but could cut pollution substantially as the industry produces thousands of tonnes of greenhouse gases every year. Chamber of Shipping ...

Tue, 16 Dec 08
Rhetoric and reality at climate talks
http://www.peopleandplanet.net/doc.php?id=3463
Malaysian Star: The clear message that came out of the last days of the United Nations climate talks at Poznan in Poland was that the two crises of our times -- economic recession and global warming -- should be tackled together, says Martin Khor, Director of the Third World Network, in this commentary on the rhetoric and reality of the talks in Poznan and the decisions reached at the simultaneous EU gathering in Lisbon. Former US Vice-President and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Al Gore addresses ...

Tue, 16 Dec 08
China to accelerate south-north water project
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4BE58720081215?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: China will accelerate construction of the south-to-north water diversion project next year, the Xinhua news agency quoted the head of the project office, Zhang Jiyao, as saying. The project, criticized by some environmentalists for encouraging the wasteful use of water, will divert water from the Yangtze River in western and central China to arid northern regions through three channels: eastern, middle and western. A number of projects along the eastern and middle routes would ...

Tue, 16 Dec 08
Scientists Approach Ocean-CO2 Capture Schemes With Caution
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1611186/scientists_approach_oceanco2_capture_schemes_with_caution/index.html?source=r_science
redOrbit: The icy seas between Australia and Antarctica could become a money generator by engineering nature to soak up carbon dioxide and then selling carbon credits worth millions of dollars. But many scientists believe the concept of using nature to mop up mankind's excess CO2 to fight global warming is fraught with risk and uncertainty. An Australian research body suggests more research is needed before commercial ventures are allowed to fertilize oceans on a large scale and over ...

Tue, 16 Dec 08
Australia Makes Changes To Its Climate Program
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1611032/australia_makes_changes_to_its_climate_program/index.html?source=r_science
redOrbit: Australia drew scrutiny on Monday following an announcement that it would cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 5 to 15 percent by 2020. Critics of the new plan say it undermines the effort to reach a global agreement for carbon output levels. The Green Party referred to the new proposals as "a global embarrassment." Also, Australia plans to implement a carbon trading scheme by 2010, that will cover 75 percent of emissions and include 1,000 of the country's biggest firms, but ...

Tue, 16 Dec 08
Iceland: Financial Crisis Hits New Development
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45119
Inter Press Service: The disastrous state of the Icelandic banking system means that Icelandic energy and aluminium companies can no longer find willing overseas lenders as before. Among new developments affected is the main aluminium plant at Helguvik in south-west Iceland. After much controversy and an appeal, permission was given in March 2008 for a smelter with a production capacity of 250,000 tonnes a year. Construction has begun, even though energy supply for the plant was not ...

Tue, 16 Dec 08
Obama Set To Name Energy, Environmental Team
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98286993&ft=1&f=1025
National Public Radio: President-elect Obama is expected to formally announce the members of his energy and environment teams Monday, making good on promises to focus on global warming with the appointment of a strong slate of candidates that includes Nobel laureate Steven Chu. Obama is expected to announce his picks at a 5 p.m. ET news conference in Chicago. It was learned last week that Chu is his choice to lead the Energy Department, and Lisa Jackson, former commissioner of New Jersey's Environmental ...

Tue, 16 Dec 08
Forest service ramps up climate-change information
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/MT_CLIMATE_CHANGE_WYOL-?SITE=CODEN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Associated Press: Climate-change specialists are visiting Forest Service offices in the agency's Northern Region to educate employees about shifting climatic conditions and their ramifications. "We're almost on the cusp of an ecosystem shift," Faith Ann Heinsch, a University of Montana professor of climatology, said at a recent session in Billings. "If we don't increase our summer precipitation and our winter precipitation falls as rain, we'll be looking at some interesting changes. Water issues will ...

Tue, 16 Dec 08
Air forced underground could provide energy
http://www.thestar.com/Business/article/553702
Toronto Star: Pumping compressed air underground so it can be extracted later to generate electricity could prove one of the most effective ways in the short term for Ontario to add vast amounts of renewable energy to the power system, industry experts say. So-called compressed-air energy storage, or CAES, has been around for more than 20 years and while only two facilities have ever been built – a 110-megawatt plant in Alabama and a 290-megawatt plant in Germany – officials from New York, ...

Tue, 16 Dec 08
Leaner nations bike, walk, use mass transit
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jEGRAoOGYlh9C9ASr-_XyTiaVwnAD9534IJG0
Associated Press: Jim Richards is no kid, but he loves to ride his bike. At 51, he has become a cycling commuter, pedaling 11 miles from his home in the suburbs to his job in downtown Knoxville. "It really doesn't take that much longer" than driving, he insists. And he gets 40 minutes of exercise twice a day without going to the gym, which he attributes to a 20-pound weight loss. New research illustrates the health benefits of regular biking, walking or taking public transportation ...

Tue, 16 Dec 08
United States: 50-year pipeline permit plan worries environmentalists
http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/12293334489960.xml&coll=2
Plain Dealer: Environmentalists are concerned that more Ohio endangered species could die unnecessarily in coming years as new natural gas lines are built -- and especially if one company gets an unprecedented 50-year permit to work on future pipelines without hindrance. NiSource Inc., which delivers the fuel for Columbia Gas, is trying to acquire that half-century permit to allow for "incidental takings" of plants and animals protected under the federal Endangered Species Act as it maintains its ...

Tue, 16 Dec 08
World leaders 'failing to get' climate message
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16271-world-leaders-failing-to-get-climate-message.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=climate-change
New Scientist: The politicians just don't seem to get the seriousness of the global warming crisis. Scientists attending the recent UN climate conference in Poznan, Poland, complained that the gap between political rhetoric and scientific reality on climate change is growing. "It doesn't matter what the politicians promise," said French climate scientist Philippe Ciais. "Even if we stop emissions growing today, the world will still warm by 2°C -- a lot more in some places. It is too late to prevent ...

Tue, 16 Dec 08
Going nowhere at Heathrow
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/15/climatechange-theairlineindustry
Guardian: Hilary Benn has exposed a potential rift between the government's transport and environment departments by warning that the UK must not snub EU targets on air quality by pushing ahead with expansion at Heathrow Airport. To many, it had already become clear that the government has no action plan on how to achieve its targets under the EU Air Quality Directive. Yet to persist with its misguided agenda of aviation expansion, there was a fear that it would have to ask for derogation on the ...

Tue, 16 Dec 08
Australia: Govt rules out deep cut in emissions
http://news.smh.com.au/national/govt-rules-out-deep-cut-in-emissions-20081215-6yex.html
AAP: The federal government has ruled out a deep cut to Australia's greenhouse gas emissions before 2020, believing the world will not get its act together on climate change soon. The government has set an absolute maximum cut to emissions of 15 per cent by 2020 - if the world signs an effective climate pact - in its greenhouse plan released on Monday. If no pact is signed, Australia will go with an unconditional five per cent cut in emissions. These targets fly in the face ...

Tue, 16 Dec 08
Australia: Business wary of ETS, green groups angry
http://news.smh.com.au/national/business-wary-of-ets-green-groups-angry-20081215-6yts.html
AAP: The federal government has failed its own national interest test on climate change, critics say. The government's climate adviser, Professor Ross Garnaut, conducted a review recommending carbon emissions be cut by at least 25 per cent by 2020, if the world strikes a strong climate pact. But on Monday, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced a non-conditional target of just five per cent, with the option to extend that to 15 per cent if other nations get on board. A coalition ...

Tue, 16 Dec 08
With Obama, new wind blowing on climate
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/AheadoftheCurve/story?id=6461100&page=1
ABC News: President-elect Obama, in statements to governors, the nation and on the Web, is now promising a profound change in how the U.S. government -- and explicitly the White House -- will deal with global warming. "Denial is no longer an acceptable response," he said in a recent radio address and Webcast. "The stakes are too high." Obama is declaring that he will fight climate change head-on. His declarations come amid what are now persistent TV images and scientific reports ...

Tue, 16 Dec 08
IBM tops climate change governance league table
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2232631/ibm-tops-climate-change
Business Green: IBM, Tesco and Dell have taken the gold, solver and bronze positions in a new league tables assessing firms' response to climate change, released last week by the Ceres coalition of investment firms. The study, authored by analysts RiskMetrics Group, assessed the climate change governance and reporting practices of 63 of the world's largest consumer-facing multinationals, including firms from across the technology, retail, pharmaceutical and clothing sectors. IBM, Tesco and ...

Tue, 16 Dec 08
Enel to launch 2 U.S. geothermal plants in Q1
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4BE35K20081215?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Italy's biggest utility, Enel, will launch two geothermal plants with a total capacity of 65 megawatt (MW) in Nevada in the first quarter of 2009 aiming to expand in the U.S. renewable energy market, it said on Monday. The plants will produce about 400 million kilowatt hours of energy a year, enough to meet demands of about 40,000 U.S. households and reduce annual emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide by 300,000 tonnes, Enel said in a statement. Enel, which operates about ...

Tue, 16 Dec 08
Carbon target success tempered by prospect of post-Kyoto talks
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/38dbf5a4-c8b8-11dd-b86f-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1
Financial Times: The marathon negotiations that concluded with a climate change package in Brussels yesterday will have to be reopened at the end of next year if United Nations climate change talks are successful. The European Union has agreed to a 20 per cent cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. But it has pledged to raise the target to 30 per cent if a deal is reached at a conference in Copenhagen next December on a replacement for the Kyoto protocol. Other developed nations such as ...

Tue, 16 Dec 08
Australia announces plan to cut greenhouse gases
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/3763223/Australia-announces-plan-to-cut-greenhouse-gases.html
Telegraph: As part of the most sweeping carbon trading scheme outside Europe, prime minister Kevin Rudd said the country would cut emissions by 15 per cent if the rest of the world signed up to an effective climate pact. If not, Australia would cut its emissions by 5 per cent - compared to 1990 levels - by 2020. "We are starting the scheme with appropriate and responsible targets, targets that are broadly consistent with other developed countries," he said. "Climate change is an ...

Tue, 16 Dec 08
Australia: PM climate hecklers wrestled to ground
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,24802403-5009760,00.html?from=public_rss
AAP: PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd's launch of his greenhouse gas reduction plan was disrupted when three protesters approached him and were wrestled to the ground. During a televised speech at the National Press Club, three young female environmentalists rose from their seats, walked towards Mr Rudd and heckled as he detailed his plans on climate change. "We need hope,'' one yelled. "We're not going to walk away from (action on) runaway climate change,'' called out ...

Tue, 16 Dec 08
Experts pan Rudd's emission cut goals
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,24801858-5009760,00.html?from=public_rss
NEWS.com.au: CLIMATE change scientists and economists have made withering criticism of government emissions targets announced today, with one internationally renowned expert calling the goals "pitifully inadequate". Experts said the goals of cuts in emissions by a minimum of 5 per cent and up to 15 per cent by 2020, depending on the extent of global action, were not ambitious enough. Greenpeace today accused Prime Minister Kevin Rudd of betraying Australians in the release of the White ...

Tue, 16 Dec 08
Australia: Kevin Rudd announces target for cut in emissions by 2020
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,24801264-5009760,00.html?from=public_rss
NEWS.com.au: KEVIN Rudd became a target himself today after he announced modest and conditional targets to cut greenhouse gases, thought to be responsible for global warming. As the Prime Minister said there would be an unconditional 5 per cent cut in emissions by 2020, which could increase to a maximum 15 per cent if the rest of the world agreed to a similar target, three female protesters screamed: "No, no!" It was a sentiment shared by the Australian Greens, scientists, environmental ...

Tue, 16 Dec 08
Going Green: A Hard Sell For Consumers?
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97803595&ft=1&f=1025
National Public Radio: President-elect Barack Obama wants America to kick its addiction to foreign oil. He also wants the energy industry to go "green" and reduce the amount of carbon dioxide it produces -- CO2 that causes global warming. Cutting back is easy enough when energy and oil prices are sky-high. But as Obama said on a recent CBS News 60 Minutes program, our memories are short. "This has been our pattern: We go from shock to trance. Oil prices go up, everybody goes into a flurry of ...

Tue, 16 Dec 08
Scientists urge caution in ocean-CO2 capture schemes
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4BE0K520081215?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: To some entrepreneurs, the wild and icy seas between Australia and Antarctica could become a money spinner by engineering nature to soak up carbon dioxide and then selling carbon credits worth millions of dollars. To some scientists and many nations, though, the concept of using nature to mop up mankind's excess CO2 to fight global warming is fraught with risk and uncertainty. An analysis by a leading Australian research body has urged caution and says more research is crucial ...

Tue, 16 Dec 08
Australia to cut pollution 5 to 15 percent by 2020
http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2008/12/15/australia_to_cut_pollution_5_to_15_percent_by_2020/?rss_id=Boston.com+--+Latest+news
Associated Press: Australia said Monday it plans to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by as little as 5 percent by 2020 -- a reduction that critics say undermines international efforts to reach an effective global pact next year to avert dangerous climate change. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said the interim plan would not affect his commitment to slash the carbon emissions that are blamed for global warming by 60 percent from 2000 levels by 2050. But Rudd was rebuked by an environmental activist ...

Tue, 16 Dec 08
Australia Unveils Targets to Cut Pollution
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=113287
New York Times: Australia announced plans Monday to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 5 to 15 percent by 2020, angering environmental groups that had lobbied for much deeper cuts. In a policy statement, the government said the final target would depend on whether developed and developing nations, including major emitters like China and India, could agree to binding reductions under a new United Nations climate treaty next year. If the world acts together to forge deep cuts, Australia will ...

Tue, 16 Dec 08
Societe Generale cuts EU carbon emissions forecast
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4BE1Q220081215?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Societe Generale cut its forecasts for European Union industrial emissions, saying an EU recession may depress EU carbon permit prices for years. Prices for carbon permits traded under the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme in 2009 could average 17 euros a tonne, down a third from a previous forecast of 25.5 euros, it said. "Prospects on emission levels for 2008 and 2009 reduce every day, with an increasing number of industrial firms announcing temporary shutdown ... and downward ...

Tue, 16 Dec 08
United Kingdom: Benn reveals cabinet split over Heathrow expansion
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2232610/benn-reveals-cabinet-split
Business Green: After months of speculation environment secretary Hilary Benn has confirmed that there are indeed deep splits within the cabinet over whether or not to proceed with plans for a third runway at Heathrow. In an interview with The Sunday Times yesterday, Benn became the first minister to break ranks and openly voice concerns over the proposed expansion of the airport and its likely contribution to air and noise pollution. Warning that the airport was already in breach of EU rules ...

Tue, 16 Dec 08
Obama To Name Climate, Environment Team
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98255017&ft=1&f=1025
National Public Radio: President-elect Barack Obama has vowed to adopt an aggressive approach to global warming and the environment. At a news conference Monday in Chicago, Obama will announce his team to deal with the nation's energy and environmental future. The industrial world is looking to the Obama administration to help get other countries to make environmental changes.

Tue, 16 Dec 08
Australia aims low in emissions reductions
http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/what_we_do/climate_change/news/index.cfm?uNewsID=153001
WWF: In the space of a year Australia has gone from climate change hero to climate change under-achiever, announcing an emissions reduction target of just 5-15 per cent by 2020 with the higher figure tied to the rest of the world reaching a binding agreement on climate change. The announcement – made in a government white paper as the UN climate change conference ended inconclusively in Poznan, Poland – was branded as a pitiful result of pandering to lazy and short-sighted polluting ...

Tue, 16 Dec 08
United Kingdom: Miliband meets "big six" to talk smart meters
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2232620/government-meets-big-six-smart
Business Green: Climate change secretary Ed Miliband will today meet the "big six" energy companies to discuss how a £7bn national smart meter roll out can be achieved between 2010 and 2020. The UK's biggest energy firms -- Npower, EDF, British Gas, Scottish & Southern Energy, Scottish Power and E.ON -- have agreed with the government that each will be responsible for providing smart meters that allow them to more accurately measure a home's energy use to their customers. The energy ...

Tue, 16 Dec 08
Australia pledges to cut emissions by up to 15%
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/15/climate-change-australia
Guardian: Australia today pledged to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 5%-15% by 2020 via the world's broadest cap and trade scheme. Business analysts believed that industry overall would be relieved at the trimming of some of the costs to polluters but environmental campaigners condemned the deal. The prime minister, Kevin Rudd, said the interim plan would not affect his commitment to slash the carbon emissions that are blamed for global warming by 60% from 2000 levels by ...

Tue, 16 Dec 08
Germany's KfW lifts renewable energy credit: Gabriel
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4BE2HI20081215?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: German state bank KfW is raising the upper limit on credit it makes available for small and medium-sized renewable energy projects, Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel said on Monday. The KfW, responsible for supplying revenues to the environment ministry to promote renewable energy, is boosting the credit limit to 50 million euros ($67.33 million) from 20 million euros for such projects, Gabriel said. The state bank would also extend its lending period to 15 years from eight ...

Mon, 15 Dec 08
Getting teeth into climate change
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=10548006
New Zealand Herald: What do Bill Clinton, Jet Li and a New Zealand clothing company head have in common? They all attended a world summit this month - and came out pledging to turn off the taps when they clean their teeth. Untouched World founder Peri Drysdale won a place at a meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative in Hong Kong after developing a rapport with the former US President at Apec in 1999. She joined about 400 leaders, mostly from Asia, and Bill Clinton for two days to talk ...

Mon, 15 Dec 08
$1.4b to ease carbon trading blow
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21498,24800745-951,00.html?from=public_rss
Australian: THE Rudd Government hopes to soften the blow of its emissions trading scheme with a $1.4 billion compensation package over five years. The scheme aims to assist businesses and community organisations to invest in energy-efficiency projects and low-emission technologies. Kevin Rudd will unveil the carbon pollution reduction scheme in Canberra today, committing Australia to cuts in greenhouse gas emissions of between 5 and 25 per cent by 2020, The Australian reports. The ...

Mon, 15 Dec 08
The green road ahead
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2008/12/14/the_green_road_ahead/
Various: Gas prices have been dropping at a remarkable rate, but the auto world clearly is still thinking green. Whatever the future of the US auto industry, President-elect Barack Obama has said automakers should be "retooling for energy efficiency." And as you strolled the aisles of the New England International Auto Show earlier this month, greener cars were to be found at every turn. But going green means something different to every automaker. A number of companies are rolling out ...

Mon, 15 Dec 08
Australia: Opposition tight-lipped on emission reductions target
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/12/14/2445911.htm
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: The Federal Opposition has refused to reveal its target for greenhouse gas emission reductions. The European Union has agreed on a 20 per cent cut by 2020, and there is pressure on the Federal Government to match that when it releases its climate change strategy this week. Deputy Opposition Leader Julie Bishop is waiting to hear details of the Government's announcement, and has refused to reveal the Opposition's target. She says there should be no target reductions ...

Mon, 15 Dec 08
Brown clouds making Asian cities 'dimmer': UN report
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/File_Brown_clouds_making_Asian_cities_dimmer_UN_report/articleshow/3710016.cms
Press Trust of India: Brown clouds of pollution are hanging over Asia, making "cities from Beijing to New Delhi" darker, melting glaciers in ranges like the Himalayas faster and turning weather systems more extreme, the UN said on Thursday. Formed as a result of burning of fossil fuels and biomass, the Atmospheric Brown Clouds (ABCs), made of soot and other manmade particles, are more than three km-thick, said a new report by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). The layer that stretches from the ...

Mon, 15 Dec 08
Obama to announce environment, energy team
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4BC14N20081214?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: President-elect Barack Obama, who has vowed to adopt an aggressive approach to global warming and the environment, will hold a news conference on Monday to announce his picks to lead the effort. Obama will hold a news conference at 5 p.m. EST on Monday to talk about "the nation's energy and environmental future," his transition office said on Sunday. At the news conference Obama is expected to name Nobel physics laureate Steven Chu as his energy secretary and former ...

Mon, 15 Dec 08
Obama left with little time to curb global warming
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/G/GLOBAL_WARMING_OBAMA?SITE=TXDAM&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Associated Press: When Bill Clinton took office in 1993, global warming was a slow-moving environmental problem that was easy to ignore. Now it is a ticking time bomb that President-elect Barack Obama can't avoid. Since Clinton's inauguration, summer Arctic sea ice has lost the equivalent of Alaska, California and Texas. The 10 hottest years on record have occurred since Clinton's second inauguration. Global warming is accelerating. Time is close to running out, and Obama knows it. "The time for ...

Mon, 15 Dec 08
Obama can out-green Poznan
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/leading-article-obama-can-outgreen-poznan-1065882.html
Independent: It could be called talking-shop tourism. Representatives of all the countries of the world gather, under the auspices of the United Nations, to discuss climate change. They meet in cities that hope to lend their names to international agreements. There was Rio de Janeiro and Kyoto. Last year it was Bali; next year it is Copenhagen. Last week it was Poznan. Apart from introducing the former capital of Greater Poland to a travelling circus of politicians, officials, journalists and hangers-on, ...

Mon, 15 Dec 08
United States: Drought means farmworkers hungry in U.S. produce capital
http://deseretnews.com/article/0,5143,705270343,00.html
Associated Press: Idled farm workers are searching for food in the nation's most prolific agricultural region, where a double blow of drought and a court-ordered cutback of water supplies has caused hundreds of millions of dollars in losses. This bedraggled town is struggling with an unemployment rate that city officials say is 40 percent and rising. This month, 600 farm families depleted the cupboards of the local food bank, which turned away families -- more than 100 of them -- for the first ...

Mon, 15 Dec 08
Suppliers wary of carbon scheme
http://business.smh.com.au/business/suppliers-wary-of-carbon-scheme-20081214-6y8x.html
Sydney Morning Herald: AUSTRALIA'S big three energy retailers say the Federal Government's plan to reduce carbon emissions must put an end to the investment uncertainty surrounding the sector or risk companies chasing better opportunities offshore. AGL Energy, Origin Energy and TRUenergy will be three of the companies most affected by the final outcome of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, the first details of which will be outlined in a white paper today. The managing director of TRUenergy, ...

Mon, 15 Dec 08
Too many people = Too many problems
http://www.thereporter.com/opinion/ci_11229876
Reporter: Panic over a turbulent world economy has overshadowed strategic issues that, in the long run, will determine quality of life on Earth. Few people are willing to concentrate right now on such transcendent matters as unsustainable population growth, rapid global warming, dwindling water supplies, loss of biodiversity. Indeed, the very words seem inconsequential to the many Americans worrying about the sorry state of their 401(k) accounts. Yet all of the world-view problems listed have ...

Mon, 15 Dec 08
Next climate summit may turn on rich nations' approach to poor ones
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/13/AR2008121301913.html
Washington Post: The acrimonious end to the United Nations talks here early Saturday morning highlights the challenge rich and poor countries will face as they seek a global climate pact in the coming year, as well as a possible path toward compromise. Much of the debate this year focused on how to structure the year-old adaptation fund, which devotes a small portion of the money industrial nations pay on clean-energy projects in developing nations to helping those same countries cope with global ...

Mon, 15 Dec 08
After lull, war on climate change faces crunch year
http://www.mg.co.za/article/2008-12-14-after-dangerous-lull-war-on-climate-change-faces-crunch-year
Agence France-Presse: After a year in which it nearly lost its compass, the campaign against climate change heads into 2009 needing top-level political commitment, creative thinking and a deep well of money. Next year holds a big dream: by its end, the world will have forged a treaty in Copenhagen to shrink global warming from mankind-threatening juggernaut to manageable problem. Unprecedented in scale and complexity, this accord, due to take effect from 2012, will rein in the greenhouse gases that ...

Mon, 15 Dec 08
Al Gore calls for tougher global limit on CO2 levels
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/12/al-gore-carbon-emissions-poznan
Guardian: Al Gore has called for world governments to significantly strengthen their carbon emission reduction targets in the face of growing evidence that global warming will strike harder and sooner than scientists realised. Gore, a former US vice president, told UN climate talks in Poznan, Poland that even the most ambitious existing targets would be unable to hold world temperature rise to safe levels. He called for a new global goal of limiting carbon dioxide levels in the ...

Mon, 15 Dec 08
Climate change in Latin America: The accidental environmentalists
http://www.economist.com/world/americas/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12775599
Economist: MORE destructive hurricanes, shrinking forests, melting glaciers, disappearing animals: the prospective damage to Latin America and the Caribbean from climate change makes for grim reading. A new World Bank report, timed to coincide with a United Nations conference in Poland, tries to put numbers to the potential economic cost. ('Low Carbon, High Growth: Latin American Responses to Climate Change,' by Augusto de la Torre, Pablo Fajnzylber and John Nash.) By taking the Intergovernmental Panel ...

Mon, 15 Dec 08
Hey, Senator, check out the 43 mpg Ford Fusion hybrid
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081213/OPINION03/812130320/1149
Detroit News: If I had my way, carmakers would create vehicles that run off of hot air. It's the kind of development that might make the U.S. Congress useful. Really, the top U.S. legislative body should have convened in Los Angeles this week so its members could have seen the 2010 Ford Fusion hybrid in action. Rarely do you get the opportunity to see a midsize sedan average more than 43 mpg in city driving. Actually, no one has seen it before -- not even the distinguished gentleman and ...

Mon, 15 Dec 08
United States: Coal plant could get $600 million
http://wvgazette.com/News/200812130478
Charleston Gazette: A proposed coal-to-liquids plant being touted by Gov. Joe Manchin for Mingo County could receive at least $600 million in tax breaks under West Virginia's existing economic development incentives programs. Complete details of incentives for the TransGas Development Systems LLC project have not been made public by Commerce Secretary Kelley Goes or by the Mingo County Redevelopment Authority, which is also backing the proposal. But under existing law, the $3 billion plant would ...

Mon, 15 Dec 08
Vietnam: Fighting global warming
http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/showarticle.php?num=05ECO131208
Viet Nam News: The PM has approved a $135m plan to tackle global warming over the next seven years. The Red River in Ha Noi during the dry season. A US$135 million programme to deal with climate change has been approved by Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung. -- VNA/VNS Photo Truong Vi HA NOI -- Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has approved a seven-year VND2.3 trillion (US$135 million) national programme to deal with climate change. The programme, to begin next year, will focus on the rate of ...

Mon, 15 Dec 08
Vietnam: Government to phase out ozone in 15 years
http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/showarticle.php?num=02ENV131208
Viet Nam News: A 15-year programme for the complete phase out of hydrochloro-fluorocarbons (HCFCs) use for refrigerants and foam materials kicked-off yesterday. The programme will contribute to the State's implementation of the Montreal Protocol, which aims to eliminate the use of ozone depleting substances. The protocol was signed by Viet Nam in 1994 and by 191 countries, said Le Cong Thanh, acting head of the Hydrometeorology and Climate Change Department under the Ministry of Natural ...

Mon, 15 Dec 08
Australia: Government set to release climate change plans
http://news.smh.com.au/national/govt-set-to-release-climate-change-plans-20081214-6y4v.html
AAP: Not everyone is going to be happy when the Rudd government unveils its plan to tackle climate change on Monday. For months green groups have been lobbying for 2020 reduction targets to be set at a minimum of 25 per cent. Industry and business say this would be economic suicide, particularly in the current economic climate. On Monday the targets will be out, and expected to fall somewhere between 5 and 25 per cent. The final plans for an emissions trading scheme, ...

Mon, 15 Dec 08
Get ready for worse climate change impacts: expert
http://news.smashits.com/328202/Get-ready-for-worse-climate-change-impacts-expert.htm
Indo-Asian News Service: An extra billion people will face water shortage, cereal production in developing countries will drop and coastal regions will face more damage from floods and storms because of delay in combating climate change, says a leading expert. The world should be prepared to face far worse effects of global warming than it is facing now, Martin Parry, a professor at the Imperial College in London, said in the backdrop of little substantial progress at the Dec 1-12 climate summit ...

Mon, 15 Dec 08
Climate change adding to hunger, illnesses worldwide
http://mangalorean.com/news.php?newstype=local&newsid=104859
Indo-Asian News Service: The Dec 1-12 climate change summit is entering its final day without any sign of substantial progress, but climate change effects have progressed dramatically worldwide, adding to hunger and illnesses worldwide, say international experts. The 2008 drought in western Australia that contributed in a big way to the food crisis earlier this year is the first major impact of climate change, says Martin Parry, professor at the Imperial College in London and former co-chair of a working ...

Mon, 15 Dec 08
Poor accuse rich of meanness in UN climate change talks
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20081214/world-news/poor-accuse-rich-of-meanness-in-un-climate-change-talks
Reuters: Delegates walk past a polar bear dummy at the foyer of the entrance to the UN climate change conference in Poznan, Poland. About 10,600 delegates from 186 governments, businesses and environmental groups met in Poznan for talks halfway through a two-year push to agree on a new climate treaty in Copenhagen at the end of 2009 to succeed the Kyoto Protocol. Developing nations accused the rich of meanness yesterday at the end of UN climate talks that launched only a tiny fund to help poor ...

Mon, 15 Dec 08
Analysis: For many, global warming kills
http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Analysis_For_many_global_warming_kills_999.html
Agence France-Presse: Hardly anyone at the U.N. climate-change conference in Poland needs to be convinced of the need for urgent action to stop global warming. Yet for some delegations in Poznan, the issue is a matter of life and death. Apisai Ielemia is the prime minister of Tuvalu, a small island state located in the Pacific Ocean midway between Hawaii and Australia. A barrel-chested man with a deep voice, Ielemia at the high-level summit of the climate conference on Thursday called on the world to "act ...

Mon, 15 Dec 08
Analysis: Al Gore pushes the limits
http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Analysis_Al_Gore_pushes_the_limits_999.html
United Press International: Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore Friday called on world leaders to become more involved in hammering out a global climate deal, amid hopes that the United States will take the lead starting next year. Gore said heads of state should get "personally involved" by meeting "several times" over the coming 12 months to ensure that an ambitious climate-protection treaty is signed at a U.N. summit in late 2009 in Copenhagen, Denmark. But before Copenhagen comes Poznan: Delegates from ...

Mon, 15 Dec 08
United Kingdom: Anger at fourth delay to energy plan
http://www.sundayherald.com/news/heraldnews/display.var.2475095.0.0.php
Sunday Herald: ONE OF the Scottish government's crucial plans for cutting the pollution that is causing climate chaos has been delayed for another year, sparking outrage from environmentalists and opposition MSPs. The Sunday Herald can reveal that the launch of the much-vaunted energy efficiency action plan has been postponed until late in 2009. The Scottish government had previously promised to publish it in 2008, but now the plan to boost home insulation, install smart meters and kick-start ...

Mon, 15 Dec 08
Gas prices fall but concerns linger
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/nationworld/sfl-flaenergy1214sbdec14,0,3601308.story
South Florida Sun-Sentinel: Breaking America's foreign-oil addiction was all the rage on Capitol Hill when gas cost $4 a gallon. Now that it's under $2 and falling, history suggests the enthusiasm for alternative fuels and more efficient cars will subside. It did that in the mid-1970s and again in the '80s and '90s. But this time could be different. A confluence of factors -- which didn't exist or played lesser roles in previous "energy independence" efforts -- is encouraging congressional leaders and ...

Mon, 15 Dec 08
At U.N. climate talks, wealthy nations urged to act boldly
http://www.statesman.com/green/content/news/stories/world/12/12/1212mexclimate.html
Associated Press: Developing countries upbraided rich nations at U.N. climate talks Thursday, saying they were refusing to act boldly enough to stop global warming. Mexico sought to prod others into action by becoming the first developing country to announce a cap on greenhouse gas emissions. As 145 environment ministers and other leaders gathered in Poland for the final phase of the two-week talks, delegates from poor countries made emotional pleas to wealthier countries to take the lead in cutting ...

Mon, 15 Dec 08
Breakthrough in climate talks
http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/global-warming/breakthrough-in-climate-talks/2008/12/13/1228585156705.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
Agence France-Presse: A marathon UN climate conference entered its final stages on Friday with a spring in its step after the European Union (EU) salvaged its environmental credentials with a landmark new pact. "The EU today said, 'yes, we can and here's how,' and that's pretty good," said US Senator John Kerry, president-elect Barack Obama's point man at the talks in Poznan, Poland. The European pact, agreed unanimously by a 27-nation summit in Brussels, is "very exciting," Kerry told AFP during ...

Mon, 15 Dec 08
Australia blamed as progress on new deal fizzles
http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/global-warming/australia-blamed-as-progress-on-new-deal-fizzles/2008/12/13/1228585181432.html
Sydney Morning Herald: A CALL-TO-ARMS by former US vice-president Al Gore and a contentious European deal to cut its greenhouse emissions have overshadowed an anti-climactic finale to UN climate talks in Poland. Critics said the talks made only tentative steps to a new global treaty. Promised as a stepping stone towards a post-Kyoto climate deal to be signed in Copenhagen next year, the Poznan talks edged towards conclusion yesterday amid accusations that developed nations, including Australia, had ...

Mon, 15 Dec 08
Rich-poor rift adds hurdles to climate deal
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4B519W20081214?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: World leaders led by President-elect Barack Obama may be needed to help agree even a modest U.N. climate treaty in 2009 after a rift deepened between rich and poor nations over funds and new goals to cut emissions. About 190 nations aim to work out a new treaty by mid-December 2009 but two weeks of preparatory talks in Poland ended on Saturday with developing nations accusing the rich of doing too little to help them cope with impacts such as droughts, floods, disease and rising ...

Mon, 15 Dec 08
Australia to bring forward renewable energy fund: report
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4BD09520081214?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd called for a "solar revolution" on Sunday as he unveiled plans to bring forward a A$500 million (US$329 million) fund to promote renewable energy in a bid to stimulate the economy. Speaking just a day before a key announcement on Australia's greenhouse gas emissions targets, Rudd said the fund's timescale would be brought forward from the original six-year plan to the next 18 months. "It's good for jobs. It's good for stimulus. It's good for ...

Mon, 15 Dec 08
Zimbabwe says drought will worsen food shortages
http://www.tiscali.co.uk/news/newswire.php/news/reuters/2007/03/20/world/zimbabwe-says-drought-will-worsen-food-shortages.html&template=/news/feeds/story-template-reuters.html
Reuters: Zimbabwe's food crisis will worsen this year because of a drought that has decimated maize and other key crops, a government minister said on Tuesday amid rising tension in the economically-depressed African country. Zimbabwe is struggling with an economic crisis marked by chronic shortages of food, fuel and foreign currency, the world's highest inflation at above 1,700 percent, soaring unemployment and increasing poverty. "The government has declared 2007 a drought year," the ...

Mon, 15 Dec 08
EU climate deal struck at a price
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7780700.stm
BBC: Securing a deal on the wide-ranging EU climate change package was a key goal of the French EU presidency, which will hand over to the Czechs in January. The deal agreed at the EU summit in Brussels on Friday keeps the European Commission's overall 20/20/20 targets on cutting greenhouse gas emissions, developing renewable energy and boosting energy efficiency. But the deal comes at a price. Many EU countries have exerted pressure to soften their national energy targets, arguing ...

Mon, 15 Dec 08
Climate change top Ottawa priority despite environmentalist criticism: Prentice
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2008/12/12/7724621-ap.html
Canadian Press: Canada wrapped up negotiations at a United Nations climate conference Friday with a promise to keep climate change at the top of its agenda, even as it was dubbed the most obstructionist country at the summit. "People are quite concerned about this and they've made it clear that they want to see this as a priority, and so the government is addressing it as such," Environment Minister Jim Prentice said Friday in a conference call with Canadian reporters from Poznan, Poland. "The ...

Mon, 15 Dec 08
Canada mocked for its green policies
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Environment/2008/12/12/7722766-sun.html
Various: Canada has been cleaning up at the international climate change talks in Poland, winning mock awards and dubious titles for what critics call dirty environmental policies. According to the Climate Change Performance Index, Canada ranks second to last among 57 countries for weak climate protection policies, losing to the U.S. and beating only Saudi Arabia for last place. Climate Action Network International, meanwhile, has bestowed Canada with eight "Fossil of the Day" awards ...

Mon, 15 Dec 08
At the Poles, Melting Occurring at Alarming Rate
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/21/AR2007102100761.html?wprss=rss_world/northamerica
Washington Post: For scientists, global warming is a disaster movie, its opening scenes set at the poles of Earth. The epic already has started. And it's not fiction. The scenes are playing, at the start, in slow motion: The relentless grip of the Arctic Ocean that defied man for centuries is melting away. The sea ice reaches only half as far as it did 50 years ago. In the summer of 2006, it shrank to a record low; this summer the ice pulled back even more, by an area nearly the size of Alaska. Where ...

Mon, 15 Dec 08
Canada: Scientist dropped from climate delegation to save money: Prentice
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/12/12/prentice-maciver.html
CBC: Environment Minister Jim Prentice said the government's decision to not send one of Canada's leading scientists to the international climate talks wrapping up in Poland Friday was financial, not political. Senior Environment Canada scientist Don MacIver was scheduled to deliver a speech Dec. 5 as part of his role as the chair of the organizing committee for the World Meteorological Organization's climate conference. MacIver's travel costs were to be covered by the WMO, but ...

Mon, 15 Dec 08
Fresh Starts: Up on the Roof, New Jobs in Solar Power
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=113206
New York Times: MOVE over, Joe the Plumber. Spencer the Solar Panel Installer is here. In this case, it`s Spencer Bockus, who created solar-powered fans and other contraptions for science fairs as a fifth grader in California. Today, at 22, he is on customers` roofs, measuring where the shade will hit and hooking up photovoltaic arrays, better known as solar panels, to convert the sun`s energy into electricity. 'Sometimes I`m 50 feet up on a steep roof and it`s so hot the tar is melting onto ...

Mon, 15 Dec 08
Climate change activists: Meet Britain's new army of young eco warriors
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/14/environmental-activists-climate-change
Guardian: They are young, smart, organised, committed and, if they are allowed to have their way, they would like to save the world. No longer is an environmentalist a geeky elderly man in socks and sandals or a dreadlocked traveller in a rainbow jumper. Britain's new vanguard of eco-warriors are predominantly in their twenties, they are articulate and knowledgeable and techno-aware. Monday's demonstration by 57 young protesters from the environmental group Plane Stupid at Stansted Airport in ...

Mon, 15 Dec 08
United Kingdom: Study shows wealthy may be greenest but leave high carbon footprint
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/14/environment-carbon-footprint-wealthy-redland
Guardian: Money can buy many of life's advantages, but it comes attached to a heavy conscience, according to new research that shows the richest parts of Britain are also the most 'enthusiastically green'. The wealthy inner-city Bristol area of Redland trumps the rest of the country, with the highest proportion of residents worried about the environment and trying to do something about it. But Redland, like the green and affluent London suburbs of Highgate, Marylebone, Belgravia and Hampstead, ...

Mon, 15 Dec 08
Adapting to climate change
http://www.euractiv.com/en/climate-change/adapting-climate-change/article-178020?Ref=RSS
EurActiv: There is "no need to wait for extreme weather events to strike and islands and coastal regions to be flooded" to develop effective climate change adaptation policies, argue Frank Biermann, professor of environmental policy sciences at the Institute for Environmental Studies (IES) et al. in a November paper for the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS). The major issue in the long-term development of climate change policy is the "challenge of designing architectures for global ...

Mon, 15 Dec 08
Poznan Produces a 'Vision Gap'
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45103
Inter Press Service: The United Nations climate change conference ended on a bitter note in the early hours of Saturday. The developing and emerging economies accused the industrialised nations of "callousness" and a "vision gap" that were reflected in their rejection of a key deal that would enable the poor states to cope with global warming. The deal at issue is a special fund established to finance concrete projects and programmes aimed at adapting to climate change in developing ...

Mon, 15 Dec 08
'Peak Oil Theory' Demands Energy Alternatives
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98203926&ft=1&f=1025
National Public Radio: Plummeting gasoline and diesel prices have given consumers relief at the pump. But oil pessimists believe the current slump in demand will pass. And when it does, the world will be in the same fix it was before the global recession. The era of easy oil is behind us. According to those who believe in what's called "peak oil theory," world oil production has already peaked, or flattened, and in the foreseeable future, the declining resource will inevitably change the way we ...

Mon, 15 Dec 08
Blowing Smoke: Is clean coal technology fact or fiction?
http://www.newsweek.com/id/173086
Newsweek: In the elusive search for the reliable energy source of the future, the prospect of clean coal is creating a lot of buzz. But while the concept--to scrub coal clean before burning, then capture and store harmful gases deep underground--may seem promising, a coalition of environment and climate groups argue in a new media campaign that the technology simply doesn't exist. The Alliance for Climate Protection and several other prominent organizations--including the Sierra Club and ...

Mon, 15 Dec 08
'Airport malaria' risk rising with global warming
http://www.newschannel10.com/Global/story.asp?S=9513416
HealthDay News: Global warming is raising the risk for infection with so-called "airport malaria" in malaria-free zones of the United States and Europe, researchers warn. Here's how it happens, as the scientists explain it: Mosquitoes make their way on to planes in tropical regions, and at the end of a flight can escape into the increasingly warmer climates of developed countries, where they now have a better chance of surviving and proliferating. "The real problem with malaria is that it is ...

Mon, 15 Dec 08
Survey: Americans see global warming, don't want to pay
http://www2.journalnow.com/content/2008/dec/12/survey-americans-see-global-warming-dont-want-pay/
Wintston-Salem Journal: While a majority of Americans believe the Earth is warming, there is little support among the public to use tax money to address the issue, a new survey suggests. Results of the survey were released Thursday as a two-day National Conference on Climate Governance began at the University of Virginia's Miller Center of Public Affairs. The survey is an expansion of one released in October that focused on Virginians' attitudes about climate change. That survey of 660 ...

Mon, 15 Dec 08
Australia: Water fight a running battle
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24792698-11949,00.html
Australian: DOOMSAYERS forecast Perth would run dry as a result of climate change, but the West Australian capital is awash with the most plentiful water supplies of all the mainland capitals. Adelaide and Melbourne have replaced Perth and Brisbane as the cities facing water shortages. The dire predictions for Perth and Brisbane were not fulfilled because of a combination of community effort, well-targeted infrastructure and more rain. Residents of the South Australian and Victorian ...

Mon, 15 Dec 08
Climate summit finale saddest moment
http://www.sindhtoday.net/south-asia/43220.htm
Indo-Asian News Service: The climate summit ended in the early hours of Saturday with the collapse of a key deal to pay developing countries to cope with global warming. The senior-most member of the Indian government delegation said: 'This is one of the saddest moments I have witnessed` during his attendance in 12 such summits. The Dec 1-12 summit of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in this western Poland city had been stalled for much of Friday over whether industrialised countries ...

Mon, 15 Dec 08
Nobel physicist to run energy agency
http://www.nature.com/news/2008/081212/full/456849a.html
Nature: By choosing Nobel-prizewinning physicist Steven Chu to head the Department of Energy (DoE), US President-elect Barack Obama has sent a clear message: solving climate issues in a world dependent on fossil fuels will depend on science coming up with new energy technologies. Three other key positions in Obama's climate and energy team have also been informally settled, and they point to an administration that will be serious about climate change and the regulation of emissions. Carol ...

Sun, 14 Dec 08
Amid a Hopeful Mood, U.N. Talks Set Countries on Path Toward a Global Climate Treaty
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=113164
New York Times: The United Nations climate talks concluded here early Saturday, having seemingly achieved their modest goals and then some: setting the world on the track to a new global climate treaty with a renewed sense of purpose and momentum. The final documents produced at the conference contained a few groundbreaking elements, most notably giving nations credit for saving forests and opening up a long-planned fund to help poor countries adapt to climate change. However, many countries ...

Sun, 14 Dec 08
Interim Climate Pact Approved
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/12/AR2008121204564.html?wprss=rss_nation
Washington Post: The effort to come up with a global warming treaty to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol inched forward Saturday morning as delegates to United Nations-sponsored talks here agreed on a narrowly framed interim document that leaves all the difficult negotiating until next year. The modest result leaves the three-year process far short of the goal of concluding a binding agreement by the end of 2009 to curb greenhouse gas emissions and slow the planet's warming, which under current ...

Sun, 14 Dec 08
Mood mixed as climate summit ends
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7781022.stm
BBC: The UN climate summit has ended with delegates taking very different views on how much it has achieved. Western delegates said progress here had been encouraging, but environment groups said rich countries had not shown enough ambition. Developing nations were angry that more money was not put forward to protect against climate impacts. The meeting is the halfway point on a two-year process aimed at reaching a deal in Copenhagen by the end of 2009. As envisaged at ...

Sun, 14 Dec 08
E.U. Adopts Climate Change Pact, Economic Stimulus Plan
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/12/AR2008121202520.html?wprss=rss_world
Washington Post: European leaders adopted what they described as a historic pact to combat global warming Friday and challenged President-elect Barack Obama to join in their commitment to drastically reduce greenhouse gases despite the global economic crisis. The 27 European Union nations also endorsed a $260 billion economic stimulus plan, equivalent to 1.5 percent of the bloc's gross domestic product, and urged the incoming Obama administration to prepare similarly ambitious measures and financial ...

Sun, 14 Dec 08
Lack of progress at Poznan
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/12/poznan-climatechange
Guardian: Anyone concerned about the future of the planet and its people should be alarmed at the lack of progress made at the UN climate talks in Poznan. The 190 countries meeting in Poland's former capital were supposed to put flesh on the bones of a new international agreement on climate change to be finalised in Copenhagen next year. While ActionAid saw developing countries turning up to do just that, their counterparts from the rich world were determined to keep the bones bare. Some ...

Sun, 14 Dec 08
EU Gives Polluters a Christmas Gift
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45095
Inter Press Service: Polluting industries have received an early Christmas gift from European Union leaders who have agreed to weaken their proposals for fighting climate change in order to protect short-term commercial gains. Winding up a two-day summit in Brussels Dec. 12, the EU's governments decided that a plan to make energy-intensive firms pay for their emissions of greenhouse gas emissions should be drastically amended. Under plans for revamping the EU's Emissions Trading System put forward ...

Sun, 14 Dec 08
EPA seeks to ease flaring rules for refineries
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4BB7DK20081213?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday asked for public comment on proposed revisions to regulations that would ease the requirements for reducing emissions spewed by oil refineries when they burn off excess gas or sulfur. If a refinery relies on such "flaring" more than expected, the facility would have to take steps to fight the polluting emissions under rules issued last June. However, the EPA wants to revise those regulations at the urging of several industry groups, ...

Sun, 14 Dec 08
United Kingdom: Activism at Stanstead: Flight of fancy, or a far-sighted protest?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/13/stanstead-protest-environment
Guardian: Plane Stupid's activists train in protest techniques, such as padlocking themselves to things, so as she sat on the ground near Stansted's runway, Rosie Slay was not overly concerned for her safety, despite the bicycle D-lock attaching her to a fence by the throat. Safety is always a big consideration during the group's actions, she says. The police had arrived shortly after the protesters, and were removing them one by one from their makeshift barricade, cutting some loose with bolt ...

Sun, 14 Dec 08
FAQ: How the EU climate change 'triple 20' deal was done
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/13/carbonemissions-emissionstrading
Guardian: The climate change package details how European industries, energy generators, governments, and transport sectors are to effect a "triple 20" deal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2020 compared with 1990 levels, cutting energy consumption by 20% by the same deadline, and ensuring that 20% of the EU's energy mix comes from renewables. The deal will cost tens of billions of euros to implement, and has been fought over ferociously for months, with governments and industrial ...

Sun, 14 Dec 08
EU leaders claim historic agreement on cutting pollution
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/13/carbon-emissions-eu
Guardian: European leaders last night announced they were leading the world towards a low-carbon future after sealing an ambitious climate change pact by making generous concessions to the big polluters in European heavy industry. A two-day summit of 27 government leaders in Brussels ended a two-year effort to agree mandatory reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in Europe and came as a triumph for President Nicolas Sarkozy of France in the closing days of his six-month presidency of the ...

Sun, 14 Dec 08
World should focus on global warming not celebrities, says Gore
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/world-should-focus-on-global-warming-not-celebrities-says-gore-1064472.html
Independent: Al Gore, the former US vice-president and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on the dangers of climate change, called on the world yesterday to focus more on global warming and less on celebrities, in particular, O J Simpson, Paris Hilton and Anna Nicole Smith. He named the jailed ex-All American football player, the attention-seeking hotel heiress and the late sex symbol to thousands of delegates at the UN climate conference at Poznan in Poland, as distractions from the ...

Sun, 14 Dec 08
EU accused of subsidising climate change after 'watered-down' deal
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/eu-accused-of-subsidising-climate-change-after-watereddown-deal-1064470.html
Independent: Green groups accused the European Union of watering down its trail-blazing pledge to tackle climate change last night, after EU leaders made concessions to "dirty" industries in Germany and eastern Europe. The compromise allowed the EU to agree on its commitment to cut emissions of greenhouse gases by 20 per cent by 2020. Its leaders said the deal, and the election of Barack Obama, will boost the prospects of a historic global agreement on climate change in talks in Copenhagen in a ...

Sun, 14 Dec 08
Green lobby cry foul as biggest polluters get more time to clean up
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article5333514.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=3392178
Times (UK): Heavy industry won extra time to go green yesterday as fears of factory closures during the economic crisis led Europe's leaders to water down climate change proposals. The EU stuck to its target to cut 20 per cent of greenhouse gases by 2020 and boost renewable energy, winning praise from John Kerry, Barack Obama's envoy to a UN climate change summit in Poznan, Poland. The goals are the world's most ambitious and the EU hopes that Mr Obama will use them to steer the US towards ...

Sun, 14 Dec 08
Poor accuse rich of meanness in U.N. climate fight
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4B519W20081213?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Developing nations accused the rich of meanness on Saturday at the end of U.N. climate talks that launched only a tiny fund to help poor countries cope with droughts, floods and rising seas. They said the size of the Adaptation Fund -- worth just $80 million -- was a bad omen at the halfway mark of two years of negotiations on a new treaty to fight global warming designed to be agreed in Copenhagen at the end of 2009. "We are so sad and so disappointed," Colombian Environment ...

Sat, 13 Dec 08
EU secures historic climate change deal
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2232587/eu-nations-secure-historic
Business Green: The EU's ambitious climate change action plan was today finalised after a compromise deal saw European leaders agree to a wide-ranging package of measures that will see greenhouse gas emissions cut 20 per cent by 2020. Fears had been mounting that opposition from several eastern European states could scupper the negotiations. But an agreement was today reached after EU leaders settled on a number of changes to the original proposals designed to help fund low carbon projects in poorer ...

Sat, 13 Dec 08
Gore's tough message to leaders
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7780502.stm
BBC: Leaders will have to embrace tougher targets on reducing emissions if they want to prevent dangerous climate change, according to Al Gore. Speaking here at the UN climate conference, the former US presidential candidate said the "sclerotic" politics of today had to change. His speech was met with rapturous applause by thousands of delegates. But environmental groups here criticised the EU's climate and energy package, agreed earlier in Brussels. EU leadership is ...

Sat, 13 Dec 08
This could deliver results - but we still need a global deal
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/12/climatechange-carbonemissions
Guardian: With politicians crowing while the greens cry foul, what's the real outcome of Europe's climate deal? The buying and selling of permits to pollute - the EU Emissions Trading Scheme - is meant to be the main mechanism by which Europe drives down its greenhouse gas emissions. But today's pact changes this. The ETS has had a rocky start since its launch in 2005 and its impact has now been further watered down. In fact, the rules have been drafted with such complexity that it is virtually ...

Sat, 13 Dec 08
Arctic Is the Canary in the Coalmine
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45091
Inter Press Service: Nearly 1,000 scientists and representatives of indigenous peoples from 16 countries have braved a major winter storm to share their findings and concerns about the rapidly warming Arctic region at the International Arctic Change conference in Quebec City. The Arctic is "ground zero" for climate change, with temperatures rising far faster than anywhere else on the planet. Some predict an ice-free summer Arctic in less than five to 10 years -- the first time the Arctic Ocean will be ...

Sat, 13 Dec 08
Poland: Visa problems hamper climate change talks
http://www.scidev.net/en/climate-change-and-energy/visa-problems-hamper-climate-change-talks.html?utm_source=link&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=en_climatechangeandenergy
SciDev.Net: Some of the world's poorest countries have been hampered in their attempts to attend the UN climate change negotiations in Poznan, Poland because of difficulties obtaining visas. Lead negotiators, journalists and civil society representatives from developing countries -- those most vulnerable to climate change -- were delayed, or could not attend the two-week long meeting. Delegates suffered from delays to their visa applications, with some arriving at the meeting up to a week ...

Sat, 13 Dec 08
EU agrees cut in greenhouse gas emissions
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16265-eu-agrees-cut-in-greenhouse-gas-emissions.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=climate-change
New Scientist: European Union leaders have unanimously agreed a deal on tackling climate change, which would see EU greenhouse-gas emissions drop to 20% below 1990 levels by 2020. Nine eastern European countries had threatened to veto the deal over the proposal to auction off emission permits. Until now, European nations were given a certain number of permits to emit greenhouse gases. Under the next phase of the European trading scheme, the permits were to be auctioned off to the highest bidders, ...

Sat, 13 Dec 08
'We're still way, way off the mark'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/12/greenpeace-john-sauven-climate-change
Guardian: As the science of climate change gets increasingly urgent, the will of Europe's political leaders to act on the climate crisis seems to be weakening by the day. The EU climate package was meant to herald a new and unprecedented level of ambition in tackling climate change. Compared to what the science dictates, we're still way, way off the mark. The deal suffered from destructive forces within the EU representing their own country's self interests at the expense of an EU-wide ...

Sat, 13 Dec 08
Global climate change decisions on hold for Obama administration
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/12/poznan-climatechange
Guardian: UN climate talks in Poland were edging towards a conclusion on Friday night, as ministers from 192 countries put the finishing touches to measures to fight global warming. The talks in Poznan were expected to make progress on helping poor countries pay to cope with the effects of climate change, as well as launch formal negotiations on a treaty to succeed the Kyoto protocol. Ed Miliband, energy and climate change secretary, said: "I'm more optimistic now then when I arrived ...

Sat, 13 Dec 08
'It's a good deal for business'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/12/neil-bentley-cbi-climate-change
Guardian: The deal on climate change seems to be a good one. Although European summits - and this one is no exception - usually end in compromise, with some good bits and some not so good. This deal will allow Europe's leaders to negotiate with the other big emitters like the US, China and India from a position of leadership. Europe has walked the walk on putting in place policies that will cut emissions. The key part of the agreement is that there will be a robust cap on the quantity of ...

Sat, 13 Dec 08
Russia may not join global deal on climate change
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4BB4YE20081212?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Russia may not join a new global deal to fight climate change if it is against Moscow's interests and will set a national mid-term target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions next year, an official said on Friday. "If the conditions for the international agreement are not favorable for us we may not join such an agreement," Alexander Pankin, deputy head of the Russian delegation at U.N.-led December 1-12 climate negotiations in Poland, told Reuters. If a new U.N. climate pact ...

Sat, 13 Dec 08
Al Gore rouses U.N. climate talks to more action
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4BB4S020081212?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Former Vice President Al Gore urged weary climate delegates to agree a new climate treaty next year and drew loud cheers on the last day of difficult two-week U.N. climate talks on Friday. The talks were on course to meet a minimum goal, to sign off on a fund to help poor nations prepare for global warming, but they were likely to delay any decision on climate targets. Gore urged 145 environment ministers gathered in the western Polish city of Poznan to put aside climate blame ...

Sat, 13 Dec 08
Europe offers Obama climate, recovery pact
http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2008/12/12/europe_offers_obama_climate_recovery_pact/?rss_id=Boston.com+--+Latest+news
Various: EU leaders sealed an ambitious global warming deal and 200-billion-euro ($264 billion) economic crisis pact on Friday, urging U.S. President-elect Barack Obama to join Europe in a "transatlantic recovery plan." French President Nicolas Sarkozy hailed commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent from 1990 levels by 2020 as the most radical in the world, despite concessions to industry which dismayed ecology groups. Economic crisis sweeping the world should not undermine ...

Sat, 13 Dec 08
Feeble EU and group of laggard countries stymie UN climate talks - WWF
http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/what_we_do/climate_change/news/index.cfm?uNewsID=152841
WWF: WWF says the disappointing lack of progress at UN climate talks in Poznan is a major missed opportunity towards reaching a new global climate treaty in Copenhagen in 2009. The stalemate was largely the result of a collapse in European Union leadership and obstructionism by other industrialized countries taking the negotiations hostage. "This was a moment in time when real leaders would have stepped up and taken the positions that would combat the economic and climate crisis at the ...

Sat, 13 Dec 08
Poor nations to get funds to fight climate change
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_POLAND_CLIMATE_TALKS?SITE=TXDAM&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Associated Press: Negotiators at a U.N. climate conference broke through red tape and freed up millions of dollars Friday to help poor countries adapt to increasingly severe droughts, floods and other effects of global warming. "This could be the one thing to come out of Poznan," said Kit Vaughan of WWF-Britain. The decision in the final hours of the two-week conference could begin to release some $60 million (euro45 million) within months, according to delegates and environmentalists following ...

Sat, 13 Dec 08
Barack Obama will adopt some Bush policies on climate change
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article5331454.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=3392178
Times (UK): Barack Obama will adopt some of President Bush's policies on climate change, the head of the US Senate Foreign Relations committee said today during stalled talks on protecting the climate in Poland. John Kerry, the former presidential candidate, who is attending the talks on behalf of Mr Obama, said that the President-elect would continue the pressure on China to get the country involved in combating climate change. But, in a sign that the US might emerge as a global leader on ...

Sat, 13 Dec 08
Seasoned regulators to lead Obama environment program
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/11/AR2008121103669.html
Washington Post: The Obama administration has ambitions for a radical change in U.S. environmental policy. But President-elect Barack Obama did not pick radicals to lead it. Instead, the three officials tapped for leadership posts on the environment are not activists but regulators who have spent years in the weeds of such issues as mercury emissions, brownfields and black-bear hunts. They will inherit the usual issues -- dirty air, dirty water, brownfields and red tides -- plus an ...

Sat, 13 Dec 08
USA's warming due to both man-made and natural causes
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/globalwarming/2008-12-11-climate-report_N.htm
USA Today: Climate change -- due primarly to human-produced greenhouse gases but also because of natural variability -- is the cause of most of the temperature increases observed in the USA since 1951, according to a new report released Thursday by the federal U.S. Climate Change Science Program. The report found that average surface temperatures over the USA have increased about 1.6 degrees since 1951, nearly all in the last 30 years. Last year, the United Nations' International Panel on ...

Sat, 13 Dec 08
Climate change 'largely ignored' by many big firms: report
http://www.timesoftheinternet.com/28027.html
Agence France-Presse: Corporate America is making progress on addressing climate change but many company executives are "largely ignoring" the issue when it comes to making business decisions, a report released Thursday said. Global technology titan IBM scored highest, 79 on a scale of 100, when it came to the fight against Earth-warming gases, according to a report titled "Corporate Governance and Climate Change: Consumer and Technology Companies." Britain-based grocery giant Tesco was ranked ...

Sat, 13 Dec 08
Scientists predict seasonal ice-free Arctic by 2015
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20081212.ARCTIC12//TPStory/Environment
Globe and Mail: Ice in the Canadian Arctic is melting at such an alarming pace due to climate change that the North will be seasonally ice free in six years, according to a study released yesterday from a groundbreaking scientific expedition. The dawning of a seasonal ice-free Canadian Arctic is upon us, said David Barber, one of the leading scientists on the 15-month expedition, adding the consequences for Inuit communities, the wildlife and the entire northern ecosystem are ...

Sat, 13 Dec 08
Companies could buy areas of rainforest in return for being allowed to pollute
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/3709446/Companies-could-buy-areas-of-rainforest-in-return-for-being-allowed-to-pollute.html
Telegraph: The destruction of the world's rainforests is currently responsible for a fifth of the world's carbon emissions and that is set to get worse according to the Met Office. The problem is a core part of negotiations going on at the UN Climate Change Conference in Poznan, Poland, this week to try to halt global warming. Delegates want to find a way to help poorer nations to protect the rainforests so that the whole world can benefit from the role the forests play in absorbing ...

Sat, 13 Dec 08
Tech firms stand out for climate efforts
http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-GreenBusiness/idUSTRE4BA4MJ20081211
Reuters: International Business Machines Corp, Dell Inc and Intel Corp stand out among technology and consumer-products companies for their policies directed at averting climate change, according to a study released on Thursday. Ceres, an investor coalition focused on environmental concerns, commissioned the study evaluating how effective 63 companies in the tech, consumer products, leisure and drug sectors have been in institutionalizing policies intended to reduce their energy consumption ...

Sat, 13 Dec 08
California adopts the most sweeping curbs on greenhouse gas emissions in U.S
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-climate12-2008dec12,0,7794111.story
LA Times: California regulators adopted the nation's first comprehensive plan to slash greenhouse gases Thursday and characterized it as a model for President-elect Barack Obama, who has pledged an aggressive national and international effort to combat global warming. The ambitious blueprint by the world's eighth-largest economy would cut the state's emissions by 15% from today's level over the next 12 years, bringing them down to 1990 levels. Approved by the state's Air Resources Board ...

Sat, 13 Dec 08
Amazon 'die-back' could be devastating
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2008/1212/1228864714812.html
Irish Times: DEFORESTATION AND "die-back" caused by climate change could devastate the Amazon rain forest, with the loss of more than two million sq km by 2050, according to British Met Office scientists. In a report released yesterday, the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research said the loss of forest cover could be five times what the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)projected in its fourth assessment report last year. Deforestation is already a major cause ...

Sat, 13 Dec 08
PNG province still reeling from tidal impact
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/12/12/2445384.htm?section=world
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: The Papua New Guinea province of New Ireland is still reeling from the huge seas that destroyed coastal homes and villages earlier this week. Meanwhile, the Australian Government will provide up to $1 million to help Papua New Guineans affected by severe sea surges this week. PNG disaster officials estimate that up to 50,000 people have been affected on the New Ireland mainland and the surrounding low-lying islands. New Ireland is renowned for its big surf but this ...

Sat, 13 Dec 08
Population growth contributes to emissions growth
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/1310ap_as_climate_conference_booming_population.html
Associated Press: Few doubt the world's booming population contributes to rising carbon emissions. But as a U.N. climate conference in Poznan, Poland considers how to reduce heat-trapping, greenhouse gases, the talk is all about setting emissions targets and funding renewable energy projects. Stabilizing population is not even on the table. "Population is the unmentioned elephant in the living room when it comes to climate change," said Bill Ryerson, president and founder of the Vermont-based ...

Sat, 13 Dec 08
Government's CO2 cuts 'too slow'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7778150.stm
BBC: The UK government is not doing enough to cut its own emissions, its environmental advisory body has said. The Sustainable Development Commission said the government's efforts fell some way short of the action needed to meet the targets in the Climate Change Act. The new law requires future governments to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80% from 1990 levels by 2050. However, the commission said good progress was being made in areas such as reducing water use and ...

Sat, 13 Dec 08
EU leaders agree on climate change deal
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_EU_SUMMIT?SITE=TXDAM&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Associated Press: European leaders agreed Friday to stick to an ambitious plan to fight global warming through emissions cuts and renewable energy, and on ways to share the hefty costs of setting a global example. The plan includes concessions to heavy industry and countries in Eastern Europe worried that the cost of curbing pollution would impede economic growth. The expense of the plan had caused uproar among many countries as the continent grapples with economic downturn. The plan, agreed at ...

Sat, 13 Dec 08
Germany: the new dirty man of Europe
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/12/greenpolitics-poznan
Guardian: So much for the Europeans leading the way on climate change. Even as our governments claim they want to drag the world into an effective climate agreement in Poznan, they have just pulled Europe out of one in Brussels. The agreement they have just reached is a disaster. The 20% carbon cut they promise by 2020 falls miles short of what's needed, and they'll be able to buy most of it from abroad anyway. All this means, in a world which has to eliminate most of its carbon pollution, is ...

Sat, 13 Dec 08
United Kingdom: Manchester rejects congestion charge
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2232554/manchester-rejects-congestion
Business Green: In a major blow for green transport campaigners, residents of Greater Manchester have voted against the proposed introduction of a congestion charge for the city. Polls had shown that the referendum was on a knife edge, but a majority of voters in each of the region's 10 boroughs voted to reject the plans. Green campaigners said they were disappointed by a turn out of just 53.2 per cent. The result represents a major blow to Manchester's transport policy and means it ...

Sat, 13 Dec 08
Climate change: EU leaders reach compromise deal on emissions
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/12/eerope-carbon-emissions-climate-change
Guardian: European leaders have reached a compromise deal on how to cut carbon emissions, diplomats said, on the second day of a heads of state summit in Brussels. The plan lays out the ways in which the EU's 27 members will cut carbon emissions by 20% by 2020 and is intended to set an example for world efforts to tackle climate change. It includes various burden-sharing measures meant to ensure that the cost of curbing pollution will not impede economic growth. The cost of the plan had ...

Sat, 13 Dec 08
EU leaders follow industry on climate
http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/what_we_do/climate_change/news/index.cfm?uNewsID=152825
WWF: Last year's bold commitments on climate were translated into feeble commitments on action today as European leaders finalised the more contentious aspects of the climate and energy package, Europe's headline response to the climate change issue. With support for a 30% reduction in Europe's emissions by 2020 now no more than a muted whisper, leading NGOs including WWF called on the European parliament to vote down the Effort Sharing law that is a key outcome of the leaders' ...

Sat, 13 Dec 08
Human rights in spotlight at UN climate talks
http://www.euractiv.com/en/climate-change/human-rights-spotlight-un-climate-talks/article-177982?Ref=RSS
EurActiv: Frustrated by a lack of progress in talks over a new climate agreement taking place in Poznan, activists and delegates used the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to warn negotiators that legal action will increase unless governments take decisive steps to tackle global warming. Background: The global community must decide on a new international agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol on climate change before the United Nations ...

Sat, 13 Dec 08
Kerry: Climate Change Solution Must be Global
http://www.climatebiz.com/news/2008/12/11/kerry-climate-change-solution-must-be-global
ClimateBiz: Former presidential hopeful John Kerry said a climate treaty stands a better chance of passing Congress if all nations join the climate change fight. The Massachusetts senator is in Poland attending the final phase of the United Nations climate change negotiations and will report back to President-elect Barack Obama. His words signaled an old gripe of the U.S.: developing countries, such as India and China, must enter the fray and curtail their fast growing emissions. "The ...

Sat, 13 Dec 08
Executive Bonuses for Making the CO2 Cut
http://www.climatebiz.com/feature/2008/12/11/executive-bonuses-those-who-make-co2-cut
ClimateBiz: As climate change and greenhouse gas emissions move to the forefront of corporate awareness, leading U.S. businesses are starting to tie the non-financial performance of their companies to their compensation metrics, according to a 2008 study of S&P 500 companies. Data found in the Carbon Disclosures Project (CDP) Report 2008 on the S&P 500, which asked companies on that index to report and measure their greenhouse gas emissions, shows that 93 of 321 respondents -- or nearly ...

Sat, 13 Dec 08
Is This Any Way to Save the Planet?
http://www.climatebiz.com/blog/2008/12/11/is-this-any-way-save-planet
ClimateBiz: Without a doubt, the best word to describe a COP is a circus. There are some 11,600 registered delegates, ranging from presidents to vegan activists too young to vote, from captains of industry to bureaucrats inhabiting innumerable byzantine United Nations agencies. There is no doubt that the energy is both exhilarating and exhausting and the sheer breadth of the human experience that you can witness in comparatively tight quarters is impressive. But is it doing anything to really ...

Sat, 13 Dec 08
Obama Energy pick: climate change a priority
http://money.cnn.com/2008/12/11/news/economy/chu.ap/index.htm
Associated Press: Steven Chu, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist who is President-elect Barack Obama's likely choice for energy secretary, has been a vocal advocate for more research into alternative energy, arguing that a shift away from fossil fuels is essential to combat global warming. Chu, a Chinese-American who currently is director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, has in recent years campaigned to bring together a cross-section of scientific disciplines to find ways to ...

Sat, 13 Dec 08
Madagascar: Living in the Cyclone Belt is Not Easy
http://allafrica.com/stories/200812110880.html
IRIN: Every year the rains flood large parts of Madagascar's capital, Antananarivo, displacing thousands of its poorest inhabitants. Now a combination of rapid urbanisation and increasingly violent cyclones as a result of climate change may threaten to bring increasing devastation to the city, say experts. "Last year 20,000 people were displaced, which was more than in the 2007 cyclone season - every year the number increases," Dia Styvanly Soa, of the government's Office for National ...

Sat, 13 Dec 08
Skating on thin ice: Europe's climate policy and its global position
http://www.euractiv.com/en/climate-change/skating-thin-ice-europe-climate-policy-global-position/article-177996?Ref=RSS
EurActiv: Ratifying the Kyoto Protocol was a major diplomatic success for the EU, but the bloc's leadership role in international negotiations over a post-2012 climate agreement hinges on the implementation of its climate action and renewable energy package, argue Louise Van Schaik and Karel Van Hecke in an Egmont (Royal Institute for International Relations) paper. The December publication claims that climate policy may be the only EU policy where the "internal and external dimensions are so ...

Sat, 13 Dec 08
Climate Change Alters Ocean Chemistry
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081211141832.htm
ScienceDaily: Researchers have discovered that the ocean's chemical makeup is less stable and more greatly affected by climate change than previously believed. Researchers report that during a time of climate change 13 million years ago the chemical makeup of the oceans changed dramatically. The researchers warn that the chemical composition of the ocean today could be similarly affected by climate changes now underway -- with potentially far-reaching consequences for marine ecosystems. "As CO2 ...

Sat, 13 Dec 08
Commission unveils plans to 'green' ICT
http://www.euractiv.com/en/infosociety/commission-unveils-plans-green-ict/article-178001
EurActiv: The European Commission will publish proposals next February to boost the use of smart technologies to combat climate change, Information Society Commissioner Viviane Reding told industry representatives in Brussels. "The ICT sector must lead the efforts in Europe to attain our climate change targets," said Commissioner Reding, adding that the EU executive would "play its role" in supporting this trend. Brussels will publish a new document setting out specific policy ...

Sat, 13 Dec 08
Industry set to win EU climate concessions
http://www.euractiv.com/en/climate-change/industry-set-win-eu-climate-concessions/article-178003?Ref=RSS
EurActiv: EU leaders meeting in Brussels yesterday (11 December) closed in on an agreement that would give Europe's big polluters more CO2 emission permits free of charge, as the bloc's major economies slip further into economic recession. Background: In January 2008, the European Commission presented a series of proposals designed to transform into law the political commitments made by EU member states in March 2007 to reduce the EU's emissions of CO2 and related greenhouse gases (GHGs) ...

Sat, 13 Dec 08
Despite downturn, Calif. adopts tough climate plan
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/12/12/despite_downturn_calif_adopts_tough_climate_plan/?rss_id=Boston.com+--+Latest+news
Associated Press: California on Thursday adopted the nation's most sweeping plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions, issuing rules that could transform everything from the way factories operate to the appliances people buy and the fuel they put in their cars. The Air Resources Board unanimously approved the plan despite warnings it will put costly new burdens on businesses at a time when the economy is in extreme crisis, with California forecasting a staggering budget gap of $41.8 billion through ...

Sat, 13 Dec 08
EU eyes climate fund to win east Europe backing
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4BA1H820081212?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Eastern European states could receive billions of euros in funding to secure their support on Friday for an EU plan to fight climate change, but environmental groups said the deal was a sell-out to industry. The European Union hopes to clinch a historic deal on Friday to cut carbon dioxide by a fifth by 2020 -- the biggest step worldwide to avert global warming -- but member states facing an economic crisis have won a myriad of exemptions. "This is a flagship EU policy with no ...

Sat, 13 Dec 08
In Shift Seen as Crucial to Climate Pact, Developing Nations Plan Emissions Cuts
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/11/AR2008121103822.html?wprss=rss_world
Washington Post: Several major developing countries that had long resisted making specific commitments to combat global warming are laying out concrete plans to curb their greenhouse gas emissions at the United Nations climate conference here, a shift that could mark the most positive development in the slow-moving negotiations. Getting the emerging economies -- such as China, Brazil and South Africa -- to limit their escalating carbon footprint has been seen as crucial to the prospects for a future ...

Sat, 13 Dec 08
Drought parches much of the U.S., may get worse
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/12/11/drought.problem/
CNN: Marjorye Heeney knew something was wrong when she saw a bulging cloud of black dust darken the sky. Drought-like conditions dried this Kern River bed last year near Bakersfield, California. She then heard an eerie, train-like whistle as fierce winds rattled her front door and windows. When she looked outside, hordes of grasshoppers and crows swarmed over her father's barren farm. After the storm broke, her father walked outside and muttered curses as he scanned the horizon for ...

Sat, 13 Dec 08
Good planets are hard to find
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/TECH/12/10/schweiger.planet/
CNN: Editor's Note: Larry Schweiger is President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Wildlife Federation. The federation is a nonprofit organization that seeks to protect wildlife habitats and advocate for solutions to global warming. Nature can be amazingly resilient, capable of adapting to constantly changing ecological conditions. And yet, this resiliency is limited and rapidly reaching the breaking point. In the lifetime of a child born today, 20 percent to 30 ...

Sat, 13 Dec 08
United States: State OKs tough plan to fight global warming
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/11/BAO514MCTB.DTL
San Francisco Chronicle: California's air quality board approved on Thursday the nation's most sweeping plan to reduce global warming by curbing emissions, a move that state regulators hailed as a nationwide model for President-elect Barack Obama. State leaders predicted that the blueprint, unanimously approved by the California Air Resources Board, would stimulate California's lagging economy by creating thousands of jobs and billions of dollars of commerce, while business owners said the plan would worsen ...

Sat, 13 Dec 08
Senate abandons automaker bailout bid
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=113081
New York Times: The Senate on Thursday night abandoned efforts to fashion a government rescue of the American automobile industry, as Senate Republicans refused to support a bill endorsed by the White House and Congressional Democrats. The failure to reach agreement on Capitol Hill raised a specter of financial collapse for General Motors and Chrysler, which say they may not be able to survive through this month. After Senate Republicans balked at supporting a $14 billion auto rescue plan ...

Sat, 13 Dec 08
Title, but Unclear Power, for a New Climate Czar
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=113079
New York Times: Much remains unknown, and perhaps undecided, about Carol M. Browner`s new position as White House coordinator of energy and climate policy. How much real authority will Ms. Browner wield? Will her office have the same bureaucratic clout – the ability to knock heads together at other agencies – as the National Security Council and the National Economic Council? Will she be able to hold her own against the two powerhouses that will lead those established councils, James L. Jones, a ...

Sat, 13 Dec 08
California Adopts a Plan on Emissions
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=113078
New York Times: California regulators on Thursday adopted the country`s first comprehensive plan for curbing emissions of heat-trapping gases. The plan establishes the broad outlines of a system of trading pollution permits and allocates among various industry sectors -- transportation, smokestack industries, housing and others -- the responsibility for cutting emissions to 1990 levels in the next 12 years. The plan also commits the state to a goal that many industries in California have resisted: ...

Thu, 11 Dec 08
UN Envoys Drop Plan to Back Carbon-Capture Projects
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601204&sid=aGASzWajTiic
Bloomberg: United Nations negotiators dropped plans to back the use of devices that capture carbon-dioxide emissions from power plants in developing countries and pump it underground for storage. Members of the UN Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice couldn't agree to support the experimental technology for curbing greenhouse gases, according to a document given today to delegates meeting in Poland for climate talks. Negotiators are debating proposals to foster power ...

Thu, 11 Dec 08
United Kingdom: Charles urges lawyers to go green
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5g-cb92MhkZqeT3hREW9aRb4I3jEg
Press Association: The Prince of Wales will urge the legal profession to sign up to a scheme to help combat global warming. Charles will call on lawyers across the country to get involved with the Legal Sector Alliance (LSA) - a group of law firms working to reduce their carbon footprint and adopt environmentally sustainable practices. The Prince will speak at the official launch of the Alliance at a central London venue featuring sustainable products like goat hair carpets and cushions made from ...

Thu, 11 Dec 08
Global warming: Sweden cleanest, S Arabia dirtiest
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Earth/Saudi_Arabia_dirtiest/articleshow/3816750.cms
Agence France-Presse: Sweden does the most of any country for tackling emissions of greenhouse gases, while Saudi Arabia does the least, according to a barometer published on Wednesday by watchdogs at the UN climate talks here. But the annual "Climate Change Performance Index" placed Sweden only fourth on its list, for no prizes were allotted for the top three places. "Not a single country is to be judged as satisfactory with regard to protecting the climate," the NGOs Germanwatch and Climate Action ...

Thu, 11 Dec 08
Will EU live up to its green ambition?
http://www.reuters.com/article/vcCandidateFeed2/idUSTRE4B91TA20081210
Reuters:

Thu, 11 Dec 08
Greenland: Methane, Potent Greenhouse Gas, Flowing Into The Atmosphere From Tundra Much Faster Than Expected
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081210133814.htm
ScienceDaily: Much more methane gas is being emitted into the atmosphere from the tundra in northeast Greenland than previous studies have shown. New figures reveal that large amounts of greenhouse gases are being emitted into the atmosphere, not just during the warm summer months, but also during the colder autumn months. Naturally, this raises new questions concerning our understanding of the Earth's climate system. Scientists at the University of Copenhagen in collaboration with scientists from ...

Thu, 11 Dec 08
Angela Merkel turns her back on green dream of EU
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article5321469.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=3392178
Times (UK): Angela Merkel was once the Green Goddess who pushed through tough climate change targets to show that Europe could lead the world in beating global warming. Under huge pressure to shield German industry from the cost of going green, however, she has been transformed into Frau Nein -- fighting to reverse key goals that she once championed. As EU leaders meet to complete the targets today the German Chancellor, who was so firmly in Europe's driving seat just a year ago, also ...

Thu, 11 Dec 08
Exotic butterflies seek sanctuary in Britain
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article5321224.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=3392178
Times: The red admirals (Vanessa atalanta) that have taken up residence in Britain as a result of climate change are just the vanguard of an army of butterflies expected to invade, a study has shown. More than 60 species of butterfly have moved northwards or farther up mountains to escape the effects of climate change in Europe, and many are heading towards Britain. The movements are a foretaste of the widespread migrations that they will have to make over the next century to stand a ...

Thu, 11 Dec 08
US agency posts 'Most Wanted' list for eco crimes
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/11/environment-usa-most-wanted-list
Guardian: More than half a century after the FBI launched its "Most Wanted" list, the US environmental protection agency has produced an eco version. Its criminal investigation division yesterday listed 23 fugitives accused of anything from dumping hazardous waste to importing excessively-polluting cars. "Do not attempt to apprehend any of these individuals," warns the EPA website in red letters. Concerned citizens are invited instead to file an online Fugitive's Location form. The list ...

Thu, 11 Dec 08
U.S. drops plans to change power plant rules
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4BA0CJ20081211?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: The Bush administration has dropped controversial plans that would have allowed some existing power plants to expand without having to install new pollution controls. Environmentalists declared victory on Wednesday while a spokesman for the Environmental Protection Agency said there was not enough time left in its term for the administration to finalize the rules changes it had sought. Abandoning a second proposed change, the EPA also said it will not seek to loosen rules ...

Thu, 11 Dec 08
Despite downturn, is German energy a model for Obama?
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4BA0BE20081211?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Crisis? What crisis? While the rest of the economy plunges into recession, Germany's solar power industry is full of optimism, fat order books and factories humming at full capacity -- in stark contrast to the surrounding economic gloom. Throughout eastern Germany's "Solar Valley," manufacturers are racing to keep up with global demand for solar panels and the state-of-the-art machinery that makes them, even though share prices have fallen sharply this week. "There's no ...

Thu, 11 Dec 08
Sun's Cycles Can Forecast Floods, Drought?
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/12/081210-sun-weather.html?source=rss
National Geographic: The sun's fluctuations can help predict extreme climatic events on Earth decades ahead of time, new research suggests. Solar cycles are 11-year phases during which the sun's activity ebbs and flows, accompanied by an increase in sunspots on the sun's surface. (Watch a video of how solar storms cause "sun quakes.") The cycles, which are driven by the sun's magnetic turbulence, may influence weather systems on Earth, particularly the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, a periodic ...

Thu, 11 Dec 08
1/5 of Coral Reefs Lost Due to Acid-Filled Oceans
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/12/081210-eu-poland-AP.html?source=rss
Associated Press: The world has lost nearly one-fifth of its coral reefs, and much of the rest could be destroyed by increasingly acidic seas if climate change continues unchecked, a conservation group warned Wednesday. Rising temperatures from greenhouses gases are the latest and most serious threats to coral, which are already being damaged by destructive fishing methods and pollution, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). About 19 percent of coral reefs have ...

Thu, 11 Dec 08
Australia's climate change targets will be announced next week, says Penny Wong
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24783992-11949,00.html
AAP: CLIMATE Change Minister Penny Wong says Australia will announce climate change targets next week. Senator Wong said any discussion of targets would have to wait for that announcement. At the same time the coalition is toughening its stance on emissions trading, suggesting a scheme should be delayed until it has the broad support of industry. Australia is under pressure to stick to an ambitious 25 per cent emissions cut by 2020 as a UN climate conference in Poland draws ...

Thu, 11 Dec 08
Despite fury, US advanced on climate change: US delegate
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5j4O0XUnmTEWGq8-mb81W2MYfeyNA
Agence France-Presse: Global warming rivals the Iraq War as the policy for which George W. Bush has been most savaged, with critics accusing him of braking or even sabotaging efforts to tackle climate change. But the chief US delegate at the UN climate talks here, in an interview on Wednesday, said Bush's administration had shown "an evolution" over two terms and had made practical contributions in shaping the global debate. Paula Dobriansky, under secretary for democracy and global affairs, told ...

Thu, 11 Dec 08
EU faces tough task of adopting climate change package
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-12/11/content_10486148.htm
Xinhua: European Union (EU) heads of state and government face a tough job to adopt a climate change and energy package when they meet Thursday and Friday. Thanks to intense discussions before the summit, EU member states have reached consensus on over 90 percent of the provisions of the package, which was proposed by the European Commission in January 2008 to implement ambitious greenhouse gas emission reduction targets. But the toughest issues remain to be tackled by the leaders at ...

Thu, 11 Dec 08
Wong defending climate change position
http://news.theage.com.au/national/wong-defending-climate-change-position-20081210-6v7r.html
AAP: Climate Change Minister Penny Wong has rejected criticisms Australia is dragging the chain at UN climate talks in Poland. Developing countries at the talks are demanding rich nations cut greenhouses gas emissions by between 25 and 40 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020. But there is mounting speculation the Rudd government will go with a target of between 5 and 15 per cent when it releases its carbon pollution reduction scheme (CPRS) on Monday. Senator Wong says she ...

Thu, 11 Dec 08
Indigenous people win voice in climate negotiations
http://news.mongabay.com/2008/1210-poznan.html
Mongabay: Negotiators at U.N. climate conference have struck a deal to give forest-dependent people a voice in determining the role forest conservation will play future agreements to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, reports the Associated Press (AP). The agreement clears a key obstacle that had been blocking progress on reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD), a mechanism that would compensate tropical countries for protecting their forest cover. AP is reporting that the ...

Thu, 11 Dec 08
Greenhouse Gas Emissions Killing World's Coral Reefs
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1609136/greenhouse_gas_emissions_killing_worlds_coral_reefs/index.html?source=r_science
redOrbit: The remainder of the world's coral is in danger of being eliminated as a result of human activities, pollution and over-fishing, according to an international report. Released on Wednesday, the "Status of Coral Reefs of the World: 2008" found that one fifth of the Earth's coral reefs have disappeared since 1950, and the remainder could die off over the next 20 to 40 years unless initiatives to curb greenhouse gas emissions are enforced. "Climate change must be limited to the ...

Thu, 11 Dec 08
France says EU climate deal possible
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4B96C020081210?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: An agreement on climate change measures is still achievable at this week's European Union summit despite the reservations of several EU countries, French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said on Wednesday. "Certain member states continue to express very strong reservations on the central elements of a compromise," Fillon said in a debate in the French parliament. "But I still think a success is possible." The 27-member bloc is aiming for a broad agreement on measures that would ...

Thu, 11 Dec 08
Malta wants to join rich nations in climate fight
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4B96NC20081210?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Malta wants to join the group of rich nations meant to lead the fight against global warming, bringing the Mediterranean island into line with its European Union partners, the government said on Wednesday. Malta would apply in 2009 to join the group of about 40 nations including EU states, Japan and the United States, George Pullicino, Minister for Resources and Rural Affairs, said in a statement. "Malta seeks to put itself on the same legal footing as its fellow (EU) member ...

Thu, 11 Dec 08
To tackle climate change, Obama must revitalise the US department of energy
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2008/dec/10/barack-obama-energy-department
Guardian: President-elect Barack Obama is expected to announce his energy team this week, and its members promise (unsurprisingly) to be major improvements over George Bush's appointees. A striking fact about the past eight years of Republican rule is how difficult it has become to find an executive agency that Bush shaped appropriately to the times. It's not that every single agency became a conduit for political corruption (like the department of justice) or a money-laundering front for ...

Thu, 11 Dec 08
Poland and Germany eye fund for climate deal: source
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4B971E20081210?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Poland and Germany are studying whether to propose at a summit on Thursday a 40-50 billion euro ($52-65 billion) EU fund from 2014 to help poorer European countries tackle climate change, a Polish negotiator said. The proposal would be aimed at breaking deadlock over parts of a proposed package of European measures to counter global warming and would need the backing of all 27 EU states. "Poland and Germany are considering an idea of creating a solidarity fund of 40-50 billion ...

Thu, 11 Dec 08
2008 one of worst years for disaster losses: insurer
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4B978U20081210?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Weather-related disasters and earthquakes are likely to make 2008 the second most costly year for insurers after 2005, when Hurricane Katrina struck the United States, a leading insurer said on Wednesday. Losses in 2008 are around $160 billion so far, Thomas Loster, chair of Munich Re Foundation, told Reuters on the sidelines of December 1-12 climate talks in Poznan, Poland. He said it was likely to have been surpassed only by 2005, when Katrina contributed to losses of $220 ...

Thu, 11 Dec 08
GM Plugs Its Chevy Volt Hybrid, but Will It Be Road-Ready In Time?
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=will-chevy-volt-be-road-ready-in-time
Scientific American: A single component will make or break Chevrolet's new Volt "extended-range electric vehicle"--and with it, potentially, the fate of America's largest carmaker, General Motors: its battery. It's no wonder then that some GM executives call the Volt's battery "our diva." After all, the new lithium-based pack provides the essential spark that makes the new design go in more ways than one--from its green performance and driving range, right down to its wind-cheating looks. "Not only is the ...

Thu, 11 Dec 08
Poland, Germany in last-minute EU climate deal push
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4B97IN20081210?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Poland and Germany aim to pave the way for a European Union deal on tackling climate change at a summit on Thursday, with proposals to break a deadlock on who should foot the bill for the effort. The measures, which sources said would help Poland and other poorer EU states bear the cost of schemes aimed at making Europe the world leader in the fight against global warming, would need backing from all 27 EU states at the two-day meeting. The summit also aims to win accord on a ...

Thu, 11 Dec 08
Call for no delay on climate deal
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7776661.stm
BBC: As ministers begin two days of talks on climate change, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the world's financial woes must not block climate progress. Ministers from 189 nations aim to finalise agreements drawn up here at the annual UN climate conference. As they talk, EU heads of state will be meeting in Brussels to agree energy and climate reforms including promises to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. EU leadership is widely seen as crucial in reaching a new global ...

Thu, 11 Dec 08
Obama Said To Pick Chu, Browner For Energy Posts
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98108510&ft=1&f=1025
National Public Radio: Steven Chu, a renowned physicist and green-energy advocate, has reportedly been tapped by President-elect Barack Obama to run the federal Department of Energy. Chu runs the DOE's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, and he has made climate change the new centerpiece of his career. Chu's resume contains an item never before seen on a DOE director's CV: a Nobel Prize in physics. Chu, who comes from an immigrant family of scientists, shared the prize with two other ...

Thu, 11 Dec 08
Why do different species of bird lay different numbers of eggs?
http://news.mongabay.com/2008/1210-birds.html
Mongabay: Climate proves to be on the determining factors say scientists Clutch size varies greatly between bird species. Researchers now have a better idea why. Analyzing data on clutch size, biology, and habitat for 5,290 species of birds, a team of biologists -- Walter Jetz (UC San Diego), Cagan H. Sekercioglu (Stanford University), and Katrin Böhning-Gaese (Johannes Gutenberg-Universität) -- developed a model to predict variations in the number of eggs a species lays. They found ...

Thu, 11 Dec 08
EPA unveils list of 'Most Wanted' environmental fugitives
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/10/epa-most-wanted-list
Guardian: Move over FBI guys, the EPA is here. More than half a century after the Federal Bureau of Investigation launched its "Most Wanted" list, a grisly file of the 10 "toughest guys" on the lam, the US Environmental Protection Agency has come up with its own, environmentally friendly version. The agency's criminal investigation division launched a list of 23 fugitives today, a collection of delinquents accused of crimes ranging from dumping hazardous waste to smuggling ...

Thu, 11 Dec 08
EU struggles for deal on climate, economy boost
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4B963120081210?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Differences narrowed in the European Union over how to tackle the economic slowdown and global warming but a final deal on both issues proved elusive before a summit starting on Thursday. Sources close to talks said Germany and Poland had reached an agreement on how to alleviate the impact of proposed new regulations on Poland's coal-fired power stations. However Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi threatened to veto any climate deal that hurt Italy's interests too ...

Thu, 11 Dec 08
Regional leaders commit to pre-Copenhagen climate targets
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2232382/regional-leaders-commit-clean
Business Green: A group of more than 30 leaders of state and regional governments from across the world today committed to step up their climate policy action ahead of next year's UN climate change talks in Copenhagen as part of a concerted attempt to pressurise their national counterparts to follow suit. The group, which was brought together by green NGO The Climate Group and also includes representatives from many multinational firms, presented an "action statement" to the UN's top climate change ...

Thu, 11 Dec 08
Italy to veto EU climate deal if interests hurt
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4B95MO20081210?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Italy is ready to use its veto power against a European Union climate deal if it deems that its interests will be hurt "excessively," Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said on Wednesday. "If I see that Italian interests will be hurt in an excessive way, I will use our veto rights," Berlusconi told reporters at a book presentation ahead of an EU summit starting on Thursday.

Thu, 11 Dec 08
Poorest need $1 bln for urgent climate projects
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4B95K420081210?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Rich nations will be asked to contribute $1 billion to a fund to help the poorest countries implement urgent projects to adapt to climate change, a top official said on Wednesday. Boni Biagini, who runs the Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF) which was set up under U.N. auspices in 2001, said funds would be raised based on an evaluation of plans from 38 of the world's poorest countries. "They are pretty satisfied about this amount. They say $2 billion would be better, but ...

Thu, 11 Dec 08
Poznan progress slow but steady, say officials
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/10/poznan-climate-talks
Guardian: A senior diplomat has defended the lack of progress at UN climate talks in Poland, and insisted that real action in finding a successor to the Kyoto protocol is not required until next year. Brice Lalonde, France's climate ambassador, said hopes of a breakthrough at Poznan had always been misplaced. "Poznan was never going to be a conference where a spectacular outcome was to be expected," he said. Instead, it is preparing the ground for the final round of talks. "We hope for a ...

Thu, 11 Dec 08
East African geothermal tests 'successful'
http://www.scidev.net/en/climate-change-and-energy/east-african-geothermal-tests-successful-.html?utm_source=link&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=en_climatechangeandenergy
SciDev.Net: Geothermal energy generation in Africa could take a leap forward in 2009 after exploratory studies in Kenya exceeded all expectations, it was announced yesterday (9 December). A new enterprise -- the African Rift Geothermal Development Facility (ARGeo) -- will drive forward the plan to harvest the steam locked among the rocks under East Africa, according to leaders of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and the UN Environment Program (UNEP). They made their announcement at the UN ...

Thu, 11 Dec 08
Pollution, emissions and natural disasters take their toll on coral reefs worldwide
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/10/road-to-copenhagen-poznan
Guardian: A fifth of the world's coral reefs have died or been destroyed and the remainder are increasingly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, a new study says. The Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network says many surviving reefs could be lost over the coming decades as CO2 emissions continue to increase. "If nothing is done to substantially cut emissions, we could effectively lose coral reefs as we know them, with major coral extinctions," said Clive Wilkinson of the ...

Thu, 11 Dec 08
EU lead on climate change under threat
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/greenpolitics/3703195/EU-lead-on-climate-change-under-threat.html
Telegraph: Angela Merkel is leading German attempts to protect industry from tough EU environmental targets. Europe's leaders are gathering in Brussels for a battle over how to enforce an EU target to reduce CO2 emissions 20 per cent by 2020 -- a decision that was taken before the economic slump. Diplomats and officials fear that environmental pledges made in rosier economic times will be an early casualty of the global downturn damaging the EU's role on the world stage as broker of ...

Thu, 11 Dec 08
Germany: Merkel's Global Warming Waffling: Europe Puts Hurdles in Obama's Climate Path
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,595644,00.html#ref=rss
Spiegel: Just as the US gets a new president who promises to reverse years of climate change neglect, American environmental experts worry that Europe's resolve on climate change is weakening. Merkel's recent about-face is especially alarming. It was a telling moment. Normally these days, when President-elect Barack Obama appears before the press, even his designated cabinet secretaries arrange themselves dutifully in a row behind him. But when Obama met with Al Gore in Chicago on Tuesday ...

Thu, 11 Dec 08
Major New York exhibition shows urgency of climate change action
http://www.peopleandplanet.net/doc.php?id=3458
People and Planet: The American Museum of Natural History in New York has launched a major exhibition showing how global warming is wreaking havoc with natural phenomena. An interactive model of Manhattan in the exhibition shows the effect of rising sea levels. Credit: Denis Finnin/AMNH A model at the beginning of the exhibition shows the southern end of Manhattan Island under 3 and 5 metres (about 10 and 16 feet) of sea-level rise. The higher amount would occur if a significant part of the ice sheets ...

Thu, 11 Dec 08
Obama Claims Climate Change Action Important To US
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1608764/obama_claims_climate_change_action_important_to_us/index.html?source=r_science
redOrbit: After meeting with climate change guru Al Gore on Tuesday, President-elect Barack Obama said attacking global climate change is a "matter of urgency" that will create jobs. Obama said during a press conference that he would aggressively pursue global warming solutions when he takes over the White House on January 20. He along with Vice President-elect Joe Biden met with Gore for nearly two hours at Obama's presidential transition office in Chicago. "All three of us are ...

Thu, 11 Dec 08
European leaders divided on pledges to combat global warming
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/10/road-to-copenhagen-climatechange2
Guardian: European leaders gather in Brussels on Thursday for a crunch summit, acutely divided over how to deliver on pledges to combat global warming almost two years after declaring they would show the rest of the world how to tackle climate change. The EU is split between the poorer east and the wealthy west. Germany says that most of their industries need not pay to pollute, Italy says it cannot afford the ambitious scheme, and Britain says that the package on the table could result in huge ...

Thu, 11 Dec 08
Making the EU a greener place by law
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/10/emissionstrading-carbonemissions
Guardian: Emissions trading scheme (ETS) The cap and trade scheme limits industrial emissions and forces companies to pay to pollute by buying permits for each tonne of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The permits are to be traded in an auction system. The new law revises the ETS which has been operating in embryo since 2005. This scheme is supposed to supply around half the greenhouse gas cuts. The draft exempts some sectors from paying on competition grounds. But Germany wants to ...

Thu, 11 Dec 08
NGOs Oppose World Bank Management of Climate Funds
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/dec2008/2008-12-09-01.asp
Environment News Service: Bearing banners with the message "World Bank Out Of Climate,"and "Climate Justice Now" environmentalists protested outside the main entrance to the UN climate conference on Tuesday in an attempt to keep the bank from controlling climate change finance. Today, 142 nongovernmental organizations issued a joint statement rejecting any such role for the World Bank. International Finance Campaigner Karen Orenstein with Friends of the Earth US said, "The World Bank is not a credible ...

Thu, 11 Dec 08
Oil Spill Off California Reminder of Offshore Drilling Danger
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/dec2008/2008-12-09-092.asp
Environment News Service: More than 70 people from federal, state and private sector organizations worked today to clean up an undetermined amount of oil that spilled from a platform off the coast of Santa Barbara County on Sunday. The California Department of Fish and Game Office of Spill Prevention and Response, the U.S. Coast Guard, the Minerals Management Service, and personnel from the responsible party, Dcor LLC, are continuing their coordinated response. The spill was reported Sunday morning ...

Thu, 11 Dec 08
Obama Would 'Save the Planet' By Repowering America
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/dec2008/2008-12-10-01.asp
Environment News Service: President-elect Barack Obama signaled that he is ready to tackle the climate crisis immediately upon taking office, following a meeting Tuesday with former Vice President Al Gore and Vice President-elect Joe Biden. "All three of us are in agreement that the time for delay is over, the time for denial is over," Obama said. The three men met at the Transition's Chicago headquarters to discuss energy and climate policy - and how addressing those issues can drive the nation's ...

Thu, 11 Dec 08
EU tables Poznan pledge to cut emissions 95 per cent
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2232348/eu-tables-poznan-pledge-cut
Business Green: The future of its action plan to cut emissions by 20 per cent by 2020 might still be the subject of tense negotiations in Brussels, but senior European officials are reportedly already considering signing the continent up to even more ambitious emission reduction targets. According to Guardian reports, the EU delegation at the current UN climate talks in Poznan, Poland has proposed slashing greenhouse gas emissions by between 80 and 95 per cent if large developing nations agree to ...

Thu, 11 Dec 08
U.N. talks split on aiding poor to cope with warming
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4B519W20081210?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: U.N. climate negotiators sought on Wednesday to break deadlock on the launch of a new fund in 2009 to help poor nations adapt to more floods, droughts and rising seas. The 189-nation talks split between rich and poor nations about controlling planned payouts under the Adaptation Fund, which could grow to about $300 million a year by 2012 to help developing nations cope with global warming. Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, said about 100 ministers who ...

Thu, 11 Dec 08
Nanoparticles from melting glaciers could trap carbon
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16245-nanoparticles-from-melting-glaciers-could-trap-carbon.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=climate-change
New Scientist: The increasing number of icebergs breaking off Antarctica may have an unexpected benefit. According to one team of scientists, the bergs could feed carbon-loving plankton. If they are right, melting icebergs could - theoretically - slow global warming. Just how great an effect this would have remains to be seen. Rob Raiswell of the University of Leeds, UK and colleagues trained high-resolution microscopes on ice sampled from icebergs in the Southern Ocean and the Antarctic glaciers ...

Thu, 11 Dec 08
The Poznan Problem: How to Save the Climate from the Recession
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,595650,00.html#ref=rss
Spiegel: Yvo de Boer, the UN's climate chief, is facing an uphill task at Poznan. The world needs a new treaty on global warming to replace the Kyoto Protocol but many nations are now far more worried about the economic crisis. The prospects of reaching a deal by next year in Copenhagen are already looking slim. If the carbon dioxide emissions of countries were reflected in the abdominal girth of their populations, Yvo de Boer's work would be much easier. The waistlines of the Indians ...

Thu, 11 Dec 08
Application Quantifies Carbon Sequestration Of Urban Trees
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081209221748.htm
ScienceDaily: U.S. Forest Service scientists at the Center for Urban Forest Research are providing online software that can show users how much carbon dioxide an urban tree in California has sequestered in its lifetime and the past year. The Tree Carbon Calculator is free and programmed in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet that provides carbon-related information for a single tree in one of six California climate zones. It is the only tool approved by the California Climate Action Registry's Urban ...

Wed, 10 Dec 08
Nearly a billion people worldwide are starving, UN agency warns
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/10/hunger-population-un-food-environment
Guardian: Almost a billion people go hungry each day after food price rises pushed 40 million more people around the world into the ranks of the undernourished, the UN food agency reported yesterday. According to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), food prices have more than halved from their historic peaks a few months ago, but the cost of basic staples measured by an FAO index is still high: 28% higher on average than two years ago. That has led to an increase in the ...

Wed, 10 Dec 08
Europe agrees energy targets for 2020
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article5315220.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=3392178
Times (UK): Targets for 20 per cent of Europe's energy to come from renewable sources by 2020 were agreed after EU countries decided to reduce the role of biofuels over concerns about the impact of growing crops for fuel in developing countries. In concessions to smooth the deal EU states that cannot afford to meet their own individual renewable energy targets will be able to outsource some of their efforts by sponsoring green projects in other countries or buying credits from those countries ...

Wed, 10 Dec 08
Drought and deforestation in southeast Asia to climate change
http://news.mongabay.com/2008/1209-forests_drought.html
Mongabay: Fires linked to drought and deforestation in Borneo, Sumatra, and New Guinea trigger the releaseof 3.3 billion tons of CO2 between 2000-2006 Researchers have linked drought and deforestation in southeast Asia to climate change. Analyzing six years of climate and fire data from satellites, Guido van der Werf and colleagues report that burning of rainforests and peatlands in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Papua New Guinea released an average of 128 million tons of carbon (470 million ...

Wed, 10 Dec 08
Obama says climate change a matter of national security
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4B86R920081209?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: President-elect Barack Obama said on Tuesday attacking global climate change is a "matter of urgency" that will create jobs as he got advice from Al Gore, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for his work on the issue. In remarks to reporters, Obama made clear he would adopt an aggressive approach to global warming when he takes over the White House on January 20. He and Vice President-elect Joe Biden met for nearly two hours with former Vice President Gore at Obama's presidential ...

Wed, 10 Dec 08
Bush last-minute rules cement environmental legacy
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4B86TO20081209?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: In his waning weeks in the White House, President George W. Bush is drawing more fire than ever as he presides over a steady stream of environmentally unfriendly regulations meant to last into the Obama administration. "While the first 100 days of the Bush administration initiated perhaps the worst period of environmental deregulation in American history, the last 100 days of a Bush presidency could be even worse," the staff of the House of Representatives global warming committee ...

Wed, 10 Dec 08
Australia to set 10 pct carbon reduction target: report
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4B870S20081209?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: The Australian government has endorsed a carbon emissions reduction target of 10 percent by 2020, following the introduction of a carbon trading scheme in 2010, the Australian Financial Review paper said on Wednesday. A more ambitious 25 percent reduction target would be kept open as a possibility if the international community agrees to ambitious targets at a United Nations summit in Copenhagen at the end of 2009, the paper said without citing sources. The government's top ...

Wed, 10 Dec 08
Rich Nations Must Pledge Emissions Cuts To Achieve 2020 Goal
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1608503/rich_nations_must_pledge_emissions_cuts_to_achieve_2020_goal/index.html?source=r_science
redOrbit: The U.N.'s top climate official said on Tuesday that the United States and other rich nations must pledge specific targets by the end of next year for cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 to win agreement on a U.N. climate pact. But many analysts predict that President-elect Barack Obama may not be ready to set formal emissions targets for 2020 within a year, and that economic recession could delay an end-2009 deadline by 190 nations for agreement on a new U.N. global warming ...

Wed, 10 Dec 08
Congress should expand Yucca Mountain capacity: DOE
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4B87I520081209?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Congress should expand the capacity of the planned U.S. nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain in Nevada and delay a decision on whether to commission an additional dump site, the U.S. Energy Department said in a report released on Tuesday. "Unless Congress raises or eliminates the current statutory capacity limit of 70,000 metric tons of heavy metal, a second repository will be needed," Energy Secretary Sam Bodman said in a statement. The current capacity is not based on ...

Wed, 10 Dec 08
Charities claim action on climate change will ease financial crisis
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/3691010/Charities-claim-action-on-climate-change-will-ease-financial-crisis.html
Telegraph: Finance ministers and officials from 15 different countries have met in the Polish capital Warsaw to discuss the economic downturn. At the same time in Poznan, Poland, representatives from almost 200 countries are meeting to for the UN Climate Change Conference to discuss a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol. Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), said the two issues are inextricably linked. He said: "Combating climate change is the ...

Wed, 10 Dec 08
Indigenous row at Poznan threatens rainforest protection
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/09/forests-climatechange
Guardian: Talks aimed at finding ways to protect tropical forests in a new global deal on global warming hit problems today after a row over the rights of indigenous people. Green groups accused the US, Australia, New Zealand and Canada of deleting a line about indigenous peoples' rights from a draft agreement due to have been published tonight, as part of UN talks on climate change. The original confidential draft, seen by the Guardian, talked of "noting the rights and importance of ...

Wed, 10 Dec 08
Give everyone CO2 permits, say scientists
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16228-give-everyone-co2-permits-say-scientists.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=climate-change
New Scientist: Everyone on the planet could get identical greenhouse-gas emission rights as part of a drive to halve emissions by 2050, according to a study by Chinese scientists. The work was presented on the sidelines of a UN conference on fighting global warming that is currently taking place in Poznan, Poland. It would force nations such as the US, which have used the most fossil fuels since the Industrial Revolution to buy emission rights from poor nations. "Developed countries [should] ...

Wed, 10 Dec 08
Climate talks to fail without tough CO2 goals: U.N
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4B519W20081209?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: The United States and other rich nations must pledge by the end of next year specific targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 to win agreement on a U.N. climate pact, the U.N.'s top climate official said on Tuesday. Some analysts say that President-elect Barack Obama may not be ready to set formal emissions targets for 2020 within a year, and that economic recession could delay an end-2009 deadline by 190 nations for agreement on a new U.N. global warming pact. "We ...

Wed, 10 Dec 08
Obama meeting Gore to talk climate
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2232279/obama-meet-gore-talk-climate
Business Green: In a further indication that the environment will form one of the centrepieces of his first 100 days in office, US president-elect Barack Obama will today meet with Nobel laureate and former vice president Al Gore to discuss the future direction of US energy and climate change policy. The announcement of the private meeting in Chicago, which will also be attended by vice president-elect Joe Biden, immediately reignited speculation that Gore could be offered a job in the Obama ...

Wed, 10 Dec 08
Highest U.S. Court Ponders Power Plants and Fish Protection
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/dec2008/2008-12-04-10.asp
Environment News Service: The U.S. Supreme Court is wrestling with the difficulty of valuing fish and aquatic organisms with little or no commercial worth, hearing arguments in a legal dispute over what steps older power plants should take to limit water use and minimize environmental harm. In oral arguements Tuesday, the Bush administration urged the court to allow federal regulators to use cost-benefit analysis when crafting such requirements - a view rejected by a lower court last year. A majority of ...

Wed, 10 Dec 08
Climate Protesters Occupy Britain's Stansted Airport
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/dec2008/2008-12-08-03.asp
Environment News Service: Protesters from the climate action group Plane Stupid this morning shut down Britain's third largest airport by cutting through the perimeter fence and camping on the runway, surrounding themselves with fortified security fencing. The protest at Stansted Airport just north of London began at 3:15 this morning while airport's only runway was temporarily closed for maintenance work. Plane Stupid aimed to prevent the scheduled reopening of the runway at 5 am. The group said its ...

Wed, 10 Dec 08
United States: Schwarzenegger Promotes Green Rules to Climate Leaders
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/dec2008/2008-12-08-092.asp
Environment News Service: Green rules and regulations will help both the climate and the economy, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger today told UN delegates gathered in Poland at The Climate Group's second annual States and Regions Climate Leaders Summit. "States and provinces have long been at the forefront of developing green technologies and protecting our economy so that they are setting great examples for our federal counterparts," the California governor said via video message. His audience ...

Wed, 10 Dec 08
The carbon atlas
http://www.guardian.co.uk/global/interactive/2008/dec/09/climatechange-carbonemissions
Guardian: PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> The carbon atlas | guardian.co.uk Jump to content [s] Jump to site navigation [0] Jump to search [4] Terms and conditions [8] Sign in Register Text largersmaller Search: guardian.co.uk Web <!--option value="pluck-comments" id="search-pluck-comments">Reader comments News Sport Comment Culture Business Money Life & style Travel Environment Blogs Video Jobs ...

Wed, 10 Dec 08
Oil Spray Reduces Greenhouse Gas Emissions From Pig Finishing Barns
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081208114306.htm
ScienceDaily: Animal feeding operations are an important emission source of air pollutants including methane and carbon dioxide--known greenhouse gases. Recent inventories suggest that animal manure makes a significant contribution to global methane emissions. As a consequence, greenhouse gas emissions can potentially become a limiting factor in the development and sustainability of animal production and technologies are needed to mitigate pollutant gas emissions. Oil spray has been used as a ...

Wed, 10 Dec 08
Link efforts on air quality and climate - scientists
http://www.edie.net/news/news_story.asp?id=15715
Edie: Air quality should not be ignored when looking at climate change, say scientists As world leaders meet in Poland to discuss climate change Scientists from the UK Met Office's weather-mapping Hadley Centre are calling for more joined up thinking on greenhouse gases and air quality. According to current models almost a fifth of the world's population will be exposed to ozone levels well above the World Health Organization recommended safe level by the end of this century. Hadley ...

Wed, 10 Dec 08
Total GHGs Grow in 2007, Carbon Intensity Dips
http://www.climatebiz.com/news/2008/12/08/total-ghgs-grow-2007-carbon-intensity-dips
ClimateBiz: Greenhouse gas emissions grew in 2007 by 1.4 percent over the year before because of unfavorable weather and a drop in hydropower generation, according to new data from the Energy Information Administration. Total greenhouse gas emissions reached 7,282.4 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, roughly 16.7 percent above 1990 levels. Since then, emissions have risen 0.9 percent on average every year. President-elect Barack Obama has stated his intention of aggressively ...

Wed, 10 Dec 08
Forests Debate Dominates Talks
http://allafrica.com/stories/200812081070.html
Inter Press Service: The debate over reducing greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation is [prominent at/dominating] the United Nations Climate Change Conference taking place in Poznan, Poland, Dec. 1-12. At issue is the best way to deal with the 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions caused by deforestation. Forests were left out of the carbon trading system adopted in 1997 under the Kyoto Protocol, due to the difficulties of accurately measuring or controlling the emissions from deforestation. But by ...

Wed, 10 Dec 08
Turning Wasted Heat into Dollars
http://www.climatebiz.com/blog/2008/12/08/turning-waste-heat-dollars
ClimateBiz: Waste-heat recovery attracts less attention than other types of clean energy but a Chinese company is proving the technology can slash emissions at some of the world's largest corporations, and in some cases, generate a carbon credit revenue stream at the same time. China Energy Recovery (CER) has made several announcements in recent months touting projects with energy-intensive companies linked to the global supply chain. Last month, I caught up with Roger Ballentine, a CER board ...

Wed, 10 Dec 08
Scarlett Johansson David Attenborough join celebrity climate change campaign
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/3685380/Scarlett-Johansson-David-Attenborough-join-celebrity-climate-change-campaign.html
Telegraph: The Oxfam letter, signed by celebrities like Scarlett Johansson, comes as a new report warned poor women in developing countries will be disproportionately affected by climate change Photo: REUTERS The veteran naturalist Sir David Attenborough Photo: PA Representatives from almost 200 countries have gathered in Poland for the UN Climate Change Conference to decide the format for a successor to the Kyoto Protocol. The most contentious issue is whether richer countries will ...

Wed, 10 Dec 08
Victims of global warming could sue oil and power companies
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/3686735/Victims-of-global-warming-could-sue-oil-and-power-companies.html
Telegraph: Myles Allen, a physicist at Oxford University, said: "We are starting to get to the point that when an adverse weather event occurs we can quantify how much more likely it was made by human activity. "And people adversely affected by climate change today are in a position to document and quantify their losses. This is going to be hugely important." Allen has developed a technique which involves running two computer models to simulate the conditions that led to extreme weather ...

Wed, 10 Dec 08
Congress should move to re-enact the oil-shale moratorium
http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_11168479
Salt Lake Tribune: In a blind rush to promote oil shale development, the Bureau of Land Management released rules Nov. 17 governing public-land oil shale operations and royalties. Not surprisingly, oil shale royalties are a fraction of those charged for other public-land energy resources. Why do we have to sweeten the deal when the Rocky Mountain oil shale potential energy reserve is both enormous and seductive? Past attempts to subsidize the industry have not worked. Why? To begin with, it is ...

Wed, 10 Dec 08
The green machine
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/08/AR2008120803569.html
Washington Post: The evening's topic was worthy of a think tank -- energy, jobs and public policy. But the rollicking scene at the First Congregational Church, where Van Jones was promoting his book "The Green Collar Economy," was as far from Washington wonkdom as you could get. Jones received an enviable introduction. Poet, performer and hip-hop theater artist Aya de León read one of her works, actor Danny Glover praised Jones and recited the Langston Hughes poem "Let America Be America Again," and ...

Wed, 10 Dec 08
Indonesia: Households main contributor to waste, gas emissions
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2008/12/09/households-main-contributor-waste-gas-emissions.html
Jakarta Post: Domestic waste remains one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gases in Indonesia, largely because the majority of the nation's dumps are poorly managed and still use improper disposal systems. The Indonesian Environment Report examined the condition of dumps in 170 cities last year, including in the capital Jakarta. The report found 60 percent of the cities surveyed rely on unmanaged dump sites. The annual report showed many cities only disposed of around 65 ...

Wed, 10 Dec 08
Bye, bye Arctic ice - a case of too little too late
http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/sports/bye-bye-arctic-ice-a-case-of-too-little-too-late_100128720.html
Indo-Asian News Service: The world is struggling to keep global warming to two degrees celsius as governments cannot agree on the steps. Even if they agree, it will be too little too late to save the Arctic ice cap and the sea will rise 6-7 metres, says a senior expert of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).Bill Hare from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany was the coordinator for the section on sea level rise for the benchmark 2007 Assessment Report 4 (AR4) of the IPCC. He ...

Wed, 10 Dec 08
Global warming aided by drought, deforestation link in equatorial Asia
http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/india-news/global-warming-aided-by-drought-deforestation-link-in-equatorial-asia_100128928.html
Asian News International: A new study has found that in the rainforests of equatorial Asia, a link between drought and deforestation is fueling global warming. The study, analyzing six years of climate and fire observations from satellites, shows that in dry years, the practice of using fire to clear forests and remove organic soil increases substantially, releasing huge amounts of climate-warming carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. In 2006, the climate on the fast-developing islands of Borneo and ...

Wed, 10 Dec 08
Clean cities and dirty coal power--China's energy paradox
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=chinas-energy-paradox
Scientific American: This year china surpassed the U.S. as the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases. And coal is largely to blame. The dirty black rock is burned everywhere, from industrial boilers to home stoves, and generates 75 percent of the nation's electricity. More than 4,000 miners die every year digging the fossil fuel out of China's heartland. One consequence of the country's reliance on coal is most visible in the air. Smog cloaks cities, reducing the sky to little more than a blue patch amid a ...

Wed, 10 Dec 08
United States: Chicago's plans to go green
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=chicagos-plans-to-go-green
Scientific American: You might assume that Chicago dislikes environmentalists, judging by the response they get along Michigan Avenue. They loiter on its crowded sidewalks, trying to stop people with the brightness of their T-shirts, the authority of their clipboards and the innocence of their question: 'Do you have a minute to save the earth?' Almost no passerby has that minute, let alone $20 to donate to the cause. What most people have is a scowl, a dismissive wave of the hand and the accelerating ...

Wed, 10 Dec 08
Carbon-offset cowboys let their grass grow
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=carbon-cowboys
Scientific American: In the rolling foothills of the madison range in southwestern Montana, a cabin-style house sits beside a washboard dirt road. A few horses loiter in a corral outside, and spotted ranch dogs bark and jump at the fence. James Stuart, manager of Sun Ranch, lives here with his wife and three kids. Christian, the oldest at four years, just got his first pony. Stuart, who comes from a long line of rugged Scots who settled this region, has auburn hair and eyes lined from squinting--or ...

Wed, 10 Dec 08
Can nuclear power compete?
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=can-nuclear-power-compete
Scientific American: On an August afternoon in Washington, D.C., typically miserable for its heat, humidity and stillness, reporters gathered at a downtown hotel not known for its air-conditioning. Stuffed inside a windowless conference room that was being heated still further by the television people's lights, we waited for Michael J. Wallace, who had been trying, in fits and starts, to unveil nuclear power's second act. On arrival, Wallace, a meticulous manager not known for ad-libbing, looked out over ...

Wed, 10 Dec 08
Everyone could get CO2 permits: China study
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4B77IC20081208?sp=true
Reuters: Everyone on the planet could get identical greenhouse gas emission rights as part of a drive to halve emissions by 2050, according to a study by Chinese scientists on Monday. The proposal, presented on the sidelines of a December 1-12 U.N. conference on fighting global warming, would force nations such as the United States which have used most fossil fuels since the Industrial Revolution to buy emission rights from poor nations. "Developed countries shall take the lead in ...

Wed, 10 Dec 08
U.N. says climate change may uproot 6 million annually
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4B773G20081208
Reuters: The impact of climate change could uproot around six million people each year, half of them because of weather disasters like floods and storms, a top U.N. official said on Monday. The U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) was making plans based on conservative estimates that global warming would force between 200 million and 250 million people from their homes by mid-century, said L. Craig Johnstone, the U.N. Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees. "That means a displacement of something ...

Wed, 10 Dec 08
Ecoflation, a new worry, could hit consumer goods
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4B76RV20081208?sp=true
Reuters: Add another economic worry to inflation and deflation: ecoflation, the rising cost of doing business in a world with a changing climate. Ecoflation could hit consumer goods hard in the next five to 10 years, according to a report by World Resources Institute and A.T. Kearney, a global management consulting firm. Companies that make fast-moving consumer goods, everything from cereal to shampoo, could see earnings drop by 13 percent to 31 percent by 2013 and 19 percent to 47 ...

Wed, 10 Dec 08
Companies could be sued over climate change
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,24777682-5001028,00.html
AAP: PEOPLE affected by worsening storms, heatwaves and floods could soon be able to sue the companies they blame for global warming, a leading climate expert says. Oxford University physicist Myles Allen believes a breakthrough allowing scientists to judge the role man-made climate change has played in extreme weather events could result in class actions over the next decade. "We are starting to get to the point that when an adverse weather event occurs we can quantify how much ...

Wed, 10 Dec 08
Study: Global warming reductions could stimulate California's economy
http://www.centralvalleybusinesstimes.com/stories/001/?ID=10559
Central Valley Business Times: California could create a "green economic stimulus plan" if it were to implement the Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32), claims a study paid for by the Environmental Defense Fund, which helped write the law. The law AB 32 mandates that California cut its greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming approximately 30 percent by 2020. "This analysis shows that by acting immediately and decisively to reduce global warming pollution, California can create a green economic ...

Wed, 10 Dec 08
India quakes over China's water plan
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/JL09Ad01.html#
Asia Times: Even as India and China are yet to resolve their decades-old territorial dispute, another conflict is looming. China's diversion of the waters of a river originating in Tibet to its water-scarce areas could leave India's northeast parched. This is expected to trigger new tensions in the already difficult relations between the two Asian giants. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is reported during his recent Beijing visit to have raised the issue of international rivers flowing out of ...

Wed, 10 Dec 08
Canada: Billions of litres of tainted oilsands water leaking
http://www.leaderpost.com/Billions%20litres%20tainted%20oilsands%20water%20leaking%20report/1049842/story.html
Canwest News Service: Oilsands production is releasing four billion litres of contaminated water into Alberta's groundwater and natural ecosystems every year, according to a new national report that was immediately dismissed as "false" by the provincial government. The annual volume of water pollution in 2007 would have been enough to fill Toronto's Rogers Centre, but could be stopped if the federal government started enforcing its Fisheries Act, the report says. "Virtually everyone close to the ...

Wed, 10 Dec 08
Change land use to hold back fury of floods, speakers urge
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20081209/NEWS10/812090374/-1/NEWS04
Des Moines Register: Iowa needs to revamp the landscape along its many rivers to soften the blow of future floods, a string of speakers said Monday at an Ames conference. "We need permanent land-use change, especially along the rivers," including clearing homes and crops from some areas, said Mark Ackelson, president of the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation. Ackelson was among about 125 Iowa officials who met at Gateway Hotel and Conference Center to discuss how to lessen future flood damage and ...

Wed, 10 Dec 08
Environmentalist group's ads call clean coal a myth
http://www.dailymail.com/News/statenews/200812080270
Charleston Daily Mail: A coalition of environmental groups has launched a new advertising campaign aimed at what they say is a myth: clean coal. The first advertisement in the campaign is a video that features a worker who says, "Clean coal. Heard a lot about it, so let's take a tour of this state-of-the-art clean coal facility." The worker dons a hard hat and walks through a door marked "clean coal facility" - and enters a moonscape-type wasteland. "Take a good, long look," the worker shouts ...

Wed, 10 Dec 08
Exhibit shows impact of climate change on Himalayas
http://in.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idINIndia-36942320081209?sp=true
Reuters: Swiss glaciologist Fritz Muller spent eight months in the Mount Everest region in the 1950s studying and taking pictures of the glaciers, mountains and valleys in the Khumbu area, home to the world's highest mountain. More than 50 years later British mountain geographer Alton Byers took photographs of many of the same sites as Muller, and the old and new images are now on display side by side in a week-long exhibition in Kathmandu. The International Centre for Integrated ...

Wed, 10 Dec 08
United States: Phoenix ready to cut greenhouse gases
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AZ_GOING_GREEN_AZOL-?SITE=CODEN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Associated Press: Phoenix is considering a plan to cut greenhouse-gas emissions to below 2005 levels. By 2015, city officials say the Climate Action Plan calls for Phoenix to reduce city-generated emissions to 5 percent below the 616,000 tons of carbon dioxide that were generated in 2005. Wednesday, a City Council subcommittee will consider the proposal and is expected to recommend it to the full council. "We are looking inside ourselves as a city to see what we can do for future ...

Wed, 10 Dec 08
World could 'suicide' due to lack of climate pact
http://en.epochtimes.com/n2/australia/climate-change---environment---polution---carbon-emmissions-8315.html
AAP: The world will "suicide" if it cannot strike a strong climate change pact soon, Australian environmental scientist Tim Flannery has warned. Professor Flannery, who is attending a UN climate summit in Poland, expressed dismay at the slow progress. He has called for Australia to take the lead on climate - or watch the destruction of the Great Barrier Reef through global warming. "Resistance is a suicidal tactic," the former Australian of the year, scientist and author told ...

Wed, 10 Dec 08
United Kingdom: John Vidal on the protestors who closed Stansted airport
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/audio/2008/dec/09/stansted-protest-airport-expansion-poznan
Guardian

Wed, 10 Dec 08
Experts warn proposed UN climate targets not ambitious enough
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2232226/global-climate-targets
Business Green: Even if developed countries manage to reach an agreement on 2020 greenhouse gas emissions reductions currently being discussed in Poznan, it may be too late to prevent dangerous climate change, according to a network of think tanks and research institutes. The gap between these proposals and scientific estimates of the global cuts needed to avoid dangerous climate change -- what the network terms the " mitigation gap" -- could threaten the credibility of the UN process, the Global ...

Wed, 10 Dec 08
Stansted protesters charged with aggravated trespass
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/09/stansted-plane-stupid-airports
Guardian: Police today charged 49 protesters who breached the security fence at Stansted airport, forcing the closure of its runway. Members of the group Plane Stupid, which campaigns against climate change and air travel, caused scores of flights to be cancelled and disruption for thousands of passengers. They cut though the perimeter fence in the early hours of yesterday and chained themselves to a makeshift barrier close to the runway. Essex police said today 49 people had been ...

Wed, 10 Dec 08
Sustainable shipment opens new palm oil options
http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/what_we_do/forests/news/index.cfm?uNewsID=152401
WWF: The arrival of the first certified sustainable palm oil shipment in Europe opens up possibilities for palm oil users to move away from subsidising forest destruction and social disruption from expanding palm oil plantations. The shipment, from south-east Asia, is of palm oil certified as compliant with the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) Principles and Criteria, a set of standards that ensure that palm oil is produced in a socially and environmentally responsible ...

Wed, 10 Dec 08
Scotland seen able to beat renewables target
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4B82PM20081209?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Scotland could meet its target of getting 50 percent of its power from renewable sources by 2020 if it invested 10 billion pounds ($14.80 billion) in new electricity generation, according to an independent study. The study, published by the Scottish Council for Development and Industry (SCDI) on Tuesday, said it required a fivefold rise in the number of wind farms -- mostly onshore -- while the rest should come from marine, biomass and hydro. It said this will cut by a third ...

Tue, 9 Dec 08
In Poznan, France pushes initiative to save rainforests
http://news.mongabay.com/2008/1208-poznan.html
Mongabay: As talks for incorporating forest conservation into an international climate treaty stall in Poznan, Poland due to technical debates, France has proposed an aggressive effort to address deforestation and forest degradation through the establishment of a Global Forest Carbon Mechanism (GFCM) and potential inclusion of forestry projects in the E.U.'s emissions trading scheme (ETS) beginning in 2013. France, which holds the rotating EU presidency, is circulating a proposal to include ...

Tue, 9 Dec 08
Women demand bigger say in U.N. climate talks
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4B75X520081208?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: United Nations climate change talks should do more to incorporate women's concerns into negotiations on a new global pact, environmental and women's groups said on Monday. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) said poor women in developing countries would be affected most by climate change because of its impact on agriculture, food security and water management -- traditionally women's tasks. It also said they are more likely to be killed in disasters caused ...

Tue, 9 Dec 08
EU shifts last hurdle to green energy deal
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4B768420081208?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: The European Union has resolved the last remaining dispute preventing a deal to boost green energy after Italy agreed to a compromise over its demand the laws be reviewed in 2014. Negotiators last week struck a rough agreement to source 20 percent of EU energy from renewable sources, but they failed to break a deadlock between Italy and the European Parliament over Italy's demand for a review. "We took significant steps forward today," Claudio Scajola, Italy's minister for ...

Tue, 9 Dec 08
United Kingdom: Today's protesters, tomorrow's saviour
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/08/plane-stupid-stansted
Guardian: They were disruptive and controversial to say the least. Spied upon, locked up and lambasted by the establishment of their time. The state considered them to be dangerous terrorists and, as Tony Benn put it, "Newsnight would have treated the suffragettes as trouble-makers." But those women who battled for gender equality were later vindicated by history. I suppose it's a testament to their success that the Climate Change Secretary, Ed Miliband, was on Monday citing them as an example of the ...

Tue, 9 Dec 08
Europe on collision course over emissions costs
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4B755120081208?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: European Union nations on Monday dug in for a battle over the costs of tackling climate change, with few signs of compromise emerging ahead of a summit of EU leaders later this week. Two groups have emerged to demand changes to the plan, threatening the chance of a successful deal to curb greenhouse gas emissions. The margin between success and failure will be narrow, Czech Deputy Prime Minister Alexandr Vondra told Reuters ahead of the two-day summit of EU leaders that starts ...

Tue, 9 Dec 08
IBM grid computing eyes up cheap solar cells
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2232200/ibm-grid-computing-eyes-cheap
Business Green: Using a home computer's spare processing power in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence is old-hat -- today's PC owners are being invited to solve the world's green energy problems. IBM and Harvard University's new Clean Energy Project hopes to harvest thousands of internet-connected PCs to speed the development of a cheaper and less energy-intensive material than current solar cells. The aim is to "look for the best molecules possible: organic photovoltaics to provide ...

Tue, 9 Dec 08
United Kingdom: Popular mobilisation around global warming - what the campaigners say
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/08/activists-climatechange
Guardian: Today, the UK energy and climate change minister called for mass action to pressure governments into signing a meaningful deal to battle global warming at critical UN talks in Copenhagen in December 2009. Though it was perhaps not exactly what the government had in mind, Stansted airport was brought to a standstill today by activists protesting about the impact of aviation on climate change. So how should civil society go about pressuring policymakers to treat climate change as ...

Tue, 9 Dec 08
Poznan talks to look at carbon capture
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2232204/poznan-talks-look-carbon
Business Green: International negotiators at the United Nations (UN) climate change talks in Poznan, Poland are today examining proposals to include Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) projects in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). The scheme would allow developed nations to gain carbon credits by paying for CCS projects in developing countries. The technology which takes CO2 emissions from fossil fuel power stations and buries them underground is still undeveloped. The first-ever pilot plant ...

Tue, 9 Dec 08
United Kingdom: Climate change protesters wreak havoc at Stansted
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/3684003/Climate-change-protesters-wreak-havoc-at-Stansted.html
Telegraph: Armed with bolt-cutters, activists from the group Plane Stupid cut through the wire perimeter fencing shortly after 3am and chained themselves to metal fences they had brought with them. Many of the protesters - who settled just 164ft (50m) from the runway - were driven to the airport in a 30-year-old second hand fire engine, while others arrived by bicycle and car. The stand-off with police lasted for more than five hours as each protester had to be cut free by officers with ...

Tue, 9 Dec 08
EU proposes ban on energy-guzzling lightbulbs
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4B74EU20081208?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Standard energy-guzzling incandescent light bulbs should be banned in Europe by 2012, a European Union panel of experts recommended on Monday. "Incandescent bulbs will be phased out between September 2009 and September 2012," said a spokesman for the EU Presidency. The proposals will be studied by the European Parliament and member states, and if no objection is raised, they could be adopted in a fast-track procedure by the end of March. Traditional incandescent bulbs ...

Tue, 9 Dec 08
Australia: Murray "will never be the same again"
http://www.weeklytimesnow.com.au/article/2008/12/08/32631_latest-news.html
Weekly Times: PARTS of the River Murray's ecology will be lost or changed forever by the drought and global warming, the head of the new Murray Darling Basin Authority has conceded. In his first interview with The Adelaide Advertiser since being appointed chairman and chief executive of the soon-to-be-operational Murray Darling Basin Authority, Rob Freeman, said the body would achieve a world first when it established a single plan for a river system covering both environmental and ...

Tue, 9 Dec 08
Minister wants global mass protests on climate change
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23598361-details/Minister%20wants%20global%20mass%20protests%20on%20climate%20change/article.do
Evening Standard: MILLIONS of people need to unite in a global protest movement to force governments to tackle climate change, a Cabinet minister urged today. Energy Secretary Ed Miliband called for "popular mobilisation" along the lines of Make Poverty History to heap pressure on world leaders to sign a new deal to combat global warming. "When you think about all the big historic movements, from the suffragettes to anti-apartheid to sexual equality in the 1960s, all the big political movements ...

Tue, 9 Dec 08
Canada: 'Killing the pipeline' with delays
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081208.wmackenzie08/BNStory/energy/home
Globe and Mail: The fate of the $16.2-billion Mackenzie gas pipeline, which would open up Arctic gas reserves for development and provide a huge economic boost for Canada's North, is hanging by a thread as a new set of regulatory delays could mean the project never gets built. "I'm really quite concerned," Northwest Territories Premier Floyd Roland said in an interview. "It's a delay on another delay, and we've not got a clear answer as to why. ... It's shaken the confidence of the business ...

Tue, 9 Dec 08
Greening Skiing
http://www.plentymag.com/features/2008/12/greening_skiing.php
Plenty Magazine: The wind in your hair. Virgin snow at your feet. Clean mountain air and glorious vistas. Skiing is good, clean winter fun. It's frolicking in Mother Earth's playground. It's man communing with nature. And it's a threat to the very thing that makes it all possible: cold, snowy winters. With its high-speed chair lifts and energy-hogging snowmaking operations -- all in the interest of enjoying the boreal winter -- the effect of the ski industry on climate change can't be discounted. Its ...

Tue, 9 Dec 08
Genes to gasoline
http://pubs.acs.org/cen/coverstory/86/8649cover.html
Chemical and Engineering News:

Tue, 9 Dec 08
Poznan marks new beginning in climate negotiations
http://www.euractiv.com/en/climate-change/poznan-marks-new-climate-negotiations/article-177777?Ref=RSS
EurActiv: The Poznan climate change conference marks a turning point in that negotiators are moving up a gear "from the analytical or discussion mode to that of full negotiations," declares Noriko Fujiwara, a research fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), in a November paper. Developing countries would have to "reduce their emissions by 15-30% below business as usual in order to be consistent with the EU objective of staying within the threshold of two degrees [Celsius]," the ...

Tue, 9 Dec 08
Preserving tropical forests also cuts emissions
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/eo20081208a2.html
Japan Times: Can the world's remaining tropical forests in Indonesia and elsewhere be protected and brought into the battle against climate change? Working out ways of halting or slowing the cutting of forests for valuable timber and agriculture is now being discussed at U.N. climate change negotiations taking place in Poznan, Poland, through Friday. Trees soak up and store carbon dioxide when they grow and release it when they rot or are burned. Carbon dioxide is the main greenhouse gas blamed by ...

Tue, 9 Dec 08
IBM, Harvard want your PC for solar power study
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4B70QS20081208?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Scientists at Harvard University and IBM are hoping to harness the power of a million idle computers to develop a new, cheaper form of solar power that could revolutionize the green energy world. Researchers have launched the project using IBM's World Community Grid, which taps into volunteers' computers across the globe to run calculations on a myriad of compounds -- potentially shortening a project that could take 22 years to just two years. Harvard scientists are hoping the ...

Mon, 8 Dec 08
Australia: Rudd's carbon flop
http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/Climate-$pd20081208-M4S9M?OpenDocument&src=sph
Business Spectator: It`s just a week away from the release of the Rudd government`s white paper on carbon trading and its interim targets on carbon reduction, and there is growing speculation the path of least political resistance will be chosen, along with a modest reduction target of between 5 and 15 per cent. Let`s hope not. For a start, a soft target would mean the government abandoning any pretence that it was a 'leader' on the issue of tackling climate change. Instead, it will suffer the ignominy ...

Mon, 8 Dec 08
Chilean glaciers retreating due to global warming: report
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iXo89g63J_mj2L9XVZISgwG8l24Q
Agence France-Presse: Chile's glaciers are on the retreat, a sign of global warming but also a threat to fresh water reserves at the southern end of South America, a report has found. In a November report, the Chilean water utility -- Direccion General de Aguas de Chile (DGA) -- said the Echaurren ice fields, which supply the capital with 70 percent of its water needs, are receding up to 12 meters (39.37 feet) per year. Twenty of the glaciers studied receded between 1986 and 2007 in Campos de Hielo ...

Mon, 8 Dec 08
Analysis: Has the Kyoto protocol worked?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/08/kyoto-poznan-environment-emissions-carbon
Guardian: Agreed in 1997, the Kyoto protocol aimed to cut emissions of greenhouse gases across the developed world by about 5% compared with 1990. It came into force in 2005, following ratification by Russia, which means the deadline for the legally binding cuts to be made is 2008-12. It was based on the "common but differentiated responsibility" approach to global warming, with countries most able to make cuts asked to do so. Many countries were allowed to increase pollution, including all those in ...

Mon, 8 Dec 08
Brussels meeting will decide EU stance on climate change
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2008/1208/1228571631699.html
Irish Times: EUROPE`S LEADERSHIP role on climate change will be determined this week, but not in Poznan. It will be decided in Brussels, where finance and energy ministers meet today in an effort to resolve outstanding differences on the EU`s climate and energy package. French president Nicolas Sarkozy met central and eastern European leaders in Gdansk at the weekend but failed to persuade them to accept crucial elements of the package -- notably auctioning permits for carbon dioxide (CO2) ...

Mon, 8 Dec 08
Solar car completes 1st ever round-the-world trip
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/8128584
Associated Press: If a solar-powered car can drive 32,000 miles (52,000 kilometers) around the globe without using a drop of oil, perhaps it can be forgiven for not having a coffee cup holder. Or maybe that makes Swiss adventurer Louis Palmer's journey even more remarkable. Palmer rolled into the U.N. climate conference in his solar car Thursday, a man with a mission: To prove that the world can continue its love affair with the car without burning any polluting fossil fuels and still enjoy a ...

Mon, 8 Dec 08
Govt still pushing for global climate change plan: Smith
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/12/08/2440479.htm
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith has rejected criticism that the Government is not leading global efforts against climate change, as it had promised to do. Climate Change Minister Penny Wong will be in Poznan, Poland, this week for global talks, but will not be revealing the Government's 2020 target for cuts in greenhouse gas emissions until next week. The Greens say the Government is failing to live up to its promise to be a leader at the talks. But Mr Smith has ...

Mon, 8 Dec 08
Paris to press Germany and UK on climate change fund
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c711fd72-c4c7-11dd-8124-000077b07658.html
Financial Times: Germany and the UK are being pressed to agree a bigger subsidy to eastern European countries as France makes a last-minute effort to rescue an ambitious climate agreement. Nicolas Sarkozy, president of France, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, will raise the matter with Gordon Brown, UK prime minister, during talks today in London following discussions with Angela Merkel, German chancellor, yesterday. Mr Sarkozy is seeking their agreement to bolster the ...

Mon, 8 Dec 08
Downturn to hurt energy projects
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/49ad8896-c4c8-11dd-8124-000077b07658.html
Financial Times: A vehicle for funding clean energy projects in the US has stopped functioning, jeopardising the continued development of large-scale wind and solar projects. The so-called "tax equity markets", in which banks and others invest in renewable energy projects in exchange for tax credits, are struggling because the investors no longer have profits that will be taxed. The small group of investors included Wachovia, Lehman Brothers and AIG. merican International Group All have ...

Mon, 8 Dec 08
Global warming demands urgent action
http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/008200812080922.htm
Guardian: The world cannot afford the climate conference's foot-dragging on carbon cuts. We need action now, argues author The crucial climate change negotiations in Poznan, Poland, are heading nowhere fast. Charged with producing a plan for cutting carbon emissions, governments have so far produced copious amounts of hot air and little else, with ministers recycling vague promises of future action. They doubtless go to bed at night muttering a variant of St Augustine's prayer: "Oh Lord ...

Mon, 8 Dec 08
Transition's Timing Hits Climate Talks
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/07/AR2008120702426.html?wprss=rss_world
Washington Post: Barack Obama's pledge to make the United States a leader in confronting global warming raised hopes that his election would rapidly end the long impasse in international negotiations over climate change, but the timing of the presidential transition has severely dimmed those expectations as the current round of talks comes to a head this week in Poland. The U.S. delegates still report to President Bush, and they made it clear last week that they will not commit to specific reductions ...

Mon, 8 Dec 08
Islanders Plead at Climate Talks to Be Saved From Rising Seas
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=am7kUWGLhGuw&refer=latin_america
Bloomberg: Island countries from Grenada in the Caribbean to the Maldives in the Indian Ocean are telling delegates at the United Nations climate-change talks this week that their lands may be swamped by rising seas and more powerful storms unless global warming is curbed. Warmer temperatures are melting icecaps, expanding the volume of oceans and sending more intense hurricanes toward Grenada. Higher tides in the Tuvalu islands between Hawaii and Australia have started making groundwater too ...

Mon, 8 Dec 08
Massive deforestation leading to climate change, species loss
http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/008200812081021.htm
Indo-Asian News Service: Deforestation is leading to close to 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, which in turn are leading to climate change and possible extinction of 20-30 percent of all species on earth. Negotiators at the Dec 1-12 summit of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in this western Poland city are struggling to find money for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) in a post-2012 climate deal. If they do manage to find a ...

Mon, 8 Dec 08
United Kingdom: Activists arrested in airport demo
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5gQ9Z791b5lxue7zAX_50iuFa3S0A
Press Association: Four people have been arrested after dozens of climate change activists broke in to a secure area of Stansted Airport, police have said. The protest began at 3.15am on Monday when more than 50 campaigners occupied a runway which was closed for maintenance work, according to Plane Stupid, which organised the demonstration. An Essex police spokeswoman said: "About 50 protesters have gained access to Stansted Airport and they are airside. "We have arrested four people so ...

Mon, 8 Dec 08
United Kingdom: Botched biofuel legislation stalls climate change initiative
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/dec/08/biofuel-climate-change-hydrocarbon-legislation
Guardian: The government has blown a hole in its climate change plans by misdrafting a key piece of legislation covering the introduction of "green" fuel for motorists. The Department for Transport admitted last night that there was an "error" in the law governing the Renewable Transport Fuels Obligation (RTFO) and it was going to have to put it right. The RTFO was introduced this year as a way of ensuring that up to 2.5% of all petrol and a similar amount of diesel poured into cars and trucks ...

Mon, 8 Dec 08
Planet under pressure: One-year countdown to the Copenhagen summit begins
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/08/poznan-environment-climate-change2
Guardian: It had been a long, hot night in Bali, a few weeks before last Christmas, and talks on a new climate deal had dragged past the scheduled finish, through the small hours and well into the morning. The fate of the world remained in the balance. Faced with grim predictions from the world's scientists, environment ministers from 192 countries were trying to agree how to tackle global warming. The deadline to agree the so-called Bali roadmap had come and gone, and rumours were rife that saving ...

Mon, 8 Dec 08
Road to Copenhagen: Issues facing the leaders meeting in Poznan
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/08/poznan-environment-climate-change1
Guardian: 1. Global vision The world has yet to formally agree a goal in the battle against global warming. This could be a maximum temperature rise, such as 2C, or concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. More likely, it will be a vaguer 'direction of travel' such as the G8 pledge to halve global emissions by 2050. 2. Mitigation The key issue - who will cut their carbon by how much and by when. To be meaningful, targets must be short-term, perhaps something like 25-40% ...

Mon, 8 Dec 08
How key players at Poznan stand on climate change
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/08/poznan-environment-climate-change
Guardian: Europe Views itself as the world leader and wants to limit climate change to 2C above pre-industrial levels. Has pledged to cut carbon emissions by 20% by 2020, and to raise this to 30% if there is agreement at Copenhagen US The Bush administration regularly stalled on climate targets. Barack Obama's team has yet to make its position clear, but has promised "vigorous engagement" at Copenhagen. Will want greater effort from developing countries, China in ...

Mon, 8 Dec 08
People power vital to climate deal - minister
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/08/ed-miliband-climate-politics-environment
Guardian: A global campaign in the style of Make Poverty History is needed to pressure political leaders into sealing a treaty on tackling climate change, Ed Miliband, the environment secretary, has said. Miliband told the Guardian a "popular mobilisation" was needed to help politicians push through an agreement to limit carbon emissions in the face of concerns about the economy. "There will be some people saying 'we can't go ahead with an agreement on climate change, it's not the biggest ...

Mon, 8 Dec 08
Plan for tax on cow gas stinks, US farmers say
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/08/tax-cow-emissions-us-news
Guardian: American farmers are creating a stink over a proposed "cow tax" that would penalise them for owning belching and flatulent cattle and pigs. Livestock producers say that the government's Environment Protection Agency (EPA) wants to charge them for rising levels of methane and other polluting nitrous gases emitted by their farm animals. Farmers say the fees of up to $175 (£119) a cow and $20 for each pig could put many of them out of business and lead to the wide-scale closure of ...

Mon, 8 Dec 08
United Kingdom: Ed Miliband discusses climate change ahead of the Poznan summit in Poland
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/audio/2008/dec/07/ed-milliband-poznan-climate-change
Guardian

Mon, 8 Dec 08
Targets to cut carbon emissions 'not enough to stop climate change'
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/3659074/Targets-to-cut-carbon-emissions-not-enough-to-stop-climate-change.html
Telegraph: More than 190 countries have gathered in Poznan Poland for the UN Climate Change Conference this week to decide a way forward on global warming. The meeting will draw up the format for a replacement of the Kyoto Protocol to be decided in Copenhagen next year. One of the most controversial issues are whether to commit to numeric targets to cut carbon emissions. At the moment the EU is proposing to cut emissons by 30 per cent by 2020. A new report however, from the ...

Mon, 8 Dec 08
Australia: Garnaut warns: don't go alone on global warming
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24765781-601,00.html
Australian: CLIMATE change adviser Ross Garnaut has warned that developed nations will be unable to avert global warming by simply setting exemplary emissions targets in the hope that developing nations will follow, saying China and India must join a global action plan from the start if there is to be any hope of success. As Climate Change Minister Penny Wong prepares to fly out today for talks in Poland on a post-Kyoto agreement, Professor Garnaut says the current framework is obsolete, arguing ...

Mon, 8 Dec 08
Climate change demands cool heads and compromise
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24764999-7583,00.html
Australian: THE UN Climate Change Conference in Poznan, Poland, focuses attention on the importance and difficulty of achieving international agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. No country acting alone - not even the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, the US and China - can cause the risks of dangerous climate change to fall substantially by its actions alone. A co-operative effort involving all substantial economies is required. Each country acting alone in its narrow ...

Mon, 8 Dec 08
Peru aims for zero deforestation
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7768226.stm
BBC: The Peruvian government says it can reach zero deforestation in just 10 years with the help of funds from Western governments. It is taking its ambitious proposal to the latest round of UN talks on climate change, which are taking place in Poznan. The government claims more than 80% of Peru's primary forests can be saved or protected. Peru has the fourth largest area of tropical forest in the world after Brazil, Democratic Republic of Congo and Indonesia. It has around ...

Mon, 8 Dec 08
France, Germany call for deal on new EU climate pact
http://www.eubusiness.com/news-eu/1228665723.22
Agence France-Presse: France and Germany called Sunday for a deal on a new EU climate pact to be reached at a Brussels summit this week, ratcheting up pressure on eastern European countries to come on board. President Nicolas Sarkozy spoke by phone with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a day after he met with leaders of nine eastern European countries to address their objections to the plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions. "They confirmed their shared desire to see that an agreement is reached at ...

Mon, 8 Dec 08
Bangladesh given major role in UN climate change measures
http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=66646
Daily Star: Bangladesh has been nominated for the vice-chair of the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) that implements all decisions of convention and protocol under United Nations Framework Convention of Climate Change (UNFCC). AKM Rezaul Kabir, secretary to the Ministry of Environment and Forest and the present leader of the Bangladesh delegations, will represent Bangladesh as vice-chair in SBI when Iran chairs it. Meanwhile, Bangladesh included the "international migration issue" ...

Mon, 8 Dec 08
Indigenous Tribes Say Climate Change Harming Way of Life
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1604415/indigenous_tribes_say_climate_change_harming_way_of_life/
redOrbit: Bill Erasmus, chief of the Dene nation located in northern Canada, issued a grave warning targeting the climate crisis: The once plentiful herds of caribou are declining, rivers are smaller and the ice is too thin to hunt upon safely. Erasmus brought his worries to the sidelines of a U.N. climate conference, looking to guarantee that North America's indigenous peoples are not forgotten in the global warming negotiations. Erasmus, the elected organizer of 30,000 native Americans ...

Mon, 8 Dec 08
Australia: Climate change consensus tough: Garnaut
http://news.theage.com.au/national/climate-change-consensus-tough-garnaut-20081208-6tc9.html
AAP: Reaching agreement on climate change will be much tougher than reaching consensus on trade liberalisation, the Rudd government's climate change adviser says. Professor Ross Garnaut has warned that time is running out for an international agreement on climate change, saying clear principles for a post-Kyoto agreement must be worked out in the first half of next year, The Australian reports. "Unless there is a coalescing of international support around clear principles through ...

Mon, 8 Dec 08
World worries reach crisis point
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/opinion/editorial/general/world-worries-reach-crisis-point/1380032.aspx
Canberra Times: We seem to be experiencing a great many crises lately, don't we? Of those affecting us directly, there is the world financial crisis, the climate change crisis and the Murray-Darling Basin crisis. Even when crises such as terrorist attacks and natural disasters occur elsewhere, the media bring them into our living rooms with such power and immediacy that we cannot help but feel for the people involved. Some crises seem to come and go. A few months back, we had an energy crisis, as the ...

Mon, 8 Dec 08
Dalai Lama urges government action on global warming
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5ir2CagtvZo8WmQUURCGKWgocw57g
Agence France-Presse: The Dalai Lama on Sunday appealed to governments to protect the environment against global warming as UN climate talks continued in Poland -- and said even his native Tibet was threatened. "I do have some serious concerns as a result of learning from specialists (that) unless we pay sufficient attention and (adopt) sufficient method of protection... global warming is really, really very serious," the Tibetan spiritual leader said. Governments had to pay sufficient attention to ...

Mon, 8 Dec 08
European carmakers agree to cut emissions
http://www.financialexpress.com/news/European-carmakers-agree-to-cut-emissions/395527/
Financial Express: European carmakers must cut global-warming gases from new vehicles by 18% within the next six years, the EU agreed last week, after a long battle between environmentalists and an industry facing tough times. "This deal represents a balance between the needs of the environment and the car industry across Europe, which is suffering massively at the moment," British Conservative lawmaker Martin Callanan said. But the compromise was attacked by environmentalists, who said it was ...

Mon, 8 Dec 08
Kerry heading to Poland on climate change
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2008/12/07/kerry_heading_to_poland_on_climate_change/?rss_id=Boston.com+--+Latest+news
Associated Press: Sen. John Kerry is heading to Poland Wednesday for a conference on climate change. Kerry, D-Mass., and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., are going as representatives of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. About 190 countries are meeting in Poznan, Poland, for the talks -- which are part of the attempt to reach a new climate-change treaty in the Danish capital of Copenhagen next year. The talks go through Dec. 12. President-elect Barack Obama has asked the ...

Mon, 8 Dec 08
United Kingdom: Airports targeted as major threat in climate war
http://www.sundayherald.com/news/heraldnews/display.var.2473548.0.airports_targeted_as_major_threat_in_climate_war.php
Sunday Herald: POLLUTION FROM Scotland's expanding aviation industry will bust a 160-million-tonne hole in the government's target to tackle climate change, according to a new analysis of official figures. If flights from Scottish airports continue to increase as they have done since 1990, there is little chance of ministers succeeding in their much-vaunted aim of cutting climate pollution 80% by 2050, says the environmental group WWF Scotland. Yet this week, just days after the launch of its ...

Mon, 8 Dec 08
Texans paint sunny picture for clean energy
http://www.statesman.com/green/content/news/stories/local/12/05/1205newenergy.html
Austin American-Statesman: With emissions caps on global warming gases looming in Washington, venture capitalists and policymakers convened at the University of Texas this week to figure out how to make a buck off the new energy economy. The largely upbeat tenor of the Clean Energy Venture Summit , sponsored chiefly by Austin Energy and the Clean Energy Incubator at UT, was in contrast to comments made just a week before by Gov. Rick Perry, who said an environmentally driven regulatory regime would harm the ...

Mon, 8 Dec 08
Australia: Experts warn homes not up to scratch
http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/sydney-houses-too-flimsy-for-summer-storm-season/2008/12/06/1228257387607.html
Sun-Herald: THE tile roofs atop Sydney houses are too flimsy and unable to withstand the onslaught of a summer storm season, new research has found. And, if climate change proponents are correct, the problem could get worse, with hailstorms of greater intensity and regularity wreaking untold property damage. Professor Alan Jeary, a structural de