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Sat, 28 Feb 09
NJ beach town ends fight over Amazon wood
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090227/ap_on_re_us/boardwalk_rainforest_wood
Various: A two-year battle over a New Jersey beach town's plan to buy boardwalk wood from the Amazon rain forest is ending. Ocean City voted Thursday night to settle a lawsuit with a Baltimore lumber company that was to sell it nearly $1.2 million worth of Brazilian ipe (EE'pay) wood. The plan to use the tropical hardwood to fix the boardwalk drew the ire of environmentalists, prompting the city to cancel the order. That sparked a court fight between the city and the lumber ...

Fri, 27 Feb 09
Obama wants to raise money via pollution caps: reports
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090226/sc_afp/uspoliticsobamabudget
Agence France-Presse: US President Barack Obama is banking on a landmark carbon gas cap-and-trade system to both fight climate change and pump 80 billion dollars into the Treasury purse to fund renewable energy programs. The innovative program -- similar to one already in place in Europe -- would rev up US efforts against global warming by reducing the output of carbon dioxide and other polluting gases, while raising direly-needed revenue. The administration's proposed program was part of a ...

Fri, 27 Feb 09
American taste for soft toilet roll 'worse than driving Hummers'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/26/toilet-roll-america
Guardian: The tenderness of the delicate American buttock is causing more environmental devastation than the country's love of gas-guzzling cars, fast food or McMansions, according to green campaigners. At fault, they say, is the US public's insistence on extra-soft, quilted and multi-ply products when they use the bathroom. "This is a product that we use for less than three seconds and the ecological consequences of manufacturing it from trees is enormous," said Allen Hershkowitz, a senior ...

Fri, 27 Feb 09
Obama budget proposes shift to green energy
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090226/ap_on_go_pr_wh/obama_budget_energy
Associated Press: President Barack Obama's first budget plan moves aggressively to tackle climate change and shift the nation from reliance on foreign oil to green energy. The proposed budget released Thursday by the White House would rely on $15 billion a year, beginning in 2012, from auctioning off carbon pollution permits to help develop clean-energy technologies, such as solar and wind power. But Congress has yet to write a bill that would regulate heat-trapping gases and collect that ...

Fri, 27 Feb 09
Rich-nation 2020 greenhouse gas cuts seen at 15 percent
http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2009/02/26/rich_nation_2020_greenhouse_cuts_seen_about_15_percent/?rss_id=Boston.com+--+Latest+news
Reuters: Rich nations have converged on targets of around 15 percent for cutting greenhouse gases by 2020, but recession across much of the world could impede efforts to agree a new U.N. climate pact by the end of the year. Cuts of 15 percent from current levels would fall far short of reductions advised by U.N.-backed scientists, but the recession is limiting government ambitions, analysts say. "We're beginning to see a rough alignment for the numbers for developed countries," said ...

Fri, 27 Feb 09
Big Business urged to ax risk by cutting water use
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51P6XR20090226?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Institutional investors are urging companies to measure, disclose and reduce their use of water to reduce long-term financial risks as supplies dry up from overuse and as higher temperatures melt glaciers away. "Companies need to be analyzing their water risk ... and to find ways to conserve water and minimize the opportunities for literally having their business shut down," Mindy Lubber, the president of Ceres, a Boston-based coalition of investors. said in an interview. Ceres ...

Fri, 27 Feb 09
Calif. regulators target tech industry emissions
http://tech.yahoo.com/news/ap/20090226/ap_on_hi_te/greenhouse_gases_california
Associated Press: California air regulators on Thursday broadened their reach into Silicon Valley, implementing rules intended to cut greenhouse gas emissions from semiconductor plants. The state Air Resources Board voted unanimously to regulate some of the most potent gases produced by the semiconductor industry, which makes chips for cell phones, computers and cars. By Jan. 1, 2012, more than a dozen California chip manufacturers must reduce their use of fluorinated gases. Scientists say such ...

Fri, 27 Feb 09
New Thinking to Tackle Old Problems
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45905
Inter Press Service: Organic and eco-friendly farming can feed the world, contrary to the common belief that biotechnology and chemical-intensive farming are indispensable, modern strategies to increase production, agricultural experts say. "It is not necessarily about producing more food, but about producing more quality nutrition through less energy use and pollution," declared Hans Herren president of the Washington DC-based Millennium Institute, a non-profit organisation promoting long-term, ...

Fri, 27 Feb 09
White House sees $646 billion from 2012-19 CO2 trade
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51P4Q920090226?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: President Barack Obama's budget outline projects the government will raise $646 billion in revenue from a greenhouse gas emissions trading system from 2012 through 2019. The money generated from the cap-and-trade program would go toward $150 billion in clean energy technology investments over 10 years and a "making work pay" tax credit. The Obama administration will work with Congress to develop an economy wide system that would place a limit on emissions from large industries ...

Fri, 27 Feb 09
Wake of Controversy Sails with the Polarstern
http://www.tierramerica.info/nota.php?lang=eng&idnews=2998
Tierramérica: The German oceanography ship Polarstern, one of the most prestigious in the world, is conducting a major experiment of dispersing iron in seawater in order to absorb carbon dioxide, the principal climate changing gas. The experiment, under way to the northeast of the South Georgia Islands in the southern Atlantic, is intended to promote the growth of phytoplankton and consequent absorption of carbon by dumping 20 tons of iron sulfate over an area of 300 square kilometers. The ...

Fri, 27 Feb 09
US-China ties needed to fight climate change
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090226/ap_on_re_as/as_china_climate_change
Associated Press: With climate change emerging as a key issue for both the United States and China, the two countries have a new platform for cooperation and an opportunity to strengthen their often contentious relationship, a leading China expert said Thursday. Kenneth Lieberthal, a China scholar and former White House adviser, laid out a blueprint of different ways the two countries can collaborate on global warming in a report he co-authored for the Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C.-based ...

Fri, 27 Feb 09
Australia fires release huge amount of CO2
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51P12120090226?sp=true
Reuters: Bushfires that have scorched Australia's Victoria state released millions of tons of carbon dioxide and forest fires could become a growing source of carbon pollution as the planet warms, a top scientist said on Thursday. Mark Adams of the University of Sydney said global warming could trigger a vicious cycle in which forests could stop becoming sinks of CO2, further accelerating the rise of the planet-warming gas in the atmosphere. "With increasing concerns about rising CO2, ...

Fri, 27 Feb 09
Antarctica glaciers melting at alarming rate, warn international team of scientists
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1155544/Antarctica-glaciers-melting-alarming-rate-warn-international-team-scientists.html
Daily Mail: Antarctic glaciers are melting faster than previously thought, which could lead to an unprecedented rise in sea levels, scientists said. Previously most of the warming was thought to occur on the narrow stretch pointing toward South America. However, a report by thousands of scientists for the 2007-2008 International Polar Year said the western part of the continent was warming up as well as the Antarctic Peninsula. Colin Summerhayes, director of the Scientific Committee ...

Fri, 27 Feb 09
Gaia scientist says life doomed by climate woes
http://uk.reuters.com/article/usTopNews/idUKTRE51O5EU20090225?sp=true
Reuters: Climate change will wipe out most life on Earth by the end of this century and mankind is too late to avert catastrophe, a leading British climate scientist said. James Lovelock, 89, famous for his Gaia theory of the Earth being a kind of living organism, said higher temperatures will turn parts of the world into desert and raise sea levels, flooding other regions. His apocalyptic theory foresees crop failures, drought and death on an unprecedented scale. The population of this ...

Fri, 27 Feb 09
Amazon Teetering on the Edge
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45898
Inter Press Service: The Amazon Basin captures 12,000 to 16,000 square kilometres of water per year, and just 40 percent of that flows through the rivers. The rest returns to the atmosphere through evapotranspiration of the forests and is distributed throughout South America. Deforestation is reducing the humidity that, carried by the winds, contributes to the water equilibrium of vast parts of the continent. Deforestation also intensifies erosion and surface drainage, which diverts water not only away ...

Fri, 27 Feb 09
Australia seeks to cut animal gas emissions
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090226/wl_asia_afp/australiaenvironmentclimateanimal
Agence France-Presse: The Australian government has announced a multi-million dollar investment in research on reducing gas emissions from farm animals as part of the fight against global warming. Methane gas from livestock flatulence accounts for about 12 percent of the country's annual greenhouse gas emissions, Agriculture Minister Tony Burke said as he launched the 26.8 million dollar (17.4 million US dollar) project. The emissions from 120 million sheep, cows and goats comprise the country's ...

Fri, 27 Feb 09
After Obama appeal, Congress renews efforts on climate change
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090226/pl_afp/uspoliticsobamaclimate
Agence France-Presse: US lawmakers this week took up the issue of climate change and how to address it after President Barack Obama made an impassioned plea for action on fighting global warming. But even as the Senate and House of Representatives convened experts Wednesday who presented scientific bases for global warming, some scientists and political experts voiced skepticism over the need to combat climate change and the likelihood of passing any such legislation this year. In his first address ...

Fri, 27 Feb 09
Pressure builds to delay Australian carbon trading
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51P21D20090226?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Australia's government on Thursday came under renewed pressure to delay plans for carbon trading, with the nation's leading industry body saying the global downturn made a 2010 start unrealistic. Australia plans to introduce carbon trading in July 2010 as the central plank of its efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions, blamed for global warming, by at least five percent by 2020 from 2000 levels. The Australian Industry Group, which represents manufacturing, engineering and ...

Fri, 27 Feb 09
Study urges U.S.-China climate change summit
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51P26320090226?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: The United States and China should hold a summit featuring an agreement on climate change, helping to create international support for a new global pact by the end of 2009, a former White House adviser said on Thursday. China and the United States have often been icy rivals over trade and security, and they are also the world's top two emitters of the greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels that are stoking global warming. Kenneth Lieberthal, a former National Security ...

Fri, 27 Feb 09
Greenwash: Why 'clean coal' is the ultimate climate change oxymoron
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/26/greenwash-clean-coal
Guardian: Next week, Americans are being invited to take part in what could become the largest act of civil disobedience against global warming in the country's history. People are protesting at the coal-fired power plant that powers legislators on Capitol Hill in Washington DC. Cynics may say it's about time Americans joined the action. The fact is that too many Americans have been bamboozled for too long by a campaign of disinformation about the science of climate change. Many still think the ...

Fri, 27 Feb 09
Preparing for a flood of energy efficiency spending
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=119715
New York Times: To the casual eye, the basement of this city's Firehouse 9 looks like a jumble of old hydrants, Dr Pepper cartons, rakes and random gear. To specialists in energy efficiency, the 1960s-era building is a mess of a different sort: wasteful hot water heaters for the firefighters' showers, ancient refrigerators and outdated lights. Wrapping up an elaborate energy audit, Knoxville is about to find out which of 99 city buildings are wasting the most energy. It hopes to begin repairs this ...

Fri, 27 Feb 09
Budget expects revenue from limits on emissions
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/25/AR2009022503360.html
Washington Post: A mandatory cap on the nation's greenhouse gas emissions, which President Obama embraced on Tuesday as central to his domestic agenda, would be designed to generate badly needed revenue for the government while addressing arguably the world's most pressing environmental issue. Today, the White House will unveil a budget that assumes there will be revenue from an emissions trading system by 2012. Sources familiar with the document said it would direct $15 billion of that revenue ...

Thu, 26 Feb 09
Seesaw Link Between North And South Atlantic Climates
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1645336/seesaw_link_between_north_and_south_atlantic_climates/index.html?source=r_science
redOrbit: A new study released Wednesday shows that large, sudden climate changes in the North Atlantic have a rapid impact on the South Atlantic, and also affect weather throughout the entire world. An international team of scientists, led by researchers at Cardiff University, found that significant, abrupt temperature changes recorded over Greenland and the North Atlantic during the last Ice Age were actually global in their extent. The new research supports the idea that changes in ...

Thu, 26 Feb 09
Experts Call For More Climate-Proof Crops
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1645333/experts_call_for_more_climateproof_crops/index.html?source=r_science
redOrbit: Many experts say the world is running out of time to develop new seed varieties to confront climate change and head off food shortages that could affect billions of people. According to a Reuters report, people in Africa and Asia are most at risk from a lack of climate-proof crops. Scientists in various environmental fields of study will celebrate the first anniversary on Thursday of the opening of a "doomsday" seed vault on the island of Spitsbergen in the Norwegian ...

Thu, 26 Feb 09
Germany: New process converts xylose into ethanol
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1645194/new_process_converts_xylose_into_ethanol/index.html?source=r_science
United Press International: A German scientist says he has discovered an enzyme that "teaches" yeast cells to ferment xylose into ethanol in just one step. Goethe University Professor Eckhard Boles, co-founder of the Swiss biofuel company Butalco GmbH, said xylose is an unused waste sugar in the cellulosic ethanol production process during which the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae is commonly used for ethanol production. But Boles said current bioethanol production technologies can use only parts of the plants, ...

Thu, 26 Feb 09
Obama Administration Restarts Oil Shale Leasing in Colorado, Utah
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2009/2009-02-25-094.asp
Environment News Service: The Department of the Interior will offer a second round of research, development, and demonstration leases for oil shale in Colorado and Utah and withdraw the previous administration's proposal for expanded research, development and demonstration leases, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced today. "We need to push forward aggressively with research, development and demonstration of oil shale technologies to see if we can find a safe and economically viable way to unlock these ...

Thu, 26 Feb 09
Court Overturns Illegal Bush-era Soot Pollution Standard
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2009/2009-02-25-093.asp
Environment News Service: A federal appeals court Tuesday ruled that Bush-era clean air standards were insufficient, sending them back to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to be rewritten in a way that will better protect public health. The court decided that the Bush EPA had acted illegally in issuing weak air pollution standards for fine soot. A coalition of 18 states and cities, led by the State of New York, claimed a major victory in their challenge of the Bush standards for fine soot pollution that ...

Thu, 26 Feb 09
International Polar Year Reports Widespread Global Warming
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2009/2009-02-25-02.asp
Environment News Service: New evidence of the far-reaching effects of global warming in the polar regions has emerged from the scientific explorations of International Polar Year 2007-2008. Snow and ice are declining in both polar regions, affecting human livelihoods as well as local plant and animal life in the Arctic, as well as global ocean and atmospheric circulation and sea level. The IPY findings are reported in "State of Polar Research," released today by the World Meteorological Organization and the ...

Thu, 26 Feb 09
The Big Question: What more can Britain do to beat its addiction to plastic bags?
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/the-big-question-what-more-can-britain-do-to-beat-its-addiction-to-plastic-bags-1632284.html
Independent: Why are we asking this now? Because yesterday the Government's anti-waste body, Wrap, announced that plastic bag use in the UK had dropped from 13.4 billion in 2007 to 9.9 billion in 2008 -- a reduction of 26 per cent, or 3.5 billion bags. Yes, indeed it is; the 3.5 billion bags which have been cut from use, laid end to end, would stretch to the Moon and back twice, or around the Earth 44 times, Wrap obligingly points out (which is a bizarre but undeniably impressive image). On ...

Thu, 26 Feb 09
United Kingdom: Billions fewer plastic bags handed out
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/billions-fewer-plastic-bags-handed-out-1632392.html
Independent: Shops gave out 3.5 billion fewer plastic bags last year under a voluntary scheme which has, for now, headed off the threat of a government ban on free carrier bags. Figures from Wrap, the Government's anti-waste body, show that the number of plastic bags dispensed fell from 13.4 billion in 2007 to 9.9 billion last year, a drop of 26 per cent. Wrap said that when taking into account increased recycled content in the bags, the use of virgin materials in the bags had been slashed by 40 ...

Thu, 26 Feb 09
Green consumers' irrational exuberance
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/comment/2237292/green-consumers-irrational
Business Green: What is it with pollsters and green consumers? Why do nearly all of the surveys seem so gushingly optimistic, even during pessimistic times? That's a question that's been nagging me the past few weeks. I typically wait until near Earth Day in April to digest the current wave of surveys about green consumers in the U.S. (see here and here, for example), but the trickle of survey results has turned into a gusher much earlier this year than I can recall. Nearly a dozen surveys ...

Thu, 26 Feb 09
Poles warm up and the Arctic grows greener
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article5804986.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=3392178
Agence France-Presse: Geneva Icecaps around the North and South Poles are melting faster and in a more widespread way than expected, raising sea levels and worsening climate change, according to a scientific survey. The International Polar Year survey found that warming in the Antarctic was "much more widespread than was thought', while Arctic sea ice was diminishing and the melting of Greenland's ice cover was accelerating. Preliminary findings from the two-year survey by 10,000 scientists revealed ...

Thu, 26 Feb 09
Despite Recession, Atmospheric CO2 Levels Accelerated In 2008
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1645171/despite_recession_atmospheric_co2_levels_accelerated_in_2008/index.html?source=r_science
redOrbit: The increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) slightly accelerated in 2008, according to a Reuters report citing scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The new figures may diminish optimism that the reduction in industrial output and carbon emissions that began last year will temporarily dampen climate change. Some analysts had hoped the global recession would give the world time to reverse the impact of atmospheric CO2 on the ...

Thu, 26 Feb 09
United States: Foes of wind farm off Cape Cod sue state agency
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/02/25/foes_of_wind_farm_off_cape_cod_sue_state_agency/?rss_id=Boston.com+--+Latest+news
Associated Press: A group fighting plans to build 130 wind turbines in the ocean waters off Cape Cod has challenged the findings of a state agency on the project. The Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound announced on Wednesday that it had filed a lawsuit in Barnstable Superior Court against the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management. The agency ruled last month that the nation's first offshore wind farm would be consistent with state environmental policies for activities in federal ...

Thu, 26 Feb 09
United Kingdom: Fuelled by compost bugs
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/working_lunch/7911231.stm
BBC: It's not every day you look in a compost heap and find a bug which might help save the planet. But a UK company is using just such a bug to make renewable fuel for cars. Viewed through a microscope at TMO Renewables near Guildford in Surrey, hundreds of the new bacteria can be seen on the move. Each is little more than 2% of the thickness of a human hair. But they have a potential which could be of enormous significance. They turn rubbish into ethanol. And the ...

Thu, 26 Feb 09
Climate change: Atlantic shift has global impact
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090225/sc_afp/climatewarmingocean
Agence France-Presse: Big changes in the circulation of the Atlantic Ocean probably have an impact around the globe, according to a study published Wednesday that touches on a key aspect of climate change. Scientists delved into dramatic swings in climate that are believed to have occurred during the last Ice Age, about 110,000 to 10,000 years ago. Until now, the evidence for these swings has come only from the northern hemisphere, leaving a knowledge gap about what happened to the climate in the ...

Thu, 26 Feb 09
Study: Humidity expands global warming
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1644983/study_humidity_expands_global_warming/index.html?source=r_science
United Press International: A U.S.-Australian study has determined high humidity levels, through a process called water vapor feedback, can aggravate global warming. Texas A&M University Professor Andrew Dessler says warming due to increases in greenhouse gases will lead to higher humidity in the atmosphere. And because water vapor itself is a greenhouse gas, this will cause additional warming. "It's a vicious cycle," said Dessler. "Warmer temperatures mean higher humidity, which in turn leads to even ...

Thu, 26 Feb 09
Obama Asks Congress For Carbon Emissions Capping Legislation
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1644948/obama_asks_congress_for_carbon_emissions_capping_legislation/index.html?source=r_science
redOrbit: In an attempt to combat global warming, President Barack Obama on Tuesday urged Congress to prepare legislation that will set a market-based cap on U.S. carbon polluting emissions and push the production of more renewable energy, Reuter reported. Obama told lawmakers at a joint session of Congress: "To truly transform our economy, protect our security, and save our planet from the ravages of climate change, we need to ultimately make clean, renewable energy the profitable kind of ...

Thu, 26 Feb 09
World lags in breeding climate-proof crops: experts
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51O6QP20090225?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: The world is running out of time to develop new seed varieties to confront climate change and head off food shortages that could affect billions of people, experts said. Marking the first anniversary on Thursday of the opening of a "doomsday" seed vault on the island of Spitsbergen in the Norwegian Arctic, they said that people in Africa and Asia were most at risk from a lack of climate-proof crops. "It's a question of urgency," Cary Fowler, head of the Global Crop Diversity ...

Thu, 26 Feb 09
Battle lines drawn in Capitol Hill climate debate
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51O72E20090225?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: One day after President Barack Obama asked Congress to craft a law to cap carbon emissions, battle lines were drawn in Congress on Wednesday over how to deal with human-spurred climate change. Testimony at two congressional hearings was starkly divided between such experts as R.K. Pachauri of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, who called for quick action to curb emissions, and Princeton physicist William Happer, who said increased carbon dioxide emissions "will be ...

Thu, 26 Feb 09
U.S. Interior scraps Bush research oil shale leases
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51O78020090225?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: A Bush administration plan for more research, development and demonstration oil shale leases will be scrapped because the proposal is flawed and royalties to the government are too low, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said on Wednesday. "If oil shale technology proves to be viable on a commercial scale, taxpayers should get a fair rate of return from their resource," he said. Salazar also took issue with the size of the oil shale leases offered in January, which covered areas ...

Thu, 26 Feb 09
E.P.A. Is Told to Reconsider Its Standards on Pollutants
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=119684
New York Times: Bush administration standards for pollutants like soot are "contrary to law and unsupported by adequately reasoned decisionmaking," a federal appeals court said Tuesday. The court ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to reconsider its standards for the pollutants, fine particulates, which are linked to premature death from lung cancer and heart disease and to other health problems including asthma. When the agency embraced the standards in 2006, its own scientific staff ...

Thu, 26 Feb 09
Biggest sand dunes set to grow as Earth warms
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126974.900-biggest-sand-dunes-set-to-grow-as-earth-warms.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=climate-change
New Scientist: AT 500 metres tall, Earth's largest sand dunes are already monsters - yet they are set to grow bigger as the world warms. Giant sand dunes are thought to form when smaller dunes crash into each other and pile up. To investigate if anything limits their size, Bruno Andreotti at the Denis Diderot University, Paris, and colleagues calculated what the atmospheric flow looks like around giant dunes. They found that the thickness of the lowest layer of the atmosphere - the boundary layer - ...

Thu, 26 Feb 09
Hacking the planet: The only climate solution left?
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126973.600-hacking-the-planet-the-only-climate-solution-left.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=climate-change
New Scientist: IN A room in London late last year, a group of British politicians were grilling a selection of climate scientists on geoengineering - the notion that to save the planet from climate change, we must artificially tweak its thermostat by firing fine dust into the atmosphere to deflect the sun's rays, for instance, or perhaps even by launching clouds of mirrors into space. Surely the scientists gave such a heretical idea short shrift. After all, messing with the climate is exactly what ...

Thu, 26 Feb 09
How to survive the coming century
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126971.700-how-to-survive-the-coming-century.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=climate-change
New Scientist: ALLIGATORS basking off the English coast; a vast Brazilian desert; the mythical lost cities of Saigon, New Orleans, Venice and Mumbai; and 90 per cent of humanity vanished. Welcome to the world warmed by 4 °C. Clearly this is a vision of the future that no one wants, but it might happen. Fearing that the best efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions may fail, or that planetary climate feedback mechanisms will accelerate warming, some scientists and economists are considering not only ...

Thu, 26 Feb 09
N.Atlantic climate shift see-saws on South: study
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51O5V520090225?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Any abrupt climate changes in the North Atlantic region have a quick see-saw effect on the South Atlantic and affect weather around the globe rather than just locally, scientists said on Wednesday. A study of ocean sediments from the last Ice Age in the South Atlantic backed theories that a sudden cooling or warming of the Northern Hemisphere causes an opposite effect in the south, they said. Until now, scientists studying rapid temperature swings, caused by natural variations ...

Thu, 26 Feb 09
African forests prove valuable carbon sink
http://www.scidev.net/en/agriculture-and-environment/african-forests-prove-valuable-carbon-sink.html?utm_source=link&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=en_agricultureandenvironment
Nature: African forests are adding to their mass each year by an amount equivalent to a small car per hectare, researchers have found. The finding has surprised researchers and confirms the forests' status as one of the world's substantial carbon sinks. Researchers used data collected between 1968 and 2007 to calculate that 0.6 tonnes of carbon per hectare are added to African forests each year. While this has been shown in the Amazon, this is the first demonstration that African forests are ...

Thu, 26 Feb 09
Threat of oil spill menaces Russian Pacific island
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090225/sc_afp/russiaenvironmentenergyoil
Agence France-Presse: Standing on the icy shoreline, Dmitry Lisitsyn recalled the day when over 100 dying birds washed up on this beach, coated in a thick layer of oil and helplessly flapping their wings. "We believe there were several thousand birds killed in all," said Lisitsyn, an environmental activist on Russia's Sakhalin Island, located in the Pacific Ocean just a few dozen kilometres (miles) north of Japan. "In such weather few birds can make it all the way to shore covered in oil without ...

Thu, 26 Feb 09
China ramps up subsidies for energy-efficient light bulbs
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090225/sc_afp/chinaenergyenvironmentlightbulb
Agence France-Presse: China said it would subsidise the sale of 100 million energy-efficient light bulbs this year to cut energy use and pollution, double the number subsidised in 2008. The move, also aimed at supporting bulb producers amid the global financial crisis, was announced by the finance ministry in a statement posted on its website late Tuesday. The government had offered subsidies for 50 million bulbs last year. The increase will "cushion the impact of the global financial crisis ...

Thu, 26 Feb 09
Oil execs push Congress for offshore drilling
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51O56N20090225?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Executives from major oil companies told Congress on Wednesday that more offshore areas should be opened to drilling to boost domestic energy supplies and reduce America's reliance on petroleum imports. Oil companies have their best shot in nearly three decades to search for energy supplies in new offshore areas after both congressional and presidential bans on expanding offshore drilling expired last year. President Barack Obama has said he could support some expanded offshore ...

Thu, 26 Feb 09
Denmark outlines plans for wind-car smart grid
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2237234/ibm-work-danish-wind-car-smart
Business Green: The Danish government has this week stepped up plans to build a genuinely zero carbon electric car network that draws on the country's wind energy to power car batteries, inking an alliance that will see IBM roll out the smart grid technologies required to manage the charging infrastructure. The government has joined the Electric Vehicles in a Distributed and Integrated Market using Sustainable Energy and Open Networks (EDISON) project, which aims to build a recharging infrastructure ...

Thu, 26 Feb 09
Leave falling carbon prices alone, say experts
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51O4HM20090225?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Falling carbon prices should not be supported through artificial price floors or direct government intervention, as this may deter new players and stunt the still-nascent market's growth, carbon market experts said. "Price floors do not exist in any other markets," said Emmanuel Fages, a carbon analyst at France's Societe Generale and subsidiary orbeo, on Wednesday. "Creating one in carbon would point out this market as an outlier and discourage regular market players, whom we ...

Thu, 26 Feb 09
CO2 rise in atmosphere accelerates in 2008
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51O4FG20090225?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Increases in the amount of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide in the atmosphere accelerated last year, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) told Reuters on Wednesday. The new data may dampen hopes that a slowdown in industrial output and carbon emissions, which started at the end of last year, will temporarily deflect climate change. Some analysts had hoped that recession would give the world breathing space to reverse its impact on the climate. The ...

Thu, 26 Feb 09
Canada: Mandatory home energy audits planned
http://www.nationalpost.com/story.html?id=1321615
Canwest News Service: The Ontario government is prepared to impose a green regime that will direct how homeowners sell their property, set prices on alternative energy and cut municipalities out of decision-making where wind and solar energy projects can be located. The sweeping legislative package known as the Green Energy Act will amend 15 statutes and the government says it will create 50,000 jobs. For homeowners already facing one of the worst markets in decades, the new law will mean they will ...

Thu, 26 Feb 09
China wheat harvest withers in drought
http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/02/24/asia/drought.5-437326.php
International Herald Tribune: In this tiny hamlet in northern China's wheat belt, Zheng Songxian scrapes out a living growing winter wheat on a vest-pocket plot, an eighth of a hectare carved out of a rocky hillside. One might think he would greet the chance this winter to till new land as cause for celebration. He does not. The new land he was offered normally lies under more than 6 meters, or 20 feet, of water, part of the Luhun Reservoir in northwestern Henan Province. But this winter, Luhun has lost ...

Thu, 26 Feb 09
Govt targets livestock methane emissions
http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/latest/5343320/govt-targets-livestock-methane-emissions/
AAP: Methane-emitting cows and sheep are the target of a new research project to cut greenhouse gas emissions and tackle climate change. Livestock are the third largest source of carbon emissions in Australia, with a beef cow grazing in northern Australia believed to produce 1,500 kilograms of carbon per year. Federal Agriculture Minister Tony Burke on Wednesday unveiled a $26.8 million program in support of 18 projects over four years as part of Labor's climate change research ...

Thu, 26 Feb 09
United Kingdom: Assessment over eco-town project
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/england/7909097.stm
BBC: An independent assessment of a possible eco-town project has concluded that the proposal is not financially viable. The work for local authorities affected by plans to build at Middle Quinton near Stratford-upon-Avon suggested the scheme would have a deficit of £373m. Following the report, the six councils warned the eco-town could not proceed without "massive public subsidy" which would be better spent elsewhere. The councils are from Warwickshire, Worcestershire and ...

Thu, 26 Feb 09
Canada: Harper not a fan of high-speed rail link: McGuinty
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Politics/2009/02/24/8513406-cp.html
Canadian Press: Prime Minister Stephen Harper is frowning on a proposal for a high-speed rail link between Ontario and Quebec that would boost the economy and help the environment, Premier Dalton McGuinty said Tuesday. Without federal support, the proposed link between Windsor, Ont., and Quebec City may never get off the ground, McGuinty said. "I continue to be a big fan of (the plan), as does (Quebec Premier) Jean Charest," McGuinty said. "The prime minister is not as much of a fan on ...

Thu, 26 Feb 09
Germany gives 9 million euros to climate initiative in Thailand
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/257324,germany-gives-9-million-euros-to-climate-initiative-in-thailand.html
Deutsche Presse-Agentur: Germany on Wednesday launched a "climate initiative" with Thailand, providing 9 million euros (410 million baht) to projects designed to assist the South-East Asian country to combat global warming. The budget, to be spaced out over the next three years, was being provided by the German Ministry of Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety to six projects in Thailand that aim to reduce carbon emissions or cope with the effects of climate change. Deputy Minister Michael ...

Thu, 26 Feb 09
China Exports Made It World's Largest Greenhouse-Gas Factory
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601130&sid=aHGDGJOMPNsQ
Bloomberg: China became the world's biggest generator of greenhouse gases largely by making electronics, metals and chemicals for wealthier countries. Export manufacturing comprised about half of China's 45 percent increase in carbon-dioxide emissions from 2002 to 2005, the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research said on its Web site. Developed nations bought a majority of the goods, according to the Oslo-based group, which contributed to the study being published in ...

Thu, 26 Feb 09
Green car halves fuel consumption
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/7910106.stm
BBC: Scientists have used wave power technology to build a car that uses half the fuel of a normal city vehicle. A BMW saloon was converted with equipment to capture energy normally wasted when a driver brakes. The team from Midlothian-based Artemis Intelligent Power said the equipment was less expensive than the batteries used in existing hybrid vehicles. Carbon emissions from the prototype were also down by 30% in combined city and motorway driving. The system, known ...

Thu, 26 Feb 09
America plays cleantech catch up
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7909318.stm
BBC: America's commitment to green energy may be too little too late, according to some in the industry. Industry insiders said despite President Obama making renewable energy one of the main planks of investment, the "US is late to the game". "While there's a good amount of money earmarked for the initiative, it's worth noting that other countries are ahead of the US," said Dallas Kachan of the Cleantech Group, which advises companies on green issues. "The truth is the US ...

Thu, 26 Feb 09
United Kingdom: Cut carbon for Lent says Bishop
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/oxfordshire/7910032.stm
BBC: The Bishop of Oxford would like people to reduce their carbon footprint during the 40 days of Lent by taking part in a carbon fast. Lent, which begins today, is a Christian festival and is traditionally a time for fasting. Abstaining from chocolate and alcohol are popular choices for people marking the event. The Right Reverend John Pritchard, Bishop of Oxford, said people should cut their carbon emissions instead. "The impact of our changing climate can sometimes ...

Thu, 26 Feb 09
Climate Change Is Not Taken Seriously Because Media Is Not Highlighting Its Significance, Expert Says - Science Daily
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090225073213.htm
ScienceDaily: Climate change will not be taken seriously until the media highlights its significance, say researchers at the University of Liverpool. Dr Neil Gavin, from the School of Politics and Communication Studies, believes the way the media handles issues like climate change shapes the public's perception of its importance. Limited coverage is unlikely to convince readers that climate change is a serious problem that warrants immediate and decisive action. Researchers found that the ...

Thu, 26 Feb 09
Scientists find bigger than expected polar ice melt
http://www.spacedaily.com/2006/090225113248.i3id7i5p.html
Agence France-Presse: Icecaps around the North and South Poles are melting faster and in a more widespread manner than expected, raising the sea level and fuelling climate change, a scientific survey revealed Wednesday. Warming in the Antarctic was "much more widespread than was thought," while Arctic sea ice wass diminishing and the melting of Greenland's ice cover was accelerating, said the International Polar Year survey. The frozen and often inaccessible polar regions have long been regarded as ...

Thu, 26 Feb 09
United Kingdom: Butterfly Reveals Role Of Habitat For Species Responding To Climate Change
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1644933/butterfly_reveals_role_of_habitat_for_species_responding_to_climate/index.html?source=r_science
redOrbit: Most wild species are expected to colonize northwards as the climate warms, but how are they going to get there when so many landscapes are covered in wheat fields and other crops? A study published today (Wednesday 25 February 2009) shows it is possible to predict how fast a population will spread and reveals the importance of habitat conservation in helping threatened species survive environmental change Published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the research ...

Thu, 26 Feb 09
First Solar reaches "dollar per watt milestone"
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2237250/first-solar-reaches-dollar-per
Business Green: Thin-film solar cell manufacturer First Solar yesterday announced it has broken the $1 (70p) per watt cost barrier that is widely accepted as the point at which solar panels become cost competitive with fossil fuels. The company said that during the fourth quarter of last year, the manufacturing cost for its solar modules stood at 98 cents per watt, taking it below the $1 per watt mark for the first time. Mike Ahearn, chief executive at the company, hailed the achievement as a ...

Thu, 26 Feb 09
Greenpeace welcomes India's phase-out of 400 million incandescent bulbs
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/press/releases/india-phaseout-lightbulbs-250209
Greenpeace: Greenpeace today welcomed India's first step on its National Action Plan on Climate Change, a market mechanism that will phase out incandescent bulbs, but called for clear targets and timelines on the other proposals listed in the plan. Greenpeace has been campaigning for the phase-out of the incandescent bulb, and acknowledged that the "Bachat Lamp Yojana"[1] programme to replace 400 million incandescent bulbs with CFLs by 2012 is a good first step. If implemented correctly, the ...

Thu, 26 Feb 09
Polar regions found warming fast, raising sea levels
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51O4ZX20090225?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: The Arctic and Antarctic regions are warming faster than previously thought, raising world sea levels and making drastic global climate change more likely than ever, international scientists said on Wednesday. New evidence of the trend was uncovered by wide-ranging research in the two areas over the past two years in a United Nations-backed program dubbed the International Polar Year (IPY), they said. "Snow and ice are declining in both polar regions, affecting human ...

Thu, 26 Feb 09
Top solar companies offer dour view of 2009
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51O0BU20090225?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Three of the world's top solar power companies on Tuesday offered a dour view of the industry as it struggles with a dearth of funding options for new projects that has driven up supplies and sent prices on solar panels falling. Germany's Q-Cells cut its 2009 sales outlook for the second time since December, Solon SE withdrew its 2009 forecast, and U.S. thin-film company First Solar Inc painted a bleak picture of the industry due to frozen credit markets that are hampering new ...

Thu, 26 Feb 09
In debate on climate change, exaggeration is a common pitfall
http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/02/25/healthscience/25hype.php
International Herald Tribune: In the effort to shape the public's views on global climate change, hyperbole is an ever-present temptation on all sides of the debate. Earlier this month, former Vice President Al Gore and the Washington Post columnist George Will made strong public statements about global warning -- from starkly divergent viewpoints. Gore, addressing a hall filled with scientists in Chicago, showed a slide that illustrated a sharp spike in fires, floods and other calamities around the world ...

Thu, 26 Feb 09
Rich Countries' Invisible Carbon Dioxide Emissions
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090224133507.htm
ScienceDaily: Rich countries are contributing to the emission increases in developing nations, but this is not accounted for in international negotiations. The report "Journey to world top emitter', to be published in Geophysical Research Letters, states that Chinese CO2 emissions increased by 45 percent from 2002 to 2005. Half of the increase was due to export production, 60 percent of which was exported to western countries. Electronic commodities and metals are important products. Only 7 ...

Wed, 25 Feb 09
Environmentalists Advance on Emissions
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=119568
New York Times: The Supreme Court cleared the way Monday for the Environmental Protection Agency to issue new regulations on emissions of mercury, lead, arsenic and other pollutants from the nation's coal-fired power plants. Environmental groups hailed the action as a final blow to Bush administration efforts to frustrate tight regulation of the emissions, but any new Obama administration rules may draw their own court challenges. The justices' action involved a suit brought by environmental ...

Wed, 25 Feb 09
Budget to have CO2 revenues by 2012: White House
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51N4IY20090224?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: President Barack Obama's budget accounts for revenues from an emissions trading system in 2012, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said on Tuesday. "That's true," Gibbs said when asked whether a cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gases would be in place in time for revenues to be generated by 2012. The president, a Democrat, has said he wants the United States to take the lead in fighting climate change. During his presidential campaign Obama laid out plans for a ...

Wed, 25 Feb 09
Mountain range as large as Alps found under Antarctic ice
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/24/antarctica-mountains
Guardian: A mountain range as large as the European Alps is hidden under 2.5 miles of ice in the east of Antarctica, scientists have revealed. The range includes peaks up to 3,000m above sea level and raises questions over how the massive ice sheets on the continent formed. The subglacial mountains were first detected by Russian researchers more than 50 years ago and are named after a Soviet geophysicist, Grigoriy Gamburtsev. But, despite a small survey carried out in the 1970s, the size and ...

Wed, 25 Feb 09
Japan may force utilities to buy surplus domestic solar power
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090224/sc_afp/japanclimatewarmingenergysolar
Agence France-Presse: Japan plans to soon require electricity companies to buy surplus power generated by household solar panels at about twice the current price, a government official said Tuesday. The scheme, to start as early as the fiscal year beginning in April, aims to promote solar power as part of efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions that drive global warming, an industry ministry official said. "Japan has already led solar power technology in the world," the official told AFP. "With the ...

Wed, 25 Feb 09
Climate Tipping Point Near Warn UN, World Bank
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2009/2009-02-23-02.asp
Environment News Service: The planet is quickly approaching the tipping point for abrupt climate changes, perhaps within a few years, according to the UN Environmental Programme's newly released 2009 Year Book and a separate World Bank report now being presented throughout Latin America. The UN agency warns that urgent action is needed to avoid catastrophic climate events such as major food and water shortages, shifts in weather patterns, and destabilization of "major ice sheets that could introduce ...

Wed, 25 Feb 09
Global "green" energy stimulus hits $200 bln: bank
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51N4OM20090224?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Governments around the world have committed more than $200 billion toward technologies to cut dependence on fossil fuels, which should help keep green development moving despite the global economic crunch, an analyst for Deutsche Bank said on Tuesday. Governments in the United States, Europe and Asia have also developed more than 250 policies since July last year that support alternative energy such as solar and wind power and climate-change mitigation. "The activity shows that ...

Wed, 25 Feb 09
Russian General vows action over 'Arctic militarization'
http://macedoniaonline.eu/content/view/5708/53/
Macedonia International News Agency: Russia said on Monday it was watching the extent of militarization in the Arctic as global warming makes potentially valuable resources in the polar region more accessible and would plan its strategy accordingly. Russia has already staked its claim to a majority of the Arctic waters, which it shares with four NATO countries and planted a Russian flag on the seabed under the North Pole 18 months ago to reinforce its position. "Overall, we are looking at how far the region will ...

Wed, 25 Feb 09
The pluses and - mostly minuses of biofuels
http://www.physorg.com/news154625430.html
Physorg: Speakers at last week's AAAS meeting presented abundant evidence that tropical rainforest destruction has accelerated in recent years, at least in part because of the worldwide push to produce more biofuels. As Europe and America rush to supplant polluting fossil fuels with plant-derived fuels like ethanol, soy and palm oil, farmers in the tropics are accelerating forest clearing to plant more sugarcane, soybeans and palm trees to meet the demand. What should be carbon-neutral ...

Wed, 25 Feb 09
UK faces 'climate criminal' claim
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/england/7906383.stm
BBC: Campaigners have said the UK will be a "climate criminal" if it allows a new coal-fired power station in Kent. In a letter to climate change minister Ed Miliband, the World Development Movement (WDM) demands the scrapping of plans for Kingsnorth. The WDM says new coal-fired power stations will increase the impact of climate change on poor countries. The government said it was determined to cut CO2 emissions and no decision has yet been made on Kingsnorth. More ...

Wed, 25 Feb 09
United States: Now that's green energy
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/feb/24/now-s-green-energy/
Las Vegas Sun: Oliver Hemmers has modest goals for his new job. Among them, he would like to break America's dependence on foreign oil, remake the chemical industry and cut carbon emissions. "My personal preference is algae," says Hemmers, a chemist by training. Hemmers is the new director of the Harry Reid Center for Environmental Studies at UNLV, so he knows what he's talking about. The research projects on his resume received more than $6 million in funding. He's spent time working on ...

Wed, 25 Feb 09
United States: Is global warming confusing pelicans?
http://www.dailybreeze.com/news/ci_11771366?source=rss
Daily Breeze: Climate change might have fooled thousands of California brown pelicans, who stayed north later than usual last year and encountered harsh winter storms on their trip south, researchers now believe. That theory has emerged following tests and observation of dozens of sick, disoriented and frost-bitten adult pelicans that turned up in December and January, researchers said. The birds were rescued by International Bird Rescue Research Center in San Pedro after they were seen ...

Wed, 25 Feb 09
Global CO2 Market Seen Shrinking In 09 On Econ Woes-Point Carbon - Nasdaq
http://www.nasdaq.com/aspxcontent/NewsStory.aspx?cpath=20090224%5CACQDJON200902240747DOWJONESDJONLINE000296.htm&&mypage=newsheadlines&title=Global%20CO2%20Market%20Seen%20Shrinking%20In%2009%20On%20Econ%20Woes-Point%20Carbon
Dow Jones: The global carbon market is set to contract in value this year for the first time since carbon trading began and despite higher volumes traded as prices have collapsed on the economic downturn, Point Carbon said Tuesday. According to the carbon finance consultancy, the global CO2 market is expected to be worth EUR62.6 billion, or 32% less than the EUR92 billion seen last year. The values are based on Point Carbon's price forecasts for European Union Allowances and secondary Certified ...

Wed, 25 Feb 09
United Kingdom: Greens clash over nuclear power
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/england/oxfordshire/7907579.stm
BBC: An Oxfordshire Green Party member selected as a prospective parliamentary candidate has clashed with his party's leader over nuclear power. Chris Goodall wrote that more nuclear power stations might have to be built. He has been chosen to stand for Oxford West and Abingdon at the next election. Green Party leader, Caroline Lucas, said: "It is of great concern that a candidate should be promoting a policy at odds with the party manifesto. I shall be taking that ...

Wed, 25 Feb 09
CO2-tracking satellite crashes after lift-off
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16657-co2tracking-satellite-crashes-after-liftoff.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=climate-change
New Scientist: NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory crashed into the Pacific just off the coast of Antarctica shortly after it lifted off from California's Vandenberg Air Force Base on Tuesday. Just minutes after the OCO launched at 0155 PST (0955 GMT) on a Taurus XL rocket, its protective fairing, which shields the spacecraft during launch and atmospheric ascent, failed to separate and fall away as planned. As a result of its added weight, the instrument did not reach its orbit and crashed into the ...

Wed, 25 Feb 09
Ocean Becoming More Acidic, Potentially Threatening Marine Life
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090223091752.htm
ScienceDaily: A dramatic increase in carbon dioxide levels is making the world's ocean more acidic, which may adversely affect the survival of marine life and organisms that depend on them, such as humans. The article "Off Balance Ocean" is scheduled for the Feb. 23 issue of Chemical & Engineering News. In the article, C&EN Associate Editor Rachel Petkewich notes that the increased use of fossil fuels has caused levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to nearly double since the ...

Wed, 25 Feb 09
NASA global warming satellite has troubled launch
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090224/ap_on_sc/sci_carbon_satellite
Associated Press: A rocket carrying a NASA satellite crashed near Antarctica after a failed launch early Tuesday, ending a $280 million mission to track global warming from space. The Taurus XL rocket carrying the Orbiting Carbon Observatory blasted off just before 2 a.m. from California's Vandenberg Air Force Base. But minutes later, a cover protecting the satellite during launch failed to separate from the rocket, a preliminary investigation found. The 986-pound satellite was supposed to be ...

Wed, 25 Feb 09
Satellite mission to monitor carbon dioxide fails: NASA
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090224/ts_alt_afp/usspaceenvironment
Agence France-Presse: A US satellite to monitor global carbon dioxide emissions plummeted into the ocean near Antarctica Tuesday after failing to reach orbit, NASA officials said, calling it a major disappointment for climate science. NASA said the satellite launched successfully from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California aboard a Taurus XL rocket at 1:55 am (0951 GMT). A fatal mission error occurred minutes after liftoff when a clamshell-like fairing that protects the satellite during its ...

Wed, 25 Feb 09
EPA will regulate greenhouse gases, says US climate chief
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2237090/epa-regulate-greenhouse-gases
Business Green: The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will regulate carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power stations, Barack Obama's climate chief said this week. Carol Browner, special adviser to the president on climate change, said in an interview on Sunday at the Western Governors' Association meeting in Washington that the EPA is looking at a ruling from a Supreme Court in 2007 that requires the agency to decide whether CO2 emissions are a danger to public health and " will make an ...

Wed, 25 Feb 09
Humans turning Indonesian rainforest into a tinderbox
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16652-humans-turning-indonesian-rainforest-into-a-tinderbox.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=climate-change
New Scientist: Human activities have turned the world's third largest rainforest region into a tinderbox that climate change will ignite. So concludes a new study of fire in the forests of Sumatra and Borneo in Indonesia. Investigators examined the fire history of Indonesian forests by analysing half a century of visibility records at local airports. "During the late 1970s, Borneo changed from being highly fire-resistant to highly fire-prone during drought years," says Robert Field, an ...

Wed, 25 Feb 09
China's growth is no figleaf for the real source of CO2 emissions: the UK
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/feb/24/china-uk-c02-emissions-consumers
Guardian: Whenever a government or a corporation doesn't want to do something, it blames China. You want fair terms of trade? Sorry, not when China's dumping its goods on the world market. You want a 40-hour week? Forget it, the Chinese are working a 40-hour day. You want to cut carbon emissions? Pointless when the Chinese are building a new power station every three seconds. Just as it has been for 150 years, the "Yellow Peril" is invoked to frighten us into acquiescing to any number of ...

Wed, 25 Feb 09
Japan plans system to boost solar power capacity
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51N29E20090224?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Japan aims to make utilities pay for surplus solar-power electricity that households produce by amending a law in the current session of parliament, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said on Tuesday. It was the first clear sign of government action on the issue, but the details of the amendments have yet to be thrashed out. The issue may be contentious as it will increase the financial burden on consumers as well as utility companies. Japan aims to boost its solar ...

Wed, 25 Feb 09
Germany says green jobs will shorten recession
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51N2F920090224?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Strong growth in Germany's renewable energy sector along with increased state spending for environment protection could help shorten the country's worst post-war recession, the government said on Tuesday. Deputy environment minister Astrid Klug said there were now 250,000 jobs in Germany's renewable energies sector and an overall total of 1.8 million in environmental protection. The number of jobs in renewables will triple by 2020 and hit 900,000 by 2030. "Investments in ...

Wed, 25 Feb 09
NASA greenhouse gas satellite fails
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/space/02/24/nasa.launch/index.html?eref=rss_latest
CNN: A NASA satellite crashed back to Earth about three minutes after launch early Tuesday, officials said. NASA launches a rocket from California's Vandenberg Air Force Base on Tuesday. "We could not make orbit," NASA program manager John Brunschwyler said. "Initial indications are the vehicle did not have enough [force] to reach orbit and landed just short of Antarctica in the ocean." "Certainly for the science community, it's a huge disappointment." The satellite, ...

Wed, 25 Feb 09
Australia: Teaming up and powering down
http://www.theage.com.au/environment/global-warming/teaming-up-and-powering-down-20090224-8gr6.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
Age: Too hard for the politicians? In one town unlikely allies are fighting climate change and winning. Michael Green reports. SO FAR, the carbon trading debate has been cast as a battle between greedy businesses on one side and rabid greenies on the other. That's not how it works in Castlemaine. There, under the Maine's Power scheme, the four major employers in the region have quietly teamed up with the local sustainability group and CSIRO to slash their ecological footprints. The ...

Wed, 25 Feb 09
U.S. renewable energy faces weak economy, old grid
http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-GreenBusiness/idUSTRE51M5R720090223?sp=true
Reuters: U.S. President Barack Obama set the goal: double U.S. renewable energy production in three years. Congress provided the incentives as part of the $787 billion stimulus package. Still, it may take awhile for solar and wind energy companies to get new business and the smart grid to transmit those power supplies. People in the industries say the stimulus will help speed the process, but it still may not be fast enough to meet the Obama administration's goal of ramping up renewable ...

Wed, 25 Feb 09
Switzerland: Cold winter doesn't buck global warming trend
http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/science_technology/Cold_winter_doesn_t_buck_global_warming_trend.html?siteSect=511&sid=10371621&cKey=1235478703000&ty=st
Swissinfo: Gloomy outlook forecast for the climate Temperatures sink to record lows while snow depths are twice the normal level - is Switzerland's seemingly abnormal winter another indicator of climate change? Bern University climatologist Heinz Wanner tells swissinfo that although the current winter season may appear colder and snowier than usual the larger historical picture shows it isn't as severe as it seems. The head of the Climatology and Meteorology Research Group (Klimet), ...

Wed, 25 Feb 09
Gung-ho on eco-friendly energy, officials vexed by states on placement of power lines
http://www.startribune.com/politics/national/congress/40083822.html?elr=KArks8c7PaP3E77K_3c::D3aDhUMEaPc:E7_ec7PaP3iUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUU
Associated Press: Across the Great Plains the wind blows incessantly, while in the remote Nevada desert the sun bears down without relief. Each holds the potential of a vast new energy resource. While wind turbine and solar projects are ready to capture this new, eco-friendly energy source, where are the transmission lines to get the power to where it is needed? Democratic congressional leaders, a former president and his one-time vice president, several Obama Cabinet members, energy executives ...

Wed, 25 Feb 09
For Kids: Greener diet
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/41076/title/FOR_KIDS_Greener_Diet
ScienceNews: Think about what you had for lunch: Was it a hamburger? A chicken sandwich? Barbecue? What about vegetables? Would it surprise you to learn that what you eat can affect the whole planet? It can -- in a big way. Last week, scientists attending the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Chicago presented new studies showing how food and its production affect the globe and its warming climate. The researchers had some bad news for meat-eaters (which is good news ...

Wed, 25 Feb 09
Receding glaciers erase records of climate history
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/40411/title/Receding_glaciers_erase_records_of_climate_history
ScienceNews: When did you first learn high-elevation glaciers were dying? When we started our monitoring program in 1978, people typically described the movement of ice fields as slow – you know, glacial. But in the early '90s during repeated visits to Peru's Quelccaya glacier, the largest tropical ice cap on Earth, we realized it was in rapid retreat. Although 168 meters thick at the top, it's now retreating up the mountainside by about 18 inches a day, which means you can almost sit there and ...

Wed, 25 Feb 09
Will the recession cut our CO2 emissions?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/feb/23/carbon-trading-economy-downturn
Guardian: As the recession bites, the economies of many countries are slumping. But is the consequent fall in demand for energy and goods significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions? In Europe, the emissions trading scheme provides a clue. Firms with high levels of pollution must buy carbon credits, the price of which has fallen below 9 from 30 last summer. Analysts say the price drop reflects a slowing demand for credits as companies scale back production and cut their carbon ...

Wed, 25 Feb 09
Colorado shares wind-power info
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_11770391
Denver Post: Honduras President Manuel Zelaya, left, gives a box of cigars to Robert McGrath, a deputy lab director at NREL. Zelaya said his country is looking to clean energy to reduce its dependence on oil and has launched Latin America's third-largest wind-power project. ( Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post ) Honduras President Manuel Zelaya on Tuesday led a mission through Colorado's green energy research labs amply armed, peppering federal scientists with technical ...

Wed, 25 Feb 09
Damage from warming may arise sooner than expected
http://www.denverpost.com/nationworld/ci_11770162
Associated Press: Earth won't have to warm up as much as had been thought to cause serious consequences of global warming, including more extreme weather and increasing threats to plants and animals, says an international team of climate experts. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has estimated that the risk of increased severe weather would rise with a global average temperature increase of between 1.8 degrees and 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit above 1990 levels. The National Climatic Data ...

Wed, 25 Feb 09
Canadians increasingly dependent on their cars
http://www.canada.com/cityguides/trail/story.html?id=3d19b41b-c3bb-4f09-8456-3c154bc47dc0&k=8873
Canwest News Service: Car dependence is on the rise, even as more Canadians declare concern for the environment and live in urban areas with access to better public transit. In 1992, 68 per cent of Canadians aged 18 and over drove everywhere, according to a new report from Statistics Canada. By 1998, that proportion was 70 per cent. In 2005, the most recent year for which numbers are available, 74 per cent of Canadians were full-time drivers. Biking and walking rates, meanwhile, declined to 19 per ...

Wed, 25 Feb 09
Australia: Southern wildfires continue to rage in Australia
http://www.boston.com/news/world/australia/articles/2009/02/24/southern_wildfires_continue_to_rage_in_australia/
Associated Press: Officials warned Tuesday the wildfires that devastated southern Australia this month could flare anew when high winds and hot temperatures sweep the region later this week. The death toll from the blazes rose to 210. Australia's insurance council, meanwhile, reported thousands of claims totaling more than a half-billion dollars in damage from the Feb. 7 fires that tore through Victoria state. Four major fires are still burning in the region, and officials warned that ...

Wed, 25 Feb 09
Arctic sea ice underestimated for weeks due to faulty sensor
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601110&sid=aIe9swvOqwIY
Bloomberg: A glitch in satellite sensors caused scientists to underestimate the extent of Arctic sea ice by 500,000 square kilometers (193,000 square miles), a California- size area, the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center said. The error, due to a problem called "sensor drift," began in early January and caused a slowly growing underestimation of sea ice extent until mid-February. That's when "puzzled readers" alerted the NSIDC about data showing ice-covered areas as stretches of open ocean, ...

Wed, 25 Feb 09
MIT group increases global warming projections
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/capitalweathergang/2009/02/new_research_from_mit_scientis.html
Washington Post: Warming possibilities for "no policy" and policy scenarios between 1990 and 2100. Size of pie slice indicates the likelihood of a given amount of warming under the different scenarios. Graphics courtesy MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change. New research from MIT scientists shows that in the absence of stringent reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, 21st century climate change may be far more significant than some previous climate assessments had ...

Wed, 25 Feb 09
Australia: Divorce adds to climate change
http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-national/divorce-adds-to-climate-change-fielding-20090224-8gl2.html
AAP: Divorce adds to the impact of global warming as couples switch to wasteful single lifestyles, Family First senator Steve Fielding says. He told a Senate hearing on Tuesday that divorce led to a "resource-inefficient lifestyle" and it would be better for the planet if couples stayed married. When couples separate, they need more rooms, more electricity and more water, which increases their carbon footprint. "We understand that there is a social problem (with divorce), but ...

Wed, 25 Feb 09
Federal officials debate power grid
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101082181
National Public Radio: An all-star cast of politicians, business people and activists sat down Monday in Washington, D.C., to discuss how to transform the nation's energy supply from dirty to clean. The consensus was that it will take a much better system for distributing electricity coast to coast. Participants agreed there are plenty of challenges to doing that.

Wed, 25 Feb 09
Weathering the times: Stimulus boosts green jobs
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101059253
National Public Radio: People in the business of weatherizing homes are expecting to profit from the new economic stimulus plan. The federal aid package sets aside $5 billion worth of spending for making homes and buildings more energy efficient. The idea is to save energy, create jobs -- and even perhaps slow global warming. That's good news for people like Malcolm Woolf, who runs the Maryland Energy Administration. It's a small office with a small staff, and they've started a new program to train people ...

Wed, 25 Feb 09
Threat Of Global Warming Grows
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1643973/threat_of_global_warming_grows/index.html?source=r_science
redOrbit: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change believes the Earth will not have to warm up as much as recently thought to experience the consequences of global warming, including more extreme weather and increasing threats to plants and animals. Researchers estimated that the risk of problematic severe weather would rise with a global average temperature increase of between 1.8 degrees and 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit above 1990 levels. Researchers point out that "increases in ...

Wed, 25 Feb 09
Satellite failure prolongs carbon economy mystery
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2237129/satellite-failure-prolongs
Business Green: A Nasa satellite designed to measure how much carbon ends up in the atmosphere and how much is stored in so-called "sinks" has failed to separate from the rocket that was carrying it into orbit. In a statement issued this morning, Nasa admitted the launch had been a failure and the future of the $278m (£192m) Orbiting Carbon Observatory to answer vital questions about how carbon is absorbed by the Earth had been called into question. The rocket and satellite apparently crashed ...

Wed, 25 Feb 09
Alp-sized peaks found entombed in Antarctic ice
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51N3B720090224?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Jagged mountains the size of the Alps have been found entombed in Antarctica's ice, giving new clues about the vast ice sheet that will raise world sea levels if even a fraction of it melts, scientists said on Tuesday. Using radar and gravity sensors, the experts made the first detailed maps of the Gamburtsev subglacial mountains, originally detected by Russian scientists 50 years ago at the heart of the East Antarctic ice sheet. "The surprising thing was that not only is this ...

Wed, 25 Feb 09
U.S. May Set Greenhouse Gas Standard for Cars
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/23/AR2009022302575.html?wprss=rss_nation
Washington Post: The Obama administration is considering establishing national rules for regulating greenhouse gas emissions for automobiles, according to White House officials, a move backed by both auto manufacturers and some environmentalists. For weeks, administration officials have been meeting with car companies as well as green groups and representatives from California -- which is awaiting word on whether it will receive a federal waiver to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles -- to ...

Wed, 25 Feb 09
France: French farmer is new sun king
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51N0I020090224?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Bright winter sun dissolves a blanket of snow on barn roofs to reveal a bold new sideline for Jean-Luc Westphal: besides producing eggs and grains, he is to generate solar power for thousands of homes. Economic crisis has cast doubt on funding hopes for many big renewable energy projects, but the giant panels built into roofs on this sloping farm at the foot of the Vosges hills in eastern France are attracting attention from farmers to financiers. Westphal is one of a small but ...

Wed, 25 Feb 09
Global Warming May Bring More Respiratory Woes
http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20090223/hl_hsn/globalwarmingmaybringmorerespiratorywoes
HealthDay News: Climate change will push summer temperatures higher and lead to more hospitalizations for respiratory problems, a European study finds. The researchers analyzed a minimum of three years of hospital admission data in 12 European cities. They found that for every degree increase over 90 percent of a city's maximum apparent temperature (Tappmax), there was a 4 percent increase in respiratory-related hospitalizations. A rise in temperature was not linked to increases in admissions for ...

Wed, 25 Feb 09
Satellite to pinpoint sources and sinks of CO2
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16650-satellite-to-pinpoint-sources-and-sinks-of-co2.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=climate-change
New Scientist: At 0151 PST (0951 GMT) on Tuesday, we will be one step closer to understanding how some carbon dioxide ends up building a dangerous greenhouse above our heads, while the rest of it gets sucked into the bowels of the Earth. That is the planned launch time for NASA's new climate-monitoring instrument, the Orbiting Carbon Observatory, which will blast off from California's Vandenberg Air Force Base. (You can watch the launch on NASA TV.) What is the Orbiting Carbon ...

Tue, 24 Feb 09
United States: Many Plans to Curtail Use of Plastic Bags, but Not Much Action
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=119461
New York Times: Last summer, city officials here became the first in the nation to approve a fee on paper and plastic shopping bags in many retail stores. The 20-cent charge was intended to reduce pollution by encouraging reusable bags. But a petition drive financed by the plastic-bag industry delayed the plan. Now a far broader segment of Seattle's bag carriers – its voters – will decide the matter in an election in August. Even in a city that likes to be environmentally conscious, the ...

Tue, 24 Feb 09
Great clean-up - can economic rescue plans also save planet?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/24/obama-environment-economic-rescue
Guardian: With governments around the world continuing to pump colossal sums of money into their plunging economies, a grand global experiment is under way: can the unprecedented spending provide not only a quick fix for the economic catastrophe but also the measures vital for dealing with global warming? Many hope so, and Barack Obama is foremost among them. He sees his presidency as a rare moment in history when crisis can be converted into opportunity, and his $787bn economic recovery plan ...

Tue, 24 Feb 09
China's water deficit 'will create food shortage'
http://www.scidev.net/en/agriculture-and-environment/china-s-water-deficit-will-create-food-shortage-.html?utm_source=link&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=en_agricultureandenvironment
SciDev.Net: A leading climate change expert has warned that water shortage is the greatest threat to China's agricultural sector this century, amid a drought across the country. As demand for water continues to rise and less is available for agriculture, "China will see a food shortfall of 5--10 per cent -- a disastrous outcome in a country of 1.3 billion people -- unless effective and timely measures are taken," said Lin Erda, one of China's top climate change experts and leader of a joint ...

Tue, 24 Feb 09
Obama eyes climate bill this year or next-W.House
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N23355957.htm
Reuters: The White House signaled on Monday it could wait until 2010 for major climate change legislation to move through the U.S. Congress as long as it fulfilled President Barack Obama's criteria for tackling global warming. When asked when the president wished to see movement on a climate bill, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs left a time frame wide open. "If we had significant legislation that began to address climate change ... whether that's this year or next year I think both ...

Tue, 24 Feb 09
Climate change risk underestimated: study
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090223/sc_afp/climateusenvironment
Agence France-Presse: The risk posed to mankind and the environment by even small changes in average global temperatures is much higher than believed even a few years ago, a study said Monday. Published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study updated a 2001 assessment by the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change that looked at temperature changes and the risks they pose. "Today, we have to assume that the risks of negative impacts of climate change on humans and nature ...

Tue, 24 Feb 09
Global warming danger threat increased
http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2009/02/23/global_warming_danger_threat_increased/?rss_id=Boston.com+--+Latest+news
Associated Press: The Earth won't have to warm up as much as had been thought to cause serious consequences of global warming, including more extreme weather and increasing threats to plants and animals, says an international team of climate experts. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimated that the risk of increased severe weather would rise with a global average temperature increase of between 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit and 3.6 degrees above 1990 levels. The National Climatic Data Center ...

Tue, 24 Feb 09
Clinton and Gore talk Smart Grid
http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20090223/pl_politico/19194_1
Politico: Bill Clinton and Al Gore told a roomful of climate change heavyweights Monday that the nation must push on with a national clean energy Smart Grid – or risk losing the battle on climate change. Attending an energy summit at Washington's Newseum, the former president and vice president praised the new Obama administration and Democratic congressional leaders for their work on the economic recovery package, saying it would allow the nation to move forward on dealing with climate change ...

Tue, 24 Feb 09
The Big Question: Does nuclear power now provide the answer to Britain's energy needs?
http://www.independent.co.uk/extras/big-question/the-big-question-does-nuclear-power-now-provide-the-answer-to-britain8217s-energy-needs-1630345.html
Independent: Why are we asking this now? Because as The Independent reported yesterday four of the country's leading green activists have overcome a lifetime's opposition to warn of the dire consequences of not building more nuclear power stations. Pro-nuclear Green candidate faces axe Scientific evidence about the environmental impact of burning coal, gas and oil has overcome concerns about safety issues, the build-up of radioactive waste and the proliferation of nuclear weapons. So ...

Tue, 24 Feb 09
United Kingdom: Corus fires up strategy for sustainable steel
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2237052/exclusive-corus-fires-strategy
Business Green: Steel giant Corus has tightened its 2010 energy use target after the company confirmed it was on track to complete a £60m upgrade of its Port Talbot plant before the end of the year that should see the company single-handedly ensure Wales meets its national emission reduction target. The company is to complete work on a new gas recovery system at the system by October that will allow it to capture gas that is currently flared and reuse it to power the plant. The project is estimated ...

Tue, 24 Feb 09
Floating wind turbines to be tested off Portugese coast
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2237051/floating-wind-turbines-tested
Business Green: US-based wind turbine developer Principle Power and Portugal's Energias de Portugal (EDP) have agreed to team up on a project to develop a deep-water offshore wind farm off the coast of Portugal using floating wind turbines. The development will use Principle Power's WindFloat technology, which sees turbines placed on floating platforms rather than attached to the sea bed. The company argues that the floating turbines are far more cost effective to install in deep water than ...

Tue, 24 Feb 09
Climate change lays waste to Spain's glaciers
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/23/spain-glaciers-climate-change
Guardian: The Pyrenees mountains have lost almost 90% of their glacier ice over the past century, according to scientists who warn that global warning means they will disappear completely within a few decades. While glaciers covered 3,300 hectares of land on the mountain range that divides Spain and France at the turn of the last century, only 390 hectares remain, according to Spain's environment ministry. The most southerly glaciers in Europe are losing the battle against warming and ...

Tue, 24 Feb 09
Fixing climate wrongs will be key to protecting human rights
http://www.panda.org/what_we_do/knowledge_centres/climate_change/news/?uNewsID=157261
WWF: Effective action on climate change – caused mainly by the privileged and impacting more and more devastatingly on the deprived – is becoming central to a just as well as a sustainable world, WWF International Director General James Leape told an emergency human rights congress in London today. And action on climate change will not be effective unless it is also fair, Mr Leape told the congress convened under the patronage of noted Human Rights barrister Cherie Blair and Archbishop ...

Tue, 24 Feb 09
Satellite will track carbon dioxide
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=119426
New York Times: Thirty billion tons of carbon dioxide waft into the air from the burning of fossil fuels each year. About half stays in the air. The other half disappears. Where it all goes, nobody quite knows. With the Orbiting Carbon Observatory, a NASA satellite scheduled to be launched on Tuesday from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, scientists hope to understand better the comings and goings of carbon dioxide, the main heat-trapping gas behind the warming of the planet. The new ...

Tue, 24 Feb 09
Study finds human role in Indonesian forest fires
http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/world-news/study-finds-human-role-in-indonesian-forest-fires_100158690.html
Indo-Asian News Service: A new study has revealed that severe fires in Indonesia, responsible for some of the worst air quality conditions worldwide, are not only associated with drought, but also with changes in land use and population density. "During the late 1970s, Indonesian Borneo changed from being highly fire-resistant to highly fire-prone during drought years, marking the period when one of the world``s great tropical forests became one of the world``s largest sources of pollution," said Robert Field ...

Tue, 24 Feb 09
Australia: Coalition pins its great green hope on carbon trio
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/coalition-pins-its-great-green-hope-on-carbon-trio-20090223-8ftd.html
Sydney Morning Herald: THE COALITION'S "green carbon initiative" is a three-pronged policy that aims to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions by making buildings more energy efficient, having faith in clean coal and burying greenhouse pollution with a process known as biochar. Geosequestration - the burying of greenhouse pollution underground or beneath the ocean floor - remains the great technological hope for solving climate change even though its adoption does not appear to be any time ...

Tue, 24 Feb 09
NASA looking for answers on carbon dioxide
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101024326
National Public Radio: NASA plans to launch a satellite on Tuesday that will help measure carbon dioxide on a global basis. Carbon dioxide is the single most important gas involved in global warming, so understanding where it comes from – and where it goes – is essential.

Tue, 24 Feb 09
China, U.S. to integrate dialogues, work on economy, climate change
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90776/90883/6598051.html
Xinhua: China and the United States on Saturday agreed to establish a dialogue on strategic and economic issues and pledged to work together to tackle the global financial crisis and climate change. The agreement came out of a flurry of meetings between Chinese leaders and visiting U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Saturday. "Now it is more important than anytime in the past to deepen and develop China-U.S. relations amid the spreading financial crisis and increasing global ...

Tue, 24 Feb 09
India: Delhi Metro prevents 90,000 tons of CO2
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Earth/Delhi-Metro-Cuts-90000-tons-of-CO2/articleshow/4176147.cms
Indo-Asian News Service: The Delhi Metro, which is the first railway project in the world to be registered for carbon credits by the United Nations, has been certified to have prevented over 90,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere by reducing its power requirement in three years, an official said Sunday. Registering the Delhi Metro's contribution, the Germany-based validation organization TUVNORD conducted an audit on behalf of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change ...

Tue, 24 Feb 09
Going, going ..
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/Technology/Going%20going/1316919/story.html
Edmonton Journal: When University of Alberta scientist Andrew Derocher caught and tagged a female polar bear in the southern Beaufort Sea last April, he didn't expect that she would stray too far. Keep in mind that "too far" is a relative term in the world of polar bear science. A small home range for a polar bear in the High Arctic can be 50,000 to 60,000 square kilometres. A large home range such as that in the Bering and Chukchi seas in Alaska and Russia may be in excess of 350,000 square ...

Tue, 24 Feb 09
Stimulus plans brings green home improvement tax breaks
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0223/p13s01-wmgn.html
Christian Science Monitor: Energy-saving systems for the attic, basement, and in between have effectively gone on sale, courtesy of the United States Congress. But whether shoppers will take advantage – or even notice available discounts – remains an open question. Tax incentives to encourage investments in energy efficiency took effect last week when President Barack Obama signed the $787 billion economic stimulus bill. That means homeowners with drafty windows, old heating systems, or other root causes ...

Tue, 24 Feb 09
Ministers get close look at Antarctic ice threat
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AA_ANTARCTICA_MISSION?SITE=TXDAM&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Associated Press: A parka-clad band of environment ministers landed in this remote corner of the icy continent on Monday, in the final days of an intense season of climate research, to learn more about how a melting Antarctica may endanger the planet. Representatives from more than a dozen nations, including the U.S., China, Britain and Russia, were to rendezvous at a Norwegian research station with American and Norwegian scientists coming in on the last leg of a 1,400-mile (2,300-kilometer), two-month ...

Tue, 24 Feb 09
Obama sidesteps tar sands controversy
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2236958/obama-sidesteps-tar-sands-issue
Business Green: President Obama disappointed environmental groups by skirting around the issue of whether controversial tar sands projects should be allowed to continue during his first visit to Canada last week. The US president used his first international visit to sign up to a joint climate change strategy with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper that will see the two countries co-operate to develop clean energy technologies, but made no mention of the practice of extracting oil from tar sands ...

Tue, 24 Feb 09
West responsible for a third of China's carbon emissions
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2236966/west-responsible-third-china
Business Green: A new study shows that half the recent increase in China's carbon emissions is a direct result of its manufacturing of goods for export to other countries. As a result of the findings, pressure on western firms to address the carbon emissions of their Chinese supply chains looks set to step up another notch. According to Guardian reports, the new study from Oslo's Centre for International Climate and Environmental Research is to be published in scientific journal Geophysical Research ...

Tue, 24 Feb 09
Ms. Jackson makes a change
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=119399
New York Times: Less than a month into the job, and with only a skeleton staff, Lisa Jackson, the new administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, has already engineered an astonishing turnaround. She has pledged to reverse or review three Bush administration directives that had slowed the government's response to global warming and has brought a new sense of urgency to an issue that President Bush treated indifferently. She has also boosted morale at an agency badly demoralized after eight ...

Tue, 24 Feb 09
Climate fears are driving 'ecomigration' across globe
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/22/AR2009022202378.html
Washington Post: Adam Fier recently sold his home, got rid of his car and pulled his twin 6-year-old girls out of elementary school in Montgomery County. He and his wife packed the family's belongings and moved to New Zealand -- a place they had never visited or seen before, and where they have no family or professional connections. Among the top reasons: global warming. Halfway around the world, the president of Kiribati, a Pacific nation of low-lying islands, said last week that his country is ...

Tue, 24 Feb 09
All hat and lots of cattle
http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.htm?programID=09-P13-00008&segmentID=3
Living on Earth: GELLERMAN: It's Living on Earth, I'm Bruce Gellerman. The Secretary of the Interior has authority over more than a fifth of the land in the United States and more than three times as much area off our shores. That responsibility now rests with Ken Salazar. A former rancher and environmental lawyer, Salazar served as a Senator from Colorado before taking the reins as the nation's biggest landlord. Living on Earth's Ingrid Lobet has this profile of the new ...

Tue, 24 Feb 09
Off-balance ocean
http://pubs.acs.org/cen/science/87/8708sci2.html
Chemical and Engineering News: PEOPLE CAN'T walk on water, but scientists say the carbon dioxide emitted by humans into the atmosphere has started to leave noticeable footprints on the ocean. Scientists have been concerned for years that lower ocean pH caused by absorption of CO2 emissions could decrease calcification processes underlying the growth of shells and corals' hard exteriors. Besides studying that phenomenon, they are investigating how acidification alters the concentration and behavior of the ocean's ...

Tue, 24 Feb 09
24% of Papua New Guinea's rainforest destroyed or degraded by logging in 30 years
http://news.mongabay.com/2009/0222-png.html
Mongabay: Nearly one quarter of Papua New Guinea's rainforests were damaged or destroyed between 1972 and 2002, report researchers writing in the journal Biotopica. The results, which were published in a report last June, show that Papua New Guinea is losing forests at a much faster rate than previously believed. Over the 30-year study period 15 percent of Papua New Guinea's tropical forests were cleared and 8.8 percent were degraded through logging. "Our analysis does not support the ...

Tue, 24 Feb 09
Carbon allowances set to soar as 'perfect storm' hits
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/4782750/Carbon-allowances-set-to-soar-as-perfect-storm-hits.html
Telegraph: The report, written by corporate finance and equity capital markets adviser Tom Frost, of Akur Partners, predicts that the price of carbon could increase to 64 (£57) from the current 8.40 before the end of this trading period, know as Phase II, in 2012. It is expected to be published on Wednesday evening. The EU emissions trading scheme (EU ETS) started in January 2005 the largest multi-national emissions trading scheme in the world and is central to the EU's climate change policy. ...

Tue, 24 Feb 09
Australia: Coalition's climate change stance a mirage: Wong
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/national/national/general/coalitions-climate-change-stance-a-mirage-wong/1441042.aspx
AAP: Malcolm Turnbull's new focus on greenhouse gas reduction policy is simply a diversion from internal problems in the opposition, Climate Change Minister Penny Wong says. The opposition leader - who has been fending off renewed speculation about the ambitions of Peter Costello - has seized on the government's emissions trading scheme (ETS) policy, flagging a Senate inquiry to replace the one the government axed last week. But on Monday Liberal MPs were unwilling to define their ...

Tue, 24 Feb 09
Chinese utility tries to join electricity pioneers
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jo7eOg2c4VORpCn67zCS1rv_nE1wD96G3D380
Associated Press: As companies abroad slash spending to ride out a global slump, China's biggest utility is pouring money into the multibillion-dollar field of electric power transmission. State Grid Corp. says it began operation in January of a 1 million-volt commercial power line, which is much more powerful than the 765,000-volt systems used in the United States and elsewhere. It said "ultra-high voltage" transmission systems will be able to link cities to distant hydroelectric dams from Brazil to ...

Tue, 24 Feb 09
In California, Green Means Growth
http://www.newsweek.com/id/185792
Newsweek: With the global economy in a deep recession, there's a predictable debate going on: can we still afford to fight climate change and invest in a greener economy? Nowhere is this debate more active than in California, which has a long history of enacting strict environmental regulations. While some see California's path toward a greener economy as extreme or overzealous, I'd describe it more simply: smart. Californians are already among the cleanest users of energy on the ...

Tue, 24 Feb 09
Australia: Better climate policy could cut extra 150m tonnes in emissions: Turnbull
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25093054-601,00.html
Australian: MALCOLM Turnbull has stepped up his attacks on the structure of the Government's planned carbon reduction scheme, claiming he could slash greenhouse gas emissions by a further 150 million tonnes. The Opposition Leader is attempting to trump the Prime Minister and take the offensive after a week of damaging internal strife by going on the front foot over climate change. "We are committed to a more ambitious target and a more effective climate change policy," Mr Turnbull ...

Tue, 24 Feb 09
China, US to focus on economy, climate co-op
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2009-02/22/content_7501039.htm
China Daily: China and the United States agreed Saturday that regular dialogue on economic issues would now be expanded to include security and other issues. Details of the bilateral dialogue will be finalized by President Hu Jintao and US President Barack Obama at an economic summit in London in April, according to visiting US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. The top US diplomat held extensive talks with top Chinese leaders including President Hu Jintao, Premier Wen Jiabao, as ...

Tue, 24 Feb 09
China's increasing carbon emissions blamed on manufacturing for west
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/23/china-carbon-emissions
Guardian: The full extent of the west's responsibility for Chinese emissions of greenhouse gases has been revealed by a new study. The report shows that half of the recent rise in China's carbon dioxide pollution was caused by the manufacturing of goods for other countries -- particularly developed nations such as the UK. Last year, China officially overtook the US as the world's biggest CO2 emitter. But the new research shows that around a third of all Chinese carbon emissions are the result ...

Tue, 24 Feb 09
United States: Challenges of corn ethanol make sugar more attractive
http://www.dailycomet.com/article/20090222/ARTICLES/902229997/1212?Title=Challenges-of-corn-ethanol-make-sugar-more-attractive
Daily Comet: The corn-based ethanol industry has gone from the prince of renewable energy to the pauper of alternative fuels in a short period of time, thanks to an ailing economy. Stepping up in its place is another form of ethanol that relies on agricultural waste, most notably sugar-cane byproducts. Local researchers are on the cutting edge of this trend and farmers in Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes could stand to benefit. Although the ethanol industry appears to be in turmoil, the ...

Tue, 24 Feb 09
Russia: In from the cold: workers flee Stalin's frozen north before the lights go out
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/23/russia-mining
Guardian: Crusted with snow and ice, they stand like monuments to a lost era. With their windows gaping empty over the freezing tundra, the deserted apartment blocks of Yor Shor speak of a time when the Kremlin believed ideology and industry could defeat nature. A decade ago more than 5,000 people lived in this village about 70 miles beyond the Arctic Circle in Russia's far north, where winter temperatures drop to -50C (-58F) and blizzards sweep down from the North Pole, burying cars and ...

Tue, 24 Feb 09
Squabbling derails greenhouse gas efforts, says ex-minister
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/feb/23/greenhouse-gas-carbon-emissions
Guardian: Britain's efforts to cut carbon emissions have been hampered by government infighting and a reluctance to stand up to industry, according to the UK's former climate change minister. Elliot Morley, head of the new energy and climate change select committee, said tensions between different government departments had undermined moves to cut greenhouse gas pollution. Policies to cut carbon and help the environment were dismissed inside Whitehall as "idealistic and not giving enough ...

Tue, 24 Feb 09
Governor backs off renewable energy support
http://www.juneauempire.com/stories/022209/loc_396660721.shtml
Juneau Empire: Gov. Sarah Palin has trimmed back her support for renewable energy in the face of declining oil revenues, but the Legislature is still pushing forward with last year's proposed projects. Palin last week submitted a revised budget for next year, cutting back a proposed $50 million in renewable projects to $25 million. That comes just a month after she'd called on the state to make an aggressive push for renewables that would bring the state to getting half its power from renewables by ...

Tue, 24 Feb 09
Australia: Climate alert on aerosols
http://www.weeklytimesnow.com.au/article/2009/02/23/54235_water.html
Weekly Times: AEROSOLS may have a greater impact on patterns of Australian rainfall and future climate change than previously thought, according to CSIRO atmospheric scientist Leon Rotstayn. In an address to the International Conference on Southern Hemisphere Meteorology and Oceanography in Melbourne on Friday, Dr Rotstayn said aerosols were much more than a negative greenhouse gas because they could actively force changes in winds and ocean currents.

Tue, 24 Feb 09
Australia: Climate change to increase bushfires and cyclones
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/02/23/2498558.htm
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: The Northern Territory Chief Minister says he'll wait for scientific assessments of the Victorian bushfires before deciding whether the Territory needs to beef up its readiness for disasters influenced by climate change. Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) scientists say climate change is making Southern Australia drier and more prone to bushfires, and Northern Australia is likely to experience stronger and more frequent cyclones. Paul Henderson ...

Tue, 24 Feb 09
Ireland: Carbon tax 'could harm tourism'
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0223/1224241664800.html
Irish Times: THE INTRODUCTION of a carbon tax could have a negative impact on the tourism industry, Fáilte Ireland has warned. In a report on climate change from the tourism development agency to be launched next week, reference is made to the inclusion in the programme for government of the consideration of a national carbon tax. "While these measures are aimed at addressing the sources of climate change, there is a risk of unintended negative consequences for the tourism industry ...

Tue, 24 Feb 09
A collapsing carbon market makes mega-pollution cheap
http://www.scenta.co.uk/nature/news/cit/1744022/a-collapsing-carbon-market-makes-megapollution-cheap.htm
Guardian: 'Roll up for the great pollution fire sale, the ultimate chance to wreck the climate on the cheap. You sir, over there, from the power company - look at this lovely tonne of freshly made, sulphur-rich carbon dioxide. Last summer it cost an eyewatering 31 to throw up your smokestack, but in our give-away global recession sale, that's been slashed to a crazy 8.20. Dump plans for the wind turbine! Compare our offer with costly solar energy! At this low, low price you can't afford not to burn ...

Tue, 24 Feb 09
Australia: Council plans for sea level rise
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/02/23/2498608.htm?site=southeastnsw
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: A New South Wales far south coast council says it has already planning for the impact of a rise in sea levels on coastal communities. The State Government released its long-awaited policy about climate change-induced sea levels at the weekend. The draft policy says oceans are likely to rise by 40 centimetres by 2050 and 90 centimetres by the next century. It wants this benchmark to be used by councils when assessing coastal developments, flood risk and drinking water ...

Tue, 24 Feb 09
Indonesia: New fire record for Borneo, Sumatra shows dramatic increase in rainforest destruction
http://news.mongabay.com/2009/0022-fires_indonesia.html
Mongabay: Destruction of rainforests and peatlands is making Indonesia more susceptible to devastating forest fires, especially in dry el Niño years, report researchers writing in the journal Nature Geoscience. Constructing a record of fires dating back to 1960 for Sumatra and Kalimantan (on the island of Borneo) using airport visibility records to measure aerosols or "haze" prior to the availability of satellite data, Robert Field of the University of Toronto and colleagues found that the ...

Tue, 24 Feb 09
United Kingdom: Nuclear power? Yes please...
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/nuclear-power-yes-please-1629327.html
Independent: Britain must embrace nuclear power if it is to meet its commitments on climate change, four of the country`s leading environmentalists -- who spent much of their lives opposing atomic energy -- warn today. The one-time opponents of nuclear power, who include the former head of Greenpeace, have told The Independent that they have now changed their minds over atomic energy because of the urgent need to curb emissions of carbon dioxide. They all take the view that the building of ...

Tue, 24 Feb 09
Solar panel prices to fall by up to 40 per cent by year end
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2236953/solar-panel-prices-fall-per
Business Green: The price of solar panels could fall by as much as 40 per cent by the end of the year as huge increases in polysilicon supplies lead to a sizable fall in production costs for solar panel manufacturers. That is the view of industry analyst New Energy Finance, which is predicting solar module prices could fall by between 30 and 40 per cent as a result of recent investments globally to increase production of silicon. Polysilicon prices hit a peak of $400 per kilogram last summer, ...

Tue, 24 Feb 09
Australia: Turnbull launches carbon trade gamble
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/02/23/2498235.htm
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull is upping the ante in the row over carbon trading, backing tougher emissions cuts than the Government while bidding to launch a Senate enquiry into the much-criticised emissions trading scheme (ETS). The Coalition is trying to embarrass the Federal Government over its decision to scrap an inquiry into the ETS and plans to launch a Senate inquiry with terms of reference identical to the one Labor scrapped last week. Speaking on AM this morning, ...

Tue, 24 Feb 09
Obama comes up short on climate
http://www2.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/comment/story.html?id=e058f924-5049-443d-8ebe-921433c59ba6
Times Colonist: Hopefully, it was good manners rather than weakening resolve, but for whatever reason U.S. President Barack Obama didn't offer green-minded Canadians the ringing reassurances some were looking for last week. The agreement between Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Obama to jointly pursue clean technologies -- carbon capture and storage, a so-called smart electric grid, other unspecified techno-fixes -- sounds innocuous, if not positive. But on closer examination, it looks like ...

Tue, 24 Feb 09
Part of Alaskas coast drifting into sea at twice the rate it has in past
http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/health/part-of-alaskas-coast-drifting-into-sea-at-twice-the-rate-it-has-in-past_100157915.html
Asian News International: A new study has indicated that part of Alaskas coast is drifting into the sea at twice the rate it has in the past, reshaping the Arctic shoreline. The study of the 40-mile (64-kilometer) stretch of coast was published this week in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. According to a report in National Geographic News, the trend could seriously threaten the areas caribou and other wildlife, as well as local landmarks that document human settlements. Some stretches of ...

Sun, 22 Feb 09
Is Economic Recovery Even Possible on a Planet Headed for Environmental Collapse?
http://www.alternet.org/environment/127625/is_economic_recovery_even_possible_on_a_planet_headed_for_environmental_collapse/
Tomdispatch.com:

Sun, 22 Feb 09
Mass migrations and war: Dire climate scenario
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090221/ap_on_sc/af_climate_stranded
Associated Press: If we don't deal with climate change decisively, "what we're talking about then is extended world war," the eminent economist said. His audience Saturday, small and elite, had been stranded here by bad weather and were talking climate. They couldn't do much about the one, but the other was squarely in their hands. And so, Lord Nicholas Stern was telling them, was the potential for mass migrations setting off mass conflict. "Somehow we have to explain to people just how worrying ...

Sun, 22 Feb 09
More ice in Arctic not such hot news
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/more_ice_in_arctic_not_such_hot_news-40020002.html
Winnipeg Free Press: When it comes to global warming, even the good news may not be all that great in the end. After a devastating melting of Arctic ice in 2007, researchers were cautiously optimistic when the ice surface area actually grew in 2008. But University of Manitoba scientist David Barber says the growth was mostly thin, first-year ice, which is more likely to melt during the summer. The amount of thicker multi-year ice -- which once covered the entire Arctic basin before it began ...

Sun, 22 Feb 09
Hotter summer days, more hospitalizations
http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2009/02/20/Hotter_summer_days_more_hospitalizations/UPI-29821235191538/
United Press International: High summer temperatures pushed higher by climate change may bring a spike in hospitalizations for respiratory problems, a European study suggests. The analysis of data from 12 European cities comes from a multicenter, three-year collaboration among epidemiologists, meteorologists and experts in public health collaboration that investigated the short-term effects of weather in Europe. The project evaluated the effects of higher temperatures on hospitalizations for a number of ...

Sun, 22 Feb 09
United Kingdom: Sales go into reverse as gas-guzzling 4x4s become 'socially unacceptable'
http://news.scotsman.com/environment/Sales-go-into-reverse-as.5000295.jp
Scotsman: SALES of 4x4 vehicles have "virtually collapsed", according to a consumer group. The magazine Which? Car branded such off-roaders "expensive, gas-guzzling ... and becoming socially unacceptable" after a ninth successive month of falling new car sales, with manufacturers of 4x4s among those hardest hit. Dealers have slashed prices, with 25 per cent being cut from a new £38,640 Volvo XC90, while a month-old Peugeot 4007 is being offered at nearly one-third off its £24,220 price ...

Sun, 22 Feb 09
Clinton to China: Avoid our mistakes in climate
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-02/21/content_7499771.htm
China Daily: Visiting US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pushed forward a US-China partnership on fighting the global warming here on Saturday, as environmental deterioration has become a security issue for the world. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (2nd R) chats with Mark Norbom, President and CEO of General Electric (GE) Greater China, as US Special Envoy for Climate Change Todd Stern (L) and GE President and Regional Executive Jack Wen (R) looks on, during a visit to the Beijing ...

Sun, 22 Feb 09
Rich countries not releasing climate aid
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Developmental-Issues/Rich-countries-not-releasing-climate-aid/articleshow/4166185.cms
Agence France-Presse: Less than a tenth of the funds promised to developing countries by rich nations to help them adapt to global warming has actually been delivered, a study by The Guardian newspaper showed on Saturday. The paper, which used data compiled by the Overseas Development Institute think tank and confirmed by the United Nations, found that 18 billion dollars (13.9 billion euros) had been pledged by rich countries over the past seven years, but less than 900 million dollars has been ...

Sun, 22 Feb 09
Low Water Allocations Point to Severe Challenges in 2009
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29305560/
MSNBC: Association of California Water Agencies (ACWA) Executive Director Timothy Quinn issued the following statement today on the 2009 water supply allocations announced by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the California Department of Water Resources. The Bureau announced that some agricultural contractors stand to receive no water deliveries this year, while municipal contractors can count on receiving a 50% supply. DWR said urban and agricultural customers of the State Water Project stand to ...

Sun, 22 Feb 09
In China, Clinton Focuses on Climate
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=119273
New York Times: Declaring that "we hope you won`t make the same mistakes we made," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton invited China to join the United States in an ambitious effort to curb greenhouse gases, as she toured an energy-efficient power plant in Beijing on Saturday. "When we were industrializing and growing, we didn`t know any better; neither did Europe," Mrs. Clinton said. "Now we`re smart enough to figure out how to have the right kind of growth." The gas-fired power plant, ...

Sun, 22 Feb 09
The most inspiring movement in the world: transition towns
http://www.examiner.com/x-3515-Denver-Political-Issues-Examiner~y2009m2d20-The-most-inspiring-movement-in-the-world-transition-towns
Examiner: Transition! It advances undeterred and unstoppable. A growing movement steps up to deal with the inevitable change facing humanity in the 21st century. America and the world face unprecedented challenges in the 21st century due to peak oil and unparalleled climate change which drives food scarcity. While the "Age of Oil" that supported massive population growth declines, human population explodes. The human race gallops toward a collision with its own numbers. Strap on your ...

Sun, 22 Feb 09
More drought predicted in food-producing regions
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/stories/2009/02/21/12459e7daf13
Radio New Zealand: A New Zealand climate scientist is warning that extreme droughts are likely to occur more frequently in some of the world's most important food-producing areas, as the effects of climate change worsen. Jim Salinger, from the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, has been attending a meeting of international experts in Beijing, which has been reviewing the increasing frequency and severity of droughts and extreme temperatures around the world. He says the recent ...

Sun, 22 Feb 09
Australia: Heatwave left hundreds dead
http://www.watoday.com.au/national/heatwave-left-hundreds-dead-20090221-8ea4.html
Age: JANUARY'S brutal heatwave may have killed 100 Melburnians - and more than 200 people across south-eastern Australia - an ''invisible tragedy'' now the subject of investigations by the Department of Human Services and the Coroner's Office. A Monash University analysis of the event in late January - when temperatures rose above 43 degrees for three consecutive days - indicates the heatwave claimed hundreds of lives across Victoria, South Australia and northern Tasmania. The ...

Sun, 22 Feb 09
Australia: Storm brews over emissions
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/global-warming/storm-brews-over-emissions-20090221-8e72.html
Sydney Morning Herald: SUDDENLY, climate change has turned into Kevin Rudd's perfect storm. The issue that worked so strongly in his favour in 2007 threatens to be a political nightmare. The Prime Minister remains committed to his emissions trading scheme (ETS). But he's had to lower his aspirations: the proposed plan has very modest targets, but even so it is at risk of being sunk by a Senate divided between critics who will variously attack it for going too far and not far enough. Last week was a ...

Sun, 22 Feb 09
Growing Arctic sea ice likely to melt, says scientist
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/02/21/arctic-ice.html
CBC: A University of Manitoba climate researcher says the growth of Arctic sea ice in 2008 is not cause for optimism. What scientists are seeing is mostly thin, first-year ice that is likely to melt during the summer, David Barber is quoted as saying this week in the Winnipeg Free Press. The amount of thicker multi-year ice that once covered the entire Arctic basin before it began melting decreased last year, Barber said. Satellite images have recorded that sort of decrease ...

Sun, 22 Feb 09
Snow on major glaciers such as Mt Kenya on a rapid decline, blamed on climate change
http://africasciencenews.org/asns/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1027&Itemid=1
Africa Science News Service: A recent global report by UNEP and World Glacier Monitoring Program (WGMP) headquartered in Geneva says January to March heat waves that were not recurrent more than ten years ago that have been responsible for the meltdown of the snow. Temperatures in the region between January to March season have now risen to more than 6 degrees in the last six years. The report shows that Mt Kenya has already lost about 3.2 meters of snow thickness last year alone; Mt Kilimanjaro has lost ...

Sun, 22 Feb 09
Nasa to launch Earth's first CO2 tracking satellite
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/21/nasa-orbiting-carbon-observatory-oco
Guardian: The world's first satellite designed to map concentrations of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere will be launched by Nasa on Monday. The Orbiting Carbon Observatory (Oco) will collect precise measurements of the greenhouse gas in the Earth's atmosphere, identifying where it is coming from, where it is absorbed and what happens to it in between. This improved tracking of CO2 will help scientists develop maps how the gas is concentrated around the world and give a better picture ...

Sun, 22 Feb 09
In China, Clinton focuses on global warming (and proverbs), but not human rights
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/world/story/62582.html
McClatchy: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Saturday set a new tone for U.S. relations with China, saying the two nations would join a common battle against global warming even as they look for ways to pull the world out of economic turmoil and recession. Clinton cited the "tremendous opportunity" before Washington and Beijing as they unite on "one of the most important issues that has ever, ever faced humanity." After touring an energy-efficient, low-polluting power generating plant ...

Sun, 22 Feb 09
BWEA: UK could be top for small wind
http://www.edie.net/news/news_story.asp?id=16045
Edie: The BWEA wants more guidance on acceptable noise limits from small urban wind turbines to speed up the planning process The UK could become a world leader in microgeneration and small wind but it needs a helping hand to create the market. The UK is already leading the market in manufacture small wind turbines which can generate up to 50kW of power, but has one of the smallest installed capacities in Europe. Most of the small turbines made in the country are instead ...

Sun, 22 Feb 09
Irish 'carbon-capturing bog' purchased
http://www.edie.net/news/news_story.asp?id=16042
Edie: A bog near Lullymore is being purchased to help preserve wildlife in the area, it has been revealed. According to the Leinster Leader, the Irish Peatland Conservation Council (IPCC) will buy the 3.5 hectares of bog, one hectare of which is capable of storing up to 8,000 tonnes of carbon. Cillian Breathnach, IPCC conservation and reserves officer, told the newspaper that bogs can "most definitely" contribute to reducing the country's carbon footprint. Figures from the ...

Sun, 22 Feb 09
Green Mountain Coffee Brews Climate Change Grants Worth $800K
http://www.climatebiz.com/news/2009/02/20/green-mtn-coffee-brews-climate-change-grants
ClimateBiz: Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc. solicited proposals this week from nonprofit organizations working to address climate change, with plans to hand out $800,000 in grants. The Vermont-based company will award four nonprofits $200,000 in grants each for their work battling climate change in one of four areas: transportation, building political will, individual empowerment and threats to coffee-growing communities. The grants will be paid over a five-year period. Winning ...

Sun, 22 Feb 09
Guinea: Record Cold Snap Destroys Crops, Kills Hundreds of Animals
http://allafrica.com/stories/200902200688.html
IRIN: Near-freezing temperatures in north-central Guinea in January destroyed crops and livestock on which thousands of people depend for food as well as cash. Elderly locals told IRIN they had never seen cold this intense in Mali, a town in Guinea's Labé region. "The vegetation looks as if it was burned in a fire," Hannibal Barry of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) told IRIN from Mali on 19 February during a joint evaluation by UN agencies, local ...

Sun, 22 Feb 09
Africa: Join Climate Neutral Network, Continent Urged
http://allafrica.com/stories/200902200622.html
IRIN: African countries, despite being among the world's smallest contributors to carbon emissions, as well as businesses and institutions operating on the continent, should join the year-old Climate Neutral Network (CN Net), officials said on 19 February. "Successful economies of the future will have to be carbon neutral and Africa and other developing countries must not be left behind," Roberto Dobles Mora, Costa Rica's minister for environment and energy, told a news conference during ...

Sun, 22 Feb 09
Birds' Movements Reveal Climate Change In Action
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090220191837.htm
ScienceDaily: The northward and inland movement of North American birds, confirmed by thousands of citizen-observations, has provided new and powerful evidence that climate change is having a serious impact on natural systems, according to a new report by Audubon (BirdLife in the USA). The findings signal the need for dramatic policy changes to combat pervasive ecological disruption. Analyses of citizen-gathered data from the past 40 years of Audubon's Christmas Bird Count reveal that 58% of the ...

Sun, 22 Feb 09
Global Warning: Hotter Days, Increased Hospitalizations For Respiratory Problems
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090220074831.htm
ScienceDaily: High summer temperatures, pushed higher by global climate change, may bring with them a spike in hospitalizations for respiratory problems, according to an analysis of data from twelve European cities, from Dublin to Valencia. The data comes from the "Assessment and Prevention of Acute Health Effects of Weather Conditions in Europe" (PHEWE), a multi-center, three-year collaboration between epidemiologists, meteorologists and experts in public health collaboration that investigated the ...

Sun, 22 Feb 09
Calif. electric co. denied on clean power study
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51K0MT20090221?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Southern California Edison will not be able to pass on to its customers up to $30 million in costs to join a study of whether petroleum coke, an oil refinery byproduct, can be turned into a clean, low-carbon fuel for power plants. But the electric power supplier might be able to be compensated later. Southern California Edison wants to join a study by a joint venture of BP Plc and Rio Tinto -- global oil and mining giants, respectively -- but California's utility regulator said ...

Sun, 22 Feb 09
Don't judge states on wealth, emissions: climate envoy
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51K0TR20090221?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Judging small, rich island nations purely on their wealth and emissions is unfair in climate change negotiations, Singapore's climate envoy said on Saturday, as pressure builds on more countries to curb carbon pollution. Under the Kyoto Protocol, the U.N.'s main weapon to fight climate change, only 37 industrialized nations are committed to curbs on greenhouse gas pollution between 2008-2012. But the U.N. list in Kyoto's parent pact that defines rich and developing nations ...

Sun, 22 Feb 09
US, China pledge to coordinate on climate change, economy
http://www.spacedaily.com/2006/090221065653.sad7u9ce.html
Agence France-Presse: The United States and China on Saturday put differences over human rights aside and pledged here Saturday to work more closely in tackling the global economic crisis and climate change. Giving hope for a new era of co-operation between the world powers, visiting Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said they will plan for the Group of 20 (G-20) summit in London on April 2. "As we start the new administration of President (Barack) Obama, we ...

Sun, 22 Feb 09
Tokyo Electric to build solar plant in California: report
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090221/bs_afp/japanusenergycompany
Agence France-Presse: Tokyo Electric Power Co. will build a solar power plant in the US state of California through its subsidiary Eurus Energy Holdings Corp., according to a report. It plans to begin operations at the 1000 kilowatt plant by 2010 on a site yet to be selected, the Nikkei business daily reported. Eurus, already engaged in wind power generation in the United States, wants to take advantage of incentives expected to be provided by the new US government to boost solar power generation ...

Sun, 22 Feb 09
Governments Unanimous on 2009 Start to Mercury Treaty Talks
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2009/2009-02-20-01.asp
Environment News Service: Environment officials from more than 140 countries today agreed to craft the world's first treaty to control emissions of mercury, a toxic heavy metal that poses serious risks to human health and the environment. They agreed to voluntarily limit mercury at once, even before a treaty is finalized. At the close of the UN Environment Programme's annual Governing Council and Global Ministerial Environment Forum, governments unanimously decided to begin negotiations on an international ...

Sun, 22 Feb 09
Green Billions Fertilize the U.S. Economic Stimulus Package
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2009/2009-02-20-02.asp
Environment News Service: The $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act signed into law Tuesday by President Barack Obama will not only create jobs, it will create green jobs, the new U.S. EPA administrator said today. "Through the President's stimulus package, green initiatives will play a significant role in powering economic recovery," said EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson. The act specifically includes $7.22 billion for projects and programs administered by the EPA. These programs will ...

Sun, 22 Feb 09
In China, Clinton Emphasizes Environmental, Economic Recovery
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/21/AR2009022100485.html?wprss=rss_world
Washington Post: China and the United States agreed Saturday to begin high-level consultations on combating the global economic crisis and climate change, with China's poor human-rights record relegated as a lesser priority. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton held extensive talks with a panoply of Chinese officials, including President Hu Jintao, and toured a new low-emissions power plant using General Electric technology to highlight the Obama's administration's determination to form a ...

Sun, 22 Feb 09
First wave
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/40789/title/First_wave
ScienceNews: The Maldives, a chain of some 1,200 islands in the middle of the Indian Ocean, sits about 700 kilometers southwest of Sri Lanka and lures more than half a million adventurers each year. They come to this smallest of Asian countries to scuba dive, surf, fish and cruise in picturesque atolls known for white sandy beaches, crystal-clear turquoise waters and coral reefs teeming with tropical fish of rainbow colors. About 11,000 kilometers east, halfway between Hawaii and Fiji, lies the ...

Sun, 22 Feb 09
Kicking coal
http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.htm?programID=09-P13-00008&segmentID=2
Living on Earth: GELLERMAN: Well despite the 3.4 billion dollar stimulus the coal industry is getting for carbon sequestration, king coal has been getting its lumps lately. As Living on Earth's Jeff Young reports, right now, the future of coal looks black. YOUNG: Just five years ago it was a coal rush--with some 150 coal fired power plants on the drawing board. Now, more than half are history and even more fell by the wayside in just the past few weeks. In Wisconsin, Governor Jim Doyle announced plans ...

Sun, 22 Feb 09
Bubbles of warming, beneath the ice
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-na-global-warming22-2009feb22,0,646220.story
LA Times: Four miles south of the Arctic Circle, the morning sky is streaked with apricot. Frozen rivers split the tundra of the Seward Peninsula, coiling into vast lakes. And on a silent, wind-whipped pond, a lone figure, sweating and panting, shovels snow off the ice. The young woman with curly reddish hair stops, scribbles data, snaps a photo, grabs a heavy metal pick and stabs at white orbs in the thick black ice. "Every time I see bubbles, I have the same feeling," says Katey ...

Sun, 22 Feb 09
Alaska Coasts Melting -- And Not Just the Ice
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/02/090220-alaska-coast-melting.html
National Geographic: Part of Alaska's coast is drifting into the sea at twice the rate it has in the past, reshaping the Arctic shoreline, a new study says. The trend could seriously threaten the area's caribou and other wildlife, as well as local landmarks that document human settlements. Some stretches of the state's northern shore along the Beaufort Sea receded by more than 80 feet (25 meters) in summer 2007 alone, when Arctic sea ice was at a record low. In the past, spurts of erosion ...

Sun, 22 Feb 09
Clinton talks climate change with China
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/02/20/pm_clinton_in_china/
Marketplace: Tess Vigeland: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in Beijing today and through the weekend. She's talk with Chinese leaders about how to ride out this global recession. But she also wants to tackle climate change. China and the U.S. are the world's biggest sources of carbon emissions. From Shanghai, Marketplace's Scott Tong reports. Scott Tong: Together, China and the U.S. exhale 40 percent of the world's carbon. Secretary Clinton thinks the two can collaborate to reduce that ...

Sun, 22 Feb 09
Sask. project to pipe CO2 to Montana
http://www.businessedge.ca/article.cfm/newsID/19508.cfm
Canadian Press: A $245-million climate-change initiative being pursued by officials in Montana and Saskatchewan could create North America's first large-scale project for storage of greenhouse gas. Gov. Brian Schweitzer says the project would capture a daily 900 tonnes of carbon dioxide produced by a coal plant in Canada, then send it through pipelines to a Montana site where it would be injected underground for storage. Carbon dioxide - a byproduct of burning fossil fuels - is a major driver ...

Sun, 22 Feb 09
Seawater intrusion threatening Beirut water supplies
http://www.zawya.com/Story.cfm/sidDS200209_dsart4/Seawater%20Intrusion%20Threatening%20Beirut%20Water%20Supplies
Zawya: Climate change, high population density and overexploitation of groundwater resources has lead to massive saltwater intrusion in the greater Beirut area, a leading hydrogeologist said on Thursday. "Seawater intrusion will be aggravated by climate change and exacerbated by us," Dr. Mark Saadeh, said at the American University of Beirut. Saadeh, a lecturer at the University Saint-Espirit de Kaslik and consultant for the Litani River Authority, was speaking as part of a series on climate change ...

Sat, 21 Feb 09
The Vanishing Face of Gaia by James Lovelock
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/non-fiction/article5771740.ece
Times (UK): It is now a commonplace that there is a plausible threat to the welfare of our species from the environmental damage caused by us. This notion, with its echoes of the Mutual Assured Destruction of the Cold War, has in recent years evolved rapidly from minority obsession to international political preoccupation. Many eminent scientists have joined in as the debate has rolled on, but only a handful can claim that they were seminal. Prime among the small group of pioneers is James ...

Sat, 21 Feb 09
Arctic Coastal Erosion Doubles in 50 Years
http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2009/220/2
ScienceNOW: As if record-breaking losses of sea ice and thawing permafrost weren't enough, climate change is also sweeping parts of the Arctic out to sea. New research in Geophysical Research Letters reports that the rate of erosion along a stretch of Alaska's northeastern coastline has doubled over the past 52 years. Such deterioration of arctic coastlines is likely to have significant impacts on local ecosystems, communities living in the Arctic, and oil and gas development. Arctic shorelines ...

Sat, 21 Feb 09
Australia: Claims Victorian fires were the result of climate change
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2008/s2497654.htm
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: ELIZABETH JACKSON: The Climate Institute says the devastating Victorian bushfires were the direct result of climate change. The Institute says the conditions which caused the severity of the fires - the extreme heat, the low humidity, wind speed and the drought in Victoria - are all the result of global warming. The Institute's CEO John Connor told AM's Michael Vincent the catastrophic bushfire conditions had been predicted for several years and he says they'll continue unless ...

Sat, 21 Feb 09
Global warning spells increased hospitalisations for respiratory problems
http://www.freshnews.in/global-warning-spells-increased-hospitalisations-for-respiratory-problems-127223
Indo-Asian News Service: High summer temperatures, pushed higher by global climate change, may increase hospitalisations for respiratory problems, according to an analysis of data from 12 European cities from Dublin to Valencia. The data comes from the "Assessment and Prevention of Acute Health Effects of Weather Conditions in Europe" (PHEWE), a multi-centre, three-year collaboration between epidemiologists, meteorologists and experts in public health collaboration that investigated the short-term effects of ...

Sat, 21 Feb 09
Survey Finds Vast Price Disparity In Unregulated Carbon Offset Market
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1642834/survey_finds_vast_price_disparity_in_unregulated_carbon_offset_market/index.html?source=r_science
redOrbit: Despite attempts to increase price transparency in the unregulated carbon offset market, prices paid by air travelers to mitigate their contribution to global climate change vary greatly. Many airlines and offset developers sell such carbon offsetting credits to business travelers and tourists to allow people to justify their flying by funding a carbon reduction project elsewhere in the world. And many nations and companies purchase these offsets to help them meet binding ...

Sat, 21 Feb 09
California farms lose main water source to drought
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51J6MO20090220?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: The main irrigation system for California farmers, the Central Valley Project, expects to halt water deliveries to most of its growers this year due to one of the worst droughts in state history, federal managers said on Friday. The zero-water allocation for most CVP users was declared by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation as California water officials repeated their plans to cut amounts supplied from a separate state-run water project to 15 percent of normal allotments. The ...

Sat, 21 Feb 09
8 in 10 conflicts in environmental 'hotspots': study
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090221/sc_afp/environmentwar
Agence France-Presse: Most conflicts fought in the second half of the last century were waged in biologically diverse, fragile places, with many negative consequences and a few surprising positive ones, a study said Friday. A team of international conservation scientists found that 81 percent of conflicts fought between 1950 and 2000 in which at least 1,000 people died played out in "biodiversity hotspots" from the Himalayas in Asia to the coastal forests of east Africa. The hotspots contain the ...

Sat, 21 Feb 09
Clinton in China to push climate, finance
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090221/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/as_clinton_china
Associated Press: U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton headed into meetings with senior Chinese officials on Saturday to press the country's leaders to cooperate on climate change, the world financial crisis and security threats like North Korea. Clinton was to see China's foreign minister, prime minister and president and tour an innovative geothermal energy plant in Beijing on the last stop of her inaugural overseas trip as America's top diplomat. Ahead of her talks, she told ...

Sat, 21 Feb 09
"The Obama Effect" On The Environment & Energy
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100928065&ft=1&f=1025
National Public Radio: Much of President Obama's policy revolves around the three E's: environment, energy and the economy. By and large, the American economy is not a sustainable economy. It is based on an economic model that depends on consumption and the desire for more stuff. To help break down which parts of the stimulus plan will be good for both the economy and the environment, Tony Cox talks with David Roberts, a staff writer for the environmental news website Grist.org, Leslie Fields, the National ...

Sat, 21 Feb 09
Top Democrats Plan Action on Climate Change Bill by End of Summer
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=democrats-plan-climate-bill
Scientific American: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said yesterday that he would try to bring a global warming bill to the floor before the end of summer, another indication that both sides of Capitol Hill want to send major climate legislation to President Obama during his first year in office. "We have to take a whack at it," the Nevada Democrat told the Associated Press in an interview, explaining that failure to act "would be neglectful." Reid repeated his plans to take up a more limited ...

Sat, 21 Feb 09
United States: Fake bidder urges civil disobedience
http://www.heraldextra.com/content/view/300696/17/
Daily Herald: "How are we going to use our own public lands, the lands we all own?" That question, said Tim DeChristopher, 27, a senior economics student at the University of Utah, had vexed his soul for years. Late last year, DeChristopher became a polarizing figure in Utah, hated and loved wherever he goes because on Dec. 19 he placed fake bids to win oil drilling rights on public lands to prevent oil companies from moving in. He is still waiting to find out if federal charges against him ...

Sat, 21 Feb 09
UN climate panel chief sees "strong deal"
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSSP388269
Reuters: A deal placing a strict emissions regime on rich nations is likely in Copenhagen despite pressures to dilute the climate fight in times of a global financial slowdown, the U.N. climate panel chief said. R.K. Pachauri said his optimism that rich nations would agree to an emissions cut was rooted in what he was hearing from global leaders and a genuine willingness to do something fast. But his bullishness is in sharp contrast to a gloomy outlook forecast by some experts who say ...

Sat, 21 Feb 09
Africa cities failing on green targets
http://africasciencenews.org/asns/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1026&Itemid=2
Africa Science News Service: Major Cities in Africa are grappling with monumental challenges that are placing hurdles in the move towards green economy. Rapid industrialization and population growth in these Cities has constrained the ability to cope with high levels of air and water pollution, hence the slow pace in greening these cities. A panel of experts roundtable held at the ongoing UNEP Governing Council meeting in Nairobi noted that Cities are critical in catalyzing the move towards low carbon ...

Sat, 21 Feb 09
Canada: Obama On Tar Sands - Or Should I Say Oil Sands
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-chameides/obama-on-tar-sands---or-s_b_168587.html
Huffington Post: Yesterday President Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Harper talked about Canadian tar sands. They spoke of them euphemistically, calling them "oil sands." Now, politicians choose words wisely - perhaps they employed the term to make tar-sand oil seem less egregious? PC talk fixes nothing. When I learned Carol Browner, the assistant to the president for Energy and Climate Change, was accompanying the president on his trip to Canada, my hunch was that global warming would be on the ...

Sat, 21 Feb 09
Canada encouraged by Obama oil talk
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29288907/
Associated Press: President Barack Obama's remarks Thursday on Canada's polluting oil sands industry and an agreement to begin a clean-energy dialogue between the countries has reassured Canadians worried the new U.S. president would restrict oil imports. Industry officials estimate the oil sands in northern Alberta could yield as much as 175 billion barrels of oil, making Canada second only to Saudi Arabia in crude oil reserves. But the extraction process produces a high amount of the greenhouse gases ...

Sat, 21 Feb 09
Study: Energy investment would create Utah jobs
http://www.localnews8.com/Global/story.asp?S=9879093&nav=menu554_2_3
Associated Press: A report says investing in energy efficiency and renewable energy could bring Utah thousands of jobs and millions of dollars. Dianne Nielson, energy adviser to Gov. Jon Huntsman, commissioned the study to determine the effects of a plan to boost energy efficiency by 20% by 2015 and make renewable energy 20% of electricity sales by 2020. The state plans to use $34 million in federal stimulus money on clean-energy projects. Utah Clean Energy, which wrote the report, ...

Sat, 21 Feb 09
Mercury pollution treaty proposed
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7902092.stm
BBC: World governments have agreed to crack down on mercury pollution. Environment ministers meeting in Nairobi have initiated a process that should end in a legally binding, international treaty. The landmark decision was taken by more than 140 countries attending the governing council of the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep). Mercury compounds can be damaging to the central nervous systems of humans and animals. ass="bo"> Unep's Executive Director, Achim ...

Sat, 21 Feb 09
United Kingdom: Stansted second runway delayed as passenger demand falls
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2236936/stansted-second-runway-delayed
Business Green: Stansted operator BAA has confirmed that plans for a second runway at the airport will be delayed for the fourth time after a drop in consumer demand for flights. But the company insisted that Britain's third largest airport would still open a new runway in 2017 if it secures planning permission at a public inquiry due to start in April. The extra runway would allow annual passenger numbers at the airport to increase from 22.3 million to 35 million. But the airport has ...

Sat, 21 Feb 09
Breakthrough deal to end global mercury pollution
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/20/deal-end-mercury-pollution
Guardian: Environment ministers overcame seven years of obstacles today and committed to reducing the world's mercury pollution. The landmark decision, taken at a United Nations meeting of environment ministers in Nairobi, compels governments to take immediate steps to limit exposure to mercury. The heavy metal, which can travel thousands of miles from its original source, damages the central nervous system, and is especially dangerous to pregnant women and babies. The deal was ...

Sat, 21 Feb 09
Scientists capture dramatic footage of Arctic glaciers melting in hours
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/4734859/Scientists-capture-dramatic-footage-of--Arctic-glaciers-melting-in-hours.html
Telegraph: Glaciologist Jason Box has been testing a Moulin, a shaft that allows water to travel from the glacier's surface to its bottom, in a glacier on the Greenland ice cap to find out how fast it is melting. Dr Box said: "The Moulin is the epicentre of our concern because all the water is running down at this one point. "It's just bottomless, no light escapes.' Balanced on the edge of an ice sheet the team used a flow meter to measure the water speed. He said: "There's ...

Sat, 21 Feb 09
Clinton, Obama botch opportunity on climate, forest conservation
http://news.mongabay.com/2009/0220-obama_clinton_indonesia.html
Mongabay: The Obama Administration squandered an opportunity to demonstrate U.S. leadership on climate and forest conservation issues when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton failed to bring up a new Indonesian government decree to allow the conversion of carbon-rich peat forests to oil palm plantations during her visit to Jakarta this week. Scientists say the decree, which apparently met the approval of Indonesia's Ministry of the Environment on Wednesday, will result in massive greenhouse gas ...

Sat, 21 Feb 09
London's food emits more greenhouse gas than Estonia
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2236921/london-food-emits-estonia
Business Green: Mayor Boris Johnson called on food businesses in London to step up efforts to cut their carbon footprint, after a new report found Londoners' eating habits are responsible for more greenhouse gases each year than the entire national output of Estonia. From crop to mouth, the consumption of one year's-worth of food in the UK's capital is responsible for nearly 19 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions, just topping Estonia's national output in the last calculated year, ...

Sat, 21 Feb 09
Environment ministers to tackle mercury pollution
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51J49E20090220?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: More than 140 nations agreed on Friday to negotiate a legally binding global treaty to phase out the use of deadly mercury, a toxic heavy metal that threatens the health of hundreds of millions of people worldwide. The deal came at a major U.N. meeting of environment ministers in Kenya after President Barack Obama's new administration said on Monday the United States had reversed its stance on the issue and was now in favor of a legal ban. "This is truly good news and I hope ...

Sat, 21 Feb 09
Rich nations failing to meet climate aid pledges
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/20/climate-funds-developing-nations
Guardian: Developing countries have received less than 10% of the money promised by rich countries to help them adapt to global warming, an analysis by the Guardian has found. The failure is fostering deep distrust between rich and poor nations and is seriously undermining key negotiations on a global climate deal. The world's richest countries have together pledged nearly $18bn (£12.5bn) in the last seven years, but despite world leaders' rhetoric that the finance is vital, less than ...

Sat, 21 Feb 09
Financial crisis sparks concern over climate change funds - U.N.
http://www.alertnet.org/db/an_art/55867/2009/01/19-165234-1.htm
Reuters: Funds pledged by rich countries to help developing nations adapt to the impacts of climate change are at risk from the global credit crunch and economic downturn, the United Nations has warned. Deirdre Boyd, country director for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in India, told AlertNet financing must be made available to help countries like India deal with hazards caused by global warming, such as rising seas and melting glaciers. But she warned the global financial ...

Sat, 21 Feb 09
Texas City Refinery Violations Cost BP Products $180M
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2009/2009-02-19-093.asp
Environment News Service: BP Products North America Inc. must spend more than $161 million on pollution controls, better maintenance and monitoring, and improved internal management practices to resolve Clean Air Act violations at its Texas City, Texas refinery, the federal government announced today. The settlement addresses violations relating to mismanagement of benzene, asbestos, and hydrochlorofluorocarbons at the refinery. Third largest in the nation, the Texas City refinery has a production ...

Sat, 21 Feb 09
Secretary Chu Expedites Funding for New Energy Economy
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2009/2009-02-19-094.asp
Environment News Service: Two days after President Barack Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act into law, Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced a sweeping reorganization of the Energy Department's dispersal of direct loans, loan guarantees and funding contained in the new recovery legislation. The goal of the restructuring is to expedite disbursement of money to begin investments in a new energy economy that will put Americans back to work and create millions of new jobs. "These ...

Sat, 21 Feb 09
Obama and Harper Establish Clean Energy Dialogue
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2009/2009-02-19-02.asp
Environment News Service: President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Stephen Harper today announced plans to collaborate on a new clean energy economy as a key element of broader economic recovery and reinvestment efforts between the United States and Canada. "I value our strategic partnership with Canada and look forward to working closely with the Prime Minister to address the global economic recession and create jobs, to protect our environment through promoting clean energy technologies, and achieve our ...

Sat, 21 Feb 09
Clinton vows not to let human rights block progress in China
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090220/pl_afp/usdiplomacyasiachina
Agence France-Presse: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived here for talks Friday with Chinese leaders after vowing not to let human rights block progress on the global economic crisis, climate change and security. Clinton said the United States and China had a better chance this weekend of tackling the world's current hot-button issues than bridging their long-standing gaps over human rights, including China's attitude to Tibet. "Successive administrations and Chinese governments have been ...

Sat, 21 Feb 09
United Kingdom: Global warming 'bigger problem than economy'
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/global-warming-bigger-problem-than-economy-1627798.html
Press Association: Climate change is a bigger problem than the struggling British economy, a Government minister said today. Home repossessions hit 12-year high Huge fall revealed in UK car production BoE spends £340m to kick-start frozen lending markets Hike in January retail sales Mining giant to shed 19,000 jobs Saab to file for creditor protection FTSE index slides back below 4000 Sustainability Minister Lord Hunt spoke on the first day of London Fashion Week as he launched an action plan to ...

Sat, 21 Feb 09
Carbon offset pricing may confuse tourists
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51J3VL20090220?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reutershttp://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51J3VL20090220?feed: Air travelers are paying vastly differing prices to offset their contribution to climate change, in some cases three times market levels, despite efforts to increase transparency in an unregulated market. Under a regulated carbon market, countries and companies buy offsets to help them meet binding international climate targets. Prices have halved in recent weeks as recession reduces industrial output and expected emissions. But prices which consumers pay in an ...

Sat, 21 Feb 09
Rights may take second place on Clinton China visit
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090220/wl_nm/us_china_clinton
Reuters: The United States will press China on human rights but this will not keep them from working together on the financial crisis, climate change and North Korea, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Friday. Clinton, who openly criticized China's human rights record in a 1995 speech in Beijing, told reporters there is a certain predictability to U.S.-Chinese disagreements on political freedoms, U.S. arms sales to Taiwan and the status of Tibet. The United States has long ...

Sat, 21 Feb 09
World's fisheries face climate change threat
http://www.scidev.net/en/agriculture-and-environment/world-s-fisheries-face-climate-change-threat.html?utm_source=link&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=en_agricultureandenvironment
SciDev.Net: A new international study has warned that millions of people dependent on fisheries in Africa, Asia and South America could face unprecedented hardship as a consequence of climate change. Researchers examined the fisheries of 132 nations to determine which were the most vulnerable, based on the potential environmental impact of climate change, how dependent their economy and diet were on fisheries, and the capacity of the country to adapt. Climate change can affect the ...

Sat, 21 Feb 09
U.S. has dual task on climate change
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/19/AR2009021903011.html
Washington Post: Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's decision to make her first overseas trip to China, where she arrives today, highlights the daunting tasks the new administration faces as the world scrambles to forge a new climate-change treaty this year: trying to persuade emerging economies to make deep cuts in greenhouse-gas releases that they have long resisted while coaxing Congress to adopt first-ever limits on the United States' own emissions. These two challenges, which are key to ...

Sat, 21 Feb 09
Climate study: Montana experiencing warming trend
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/globalwarming/2009-02-19-montana-warming_N.htm
Associated Press: A former climatologist and professor at Montana State says in a recent study that late winter, early spring and parts of summer are getting warmer in Montana. Joseph Caprio, who led the study published in the January edition of the international journal "Climate Change," found that the coldest nighttime temperatures in Bozeman and Coldstream, British Columbia, have occurred less often over the past several decades. In contrast, Caprio said Wednesday that extreme warm nighttime ...

Sat, 21 Feb 09
Canada: Oil sands producers stuck over a barrel
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20090220.OILSANDS20//TPStory/Environment
Globe and Mail: Canada's oil sands producers are facing an unpalatable choice: Spend billions of dollars on unproven carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, or face a de facto carbon tax when the U.S. government moves to regulate those emissions. Despite pressure from environmentalists to signal his opposition to oil sands expansion, U.S. President Barack Obama chose to highlight areas of potential collaboration during his visit to Ottawa ...

Sat, 21 Feb 09
Australia: Plan tells developers to weigh up years of sea change
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/plan-tells-developers-to-weigh-up-years-of-sea-change-20090220-8dok.html
Sydney Morning Herald: EVERY new beachside home, coastal apartment block and piece of infrastructure on the coastline of NSW would have to be re-examined under a State Government draft policy on rising sea levels. The draft document, to be released today, contains guidelines for local councils which say the impact of rising sea levels should be assessed "over the life of an asset", meaning that long-term developments would need to take sea-level rise into account for decades into the future. The ...

Sat, 21 Feb 09
United States: Hashem Akbari's cool anti-global-warming plan
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/02/19/DDTL15VQAG.DTL
San Francisco Chronicle: If Hashem Akbari's plan to stave off global warming is realized, it will come one rooftop at a time. Akbari, a senior scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and a group of fellow geoengineers who are trying to counter the effects of climate change, have developed a relatively simple idea to offset carbon emissions and cool the Earth's urban surfaces: Make all rooftops and paved surfaces white. Or at the very least, convert them to cool gray colors to reflect ...

Sat, 21 Feb 09
Cost of solar installation has fallen in decade
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/02/19/BU0T1619FG.DTL
San Francisco Chronicle: The cost of installing solar panels on homes and businesses plunged 27.6 percent from 1998 through 2007, according to a new study that questions some of the conventional wisdom about solar power's price. Questioning Stanford's returns could get you fired 02.20.09 Zimbabwe prime minister meets South African leader 02.20.09 Trump casinos stock to be delisted from NASDAQ 02.20.09 January rise in consumer prices largest since July 02.20.09 Researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National ...

Sat, 21 Feb 09
Coalition wants forests included in federal climate change policy
http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2009/02/coalition_wants_forests_includ.html
Oregonian: A coalition of conservation, timber and wildlife groups is asking Congress to make private forests part of the country's climate change policy. President Obama has discussed a cap and trade program that would set limits on carbon dioxide emissions as a way to combat climate change. Under cap and trade, greenhouse gas producers would have to reduce their emissions by technological changes or by buying carbon offsets to counter their emissions. The coalition wants forest ...

Sat, 21 Feb 09
Heat waves and extreme drought to increase with climate change: UN
http://www.app.com.pk/en_/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=68657&Itemid=1
Associated Press of Pakistan: The severe drought and searing heat will oppress wide swathes of the earth with increasing frequency this century, according to a forecast by scientists who met this week in Beijing, the UN weather agency said today. "The combination of record heat and widespread drought during the past five to ten years over large parts of southern and eastern Australia is without historical precedent and is, at least partly, a result of climate change,' according to a statement endorsed by the scientists ...

Sat, 21 Feb 09
United States: Murkowski proposes directional drilling in ANWR
http://www.adn.com/news/politics/story/696334.html
Associated Press: Their response came within hours of U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski's announcement Thursday that she planned to introduce a bill that would allow for use of a technology called directional drilling under the surface of the coastal plain -- a relatively small but controversial area on the northern edge of the refuge. Directional drilling is common in Alaska's oil fields and the idea to use it to siphon oil from the federal refuge isn't new. During his recent Senate race, Mark Begich, a ...

Sat, 21 Feb 09
Africa most afflicted by climate change
http://praguemonitor.com/2009/02/20/environment-minister-africa-most-afflicted-climate-change
Czech News Agency: Africa is the region which is afflicted by climate change and other environmental problems such as erosion, growing deserts, disappearance of forests and air pollution more than any other world part, Czech Environment Minister Martin Bursik said in Nairobi on Thursday. Bursik said it was easy for the European and African countries to name common problems. "All these problems have a clear negative impact on the lives of millions of people," he said in a press statement. Bursik, ...

Sat, 21 Feb 09
Past climate may give clue to modern change: expert
http://planetark.org/enviro-news/item/51712
Reuters: Abrupt shifts in the climate such as the end of Ice Ages could provide an early warning system for modern changes such as prolonged droughts, a leading scientist said on Monday. The sudden desertification of North Africa 5,500 years ago or a warming at the end of the last Ice Age 11,000 years ago were preceded by signs of a less stable climate, according to Marten Scheffer of Wageningen University in the Netherlands. That insight, reported last year, is now being applied to try ...

Sat, 21 Feb 09
Humanitarian costs of climate change unpredictable
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=83030
IRIN: New projections of the impact of climate change make headlines every day, but a report by a leading research institution has underlined the need for "meaningful data" to help aid agencies prepare for the future. The report by a group of researchers at the Feinstein International Centre of the US-based Tufts University uses various models to project the likely rise in humanitarian spending over the next 20 years as the frequency and intensity of natural disasters increases. But ...

Sat, 21 Feb 09
Google's power meter
http://www.glrc.org/story.php?story_id=4356
Environment Report: There's 11-billion dollars in the new economic stimulus plan for upgrades to the electric grid and so-called smart meters. These smart meters hook up to your home and give the utility company real-time feedback on how much energy you're using.

Sat, 21 Feb 09
U.S. short on line capacity to fully use wind, solar power
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090219/BIZ/902190388/1001/BIZ
Associated Press: The U.S. has inadequate transmission capacity to carry the electricity that wind and solar power projects could produce, according to a report by two renewable-energy groups. The wind power projects waiting to be hooked up to transmission lines could supply 20 percent of the nation's electricity needs, according to the report issued by the Solar Energy Industries Association and the American Wind Energy Association. The $787 billion stimulus legislation signed Tuesday by ...

Sat, 21 Feb 09
Solar power heats up energy possibilities
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/02/19/eco.concentratedsolar/
CNN: In the desert of southern Spain, just west of Seville, a sea of giant mirrors is reflecting the sun's energy to provide "concentrated solar power" (CSP) while illuminating the path to a new wave of green energy projects. Shining beacon: The concentrated solar power plant in Sanlucar, Spain is the first of its kind. The 624 carefully positioned mirrors reflect the sun's heat towards a 50 meter-tall central tower where it is concentrated and used to boil water into ...

Sat, 21 Feb 09
United Kingdom: Mandelson calls for green "industrial activism"
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2236909/mandelson-calls-green
Business Green: Business secretary Peter Mandelson has today called on UK firms to demonstrate a "new industrial activism for a new green industrial revolution", urging business leaders to invest now to ensure that the UK is well positioned to meet global demand for low carbon products and services. In a speech to the Cumbria Economic Forum, in which he pledged to focus on the future make up of the UK economy and avoid giving "another battling-the-recession speech" Mandelson said that while ...

Sat, 21 Feb 09
States agree to mercury treaty talks
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090220/sc_afp/environmentpollutionmercuryun
Agence France-Presse: More than 140 countries agreed Friday to launch negotiations establishing a treaty on mercury to limit pollution affecting millions of people across the world, the UN environment body said. They also agreed an interim plan to curb pollution while awaiting the treaty because "the risk to human health was so significant that accelerated action... is needed," the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) said in a statement. "Today we are united on the need for a legally binding ...

Fri, 20 Feb 09
Activists slam Finnish paper maker for logging 'virgin forest'
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18/20090219/tsc-activists-slam-finnish-paper-maker-f-b1f5339.html
Agence France-Presse: Environmental groups on Thursday blasted Finnish paper maker Stora Enso for logging old growth forests in northern Finland, insisting the unique trees should be protected. Skip related content Environmental groups Greenpeace, Suomen Luonnonsuojeluliitto and Luonto-Liitto said they had found that some trees more than 300 years old had been logged in Finnish Lapland in the north of the country and shipped to Stora Enso's pulp mill in Oulu. The logged forests, also known as old ...

Fri, 20 Feb 09
Carbon farming the next big thing for Aust?
http://tvnz.co.nz/business-news/carbon-farming-next-big-thing-aust-2497091
AAP: Australian farmers struggling to make a dollar from planting wheat or canola could soon try a new crop - carbon. Conservation groups are scouting out farmland to turn into forests, or "carbon factories", to counter climate change. Up to 40 million hectares of land could be converted to forest under the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), due to start next year. Advocates say the scheme would provide a much-needed second income to farmers as well as absorb greenhouse gases, ...

Fri, 20 Feb 09
Uganda: Degradation has caused low water levels
http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/8/459/672020
New Vision: WHILE Uganda attributes the dropping level in Lake Victoria to several factors including climate change, Kenya and Tanzania blame the decline on the over-draining of the water for hydro-electric power production by Uganda. Between 2004 and 2006, the lake's water level dropped by 1.5 metres, while its 3,200-kilometre shoreline receded by up to 200 metres in some areas, over the same period. National Environment Management Authority's western Uganda regional environmental ...

Fri, 20 Feb 09
Pakistan: 3-degree rise in temperature means 30 per cent loss of agriculture produce
http://pakobserver.net/200902/19/news/topstories15.asp
Pakistan Observer: Global warming, emission of carbon and polluted water is a ghastly killer of human being besides creating food and unemployment stresses all over the world.Pakistan is more exposed to the climate change and its implications which calls for cautions at a high degree, said Dr. Najam Adil, a Nobel Peace Prize holder and renowned international environmental expert , sounding a note of warning on the rapid change in climate which might prove more destructive than game of war in terms of life, ...

Fri, 20 Feb 09
Scientists map CO2 emissions with Google Earth
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iyIwygLF4YjojLGpx22TlfnvZQaQ
Agence France-Presse: A team of US scientists led by Purdue University unveiled an interactive Google Earth map on Thursday showing carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels across the United States. The high-resolution map, available at purdue.edu/eas/carbon/vulcan/GEarth, shows carbon dioxide emissions in metric tons in residential and commercial areas by state, county or per capita. Called "Vulcan" after the Roman god of fire, the project, which took three years to complete, quantifies carbon ...

Fri, 20 Feb 09
Cost Of Installed Solar Photovoltaic Systems Drops Significantly Over The Last Decade
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090219152130.htm
ScienceDaily: A new study on the installed costs of solar photovoltaic (PV) power systems in the U.S. shows that the average cost of these systems declined significantly from 1998 to 2007, but remained relatively flat during the last two years of this period. Researchers at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) who conducted the study say that the overall decline in the installed cost of solar PV systems is mostly the result of decreases in nonmodule costs, ...

Fri, 20 Feb 09
Australia: Govt to go ahead with emissions trading
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/govt-to-go-ahead-with-emissions-trading-20090220-8cv0.html
AAP: The federal government has no intention of abandoning its emissions trading policy, despite scrapping an inquiry into the controversial measure, Climate Change Minister Penny Wong says. Treasurer Wayne Swan on Thursday night cancelled the government's parliamentary inquiry into emissions trading, saying it had been politicised by the opposition. Ms Wong on Friday said it was clear some people wanted to use the inquiry in a way that "wasn't particularly helpful". "We ...

Fri, 20 Feb 09
Australia: New warning on river pollution
http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=77&ContentID=125819
West Australian: The health of the Swan and Canning rivers has no chance of improving unless pollution entering the waterway is cut by almost half in the next seven years, a report for the Swan River Trust has warned. The draft Swan Canning Water Quality Improvement Plan said the system was under "enormous pressure" and could handle only about half of the 251 tonnes of nitrogen and 26 tonnes of phosphorous it took in annually. It said the Avon River, which was outside the scope of the plan, ...

Fri, 20 Feb 09
China: Beijing to get solar thermal power
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2009-02/19/content_7491243.htm
China Daily: Designed by the China Academy of Sciences, the station is expected to cost 100 million yuan and is likely to power at least 30,000 homes when it starts operating in 2010, Wang Zhifeng, chief designer of the plant told China Daily in an exclusive interview. The plant, covering an area of 13 hectares, would get funding from the Ministry of Science, the Beijing municipal government and the academy. Wang, the laboratory director for solar thermal power at the academy, said the ...

Fri, 20 Feb 09
Climate change demos are warming up nicely
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/columnists/article5768704.ece
Times (UK): Climate change protesters are to hold two demonstrations on April 1, one at the European Climate Exchange on Bishopsgate in the City of London and the other to disrupt a dinner at the British Museum to celebrate the centenary of BP. E-mails are going out for the Exchange event, which will create a protest camp outside. "Bring a pop-up tent if you've got one, sleeping bag, wind turbine, mobile cinema ...,' says the website. The protesters say that the "brain-bending system of ...

Fri, 20 Feb 09
United States: Effort to work climate change into growth management falls short
http://www.columbian.com/article/20090219/NEWS02/702199948
Columbian: Senate and House Democrats are trying again this session to require local governments to address climate change by including high-density, transit-friendly development in their land-use plans. But again, an effort to add a specific climate change goal to the Growth Management Act -- with teeth -- has fallen short. A bill introduced in the 2008 session would have required cities and counties to address the state's greenhouse gas reduction goals as they adopt new comprehensive ...

Fri, 20 Feb 09
UN report aims to solve food crisis
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2008/s2496250.htm
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: MARK COLVIN: The United Nations environmental agency fears the world is heading for a major food crisis if there aren't radical changes are made to the way food is produced and handled. Last year a spike in food prices plunged millions of people into hunger and sparked riots in parts of Africa - in parts of Asia and Africa I should say. The UN Environment Program (UNEP) says that may just have been the beginning and that food production could fall by 25 per cent in the next 40 ...

Fri, 20 Feb 09
Obama, Harper talk climate, but no 'silver bullet'
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Obama+Harper+talk+climate+silver+bullet/1307723/story.html
Canwest News Service: Canada and the United States pledged Thursday to hold further talks on developing clean-energy technology and improving the efficiency of the North American electricity grid, but advocates of stricter climate-change measures promptly dismissed the initiative as window-dressing. Under the "Clean Energy Dialogue," senior government officials of both countries will meet to review existing collaboration on clean energy and identify opportunities for new joint-research projects. The ...

Fri, 20 Feb 09
Canadian Activists Urge Obama to Reject Environmentally Destructive Oil Extraction from Alberta's Tar Sands
http://i1.democracynow.org/2009/2/19/canadian_activists_urge_obama_to_reject
Democracy Now!: AMY GOODMAN: Juan, is it "Yes, we Canada"? JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, President Barack Obama is heading to Canada today for his first foreign trip as president. Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper are expected to discuss trade issues, energy and the environment. A coalition of environmental groups is urging President Obama to cut back on America`s dependence on oil from the tar sands in Alberta, Canada. Canada now exports more oil to the United States than any other country. ...

Fri, 20 Feb 09
Climate Change Threatens Livelihoods Along Africa's Coast
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45823
Inter Press Service: Environmental experts warn that climate change will lead to oceanic acidification and increase surface water temperatures, especially around the African continent. This will affect fish stocks and, as a result, threaten the livelihoods of small-scale fishing communities. "Acidity levels of our oceans predominantly affect fish larvae, which depend on calcium carbonate in the seawater to build their shells, skeletons and cell coverings," explained professor Geoff Brundritt, ...

Fri, 20 Feb 09
DOE to OK stimulus energy projects by early summer
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51I5HE20090219?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Thursday he hopes the department can begin approving loan guarantees authorized by the stimulus for renewable energy projects by early summer. "We need to start this work in a matter of months, not years -- while insisting on the highest standard of accountability," Chu told reporters at Platts Energy Podium in Washington D.C. The stimulus package signed into law by President Barack Obama earlier this week provides $6 billion in loan guarantees ...

Fri, 20 Feb 09
Obama Discusses Trade, Climate Change In Canada
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100880587&ft=1&f=1025
National Public Radio: In the first foreign trip of his tenure, President Obama met Thursday with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in Ottawa for talks on trade, Afghanistan and climate change. Obama was met by Canadian Gov. General Michaelle Jean and an honor guard of Royal Canadian Mounted Police when he arrived at the Ottawa airport late Thursday morning. He then headed for daylong meetings with Harper on Parliament Hill. Economic and trade issues were expected to dominate the meeting, since ...

Fri, 20 Feb 09
EU carbon futures rise on utility buy-backs
http://uk.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idUKLJ22537220090219
Reuters: European carbon emissions futures rose on Thursday to nearly 11 euros a tonne as utilities bought back EU Allowances (EUAs) to close their short positions. EUAs CFI2Z9 rose 1.02 euros or 10.54 percent to 10.70 euros ($13.48) a tonne by 1227 GMT. Volume was heavy at 5,305 lots traded. A trader said many utilities were short covering after selling their EUAs in the past few weeks and then buying them back after prices neared 8 euros earlier this week. EUAs crashed to a ...

Fri, 20 Feb 09
Australia: Wong 'undeterred' on emissions trading scheme
http://www.theage.com.au/national/wong-undeterred-on-emissions-trading-scheme-20090219-8cnt.html
Age: THE Federal Government has sought to lock in the design and timeline of its emissions trading scheme despite increasing calls from green and industry groups to dump or alter the policy. Climate Change Minister Penny Wong will today assure business economists in Sydney that an Australian trading scheme will begin in July 2010. "Our Government remains undeterred in our determination to implement the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme because we know it is the economically ...

Fri, 20 Feb 09
Chevron devotes $20M to renewable energy
http://www.upi.com/Energy_Resources/2009/02/18/Chevron_devotes_20M_to_renewable_energy/UPI-46731234972340/
United Press International: U.S. supermajor Chevron announced a $20 million plan to develop a technology center in Qatar devoted to renewable energy and efficient technology. Chevron issued a statement on its Web site saying the five-year plan envisions a partnership with the Qatar Science and Technology Park in Doha to work toward renewable energy and strategies to develop efficient technology for the regional climate. "The center, expected to open in late 2009, also anticipates conducting research in ...

Fri, 20 Feb 09
EPA to act on carbon, finally
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25079504-11949,00.html
Australian: The US Environmental Protection Agency is expected to act for the first time to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that scientists blame for global warming. The New York Times said the EPA decision could accelerate the progress of energy and climate change laws in the US Congress and form a basis for the US position at UN climate talks in Copenhagen in December. The environmental agency is under order from the US Supreme Court to make a determination whether ...

Fri, 20 Feb 09
Cleaning The Atmosphere Of Carbon: African Forests Out Of Balance
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090219105322.htm
ScienceDaily: Tropical forests hold more living biomass than any other terrestrial ecosystem. A new report in the journal Nature by Lewis et al. shows that not only do trees in intact African tropical forests hold a lot of carbon, they hold more carbon now than they did 40 years ago--a hopeful sign that tropical forests could help to mitigate global warming. In a companion article, Helene Muller-Landau, staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, says that understanding the ...

Fri, 20 Feb 09
Freshwater Rising in Strategic Importance
http://www.voanews.com/english/Africa/2009-02-19-voa40.cfm
Voice of America: A new report warns of growing competition for the world's limited freshwater supplies. The World Economic Forum says water is needed to meet increased energy demands, while climate change is leaving large areas of the world chronically short of the precious resource. Three-quarters of the Earth's surface is covered with water, but only three percent of that is available for human use. And while that three percent has remained relatively constant over the years, global consumption is ...

Fri, 20 Feb 09
Arctic ice to melt each summer: Russian experts
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/02/19/2495518.htm?section=justin
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: A group of Russian climate experts claims that ice in the Arctic could completely melt each summer by the end of this century. The climate change experts from Russia's National Meteorological Centre are involved in a new report on climate change and warn of increasing global warming. They told a media conference that Russia will feel global warming more than most countries. In their latest report, the researchers forecast that the country's average yearly temperatures ...

Fri, 20 Feb 09
Australia: Farmers out on a limb over tree-clearing
http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-national/farmers-out-on-a-limb-over-treeclearing-20090219-8bvi.html
AAP: Queensland farmers say they have obeyed a ban on broadscale tree-clearing and warn further restrictions will hamper efforts to produce food. AgForce acting CEO Andrew Freeman said on Thursday agriculture was forced to sacrifice land development opportunities when tree-clearing bans were introduced in 2006. He said official figures show annual tree clearing was cut by 37 per cent across 2006-07 of which only the second half had the ban in place. "Reductions will be much ...

Fri, 20 Feb 09
Australia: New effort to measure carbon in the landscape
http://www.abc.net.au/rural/news/content/200902/s2495667.htm
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Greening Australia is working on a new tool to measure carbon stored in a landscape. Director of carbon at Greening Australia, Rick Humphries, believes the Government's national model underestimates the amount of carbon a revegetation project can take up. "We're going to invest, along with a corporate partner, around a million dollars over the next year, to get better numbers, to both assist us and hopefully the national effort around estimating the amount of carbon that is ...

Fri, 20 Feb 09
Issues: Oil (sands) and birds don't mix
http://www.vueweekly.com/article.php?id=11060
Vue Weekly: I'm on my back on the aft deck of Raincoast Conservation's research vessel. My repose is involuntary as we ply the lumpy waters of Haida Gwaii's west coast. Not one prone to sea sickness, I nevertheless feel like my head is virtually nailed down, a result of the interminable chop. I have no option but to look skyward, and there, to my amazement, are albatrosses, escorting us like some squawking air squadron. For me, the albatross is the grizzly bear of marine birds in terms of its ...

Fri, 20 Feb 09
Trade and Oil on Agenda as Obama Visits Canada
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=119092
New York Times: President Obama arrived here on Thursday morning for the first foreign trip of his administration, a visit that was expected to focus on the fragile world economy, the sagging auto industry, international trade, Afghanistan and energy -- in particular the question of how to turn Alberta`s oil sands into a clean source of power. Mr. Obama was greeted by the governor general of Canada, Michaëlle Jean, as well as the Canadian ambassador to the United States, Michael Wilson, and a ...

Fri, 20 Feb 09
Study: Trees absorb one-fifth of CO2 gas
http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2009/02/19/Study_Trees_absorb_one-fifth_of_CO2_gas/UPI-11191235069651/
United Press International: Trees absorb nearly one-fifth of humanity's climate-change emissions, a 40-year British university study finds. The University of Leeds study is being hailed by environmentalists as the most compelling evidence yet supporting an end to the logging or burning of trees in forested areas. Previous studies on the value of the rainforests had concentrated on South America and Asia. But the Leeds research included tropical forests in Africa and found trees absorb 4.8 billion tons of ...

Fri, 20 Feb 09
Can Hillary Forge a Climate Treaty With China?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alex-pasternack/can-hillary-forge-a-clima_b_168291.html
Huffington Post: At the center of efforts to bring down greenhouse gases -- efforts that must involve the world's two highest-emitting countries -- aren't just issues of politics and security, but the curious conflicting desires of both of those countries. The US has said it cannot lower emissions unless China does so too (while also providing Americans with affordable products). For its part, China wants lower emissions (and more) from the US first (while it increasingly adopts American ...

Fri, 20 Feb 09
Canada: Cuts easily offset carbon tax, as pledged
http://www.timescolonist.com/news/Cuts+easily+offset+carbon+pledged/1305011/story.html
Times Colonist: The urban myth -- actually more of a rural myth -- that British Columbians are enduring lives cruelly hobbled by the carbon tax sustained another hit in this week's budget. But never mind. It may thrive, regardless. The carbon tax ogre is an essential part of the New Democrat election campaign. They need the impression that it's a punitive assault on pickup truck-driving rural B.C. to hold as much sway as possible for the next three months. So they'll likely just keep ...

Fri, 20 Feb 09
New global initiates to reduce global warming
http://www.merinews.com/catFull.jsp?articleID=15711445
Merinews: REPRESENTATIVES OF 22 countries, including major greenhouse gas emitters like China, India and the United States, as well as the European bloc met in Tokyo for two days recently to step up efforts by the world's largest economy to help slow down the planet's warming. The meet marked one of the first negotiating opportunities on climate change to work out a draft of a new UN treaty. The draft is likely to be approved in December at a meeting in Copenhagen. The new treaty will be ...

Fri, 20 Feb 09
Australia Launches A$435 Million Renewable Energy Fund
http://www.easybourse.com/bourse-actualite/marches/australia-launches-aS4-5-million-renewable-energy-fund-620142
Down Jones: Australia's Energy Minister Martin Ferguson on Friday launched the federal Labor government's A$435 million renewable energy demonstration fund, designed to boost the use of solar, wind and other renewable technologies to meet a 2020 target to generate 20% of the nation's energy from renewable sources. But Ferguson ruled out any move to legislate so-called feed-in tariffs - where a premium rate is paid for electricity fed back into the grid from renewable sources - already in place in ...

Fri, 20 Feb 09
Chad gets climate change adaptation plan
http://www.apanews.net/apa.php?page=show_article_eng&id_article=89367
African Press Agency: Chad got its National Adaptation Programme of Action to Climate Change (NAPA) validated after a two-day workshop which brought together Chadian experts. The NAPA was validated at the end of the workshop on Wednesday. The implementation of this national plan is estimated at CFA 2.3 billion francs (US$ 4.6 million), the document said, stating that climate change will have significant changes on the lives of Chadians by 2023. For example, temperatures would increase from ...

Fri, 20 Feb 09
Biofuels boom could destroy rainforests
http://www.timesoftheinternet.com/48228.html
United Press International: A U.S. researcher is warning the boom in the production of biofuels might lead tropical farmers to destroy rainforests to plant biofuel crops. Holly Gibbs, a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University's Woods Institute for the Environment, said policies favoring biofuel crop production might actually contribute to, not slow, the process of climate change. "If we run our cars on biofuels produced in the tropics, chances will be good that we are effectively burning ...

Fri, 20 Feb 09
United Kingdom: Customising clouds to stop global warming
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/4699641/Customising-clouds-to-stop-global-warming.html
Telegraph: Stephen Salter, professor of engineering design at the University Edinburgh, and Professor John Latham, from the National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, have been using Salt Flares to test if it is possible to seed or even create Marine Stratocumulus Clouds. These clouds, which are common, low-flying clouds, could help reflect the suns rays and therefore combat global warming. Prof Salter said: We need to make them reflect about 10 per cent more than they are ...

Fri, 20 Feb 09
Clinton, Indonesia need to act on climate: environmentalists
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090219/sc_afp/usdiplomacyasiaindonesiaenvironmentclimate
Agence France-Presse: Top greenhouse gas emitters the United States and Indonesia should use US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit to the country to take action against climate change, environmentalists said Thursday. Around a dozen members of activist group Greenpeace rallied outside the presidential palace during a meeting between Clinton and President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to call for greater assistance for developing countries in reducing emissions. "We call on the US leadership to ...

Fri, 20 Feb 09
Canada to agree on energy pact: official
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51I4X520090219?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: The United States and Canada will announce an agreement on Thursday to work together on energy technology that is environmentally friendly, including capturing and storing the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, a White House official said. "We are announcing an agreement to work together on clean energy technology," the official said. "It will include elements like carbon capture and sequestration and the smart grid." President Barack Obama arrived in Canada Thursday for his ...

Fri, 20 Feb 09
Obama in Canada to address fears of protectionism
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090219/ts_nm/us_obama_canada
Reuters: U.S. President Barack Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper were to agree plans on Thursday to work together on environmentally friendly energy technology, as both move forward to tackle climate change. Obama arrived in Canada on his first international trip as president seeking to quell Canadian concerns about U.S. trade protectionism and discuss the global economic crisis and the war in Afghanistan. The two leaders met for about half an hour privately before ...

Fri, 20 Feb 09
United Kingdom: Drop in passenger numbers delays Stansted expansion by two years
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/19/stansted-second-runway-passenger-demand
Guardian: BAA has admitted that the opening of a second runway at Stansted airport will be delayed by two years because there are not enough passengers to meet demand. Amid warnings from green campaigners that the admission undermines the case for expansion, Britain's third largest airport will instead open a new runway in 2017 if it secures planning permission at a public inquiry due to start in April. The airport's owner, BAA, said the economic downturn had affected passenger demand ...

Fri, 20 Feb 09
United Kingdom: Councils urged to roll out air quality initiatives
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2236832/councils-urged-roll-air-quality
Business Green: The government has today stepped up its support for the wider rollout of low-emission zones and other measures to tackle urban air pollution with the release of new guidance on how local authorities should implement air quality schemes. The UK could soon face legal action from the EU over consistent breaches of air quality regulations and the government is urging local authorities to implement a range of measures designed to cut emissions of gases such as nitrogen oxide, sulphur ...

Fri, 20 Feb 09
EPA expected to act in regulating carbon dioxide
http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/02/19/healthscience/19epa.php
International Herald Tribune: The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to act for the first time to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that scientists blame for the warming of the planet, according to top Obama administration officials. The decision, which most likely would play out in stages over a period of months, would have a profound impact on transportation, manufacturing costs and how utilities generate power. It could accelerate the progress of energy and climate change legislation ...

Fri, 20 Feb 09
Permafrost Is Thawing In Northern Sweden
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090218081629.htm
ScienceDaily: Areas with lowland permafrost are likely to shrink in northern Sweden. Warmer summers and more winter precipitation are two of the reasons. This is shown in a new dissertation from Lund University in Sweden. Permafrost is ground that is frozen year round at least two years in a row. North of the Arctic Circle permafrost is common due to the cold climate. For several years, physical geographer Margareta Johansson at Lund University has studied lowland permafrost in peat mires ...

Fri, 20 Feb 09
Intel chief: Climate change threatens U.S. security
http://www.upi.com/Energy_Resources/2009/02/18/Intel_chief_Climate_change_threatens_US_security/UPI-14021234988045/
United Press International: The new head of U.S. intelligence and top adviser to President Barack Obama says climate change is a top threat to the national security of the country. Poor countries, often with weaker governance systems, also will be hit hardest by the extreme flooding or dry spells forced by significant warming of the planet, undermining leadership there and putting at-risk citizens further in harm's way, warns Director of National Intelligence Adm. Dennis Blair. "The impacts (of climate ...

Fri, 20 Feb 09
Global warming speeding up: scientist
http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/global-warming-47021802
Daily Green: Global warming is proceeding far faster than scientists had predicted as greenhouse gas emissions continue to build up in the atmosphere at faster-than-predicted rates, spawning environmental changes that only reinforce the climate change. That's the word from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, according to an account of its annual meeting in the Washington Post. The United Nations last convened the world's scientists to report on the state of climate ...

Fri, 20 Feb 09
California's renewable energy goals feasible
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/02/19/BUH2160HP3.DTL
San Francisco Chronicle: California's goal of getting 33 percent of its electricity from the sun, the wind and other renewable sources by 2020 might be more feasible than previously thought, according to a new government report. If all the renewable power projects proposed in the state last year were built, California would easily surpass that goal, according to a report issued Wednesday by the California Public Utilities Commission. All told, those projects would generate 24,000 megawatts of electricity, ...

Fri, 20 Feb 09
Arctic's personal greenhouse turns up the heat
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16623-arctics-personal-greenhouse-turns-up-the-heat.html
New Scientist: It might be one of the coldest regions on the planet but the Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the globe - and now we know the reasons why. Two new studies show that the greenhouse effect is stronger above the North Pole, and that the waters of the Arctic Ocean are acting like a radiator to heat the region's atmosphere. The warming of the Arctic has been explained before as being due to a positive feedback loop: as the ice cap melts and disappears, more of the dark ocean ...

Fri, 20 Feb 09
Peak energy: promise or peril?
http://www.nature.com/climate/2009/0903/full/climate.2009.19.html
Nature: Will we continue to use fossil fuels to the detriment of our planet and the human population? Or can we clean up our act in time to avoid calamitous change? That's the dilemma the world currently faces, yet in spite of efforts to transition to alterative energy sources, projections show that annual fossil fuel demand is likely to increase 45 per cent by 2030. But those projections make an important assumption -- that there will be enough oil, coal and natural gas to meet the demand. ...

Fri, 20 Feb 09
Failing fisheries
http://www.nature.com/climate/2009/0903/full/climate.2009.17.html
Nature: Fish Fisheries doi:10.1111/j.1467-2979.2008.00310.x (2009) The world's poorest nations will bear the brunt of climate change impacts on fisheries, suggests new research. Despite the large body of evidence that warming and related impacts will alter the distribution and productivity of individual fisheries, how this will affect national economies has remained unclear. Now, an international team of scientists led by Edward Allison of the WorldFish Center in Penang, Malaysia, has ...

Thu, 19 Feb 09
Spain: How to Use Solar Energy at Night
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=how-to-use-solar-energy-at-night
Scientific American: Near Granada, Spain, more than 28,000 metric tons of salt is now coursing through pipes at the Andasol 1 power plant. That salt will be used to solve a pressing if obvious problem for solar power: What do you do when the sun is not shining and at night? The answer: store sunlight as heat energy for such a rainy day. Part of a so-called parabolic trough solar-thermal power plant, the salts will soon help the facility light up the night--literally. Because most salts only melt at ...

Thu, 19 Feb 09
Arctic's personal greenhouse turns up the heat
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16623-arctics-personal-greenhouse-turns-up-the-heat.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=climate-change
New Scientist: It might be one of the coldest regions on the planet but the Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the globe - and now we know the reasons why. Two new studies show that the greenhouse effect is stronger above the North Pole, and that the waters of the Arctic Ocean are acting like a radiator to heat the region's atmosphere. The warming of the Arctic warming has been explained before as being due to a positive feedback loop: as the ice cap melts and disappears, more of the ...

Thu, 19 Feb 09
Indonesia reopens peatland to palm oil plantation
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/18/indonesia-peat-palm-oil
Guardian: Indonesia today acknowledged it had quietly lifted a year-long freeze on the use of peat land for palm oil plantations, fuelling fears of a rise in greenhouse gas emissions. Environmental groups had pressed the government to maintain the ban but Indonesia's agriculture ministry said tighter controls for issuing new permits for growing palm oil on peat land had been set after a study during the past year. Indonesia is the world's fourteenth largest emitter of carbon dioxide from ...

Thu, 19 Feb 09
Shell: cap-and-trade is "a good thing"
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2236718/shell-cap-trade-thing
Business Green: Shell has today launched an impassioned defence of emissions cap-and-trade schemes, arguing that despite the falling price of carbon within the EU's scheme and growing calls for alternative carbon management mechanisms such as carbon taxes, cap-and-trade schemes remain the most effective way of cutting emissions. Speaking at a roundtable event at the company's UK headquarters, senior executives insisted that the EU emissions trading scheme (ETS) was working, had already driven ...

Thu, 19 Feb 09
Exclusive: Private equity raises carbon reporting fears
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2236719/private-equity-raises-concerns
Business Green: Private equity firms are to express concerns to the government that the introduction of the carbon reduction commitment (CRC) emissions trading scheme next year could land them with a disproportionately large bill and huge regulatory burden. The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) is currently consulting on draft CRC regulations that would require 5,000 UK businesses that use over 6,000MWh of electricity a year to comply with a carbon cap or buy in carbon allowances to ...

Thu, 19 Feb 09
Russia: global warming to cause droughts, floods
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090218/ap_on_re_eu/eu_russia_global_warming
Associated Press: Russia will likely see more forest fires, droughts and floods in the coming century due to global warming, and policy makers need to prepare for large-scale change, scientists warned in a report released Wednesday. It also said Russia, famous for its brutal winters, will benefit from climate change in some ways, with warmer temperatures and less snow and ice. Growing evidence that global warming is shrinking polar ice, opening up new shipping lanes, already is generating ...

Thu, 19 Feb 09
Climate changes could lead to loss of many birds and plants, watchdog told
http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/environment/display.var.2489929.0.Climate_changes_could_lead_to_loss_of_many_birds_and_plants_watchdog_told.php
Herald: Important species of birds and plants could disappear from Scotland as our climate changes, the Scottish Government's environmental watchdog was warned yesterday. Some may have to be relocated if they are to survive, the board of Scottish Natural Heritage heard at its meeting in Inverness. Professor Colin Galbraith, SNH's director of policy and advice, predicted that, at best, climate change may lead to wetter winters and displacement of Scotland's native wildlife. At worst, it ...

Thu, 19 Feb 09
Australia: Tree clearing ban is working: Queensland government
http://www.thedaily.com.au/news/2009/feb/18/aap-tree-clearing-ban-is-working-qld-govt/
AAP: Queensland's historic land clearing ban has produced some good results, but the government is concerned over the rate of regrowth land being cleared. The Statewide Landcover and Trees Study for 2006-07 released on Wednesday outlined the first six months of data on broadscale tree clearing since the December 2006 ban. It showed overall clearing was down 37 per cent from 375,000 hectares in 2005-06 to 235,000 hectares in 2006-07. Greenhouse emissions were down from 41.24 ...

Thu, 19 Feb 09
Stuck in the mud: plants on death row in changing world
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/stuck-in-the-mud-plants-on-death-row-in-changing-world-20090218-8bgt.html
Sydney Morning Herald: MOST southern hemisphere plants - except for weeds - will not be able to adapt to rapid climate change, a study of more than 11,000 species suggests. Researchers, including the Sydney botanist Peter Weston, traced the history of plants that live in a range of different habitats including bogs, alpine regions, rainforests and arid environments. They found the vast majority were still stuck in their old ways. Despite tens of millions of years of evolution, less than 4 per cent of ...

Thu, 19 Feb 09
Australia: Green energy promise might fail: Industry
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/energy-smart/green-energy-promise-might-fail-industry-20090216-891l.html
AAP: Australia may fail to make good on a key climate change promise, the renewable energy industry has warned. The Government has promised to have 20 per cent of electricity come from renewable sources such as wind and solar by 2020. The commitment, separate to emissions trading, is an incentive to get green technologies off the ground. The Government has released draft laws for the scheme to meet the Renewable Energy Target (RET). But Matthew Warren, chief executive ...

Thu, 19 Feb 09
United States: Mayor sounds the alarm on climate change
http://www.silive.com/news/advance/index.ssf?/base/news/1234962928243580.xml&coll=1
Staten Island Advance: It's a chilling snapshot: Stifling heat, driving rains and water levels rising by two feet or more. It's all in the city's future if we do not address and adapt to global warming, according to a report on climate change released yesterday by Mayor Michael Bloomberg. But at least one environmental expert believes Staten Island is at risk now. "If we had a hurricane this year, there would be a tremendous amount of damage because we have built and are continuing to build things in ...

Thu, 19 Feb 09
United States: Sea level rising threat like 'giant snail', environmentalists say
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/nassau/ny-liseal0812426089feb18,0,6788189.story
Newsday: It's hard to whip up concern for a creeping threat whose predicted advance can be compared to "being attacked by a giant snail." That's how environmental advocate Sarah Newkirk of the Nature Conservancy described sea level rise at a recent forum in Upton. Her phrase was a rueful nod to empty seats at the meeting, convened by state planners to seek public input on rising oceans. Just a few dozen residents had shown up, though the turnout was more than in Nassau the day before, ...

Thu, 19 Feb 09
United States: Sun-powered device converts CO2 into fuel
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16621-sunpowered-device-converts-co2-into-fuel.html
New Scientist: Powered only by natural sunlight, an array of nanotubes is able to convert a mixture of carbon dioxide and water vapour into natural gas at unprecedented rates. Such devices offer a new way to take carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and convert it into fuel or other chemicals to cut the effect of fossil fuel emissions on global climate, says Craig Grimes, from Pennsylvania State University, whose team came up with the device. Although other research groups have developed ...

Thu, 19 Feb 09
Wetlands decline along East, Gulf coasts, report shows
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/62368.html
McClatchy: A new U.S. government report Tuesday shows a high rate of decline in wetlands along the Atlantic Coast and the Gulf of Mexico, raising concerns about habitat for migratory birds and sea life as well as for humans, who also need wetlands as buffers from stormy seas. The report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on the most recent data available shows a net loss of 59,000 acres each year from 1998 to 2004. It finds that ...

Thu, 19 Feb 09
Snow on Colombia's peaks to disappear by 2030
http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=327850&CategoryId=12393
Latin American Herald Tribune: The snow that covers Colombia's Andean peaks will disappear by about 2030 due to the impact of climate change, a World Bank study says. Colombia is already suffering some of the effects of climate change, according to the study released Monday in Bogota, which recommends maintaining the continuity of comprehensive policies to avert climatic threats and pursue a low-carbon development model. The World Bank feels that if action is not taken, by 2050 there will be a substantial ...

Thu, 19 Feb 09
'Dirty' oil potential source of friction as Obama heads to Canada to discuss clean energy
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-obama-oil_18feb18,0,785183.story
Chicago Tribune: When President Barack Obama lands Thursday in Canada for his first foreign visit as the nation's chief executive, his pledge to wean Americans off "dirty" oil will collide with the host country's aggressive push to send even more crude to the U.S. Obama is promising to tackle the growing threat of climate change and promotes green energy as a solution. At the same time, refineries across the Midwest are poised to dramatically increase their emissions of heat-trapping pollution, a ...

Thu, 19 Feb 09
Tuvalu: Taiwan offers hand to sinking South Pacific island
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/TP161893.htm
Various: Taiwan promised on Wednesday to help residents of tiny Tuvalu, one of only 23 allies that recognise Taiwan over rival China, before the island chain is wiped off the map under a rising South Pacific. Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou told visiting Tuvalu Prime Minister Apisai Ielemia his government wanted to work more closely with the archipelago where the highest point is just five metres (16 ft) above sea level. Tuvalu, covering 26 sq km (10 sq miles) over nine coral reefs, faces ...

Thu, 19 Feb 09
Floods in Australia hit mining and damage crops
http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKTRE51G1CR20090217?sp=true
Reuters: Flooding rivers and heavy rains cut off towns, stopped mining operations and damaged crops in three Australian states on Tuesday -- one week after devastating bushfires swept the country's southeast killing 200 people. The tropical state of Queensland has been battling major floods since December 2008, with 62 percent of the state underwater, after a series of storms and a tropical cyclone. The damage bill in Queensland is estimated at A$210 million (95.5 million pound) and the ...

Thu, 19 Feb 09
United Kingdom: Warming climate can help spread butterflies' habitats
http://news.scotsman.com/environment/Warming-climate-can-help-spread.4990017.jp
Scotsman: GLOBAL warming helped butterflies to feel at home after they were given a helping hand to move north, scientists said today. Despite warmer temperatures, Britain's butterfly population has declined, so biologists carried out a study to see if they could live happily in places they had not yet reached naturally. Researchers used computer climate models to predict whether species could survive in more northerly habitats if they were helped to reach them. Eight years ago, the ...

Thu, 19 Feb 09
United Kingdom: Manure could power two million homes
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/4644406/Manure-could-power-two-million-homes.html
Telegraph: The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is launching a task force to help sectors including farming and the water industry meet goals to produce energy from anaerobic digestion, which generates gas from the break down of organic material without oxygen. According to Defra, the UK produces more than 100 million tonnes of organic material per year that could be used to produce biogas, 90 million tonnes of which comes from manure and slurry. The National ...

Thu, 19 Feb 09
Aviation lobbyists enlisted to tackle rebel climate MPs, leaked papers show
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/18/aviation-climate-bill
Guardian: Civil servants at the Department for Transport (DfT) asked a top aviation lobby group for help to win the parliamentary battle over keeping aircraft emissions out of key climate change legislation, according to papers seen by the Guardian. The documents, leaked from industry-funded group Flying Matters, which is backed by Heathrow airport operator BAA and airlines including BA, Easyjet and Virgin Atlantic, also state that the group "helped ensure" that the Conservative party dropped ...

Thu, 19 Feb 09
United States: Appeals Court Reverses Limits on Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2009/2009-02-17-092.asp
Environment News Service: A federal appeals court Friday reversed a lower court ruling that limited the controversial coal mining practice called mountaintop removal. In mountaintop removal coal operations, the peaks of mountains are blasted away with explosives to expose coal seams and the waste materials are dumped into streams, causing what the plaintiff environmental groups claim is irreversible ecological damage. In a victory for the coal industry, a panel of the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of ...

Thu, 19 Feb 09
America's Climate Choices: The Process and The Summit
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2009/2009-02-17-095.asp
Environment News Service: After years of being governed by climate skeptics and deniers, America is plunging into the process of choosing how to deal with the undeniable fact of global warming. At the request of Congress, a two-day summit on America's Climate Choices will be convened by the National Academy of Sciences on March 30 and 31, with a focus on how to limit the magnitude of climate change and adapt to its impact. Climate change experts will meet with members of Congress and the Obama ...

Thu, 19 Feb 09
Wrapping Greenland in reflective blankets
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/4689667/Wrapping-Greenland-in-reflective-blankets.html
Telegraph: Glaciers cover just 10 per cent of the earth's surface but 75 per cent of the world's fresh water are locked beneath the ice. Jason Box, from Ohio State University, says the way to combat melting glaciers is to cover them with blankets that will reflect the sun's rays. Dr Box said: "We're in the midst of a climate catastrophe and glaciers are the epicentre of that problem. "Glaciers around the planted are decanting into the oceans at shocking rates and I want to stop ...

Thu, 19 Feb 09
United Kingdom: Government to introduce clearer "greenwashing" guidance
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2236709/government-introduce-clearer
Business Green: The government has today unveiled plans to help make it easier for firms to avoid the dreaded accusation of "greenwashing" by updating the guidance it issues for green marketing and advertising claims. Lord Philip Hunt, the Minister for Sustainable Development, announced the launch of a steering group to assess the current Green Claims Code, which was last updated in 2003 and recommends changes to better support the huge increase in environmental marketing claims. The ...

Thu, 19 Feb 09
U.N. says Beijing Games largely met "green" targets
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51H39820090218?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: The Beijing Olympics met, if not exceeded, many of its pledges to be environmentally friendly, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) said on Wednesday. A study launched at a major U.N. environment meeting in Kenya said the organizers had made big efforts to cut air pollution and invest in public transport and renewable energies. But it said more could have been done to work with grassroots groups and reduce the Games' total carbon footprint. Overall, the report ...

Thu, 19 Feb 09
Singapore bushfires hit nearly decade high in January
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51H3BB20090218?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Island-state Singapore faced the largest number of bushfires in nearly a decade in January, thanks to an unusually long dry spell, the government's anti-fire agency said Wednesday. The tropical nation saw 182 vegetation fires in January, mostly due to the dry spell, which the Singapore Civil Defense Force said was "unprecedented." "The Jan figures of 182 bush fires responded is the most number of incidents attended to by the force in almost a decade," Lieutenant Colonel N. Subhas said ...

Thu, 19 Feb 09
An $80 billion start
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=118900
New York Times: Wrapped inside the economic stimulus package is about $80 billion in spending, loan guarantees and tax incentives aimed at promoting energy efficiency, renewable energy sources, higher-mileage cars and coal that is truly clean. As a stand-alone measure, these investments would amount to the biggest energy bill in history. As ambitious as this measure is, it should not be confused with a global warming bill. Dealing with climate change will require a much broader strategy, even larger ...

Thu, 19 Feb 09
With turbines, Alaska is frontier for green power
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=118899
New York Times: Beyond the fishing boats, the snug homes and the tanks of diesel fuel marking this Eskimo village on the Bering Sea, three huge wind turbines tower over the tundra. Their blades spin slowly in a breeze cold enough to freeze skin. One of the nation's harshest landscapes, it turns out, is becoming fertile ground for green power. As interest in cleaning up power generation grows around the country, Alaska is fast becoming a testing ground for new technologies and an unlikely ...

Thu, 19 Feb 09
Anything but the best choice
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20090218/OPINION/902170242/1042?Title=WASHINGTON-POST-Anything-but-the-best-choice
Washington Post: The six "Principles for Global Warming Legislation" released recently by Sen. Barbara Boxer were notable for what they lacked. There were no specific greenhouse gas emissions targets. There was no determination on an auction of pollution permits vs. giving some or most of them away to polluters initially. But the California Democrat was clear on one thing: There will be no consideration of a carbon tax. Sure, the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee said, "We're ...

Thu, 19 Feb 09
Threats To Biodiversity Rise In World's Mediterranean-Climate Regions
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090217080019.htm
ScienceDaily: In the first systematic analysis of threats to the biodiversity of the world's Mediterranean-climate regions, scientists at The Nature Conservancy and UC Davis report that these conservation hotspots are facing significant and increasing pressure. The study, which appears in this week's edition of the journal Diversity and Distributions, is part of a global conservation assessment of the rare Mediterranean biome. "Throughout human history, the mild climates of Mediterranean regions ...

Thu, 19 Feb 09
Canada: Study warns against emissions deal for oilsands
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090217/oilsands_deal_090217/20090217?hub=Canada&s_name=
Canadian Press: A new environmental study warns that other regions of Canada would suffer if a national cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gas emissions made allowances for Alberta's oilsands. "We're calling on the provinces to ask the federal government that the system be set up equitably across all regions and sectors," said Gillian McEachern of ForestEthics, one of six groups behind the study sent to federal Environment Minister Jim Prentice. Its release came on the eve of a Tuesday ...

Thu, 19 Feb 09
United States: Coal-Fired Capitol Plant Fuels Protest
http://www.climatebiz.com/blog/2009/02/17/capitol-plant-fuels-protest
ClimateBiz: "I can't understand," Al Gore said a while ago, "why there aren't rings of young people blocking bulldozers and preventing them from constructing coal-fired power plants." Just wait, Al. The Capitol Climate Action, a coalition of activist groups, is organizing what will almost surely be the largest mass civil disobedience for climate in U.S. history. The target: The Capitol Power Plant, a 99-year-old coal-burning plant, situated blocks from Capitol Hill, which heats and cools the U.S. ...

Thu, 19 Feb 09
Canada: Obama compares oil sands to coal
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090218/ap_on_re_ca/canada_obama_energy
Associated Press: President Barack Obama, in advance of his first foreign trip, said Tuesday that Canada's oil sands operations leave a carbon foot print that adds to climate change concerns. Obama, who heads to Canada on Thursday, expressed concern about the environmental impact of the oil sands in an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said energy security and the environmental impact of Alberta's massive oil sands operations will be ...

Thu, 19 Feb 09
New York Must Prepare for Global Warming, Mayor's Panel Says
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=118878
New York Times: New York City must prepare for higher temperatures, more rain and an increased risk of coastal flooding in the coming decades as a result of global climate change, an advisory panel said on Tuesday. The panel, formed by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg to study the potential effects of global warming on the city, said that mean annual temperatures in New York could increase by up to 3 degrees and the average sea levels rise by 2 to 5 inches by the 2020s. By the 2080s, temperatures could ...

Thu, 19 Feb 09
Melt-pools 'accelerating Arctic ice loss'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/18/arctic-ice-melt
Guardian: New research has revealed that melt-water pooling on the Arctic ice is causing it to melt at a faster rate than computer models had previously predicted. Scientists have been struggling to understand why the northern ice sheet has been retreating at a faster rate than estimated by the most recent assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in 2007. The IPCC's computer models had simulated an average loss of 2.5% in sea ice extent per decade from 1953 to ...

Wed, 18 Feb 09
World Bank warns of climate change in Andes
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090218/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_peru_climate_change
Associated Press: Global climate change threatens the complete disappearance of the Andes' tropical glaciers within the next 20 years, putting precious water, energy and food sources at risk, according to a World Bank report presented here Tuesday. The study says glacial retreat has already reduced by 12 percent the water supply to Peru's dry coastline, home to 60 percent of the country's population. "In Peru, (the glaciers) are melting very quickly. More than 20 percent of the glacial ice caps ...

Wed, 18 Feb 09
Bushfires Highlight Global Warming Danger
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45802
Inter Press Service: While the bushfires which ravaged parts of the state of Victoria earlier this month - the most devastating in the nation's history - are not being blamed directly on the effects of climate change, it is clear that global warming was indeed a factor. "In terms of the temperature component of the fire weather on Feb.7, I think we can say that increases in greenhouse gas conditions are partly responsible," says Kevin Hennessy, leading climate scientist. Hennessy, who is principal ...

Wed, 18 Feb 09
UN chief: Economic stimulus package must be used to launch long-term "green" revolution
http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90777/90856/6595238.html
Xinhua: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and former U.S. Vice-President Al Gore on Tuesday called on the world to use the coordinated economic stimulus urgently needed to tackle the global economic crisis to launch a long-term 21st century revolution of green growth. Such a stimulus package would not only jump-start the economy on a path that leads away from the use of global warming fossil fuels by eliminating their subsidies in developed countries, but would also help poor nations develop ...

Wed, 18 Feb 09
EPA May Reverse Bush, Limit Carbon Emissions From Coal-Fired Plants
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/17/AR2009021701302.html?wprss=rss_politics/administration
Washington Post: The Environmental Protection Agency will reopen the possibility of regulating carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants, tossing aside a December 2008 Bush administration memorandum that declared that the agency would not limit those emissions. The decision could mark the first step toward placing limits on greenhouse gases emitted by coal plants, an issue that has been hotly contested by the coal industry and environmentalists since April 2007, when the Supreme Court ...

Wed, 18 Feb 09
EPA near ruling on greenhouse gases
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2009/02/17/ap_interview_epa_near_ruling_on_greenhouse_gases/?rss_id=Boston.com+--+Latest+news
Associated Press: EPA administrator Lisa Jackson says the agency is moving toward regulating the gases blamed for global warming. In an interview Tuesday with The Associated Press, Jackson said the agency will decide whether greenhouse gases are a danger to human health and welfare, the legal trigger for regulation under federal law. Jackson said the Environmental Protection Agency owes the American people an opinion, after years of the Bush administration not taking a position on the matter -- ...

Wed, 18 Feb 09
Western climate plan could prolong recession: study
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51H01L20090218?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: A cap-and-trade program planned for the Western United States and Canada could prolong the economic recession and chase high technology investment to other regions, according to a new study commissioned by a group of business leaders. The Western Business Roundtable's study criticized a plan by seven states and four Canadian provinces to establish the biggest carbon market in the Western hemisphere in 2012. Resistance to national carbon-cutting goals by former President George ...

Wed, 18 Feb 09
Andean glaciers 'could disappear': World Bank
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090218/sc_afp/peruworldbankclimate
Agence France-Presse: Andean glaciers and the region's permanently snow-covered peaks could disappear in 20 years if no measures are taken to tackle climate change, the World Bank warned Tuesday. A World Bank-published report said rising temperatures due to global warming could also have a dramatic impact on water management in the Andean region, with serious knock-on effects for agriculture and energy generation. According to the report, in the last 35 years Peru's glaciers have shrunk by 22 ...

Wed, 18 Feb 09
United States: Los Angeles nears water rationing
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51H0AL20090218?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: With a recent flurry of winter storms doing little to dampen California's latest drought, the nation's biggest public utility voted on Tuesday to impose water rationing in Los Angeles for the first time in nearly two decades. Under the plan adopted in principle by the governing board of the L.A. Department of Water and Power, homes and businesses would pay a penalty rate -- nearly double normal prices -- for any water they use in excess of a reduced monthly allowance. The ...

Wed, 18 Feb 09
UK nuclear safety procedures thrown into the spotlight
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2236668/bad-nuclear-evangelists
Business Green: Public confidence in the safety of nuclear power received a series of blows this week as one power station was fined over radioactive leaks, it was reported that another nuclear waste-processing plant could close after fewer than seven years of operation, and it emerged that the Nuclear Safety Advisory Committee (NuSAC) was quietly scrapped last year. The government plans to have at least six nuclear power stations built in the UK by 2020 as part of a major "renaissance" of the ...

Wed, 18 Feb 09
United Kingdom: Nuclear firm fined for radioactive waste leak: court
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090217/wl_uk_afp/britainnuclearwastecourt
Agence France-Presse: A court Tuesday ordered a company which managed a nuclear power plant to pay 400,000 pounds after it was convicted of allowing radioactive waste to leak into the ground over a 14-year period. Magnox Electric Ltd was fined 250,000 pounds and ordered to pay 150,000 pounds in legal costs for breaching laws on the disposal of radioactive waste at Bradwell plant in Essex. The firm, convicted of allowing waste to leak out of a decontamination unit into the ground between 1990 and ...

Wed, 18 Feb 09
US to reconsider end to power plant CO2 checks: official
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090217/sc_afp/usenvironmentenergy
Agence France-Presse: The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said Tuesday it would "reconsider" an 11th-hour memo issued by the administration of former president George W. Bush, which said power plants could be built without checks on their carbon dioxide emissions. Issued in December by then EPA administrator Stephen Johnson, the memo said that under the Clean Air Act, the EPA did not have to take carbon dioxide emissions into consideration when issuing building permits to potential polluters, such ...

Wed, 18 Feb 09
United States: NRC adopts 1 million year rule for Yucca Mountain
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51G6XN20090217?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved a rule for allowable radiation levels at the proposed nuclear waste site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada for up to 1 million years, the NRC announced on Tuesday. The NRC is now accepting the radiation standards from Yucca Mountain as determined by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The NRC kept the EPA's rule of limiting the dose of radiation to 15 millirem for the first 10,000 years after disposal. Now, the NRC has adopted ...

Wed, 18 Feb 09
GM seeks up to $30B in aid, to cut 47,000 jobs
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/G/GM_BAILOUT?SITE=TXDAM&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Associated Press: General Motors Corp., presenting a dire outlook for the future, said Tuesday it may need $30 billion in total government financing to weather the economic downturn and would cut 47,000 jobs worldwide and shutter five more U.S. factories in a massive restructuring plan. The job cuts, which would take place by the end of this year, include 10,000 salaried and 37,000 blue-collar positions, amounting to 19 percent of the company's current global work force. GM is already surviving ...

Wed, 18 Feb 09
EPA near ruling on greenhouse gases
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090217/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/jackson_epa
Associated Press: EPA administrator Lisa Jackson says the agency is moving toward regulating the gases blamed for global warming. In an interview Tuesday with The Associated Press, EPA administrator Lisa Jackson said the agency will decide whether greenhouse gases are a danger to human health and welfare, the legal trigger for regulation under federal law. Jackson said the agency owed the American people an opinion. Recent EPA decisions have hinted that the agency was leaning toward ...

Wed, 18 Feb 09
NYC can expect big storms more frequently: study
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090217/us_nm/us_newyork_climate
Reuters: New York City's average temperature could rise by as much as 7.5 degrees Fahrenheit this century, and once-in-a-century storms may occur as often as every 15 years, a climate change panel said on Tuesday. The report by the New York City Panel on Climate Change was requested by Mayor Michael Bloomberg to better understand how global temperature levels could strain the city's infrastructure. The report was based on data from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate ...

Wed, 18 Feb 09
U.S.-China Effort Key to Climate
http://www.rfa.org/english/energy_watch/us-china-climate-02172009135627.html
Radio Free Asia: The United States and China must set aside differences and cooperate to fight climate change, major environmental and foreign policy groups said last week in a joint report. "That our planet is now approaching a point of no return on the question of global warming is increasingly self-evident," said the study by the Pew Center on Global Climate Change and the Asia Society. "Simply put, if these two countries cannot find ways to bridge the long-standing divide on this issue, ...

Wed, 18 Feb 09
United Kingdom: Nuclear power station had 14year radioactive leak
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/4682666/Nuclear-power-station-had-14-year-radioactive-leak.html
Telegraph: Magnox Electric Ltd was found guilty of breaching laws on the disposal of radioactive waste by failing to inspect a holding tank that had been leaking liquid from the Bradwell nuclear power station in Maldon since 1990. Managers at the site had claimed the waste had leaked when another firm ran the station, but the Environment Agency, which prosecuted Magnox at Chelmsford Crown Court, said it continued after they took over as staff had failed to inspect the leaking holding ...

Wed, 18 Feb 09
Climate change 'could reverse malaria patterns'
http://www.scidev.net/en/climate-change-and-energy/climate-change-could-reverse-malaria-patterns-.html?utm_source=link&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=en_climatechangeandenergy
SciDev.Net: Climate change could have unexpected effects on the incidence of malaria -- even reducing it in unforeseen places, says an insect expert. In malaria-prone areas, the daily fluctuations in temperature that global warming might bring could threaten a critical phase of the malaria parasite's life cycle, according to Matthew Thomas, of Pennsylvania State University in the United States. Cases in these areas could drop as a result. His findings illustrate the complexities faced by ...

Wed, 18 Feb 09
U.N. says food production may fall 25 percent by 2050
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51G46W20090217?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Up to a quarter of global food production could be lost by 2050 due to the combined impact of climate change, land degradation and loss, water scarcity and species infestation, the United Nations said on Tuesday. The fall-off will strike just as 2 billion more people are added to the world's population, according to the U.N. Environment Program (UNEP), which says cereal yields have stagnated worldwide and fish catches are declining. In a new report, it said a 100-year trend of ...

Wed, 18 Feb 09
EPA Considers Regulating Carbon Emissions from Coal Plants
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/17/AR2009021701302.html?wprss=rss_nation
Washington Post: The Environmental Protection Agency today said it would reopen the possibility of regulating carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants, tossing aside a December 2008 Bush administration memorandum that said the agency would not limit those emissions. The decision could mark the first step toward the regulation of greenhouse gases emitted by coal plants, an issue that has been hotly contested by the coal industry and environmentalists since April 2007, when the Supreme ...

Wed, 18 Feb 09
United Kingdom: Protest against airport expansion
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5jiSMGQjskAhEwYfWz5-jxEufEfvQ
Press Association: Environmental activists have chained themselves to the main entrance of a regional airport in a protest against airport expansion around the country. Anti-aviation group Plane Stupid said it also intended to submit a planning application to turn Southampton International Airport into a refugee camp for climate change victims. The group said they had erected tents outside the airport as part of the protest to highlight rising passenger numbers.

Wed, 18 Feb 09
Australia: Price plunge hits carbon trade plan
http://www.theage.com.au/national/price-plunge-hits-carbon-trade-plan-20090217-8aac.html
Age: THE collapse in the international price of carbon is threatening the Federal Government's ability to pay for compensation packages in the emissions trading scheme without drawing on the budget. Compensation for households, trade-exposed industries and high-polluting coal-fired electricity generators was expected to be drawn from auctioning carbon credits, which the Government estimated would initially generate $12 billion a year. But the assumed price of carbon -- $25 a tonne ...

Wed, 18 Feb 09
Weather Does Not Equal Climate
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-stuebi/weather-does-not-equal-cl_b_167280.html
Huffington Post: For most of us in the Eastern U.S., January was a really tough month to endure. In Cleveland, it was almost ceaselessly cloudy, snowy and cold. It was really easy to get into a funk. So, I have an iota of sympathy for Kevin O'Brien, a columnist in The Plain-Dealer, in regards to his February 5th editorial "Another Disappointing Year for Global Warming Hopefuls". You see, I too was grumpy, and I too was damn tired of the bitter weather. As O'Brien rightly notes, it was the ...

Wed, 18 Feb 09
Death toll in Australian wildfires reaches 200
http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/02/17/asia/fires.php
International Herald Tribune: Australian investigators on Tuesday identified the remains of 11 more people killed in savage wildfires this month, taking the human toll from the disaster to 200. The police in the southern state of Victoria said that all of the latest victims had been pulled from the charred wreckage of a fire front stretching 100 kilometers, or 60 miles, that devastated several townships in the hills northeast of Melbourne. Officials have warned that the toll will continue to rise as more ...

Wed, 18 Feb 09
Australia: Left and Right agree on carbon tax
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25070069-7583,00.html
Australian: LIKE Kevin Rudd before the 2007 federal election, emissions trading used to hold much promise for those interested in tackling climate change. In proposing a 5 per cent emissions reduction by 2020, however, the Prime Minister, as well as his carbon pollution reduction scheme, has failed to deliver on that promise. Although the CPRS is widely discussed, it is not so widely understood. This lack of understanding has been an advantage for the Rudd Government since it was ...

Wed, 18 Feb 09
UNEP, Microsoft announce plans to use technology in solving environmental issues
http://africasciencenews.org/asns/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=959&Itemid=2
Africa Science News Service: The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Microsoft signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) Wednesday to work together on leveraging information and communication technology (ICT) solutions to help address today's complex environmental challenges. The partnership focuses on helping environmental stakeholders including UNEP and other international organisations, governments, NGOs and researchers to work more effectively by making use of new technologies. UNEP ...

Wed, 18 Feb 09
French Spiderman Climbs Li Ka-Shing's Hong Kong Tower
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601082&sid=aCSlsFvmwr3g&refer=canada
Bloomberg: Alain Robert, a Frenchman who calls himself "Spiderman," climbed billionaire Li Ka-shing's Cheung Kong Center in Hong Kong, reaching the top to find security guards waiting for him. Robert waved to about 70 onlookers and several police officers at the base of the tower, in the city's Central business district. Cheung Kong Center is 270 meters (886 feet) tall, according to Shirley Lai, a spokeswoman at Hutchison Whampoa Ltd., the building's landlord. He told reporters after the ...

Wed, 18 Feb 09
Robins in winter a harbinger of global warming, Audubon Society study says
http://coloradoindependent.com/21689/robins-in-winter-a-harbinger-of-global-warming-audubon-society-study-says
Colorado Independent: The first robin of spring usually warms the heart after a long winter in Colorado, but a study released last week by the National Audubon Society says the red-breasted harbingers have stopped leaving the state in the winter and herald warming of a different kind. Over the past four decades, in late December American Robin counts in Colorado have increased more than 17-fold as migration patterns follow rising temperatures northward. It`s a trend found in a majority of species ...

Wed, 18 Feb 09
Just planting trees won't do: Study
http://www.deccanherald.com/Content/Feb172009/environmet20090216118871.asp
Deccan Herald: The findings point out that Molybdenum could be a key element in sustaining terrestrial ecosystems, writes Kirtiman Awasthi Forests hold the centrestage in climate change. They can reduce carbon emissions up to 10-20 per cent of what has been projected by 2050. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said that the greatest potential for carbon capture exists within tropical forests. Based on this assumption, there are plans to offset the build-up of atmospheric carbon ...

Wed, 18 Feb 09
Climate crisis needs empowered people
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7893230.stm
BBC: People power is at the heart of the effort to beat climate change, says Professor Jacqueline McGlade, head of the European Environment Agency. In this week's Green Room, she says that the task is so great, and the timescale so tight, that we can no longer wait for governments and businesses to act. It is no longer sufficient to develop passive lists or reports to 'inform' citizens of changes in our environment The key to protecting and enhancing our environment is in the hands of the ...

Wed, 18 Feb 09
Indonesia: New Rules Allow Use of Peatland For Plantations
http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/business/article/10149.html
Jakarta Post: Over the objections of environmentalists, the Ministry of Agriculture on Monday ended a year-long freeze on clearing peatland for plantations, while at the same time cutting the amount of peatland that can be cleared from 4 million hectares to 2 million hectares, Agriculture Minister Anton Apriyanto said on Tuesday. The government closed peatlands to plantation agriculture last year in the face of widespread protests by environmentalists, who have urged that the freeze be maintained. ...

Wed, 18 Feb 09
United States: Assembly plan would designate windmills 'inherently beneficial'
http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/184/story/404688.html
Press of Atlantic City: The sight of a windmill in your neighbor's yard might not be so uncommon if a bill that would lower a barrier to the construction of renewable energy facilities makes it through the Legislature. The Assembly bill, which has broad support from environmental groups, although it is at odds with ordinances at the municipal level, would declare renewable energy facilities such as windmills "inherently beneficial," making it easier to obtain a zoning variance to build them. Schools and ...

Wed, 18 Feb 09
Carbon Capture From Coal Plants May Lower German Power Prices
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601100&sid=a4ZPOm3wlcVA&refer=germany
Bloomberg: RWE AG, Germany's second-largest utility, and other power companies can help reduce electricity prices and boost economic growth by capturing and storing carbon dioxide from their coal-fired plants, according to a study. Employing CCS technology will allow Germany to reduce imports of natural gas and use cheaper domestic coal, resulting in lower costs for carbon certificates, Michael Schlesinger, director of Prognos AG, which was contracted by RWE to study the economic impact of CCS, ...

Wed, 18 Feb 09
'Dirty' Tar Sands in Canada to Test Obama Green Goals
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=a0uCsgmBhqXg&refer=us
Bloomberg: Petroleum extracted from tar sands in Canada may provide the first foreign-policy test for President Barack Obama's environmental agenda. U.S. and Canadian conservationists have called on Obama to reject any bid to exempt the oil from proposed climate-protection rules when he visits Canada Prime Minister Stephen Harper this week in Ottawa, his first head-of-state meeting as president. The oil is separated from sand and clay with intense heat in a process that releases more ...

Wed, 18 Feb 09
Using satellites to monitor climate change: Progress and challenges
http://www.innovations-report.de/html/berichte/geowissenschaften/satellites_monitor_climate_change_progress_127555.html
Innovations Report: The challenges of detecting, understanding and projecting the impacts of climate change demand high-quality, global data collected consistently over decades. In the nearly 50 years of meteorological satellite observations, the data have increasingly been used to complement research satellite data for purposes of observing climate processes and monitoring change. However, many of the early research and meteorological satellites were either not designed for climate-quality ...

Wed, 18 Feb 09
US, Japan should aid China on clean energy-Clinton
http://www.reuters.com/article/vcCandidateFeed1/idUSN17346011
Reuters: The United States and Japan should work with China on clean energy as it faces the heavy energy use that usually comes with industrialisation, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Tuesday. Making her first trip abroad as the top U.S. diplomat, Clinton said that if China followed the development paths of the United States and Japan "we would overload our environment with carbon-based emissions." Instead, she proposed that Tokyo and Washington find ways to help Beijing ...

Wed, 18 Feb 09
Climate change may intensify food crisis, warns UN
http://www.sindhtoday.net/world/64875.htm
Deutsche Presse-Agentur: As environment ministers from across the world gathered in the Kenyan capital, the UN Tuesday warned that the global food crisis could be intensified dramatically by climate change. A report presented to over 100 environment minsters at a meeting of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said that by 2050 there could be 25 percent less food produced worldwide. Food prices could rise by as much as 50 percent within a few decades, causing even more misery for the poor, who can spend ...

Wed, 18 Feb 09
Alliance Aims to Open Fragile Areas to Oil and Gas Drilling
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2009/2009-02-16-092.asp
Environment News Service: Low-impact oil and gas drilling is the goal of a new collaborative research program announced today by the Houston Advanced Research Center and the Harold Vance Department of Petroleum Engineering at Texas A&M University. The research targets advanced technologies that can be used to open up environmentally sensitive areas currently off limits to drilling and production. New systems will be designed to be compatible with environmentally sensitive or off-limits areas such as ...

Wed, 18 Feb 09
Climate Could Cross Critical Threshold by 2100, Expert Warns
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2009/2009-02-16-01.asp
Environment News Service: Without decisive action by governments, corporations and individuals, global warming in the 21st century is likely to accelerate at a much faster pace and cause more environmental damage than predicted, warns a leading member of the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In a business-as-usual world, higher temperatures could ignite tropical forests and melt the Arctic tundra, releasing billions of tons of greenhouse gas that could raise global temperatures ...

Wed, 18 Feb 09
Obama Shifts U.S. Policy to Back Global Mercury Control Treaty
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2009/2009-02-16-02.asp
Environment News Service: The Obama administration has reversed the former U.S. position on limiting mercury pollution worldwide. Before astonished environment ministers attending the United Nations Environment Programme Governing Council opening session in Nairobi today, the U.S. delegation endorsed negotiations for a new global treaty to control mercury pollution, to begin this year. The Bush administration had opposed legally binding measures to control mercury, despite broad support among a majority of ...

Wed, 18 Feb 09
Climate curbs need 'people power'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7892992.stm
BBC: The battle against climate change can only be won "in the hands of the many, not the few", a top scientist has said. Jacqueline McGlade, head of the European Environment Agency (EEA), warned the current approach left the public sidelined as "silent observers". Political and business leaders were not able to tackle the problem without help from ordinary people, she added. Professor McGlade said environmental policies would also benefit from data based on public ...

Wed, 18 Feb 09
Israel: Can hybrid solar provide nonstop electricity?
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51G3T420090217?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Israeli energy company AORA wants to prove it doesn't have to be sunny for a solar power plant to make electricity. Like weaning a car from total dependence on fuel, the answer, it says, is to go hybrid. Their idea is to combine traditional fuel such as biomass or diesel with low-carbon solar power, during daylight, to generate uninterrupted electricity. The approach is a novel answer for handling the variability of solar power, a major challenge which otherwise requires ...

Wed, 18 Feb 09
Warning on habitat loss: Pair of studies suggests more than 100 state bird species will suffer from climate change
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090213/A_NEWS/902130312/-1/A_NEWS14
Recordnet: The yellow-billed magpie can't be missed, with his tuxedo tail, iridescent black feathers and his bright Big Bird beak. But he may be a lot harder to find if nothing is done about climate change, an advocacy group said this week. The magpie is one of 110 California bird species expected to see a portion of their habitat melt away if temperatures on average continue to warm, the Audubon Society said in a pair of state and national studies. Birds in peril The ...

Wed, 18 Feb 09
Australia: Drought and fire here to stay with El Nino's return
http://www.theage.com.au/national/drought-and-fire-here-to-stay-with-el-ninos-return-20090216-899u.html
Age: VICTORIA is likely to come under the influence of another El Nino within the next three years, exacerbating the drought and the likelihood of bushfires, a senior Bureau of Meteorology climate scientist says. David Jones, the head of the bureau's National Climate Centre, said there was some risk of a worsening El Nino event this year, but it was more likely to arrive in 2010 or 2011. "We are in the build-up to the next El Nino and already the drought is as bad as it has ever ...

Wed, 18 Feb 09
Authorities plan to evacuate towns as Australian floodwaters spread toward fire ravaged south
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-as-australia-floods,0,1728558.story
Associated Press: Authorities put helicopters on standby for emergencies Tuesday as they evacuated residents from homes north of Sydney inundated by floodwaters, while wildfires continued blazing in the country's drought-parched south. Australia's populous east coast has been beset by weather extremes of fiery drought and torrential rains that scientists argue are being exacerbated by climate change. The Bourke region of New South Wales state's northwest was declared a natural disaster area ...

Wed, 18 Feb 09
Smart roads. Smart bridges. Smart grids
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123447510631779255.html
Wall Street Journal: It's time the U.S. got a lot smarter. Federal, state and local governments are about to pour tens of billions of dollars into the nation's infrastructure. The big question: Will we simply spend the money the way we've been doing for decades -- on more concrete and steel? Or will we use it to make our roads, bridges and other assets much more intelligent? Imagine highways that alert motorists of a traffic jam before it forms. Or bridges that report when they're at risk of ...

Wed, 18 Feb 09
Nigeria: Earth on self destruct spiral, says British high commissioner
http://allafrica.com/stories/200902170360.html
Daily Trust: The alarming increase in global warming occasioned by human activities has led to the earth spiralling in a self-destruct mode, Bob Dewar, the British High Commissioner to Nigeria has said. Dewar said during the inauguration of the House of Representatives Committee on Climate Change last week that emerging facts show that climate change statistics were even grimmer than earlier imagined and that it was time nations collectively tackle the issue. The High Commissioner who was ...

Wed, 18 Feb 09
Norway: Doomsday seed vault's stores are growing
http://www.seeddaily.com/reports/Doomsday_seed_vaults_stores_are_growing_999.html
Agence France-Presse: The stores of seeds in a "doomsday" vault in the Norwegian Arctic are growing as researchers rush to preserve 100,000 crop varieties from potential extinction. The imperiled seeds are going to be critical for protecting the global food supply against devastating crop losses as a result of climate change, said Cary Fowler, executive director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust. "These resources stand between us and catastrophic starvation," Fowler said. "You can't imagine a ...

Wed, 18 Feb 09
Crisis slowing investment in renewables: International Energy Agency
http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-GreenBusiness/idUSTRE51F27G20090216
Reuters: Economic slowdown and the recent collapse in oil prices is slowing investment in alternative energy, needed to wean the world off dependence on hydrocarbons, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Monday. IEA Executive Director Nobuo Tanaka told Reuters in an interview the sharp decline in the oil market, which has seen prices collapse by more than 70 percent from a peak of almost $150 per barrel last year was also slowing the search for new sources of oil as existing fields ...

Wed, 18 Feb 09
Climate change may alter malaria patterns
http://www.postchronicle.com/news/science/article_212208558.shtml
United Press International: A U.S. entomologist says climate change might alter malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases since global warming can affect parasite development. Pennsylvania State University Professor Matthew Thomas cautions against merely taking into account average monthly or annual temperatures when considering the spread of malaria and similar diseases. He said global climate change will affect daily temperature variations, which can have a significantly pronounced effect on parasite ...

Tue, 17 Feb 09
Australia: Melbourne has driest start to the year
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/753169/melbourne-has-driest-start-to-the-year
AAP: Melbourne has experienced its driest start to the year on record, with just two millimetres of rain falling so far. Senior meteorologist with the Bureau of Meteorology, Phil King, said Melbourne was also on track to have the least amount of rainfall during the first two months of the year. "We have to go back to 1893 where we had a total of 11mm in the first two months. We are at 2.2mm, and we are unlikely to pick up much in the next week," he said. "We are really not ...

Tue, 17 Feb 09
Alternative Energy Still Facing Headwinds
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/16/AR2009021601199.html?hpid=moreheadlines
Washington Post: The late afternoon light is shining golden on the high chaparral as Donna Tisdale stands near a faded 1800s ranch house, scans the unblemished surrounding hills and sees trouble on the horizon. "The ridge right there will have turbines on it," she says, squinting west into the setting sun. Turning north and east, where a pristine ridgeline meets the sky, she points out the route of a $1.9 billion electricity transmission line whose 150-foot towers will march 123 miles from the ...

Tue, 17 Feb 09
Indonesia: Outlying islands may disappear
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/02/17/outlying-islands-may-disappear.html
Jakarta Post: Indonesia's outermost islands face the risk of disappearing altogether because of human-induced climate change, and will require special measures by the government to keep them firmly on the map. Indonesian Institute of Science (LIPI) researcher Dewi Fortuna Anwar said the government should ensure the physical presence of its citizens on those islands and build a "high wall" to prevent the islands from succumbing to rising sea levels. "The government should finalize maritime ...

Tue, 17 Feb 09
Stimulus expected to add jobs to build new energy system
http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20090216/sc_mcclatchy/3169168
McClatchy: Many of the jobs that the economic stimulus would create are generated by the parts of the plan that also are intended to help combat global warming and reduce the nation's dependence on fossil fuels. The $787.2 billion stimulus plan that President Barack Obama will sign Tuesday includes the nation's largest investment to date in cleaner energy. More than $80 billion in spending and tax cuts will go toward renewable domestic energy, a better grid to transmit electricity, energy ...

Tue, 17 Feb 09
Greenland, Antarctic ice sheet melting causes concern
http://www.thetechherald.com/article.php/200908/2964/Greenland-Antarctic-ice-sheet-melting-causes-concern
Tech Herald: Scientists from Penn State University in the United States have conducted research which confirms both the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are melting due to climate change, a factor with potentially catastrophic consequences due to expected sea level rise. Should the Greenland ice sheet completely melt -- as it has done previously in Earth's history -- it would contribute a rise in sea level across the globe of around 23 feet said Richard Alley, Evan Pugh professor ofgeosciences ...

Tue, 17 Feb 09
Global warming closing in on 'critical threshold'
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7c8186c8-fbc8-11dd-bcad-000077b07658.html
Financial Times: The world is warming far more quickly than scientists forecast just two years ago when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published its last reports, according to a series of assessments presented over the weekend. Chris Field of Stanford University, a senior member of the IPCC, told the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science that the unexpectedly rapid increase in the burning of fossil fuels, especially coal, since 2000 would have dire ...

Tue, 17 Feb 09
Chile with World Bank support turns to wind energy
http://www.mercopress.com/vernoticia.do?id=16125&formato=HTML
Mercopress: The World Bank Group is sponsoring with 61.5 million US dollars the construction of the first wind farm in Chile, advancing the development of renewable energy in Chile. Zoom The Totoral Wind Farm, situated 300 kilometres north of Santiago, will consist of 23 two-megawatt Vestas wind turbines. The project is expected to generate an average of 110 gigawatt hours per year of electricity for the Chilean central grid, relieving the significant supply constraints the country is ...

Tue, 17 Feb 09
Schroders green fund waits on solar valuations
http://uk.reuters.com/article/fundsNews/idUKLNE51F01G20090216
Reuters: Renewable energy stocks are likely to fall further in 2009, with solar stocks particularly vulnerable, although a sharp correction should offer a buying opportunity for long-term investors, a fund manager with Schroders (SDR.L) said. "This is the year that's going to create great long-term buying opportunity for investors in the renewable sector," Simon Webber, manager of the Schroder ISF Global Climate Change Equity fund, told Reuters in an interview. "There's going to be ...

Tue, 17 Feb 09
Brazil: Biofuels' booming is destroying Amazon rainforest
http://en.greenplanet.net/lifestyle/eco-sustainability/210-brazil-biofuels-booming-is-destroying-amazon-rainforest.html
Green Planet: For the first time in Brazil's history, in 2008 sales of ethanol as fuel for motor vehicles surpassed those of petrol - according to the National Fuel Authority (Agência Nacional de Petróleo ANP). In Brazil ecofuels' exchanges have increased in one year by 45%, reaching 16 billion liters sold in gas pumps. Ethanol is cheaper than petrol, it is derived from sugar canes through an alcoholic fermentation process of the plant's sugars. Brazil is the second largest producer ...

Tue, 17 Feb 09
Government's insulation plans 'a drop in the ocean'
http://www.edie.net/news/news_story.asp?id=16003&channel=0&title=Government%27s+insulation+plans+%27a+drop+in+the+ocean%27
Edie: The Irish government's pledge to invest 100 million in improving energy efficiency levels in homes and businesses across the country is merely a step in the right direction, it has been argued. Announcing the plans earlier this week, Eamon Ryan, the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, claimed that, not only would the initiative provide a boost for businesses in the manufacturing and construction sector, but it would also go a long way towards meeting Ireland's ...

Tue, 17 Feb 09
US considers pika protection due to warming
http://features.csmonitor.com/environment/2009/02/16/us-considers-pika-protection-due-to-warming/
Christian Science Monitor: If you were to cross a rabbit with a hamster, make it very sensitive to heat, and deposit it on mountains throughout the western United States, you`d be wasting your time because it looks as though somebody has already done it. The American pika, a small furry mammal in the same order as rabbits and hares, makes its home at high elevations where it enjoys the cold. Pikas that are exposed to temperatures over 80 degrees Fahrenheit tend to overheat and die. Which is exactly what ...

Tue, 17 Feb 09
Local climate influences dengue transmission
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-02/plos-lci020909.php
EurekAlert: Researchers from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health have found that dengue transmission in Puerto Rico is dependent upon local climate and short-term changes in temperature and precipitation. Details are published February 17 in the open-access journal PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases. "Previous studies have shown that there are biological relationships between temperature, precipitation and dengue ...

Tue, 17 Feb 09
Cold comfort for reptiles in warmer world
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2009/02/17/2492706.htm?site=science&topic=latest
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Commonly known as being cold blooded and in need of some sunshine, the world's ectotherms may be struggling to keep cool in the future. The finding raises concerns about how animals that regulate their body heat using air temperature will cope in a warmer world predicted by climate change. Writing in today's issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team of Australian and US researchers say the impact of climate change on ectotherms will depend on how global ...

Tue, 17 Feb 09
Australia: Climate scientists warn of hotter summers than expected
http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/connectasia/stories/200902/s2493602.htm
Radio Australia: A US climate scientist has warned that future climate change will be beyond anything predicted. Professor Chris Field a lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says the 2007 report is based on old data and emissions are rising more rapidly than expected. Presenter: Jennifer Macey Speakers: Professor Roger Stone, University Of Southern Queensland; professor Chris Field, Carneigie Insitute Of Science; Dr Penny Whetton, Centre For Australian Weather And ...

Tue, 17 Feb 09
United Kingdom: Kew basks in the return of winter
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/columnists/michael-mccarthy-kew-basks-in-the-return-of-winter-1623827.html
Independent: Children love snow, of course. But at the height of the recent white-out, when the unaccustomed blizzard had closed schools and stopped all London buses and trapped motorists in their cars at the sides of motorways, I met a grown-up who was also rubbing his hands in glee. He was Tony Kirkham, the head of the arboretum at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Tony is the man who is actually in charge of the gardens at Kew Gardens, and he was delighted with the thick white blanket -- nine ...

Tue, 17 Feb 09
United Kingdom: Supermarkets fail to shine in packaging study to find the greenest of them all
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article5748798.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=3392178
Times (UK): It prides itself on being one of Britain's greenest supermarkets, but when it comes to packaging, Waitrose scores surprisingly badly. A study by the Local Government Association found that Waitrose had the heaviest packaging per shopping basket, although Lidl, the German-owned budget retailer, had the worst record on recyclable materials. The report said that while the total weight of supermarket food packaging had reduced in the past two years, almost 40 per cent still cannot ...

Tue, 17 Feb 09
United Kingdom: Imperial College battery spin off charged up with £10m funding
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2236576/imperial-college-spin-company
Business Green: UK energy storage startup Nexeon Limited has announced that it has raised £10m in a funding, which it will put towards building a pilot manufacturing facility for its silicon based anodes for lithium-ion batteries. The company, which was founded by Mino Green, a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at Imperial College, London, said its new anode technology will allow lithium-ion batteries to store energy more efficiently. Christina McComb, Head of PUK Ventures, ...

Tue, 17 Feb 09
Obama's stimulus bill green lights green spending
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2236575/obama-stimulus-bill-green
Business Green: US President Barack Obama will today sign the $787 billion economic stimulus package in Denver, Colorado with proponents of green business celebrating that a tenth of the money will be directly targeted at environmental initiatives. Echoing the sentiments of many environmentalists, Joseph Romm, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and acting assistant secretary of energy for energy efficiency and renewable energy during the Clinton Administration, hailed the bill as a ...

Tue, 17 Feb 09
Urgent need for 'Global Green New Deal': UN
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090216/sc_afp/environmentununepclimatewarmingpoverty
Agence France-Presse: The United Nations called Monday on rich nations to forge a "Global Green New Deal" that puts the environment, climate change and poverty reduction at the heart of efforts to reboot the world economy. Leaders from the Group of 20 nations, meeting in April, should commit at least one percent of gross domestic product over the next two years to slashing carbon emissions, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) said in a report released at the opening of its world forum in ...

Tue, 17 Feb 09
Climate change erodes marine preserves
http://wwwp.dailyclimate.org/tdc-newsroom/marine-preserves/climate-change-erodes-marine-preserves
Daily Climate: Climate change has undermined fundamental assumptions about oceanic conservation, challenging the notion that today's sanctuaries will protect tomorrow's fish. Conservationists have long assumed fish harvested at a sustainable rate will forever be available for future generations. Instead, scientists now find that a warming ocean is mobilizing fish populations, sending them to the poles with little regard for marine preserve boundaries. Many of the areas set aside for fish ...

Tue, 17 Feb 09
Malaria rates, drug resistance tied to climate
http://wwwp.dailyclimate.org/tdc-newsroom/malaria/rise-in-malaria-rates-drug-resistance-tied-to
Daily Climate: Warmer temperatures are at least partly to blame for a surge in malaria cases in the highlands of East Africa and the increasing development of drug-resistant strains of the disease, according to a University of Michigan researcher. The malaria parasite is highly sensitive to changes in temperature, and even subtle warming can dramatically increase populations of the mosquitoes that transmit the disease, said ecologist Mercedes Pascual. Some scientists have argued that climate ...

Tue, 17 Feb 09
Can geoengineering rebuild the planet?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/4641586/Can-geo-engineering-rebuild-the-planet.html
Telegraph: In the 1960s, two Russian scientists set out ambitious plans to reshape the world around us: to reverse the flow of rivers, shoot tiny white particles into space to illuminate the night sky, and melt the Arctic to water fields of Soviet wheat. "If we want to improve our planet and make it more suitable for life," wrote NP Rusin and L Flit, "we must alter its climate." Four decades later, we have done plenty to alter the climate, but not for the better. And as we grapple with the ...

Tue, 17 Feb 09
Cola giants compete to shrink emissions, trash piles
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=cola-shrink-emissions-trash
Scientific American: The great global cola war has spilled into a new theater of operations: the environment. Hardly a week passes without the two soft-drink behemoths, the Coca-Cola Co. and PepsiCo, announcing new environmental initiatives. Both have launched ambitious water-conservation and recycling drives, and the two are now working feverishly to improve their energy efficiency. Most of what they do saves them money and bolsters their bottom lines. But a recent barrage of press releases from ...

Tue, 17 Feb 09
Reducing Carbon Footprint Of New Gadgets
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100754636&ft=1&f=1025
National Public Radio: The new gadgets in our lives are increasing the amount of electricity we use. Omar Gallaga, technology-culture correspondent for the Austin American-Statesman, discusses strategies for reducing the energy bills.

Tue, 17 Feb 09
Hamburgers Contribute To Global Warming
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1639995/hamburgers_contribute_to_global_warming/index.html?source=r_science
redOrbit: Scientists are calling the hamburger the "Hummer" of foods when it comes to global warming, saying just switching from steak to salad could cut as much carbon as leaving the car at home a couple days a week, the American Free Press reported. Nathan Pelletier of Dalhousie University in Canada said beef is such an incredibly inefficient food to produce and cows release so much harmful methane into the atmosphere, creating the comparison. Pelletier is studying the environmental ...

Tue, 17 Feb 09
Cold bloodedness no protection in warming tropics
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16611-cold-bloodedness-no-protection-in-warming-tropics.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=climate-change
New Scientist: You might assume that being "cold blooded" would offer some protection against global warming. In fact, ectothermic species in hot countries could be hit as hard as the rest of us, a new model suggests. Depending on external warmth to keep energy levels up means you are more likely to overheat as temperatures keep climbing, according to a study by Michael Kearney of the University of Melbourne, Australia, and colleagues. "Even if they manage to find shade in the tropics, they ...

Tue, 17 Feb 09
China urged to cut use of nitrogen fertilizers
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51F4SN20090216?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Excessive use of nitrogen fertilizers in China in the past few decades has polluted its groundwater, given rise to acid rain, soil acidification and increased greenhouse gas emissions, Chinese experts said. In their article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they urged farmers in the country to reduce their use of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers and change their farming practices. "Integrated management packages ... include efficient recycling of ...

Tue, 17 Feb 09
Digital Frames Have Environmental Cost
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100754633&ft=1&f=1025
National Public Radio: The cost of a digital frame has dropped below $20 and sales are picking up. But this could be bad news for the environment. If each U.S. family had one frame around the house, the country would need five new power plants to keep pace with the new demand for electricity.

Tue, 17 Feb 09
South Asia's largest rivers threatened, warns UN
http://www.scidev.net/en/agriculture-and-environment/south-asia-s-largest-rivers-threatened-warns-un.html?utm_source=link&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=en_agricultureandenvironment
SciDev.Net: Water resources in three of South Asia's largest river basins are highly vulnerable, with millions of people at risk of increasing water scarcity, a new report has found. The report -- jointly released by the UN Environment Programme and the Asian Institute of Technology -- studied the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna (GBM), Indus and Helmand river basins, all of which span multiple countries within the region. It lists overexploitation, climate change, and inadequate distribution and ...

Tue, 17 Feb 09
Australia: 2008 coolest since 2000
http://www.theage.com.au/national/2008-coolest-since-2000-20090215-8862.html
Age: LAST year was the coldest year around the world since 2000 -- yet it was still the 10th hottest since records began in 1850, monitoring by British researchers has shown. It was a similar story in Australia, and especially in Victoria, where this decade has been the hottest and driest on record -- drying out vegetation and making it more bushfire-prone. Global climate data for 2008 has been collated from thousands of sites on land and sea by the Climate Research Unit of the ...

Tue, 17 Feb 09
United States: Energy efficiency work, weatherization on rise
http://www.telegram.com/article/20090216/NEWS/902160357/1116
Worcester Telegram and Gazette: After more than 30 years of on-again, off-again growth, one industry in Central Massachusetts, the home energy efficiency business, is booming even as the recession deepens. A surge in funding from conservation fees on utility bills, revenues from the new system for state auctions of carbon pollution credits, and now an anticipated massive infusion of weatherization and energy efficiency funds from the pending federal stimulus package are all driving the trend. In the last ...

Tue, 17 Feb 09
Penguins are feeling pinched by polution, weather extremes and overfishing
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/sciencemedicine/story/EDB9F7A5B71BE1C38625755E0079E322?OpenDocument
St. Louis Today: Their feet might be happy, but they're also endangered. Pollution, weather and overfishing have contributed to steep declines in the populations of 12 out of 17 penguin species in the world, according to P. Dee Boersma, a scientific fellow for the Wildlife Conservation Society. Boersma presented her research in Chicago last week at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Boersma studies Magellanic penguins at a wildlife reserve in ...

Tue, 17 Feb 09
The hidden costs of better fuels
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/40924/title/The_hidden_costs_of_better_fuels
ScienceNews: Biofuels could lose their green sheen if they are grown at the expense of tropical forests. Demand for the liquid fuels could lead to severe deforestation, researchers warn, which would release far more carbon into the atmosphere than that saved by switching to the greener fuels. "The bottom line is that crop-based biofuels are going to increase greenhouse gas emissions if they continue to be produced the way they are today," says Holly Gibbs, a research fellow at Stanford University, ...

Tue, 17 Feb 09
Kenya: Alarm bells over climate change
http://www.nation.co.ke/News/-/1056/530786/-/u2f2a8/-/
Daily Nation: World environmental ministers meet in Nairobi on Monday as a new report warns that Kenya's food security is under serious threat from climate change. If unchecked, the report by environmental experts says, the food crisis could just be a tip of the iceberg as worse things are to come. In its recent findings, the United Nations Environmental Programme (Unep) says the agricultural sector is losing up to Sh200 billion revenue because of soil erosion. Of 58 million hectares ...

Tue, 17 Feb 09
How African farmers are dealing with climate change
http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?c=Article_C&cid=1233567846114&pagename=Zone-English-HealthScience%2FHSELayout
Islam Online: Three shark attacks in Australia in two days sparked a global media frenzy of "Jaws" proportions, but sharks are more at risk in the ocean than humans with Man killing millions of sharks each year. As climate change intensifies through increased temperatures and precipitation, most smallholder farmers in Africa, with the majority living in rural areas, are not adapting to global warming. Low levels of technology and the scarcity of information on climate change are some of the ...

Tue, 17 Feb 09
Saving energy in online activities
http://www.glrc.org/transcript.php3?story_id=4352
Environment Report: One industry that's not suffering in the economic downturn is information technology. The demand for IT keeps growing. But that worries some people. Our growing number of internet searches and data storage is using a lot of energy. Julie Grant reports on how some companies are making their IT more environmentally friendly – and saving money in the process: (sound of an internet search with a tea kettle) By some estimates, two Google searches create the same amount of carbon ...

Tue, 17 Feb 09
United States: The power behind figuring footprint
http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_11712439
Denver Post: Xcel Energy customers in Colorado soon will have the ability to access their usage information online and calculate their so-called carbon footprint, or the amount of carbon dioxide emitted to generate their power and heating needs. The utility is still deciding whether to provide tools for consumers to determine their overall carbon footprint, which would include emissions that come from transportation and, to a lesser extent, food and clothing. "What we're trying to do is ...

Tue, 17 Feb 09
Japan: Retail goods to get carbon labels from summer
http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200902160073.html
Asahi Shimbun: Some of Japan's biggest manufacturers will attach carbon emission labels to their products as early as summer in an effort to enlighten consumers about the environmental impact of their retail choices. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry last week provided guidelines for the new "carbon footprint" system, as part of which manufacturers will reveal the amount of carbon dioxide emitted in the complete life cycle of a product--from production to distribution and finally ...

Tue, 17 Feb 09
Dow chemical plans to sell solar shingles by 2011
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/MI_SOLAR_SHINGLES_AZOL-?SITE=CODEN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Associated Press: Dow Chemical Co. says it aims to start selling power-generating roof shingles by 2011. The Midland-based chemical giant has been at work for the past year on a $50 million project called Dow Solar Solutions. The company's scientists and engineers are working to develop a product to sell thermoplastic solar roof shingles throughout North America. Dow Chemical is collaborating with three home builders - Lennar Corp. of Miami, Pulte Homes Inc. of Bloomfield Hills and Prost ...

Tue, 17 Feb 09
Global warming allows no optimism, scientists warn
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90781/90879/6593040.html
Xinhua: Global warming is likely to worsen faster and cause more environmental damage than scientists have predicted, top scientists warned Saturday. Unless aggressive measures are taken, the greenhouse gases will accumulate faster than expected in the Earth's atmosphere, increasing the danger of irreversible climate change by the end of the century, Chris Field, a leading climate scientist of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said at a meeting here. At the five-day ...

Tue, 17 Feb 09
Indian experts find bacteria to beat global heat
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Earth/Bacteria-to-beat-global-heat/articleshow/4134025.cms
Times of India: In a major breakthrough that could help in the fight against global warming, a team of five Indian scientists from four institutes of the country have discovered a naturally occurring bacteria which converts carbon dioxide (CO2) into a compound found in limestone and chalk. When used as an enzyme â" biomolecules that speed up a chemical reaction â" the bacteria has been found to transform CO2 into calcium carbonate (CaCO3), which can fetch minerals of economic value, said Dr Anjana ...

Tue, 17 Feb 09
Kiribati seeks relocation as climate change sets in
http://solomontimes.com/news.aspx?nwID=3584
Solomon Times: The island nation of Kiribati is following in the steps of the Maldives by preparing for relocation for its people as the rising sea level threatens to submerge the nation. Late last year, the Maldives' newly-elected president, Mohamed Nasheed, announced the nation's plans to buy land for the relocation of its people due to sea level rise, an effect of global warming and climate change. Now the regional island of Kiribati, through its president, Anote Tong, is following suit. ...

Tue, 17 Feb 09
China: Clinton faces tough climate challenge
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/feb/12/hillary-clinton-visit-china
Guardian: The debate about whether to engage China is over – we are now about 20 years into a common-law marriage. The debate about whether China will join the international community also is over. Beijing has been signing up for multilateral forums as if they were going out of style. The great challenge for US secretary of state Hillary Clinton, when she visits Beijing from Friday, is to influence China to play a larger role in preventing global catastrophes in these areas: the economy, nuclear ...

Tue, 17 Feb 09
Hold on to your green idealism
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/16/activism-food
Guardian: In an interesting article, Leo Hickman says that after being out in the cold for decades, environmentalists have been invited to join the party, because mainstream politics now largely "gets" the aims of environmentalism (Welcome to Planet Earth, 14 February). Hickman's article was prompted in part by the Daily Mail's campaign against the abolition of incandescent light bulbs, increased questioning over recycling and other opposition to the changes we need to make to combat climate change. ...

Tue, 17 Feb 09
United Kingdom: Farm wildlife cash 'could return'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7892835.stm
BBC: Farmers in England could once again receive payments for leaving uncultivated land to wildlife, the government has said. The European Commission effectively abandoned the compulsory "set-aside" scheme last year for farmers receiving the Single Payment Scheme. This followed widespread flooding and concerns about high global food prices. But Environment Secretary Hilary Benn said he was looking at replacing set-aside with a voluntary scheme. 'Very ...

Tue, 17 Feb 09
DNV wins back UN authorisation for CDM project approval
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2236559/dnv-wins-back-un-authorisation
Business Green: The UN has reinstated Det Norske Veritas (DNV) as an authorised verifier of emission reduction projects within the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) offset scheme, after the company moved to improve its processes for validating and verifying projects. In a shock move late last year, the executive board of the UN's CDM suspended DNV from accrediting new projects as eligible for the scheme, after spot checks carried out in early November revealed flaws in its auditing processes and ...

Tue, 17 Feb 09
UK nuclear advisory group scrapped after warning of safety risks, insiders claim
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/16/nuclear-safety
Guardian: An expert advisory committee has been quietly scrapped after it warned the future safety of Britain's ageing nuclear plants was being put at risk by poor performance, delays and budget cuts. The Nuclear Safety Advisory Committee (NuSAC), which has been offering critical advice to Britain's health and safety watchdog for nearly 50 years, was disbanded without any public announcement. Former members of NuSAC are now worried about the lack of independent safety advice at a time ...

Tue, 17 Feb 09
Green groups urge cruise industry to leave less pollution in its wake
http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/02/13/business/cruise.php
International Herald Tribune: Moving gently through pristine blue waters, floating past whales and glaciers, fjords and islands, it is easy to see why travelers might think a vacation on a cruise ship is more eco-friendly than jetting through the earth's atmosphere on a plane. Not so, according to Climate Care, a British-based carbon-offsetting company, whose statistics show that cruise ships emit nearly twice as much carbon dioxide as airplanes. "We now know they are far more polluting per passenger-kilometer ...

Tue, 17 Feb 09
Clinton outlines plans for US-China climate talks
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2236550/clinton-outlines-plans-china
Business Green: Disappointment over an apparent lack of progress at the latest round of informal UN-backed climate talks last week were tempered by the news US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is determined to begin work to break the deadlock between the US and China over emission targets on her trip to the country this week. Clinton, who arrived in Tokyo today on her first international trip since taking up her post in Barack Obama's administration, said that brokering a US-Sino climate change ...

Tue, 17 Feb 09
Ocean Less Effective At Absorbing Carbon Dioxide Emitted By Human Activity
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090216092937.htm
ScienceDaily: In the Southern Indian Ocean, climate change is leading to stronger winds, which mix waters, bringing CO2 up from the ocean depths to the surface. This is the conclusion of researchers who have studied the latest field measurements carried out by CNRS's INSU, IPEV and IPSL. As a result, the Southern Ocean can no longer absorb as much atmospheric CO2 as before. Its role as a 'carbon sink' has been weakened, and it may now be ten times less efficient than previously estimated. The same trend ...

Sun, 15 Feb 09
Australia rethinks fire plans after killer blaze
http://www.spacedaily.com/2006/090215045635.1uldcq9m.html
Agence France-Presse: Flying over Australia's deadly wildfires last week, US waterbombing pilot Gary Wiltrout could not believe the ferocity of the inferno he saw below. House after house ignited in rapid succession as showers of red-hot embers and sheets of flame burst across the rugged hills of southeastern Victoria state at 100 kilometres (62 miles) per hour -- the speed of the wind. "I don't think anyone can tell you what it's like up there. It was just absolutely crazy," said the aerial ...

Sun, 15 Feb 09
Pachauri's mantra to check emissions
http://indiatoday.digitaltoday.in/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=29119§ionid=4&issueid=93&Itemid=1
India Today: The earth is expected to warm up at a much faster pace in the 21st century than predicted so far mainly because of India and China's increasing coal- based energy production, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). IPCC chairman Dr Rajendra K. Pachauri says developed countries, hence, need to cut down on their emissions -- to allow developing countries to progress. The IPCC has published four comprehensive assessment reports on human-induced climate ...

Sun, 15 Feb 09
Pace of Climate Change Exceeds Estimates
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/14/AR2009021401757.html
Washington Post: The pace of global warming is likely to be much faster than recent predictions, because industrial greenhouse gas emissions have increased more quickly than expected and higher temperatures are triggering self-reinforcing feedback mechanisms in global ecosystems, scientists said Saturday. "We are basically looking now at a future climate that's beyond anything we've considered seriously in climate model simulations," Christopher Field, founding director of the Carnegie Institution's ...

Sun, 15 Feb 09
Switching to solar power
http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2009/02/15/switching_to_solar_power/
Boston Globe: Cara Morano has had a lifelong interest in renewable energy. When she was just 6 years old, she remembers sitting on her father's lap and saying to him, "All the signs on the street should be able to take sunlight during the day and use it to light up at night." As an adult, she lives in an Energy Star home in Western Massachusetts, drives a hybrid Honda Civic, buys in bulk, and still feels strongly about conservation and consumption. So, when a position as a solar energy ...

Sun, 15 Feb 09
UN urges world to tackle mercury health threat
http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/latest_news.php?nid=14994
Agence France-Presse: The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) on Sunday urged environment ministers meeting this week in Nairobi to adopt a strategy to curb the use of the highly toxic metal mercury. "The world's environment ministers meeting in Nairobi, Kenya this week can take a landmark decision to lift a global health threat from the lives of hundreds of millions of people," UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said in a statement. More than 100 environment ministers from around the ...

Sun, 15 Feb 09
India: Asian brown cloud has robbed West Bengal of winter
http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/feature/asian-brown-cloud-has-robbed-west-bengal-of-winter_100155258.html
Indo-Asian News Service: Winter wear hardly got out of cupboards this year in West Bengal, as it never really got cold. Environmental experts feel a blanket of pollutants in the air, called the Asian Brown Cloud, could be responsible for the climate change. "For the past few years we have not been experiencing winter in West Bengal. This environmental change is caused by the formation of the Asian Brown Cloud," environmentalist Pranabesh Sanyal, who is also a member of the World Conservation Union, told ...

Sun, 15 Feb 09
Hybrid vehicles could slash carbon dioxide emissions by 2050
http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/008200902150922.htm
Indo-Asian News Service: The quantum of carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles anticipated in the year 2050 could be cut down to 2000 levels if all cars on the roads were hybridised, a new study has shown. The study also found that doubling of population density in large US cities by 2050 would have a greater impact on carbon dioxide reductions than full hybridisation of the vehicle fleet. The study by Brian Stone, associate professor at Georgia Institute of Technology, looked at 11 major metropolitan ...

Sun, 15 Feb 09
Global warming seen worse than predicted
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090214/ts_nm/us_climate
Reuters: The climate is heating up far faster than scientists had predicted, spurred by sharp increases in greenhouse gas emissions from developing countries like China and India, a top climate scientist said on Saturday. "The consequence of that is we are basically looking now at a future climate that is beyond anything that we've considered seriously," Chris Field, a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, told the American Association for the Advancement of Science ...

Sun, 15 Feb 09
Climate change could be even worse than feared
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090214/sc_afp/usclimatewarming
Agence France-Presse: It seems the dire warnings about future devastation sparked by global warming have not been dire enough, top climate scientists warned Saturday. It has been just over a year since the Nobel-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published a landmark report warning of rising sea levels, expanding deserts, more intense storms and the extinction of up to 30 percent of plant and animal species. But recent climate studies suggest that report significantly ...

Sun, 15 Feb 09
Climate Change Likely To Be More Devastating Than Experts Predicted, Warns Top IPCC Scientist
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090214162648.htm
ScienceDaily: Without decisive action, global warming in the 21st century is likely to accelerate at a much faster pace and cause more environmental damage than predicted, according to a leading member of the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. IPCC scientist Chris Field of Stanford University and the Carnegie Institution for Science points to recent studies showing that, in a business-as-usual world, higher temperatures could ignite tropical forests and melt the Arctic ...

Sun, 15 Feb 09
Biofuels may speed up, not slow global warming: study
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090214/ts_alt_afp/usclimatewarmingenergyfarmbiofuel
Agence France-Presse: The use of crop-based biofuels could speed up rather than slow down global warming by fueling the destruction of rainforests, scientists warned Saturday. Once heralded as the answer to oil, biofuels have become increasingly controversial because of their impact on food prices and the amount of energy it takes to produce them. They could also be responsible for pumping far more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than they could possibly save as a replacement for fossil fuels, ...

Sun, 15 Feb 09
United Kingdom: Threat of gas price rise as reserves run dry
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/threat-of-gas-price-rise-as-reserves-run-dry-1622469.html
Independent: Britain faces an energy crisis next month as vital gas reserves run dry, top energy analysts warn. The unprecedented emergency, which exposes a gaping hole in the country's energy security, is expected to lead to sharp price increases. Centrica, which owns British Gas, told The Independent on Sunday late last week that, on present trends, its main reserve would be totally depleted in a little over three weeks. And though extra gas can be imported from Norway and the Netherlands to ...

Sun, 15 Feb 09
Fashion tycoon turns environmentalist spending fortune to save the planet
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/12/doug-tompkins-patagonia-conservation-environment-fashion-dan-mcdougall
Guardian: A dark intertwine of deep green fjords stretches beneath us towards the horizon where the confluence of the glacial current merges with the black stillness of the open sea. Far to the south, where epic waves torment Cape Horn's cold granite cliffs, three great oceans - the Pacific, the South Atlantic and the Antarctic - meet in a cacophony of turbulent waves and deadly squalls. It is the stormy heart of the most unpredictable weather system on earth. "My Patagonia," in the words of the poet ...

Sun, 15 Feb 09
Coal-fired power stations are death factories. Close them
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/15/james-hansen-power-plants-coal
Guardian: A year ago, I wrote to Gordon Brown asking him to place a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants in Britain. I have asked the same of Angela Merkel, Barack Obama, Kevin Rudd and other leaders. The reason is this - coal is the single greatest threat to civilisation and all life on our planet. The climate is nearing tipping points. Changes are beginning to appear and there is a potential for explosive changes, effects that would be irreversible, if we do not rapidly slow fossil-fuel ...

Sun, 15 Feb 09
Coal at centre of fierce new climate battle
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/15/carbon-capture-emissions
Guardian: Engineers on the Sleipner East platform in the North Sea can lay claim to a unique environmental honour. Each year for the past decade they have pumped a million tonnes of carbon dioxide into an old gas field below their rig, a helpful contribution to the easing of global warming. But there is more to the project, run by the Norwegian energy company StatoilHydro, than providing the world with some short-term climatic action. The engineers have also been studying the fate of that CO2 ...

Sun, 15 Feb 09
Global warming 'underestimated'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7890988.stm
BBC: The severity of global warming over the next century will be much worse than previously believed, a leading climate scientist has warned. Professor Chris Field, an author of a 2007 landmark report on climate change, said future temperatures "will be beyond anything" predicted. Prof Field said the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report had underestimated the rate of change. He said warming is likely to cause more environmental damage than ...

Sun, 15 Feb 09
Climate warming gases rising faster than expected
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090214/ap_on_sc/sci_climate_change
Associated Press: Despite widespread concern over global warming, humans are adding carbon to the atmosphere even faster than in the 1990s, researchers warned Saturday. Carbon dioxide and other gases added to the air by industrial and other activities have been blamed for rising temperatures, increasing worries about possible major changes in weather and climate. Carbon emissions have been growing at 3.5 percent per year since 2000, up sharply from the 0.9 percent per year in the 1990s, ...

Sun, 15 Feb 09
Biofuels boom could fuel rainforest destruction, Stanford researcher warns
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-02/su-bbc021309.php
EurekAlert: Farmers across the tropics might raze forests to plant biofuel crops, according to new research by Holly Gibbs, a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford's Woods Institute for the Environment. "If we run our cars on biofuels produced in the tropics, chances will be good that we are effectively burning rainforests in our gas tanks," she warned. Policies favoring biofuel crop production may inadvertently contribute to, not slow, the process of climate change, Gibbs said. Such an ...

Sun, 15 Feb 09
Foes of Mountaintop Removal Have no Ally in the White House The Myth of Clean Coal
http://www.atlanticfreepress.com/news/1/8051-foes-of-mountaintop-removal-have-no-ally-in-the-white-house-the-myth-of-clean-coal-.html
Atlantic Free Press: Barack Obama seems to be following a dirty legacy when it comes to his official energy policy, a policy that has left Appalachia with fewer mountaintops every year. The price of oil per barrel fluctuated dramatically in the past year, and the U.S.'s dependency on foreign crude has become less stable as tensions in the Middle East have escalated. Over his long campaign, Obama laid out his strategy on how to deal with the crisis, which has been exacerbated by the war in Iraq and the ...

Sun, 15 Feb 09
Climate change may alter malaria patterns
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-02/ps-cc020409.php
EurekAlert: Temperature is an important factor in the spread of malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases, but researchers who look at average monthly or annual temperatures are not seeing the whole picture. Global climate change will affect daily temperature variations, which can have a more pronounced effect on parasite development, according to a Penn State entomologist. "We need higher resolution environmental and biological data to understand how climate change will affect the spread of the ...

Sun, 15 Feb 09
NH town sees economic potential of timber as fuel
http://www.seacoastonline.com/articles/20090214-NEWS-90214003
Associated Press: The decades-long decline of the local paper industry finally did in Berlin's smoke-belching pulp mill in 2006. The year after the 100-year-old plant closed its doors, thousands gathered to watch a demolition crew topple three of its smokestacks. Today, the thousands of acres of surrounding forest have some eyeing the city as a future renewable energy hub. The economic stimulus bill being debated in Congress could make billions of dollars available for homegrown, renewable energy has ...

Sun, 15 Feb 09
Surprising Results in German-Indian CO2 Capture Experiment
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4029585,00.html
Deutsche Welle: Scientists testing an idea to combat global warming have seen unexpected results as the experiment proceeds in polar waters, a German science official said on Saturday, Feb 14. One type of algae, haptophytes, reproduced rapidly in the ocean after a nutrient-rich eddy of water, 1,530 kilometers northeast of the island of South Georgia, was fertilized with iron by Indian and German scientists. Ulrich Bathmann, head of bioscience at the Alfred Wegener Polar and Oceanography ...

Sun, 15 Feb 09
UN Expects 50% Increase in Emissions-Project Requests This Year
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601100&sid=a7mWIS8cAUR4&refer=germany
Bloomberg: The United Nations' emissions- trading market, the world's second-largest, expects a 50 percent increase in greenhouse-gas-reduction-project registrations this year, boosting the supply of tradable credits. Applications will likely jump to 1,000 from 666 last year, the Clean Development Mechanism Executive Board, regulator of the program, said in a report published yesterday on the Web site of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Proposals for issuances of certified ...

Sun, 15 Feb 09
What Invasive Species Are Trying to Tell Us
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2009/02/what-invasive-species-are-trying-tell-us
Mother Jones: Les Gibson takes me out to teach me how to hunt, which is what he calls fishing. Despite the fact that every public beach in Queensland, Australia, has been periodically closed this season due to blooms of box jellyfish, and despite the fearsome saltwater crocodiles living here, Les strides confidently into the bay with a pair of 10-foot-long bamboo spears and his wooden woomera, the multipurpose Aboriginal atlatl, or spear-thrower. When I ask him if he worries about jellyfish, he ...

Sun, 15 Feb 09
Arctic fishing ban report places pressure on Canada
http://www.canada.com/news/Arctic+fishing+report+places+pressure+Canada/1291100/story.html
Canwest News Service: A U.S. report urging a moratorium on Arctic Ocean fisheries north of Alaska is putting pressure on Canada to produce its own sustainable, long-term strategy for managing what scientists believe could become a major new resource in the polar region's warming waters. The proposed ban on Arctic fishing by the U.S. North Pacific Fishery Management Council - at least until researchers can fully assess the impact of climate change and the retreat of sea ice on fish populations widely ...

Sun, 15 Feb 09
Greenland's loss seen as warning
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/dominionpost/4846870a27490.html
Dominion Post: The demise of Greenland's indigenous fishing villages should be a warning to us all, says a Kiwi who has seen the devastating impact of global warming. Otago University student Susan Smirk spent five days in Greenland filming footage for a documentary about the impact of climate change, after her high school film-making team won the Freemasons Big Science Adventures film competition, run by the Royal Society of New Zealand. She and her team visited the abandoned village of ...

Sun, 15 Feb 09
The end of certainty
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/global-warming/the-end-of-certainty-20090213-876f.html
Sydney Morning Herald: When hundreds of small, grey-headed flying foxes began falling from the sky at Yarra Bend in suburban Melbourne, for some it heralded the awful events that would later unfold. It was Wednesday, January 28, one day into the ferocious heatwave that would wax and wane before returning with terrible intensity last weekend. That first day, calls began pouring into Wildlife Victoria. As the bats were dying en masse in the city, ringtail possums were falling out of trees in the bush and ...

Sun, 15 Feb 09
Blooms away: The real price of flowers
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=environmental-price-of-flowers
Scientific American: Roses are red... They are also fragile and almost always flown to the U.S. from warmer climes in South America, where roughly 80 percent of our roses take root; to warm the hearts of European sweethearts, they are most often imported from Africa. They are then hauled in temperature-controlled trucks across the U.S. or the Continent and locked up overnight in cold boxes before their onward journey to the florists of the world. According to Flowerpetal.com, which tries to limit the ...

Sun, 15 Feb 09
Moving to a warmer climate
http://www.qctimes.com/articles/2009/02/13/features/home_garden/doc4995f15f4188a240638033.txt
Quad-City Times: When the temperature dropped to 27 degrees below zero in the Quad-Cities last month, you may have wondered whatever happened to global warming. If our climate is getting warmer, shouldn't winters be milder, too? Actually, the answer is no, says Elwynn Taylor, professor of agronomy and climatologist at the Iowa State University Extension in Ames. "We're getting overall warmer, but during warming times we get more extremes,' he explains. "Although the typical Midwest ...

Sun, 15 Feb 09
Does stimulus package keep green goals in sight?
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100584448
National Public Radio: President Obama has said the stimulus package will move America toward a greener future. The package will pump billions of dollars into environmentally friendly programs, but it won't forge the major changes necessary to fight climate change and wean the U.S. from imported oil. And some provisions could make it harder to reach those goals. The top priority of a stimulus package is to spend the money quickly to give the economy a jolt. That means pouring money into existing programs ...

Sun, 15 Feb 09
Clinton takes on China
http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.htm?programID=09-P13-00007&segmentID=2
Living on Earth: GELLERMAN: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is on her way to China. It's her first trip overseas as the top U.S diplomat and near the top of her agenda is climate change. China and the United States are the world's biggest producers of greenhouse gases and any hope of a global agreement to reduce emissions will require getting the industrial rivals to find common ground -- it's a task made a lot tougher by the current economic downturn. But as Living on Earth's Jeff Young ...

Sun, 15 Feb 09
United Kingdom: Merseyside to lead "green revolution"
http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2009/02/13/merseyside-to-lead-green-revolution-92534-22919282/
Liverpool Daily Post: TENS of thousands of homes across Merseyside will be offered a "green makeover" -- and the chance to slash their heating bills -- by pioneering Britain`s war on global warming. The properties will be among the first in the country to be made properly energy efficient, as will those in pockets of Halton, Warrington and Ellesmere Port and Neston The £350m scheme -- which is being compared to the 1960s drive to convert homes to gas central heating -- will see energy companies go ...

Sun, 15 Feb 09
Canada: Oilsands production could get even dirtier: Pembina Institute
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/Technology/Oilsands%20production%20could%20even%20dirtier%20Pembina%20Institute/1287406/story.html
Edmonton Journal: Alberta's plan to allow in-situ oilsands operations to switch from natural gas to dirtier fuels would significantly increase greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution, the Pembina Institute said Friday. The environmental think tank was responding to a draft policy, which was open for public comment until Friday. The policy would set standards for more carbon-intensive fossil fuels such as raw bitumen or the waste from oilsands upgrading (petroleum coke and ...

Sun, 15 Feb 09
Sweden: Nuclear power in the Nordics: Recalled to half-life
http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13110000
Economist: IN WHAT may be his boldest move so far, Sweden's Fredrik Reinfeldt has shredded a central part of the election manifesto on which his centre-right government fought the election in 2006. The four parties in his coalition have long been split over nuclear power. So they agreed in the manifesto to keep all matters atomic off the agenda until their term expired in 2010. But a combination of tight climate-change targets, energy-security worries and a wobbly economy has now caused a rethink. On ...

Sun, 15 Feb 09
Australia's hellish wildfires
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13109772
Economist: A WEEK after bushfires started blazing across parts of southern Australia, the country was still coming to grips with one of the most traumatic events in its peacetime history. The fires that erupted on February 7th in Victoria, the second-most populous state, killed more than 180 people. Police say the toll could reach 300. The final count will be left to authorities with the grim task of sifting through landscapes blackened by flames so ferocious that they melted car parts and devoured ...

Sun, 15 Feb 09
Nike takes lead on climate change
http://www.bizjournals.com/portland/stories/2009/02/16/story4.html?b=1234760400%5E1778118
Portland Business Journal: Nike Inc. has joined with several retail heavyweights, including Starbucks Corp. and Levi Strauss & Co. to make an aggressive push for federal action on climate change. Last fall, the Washington County-based sportswear giant formed the group Business for Innovative Climate & Energy Policy -- or BICEP -- to advocate for a national cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions. Such a system would set a limit on greenhouse gas emissions. Companies that exceeded the limit ...

Sun, 15 Feb 09
Expect climate 'surprises,' scientists warn
http://www.azstarnet.com/metro/280245
Arizona Daily Star: It's time to expect the unexpected. The director of UA's Institute for Environment and Society issued the warning Friday with two other experts during a symposium to address climate change. The debate on why the world is warming has ended, according to the presenting scientists. Now that it's established that humans at least partially responsible, they say, it's critical to focus on how climate change might affect life in the 21st century and what can be done to manage the ...

Sun, 15 Feb 09
United States: Court denies reviews of mine permits
http://wvgazette.com/News/200902130739
Charleston Gazette: For the fourth time in eight years, a federal appeals court has overturned a court ruling that would have required more thorough permit reviews of mountaintop removal coal-mining operations. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision, issued Friday in Richmond, Va., was a major victory for the coal industry, and a huge setback for environmental groups that want to stop or seriously limit large-scale strip mining across Appalachia. By a 2-1 vote, a 4th Circuit panel ...

Sun, 15 Feb 09
Cruise lines urged to shrink their footprints
http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/travel/15green.html
New York Times: Not so, according to Climate Care, a United Kingdom-based carbon-offsetting company, whose statistics show that cruise ships emit nearly twice as much carbon dioxide as airplanes. "We now know they are far more polluting per passenger kilometer than planes," said Justin Francis, co-founder of Responsibletravel.com, a directory of environmentally friendly vacations that partners with Climate Care. "Add to that the fact that many passengers fly to the port of departure before boarding," he ...

Sun, 15 Feb 09
United States: A new gang comes to Los Angeles: Solar-panel installers
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123457326090086555.html
Wall Street Journal: When Albert Ortega was released from prison four months ago, he was determined to turn his life around. So he went green. Mr. Ortega sports tattoos of an Aztec warrior on his back, a dragon on his chest and the name of his former gang, the East Side Wilmas, rings his biceps. Drug trafficking kept him locked up for most of the past seven years, he says. But after serving his last term, for 18 months, he heard about a solar-panel installation course. "I wanted a new way of life," ...

Sun, 15 Feb 09
Small town in Illinois might win big
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123457312070186525.html
Wall Street Journal: Most cities will consider themselves lucky to get a new viaduct or a freshened-up high school once Washington's $787 billion in stimulus money starts flowing. But that is small change for this railroad town 190 miles south of Chicago. People here are fishing for something far greater: a $1.8 billion high-tech power plant, called FutureGen, long sought by the state's politicians and the town with a population of 18,000. Conservatives have blasted the project as the mother of all ...

Sun, 15 Feb 09
Canada: Dangerous floods in our future
http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/News/Local/2009/02/13/8387991.html
London Free Press: The dangerous, unseasonal flooding that caught the London region off-guard this week is a sign of climate-ravaged things to come, a world expert on the subject warns. Gordon McBean, a 2007 Nobel Prize-sharing climate-change expert at the University of Western Ontario, said yesterday extreme weather woes -- and all the problems that come with them -- could soon become the norm. "The message (from this week's flooding) is it's a harbinger of the future," McBean said, following an ...

Sun, 15 Feb 09
The 'holy grail' of biofuels now in sight
http://features.csmonitor.com/environment/2009/02/13/the-%E2%80%98holy-grail%E2%80%99-of-biofuels-now-in-sight/
Christian Science Monitor: With one foot planted in a pile of corn cobs, Mark Stowers explains how agricultural waste, transformed into ethanol, will turbocharge the US economy, boost its energy security, and help save the planet, too. This holy grail of biofuels, called cellulosic ethanol, has been "five years from commercialization" for so long that even Dr. Stowers admits it's become a joke. But now the research director for POET, the nation's largest ethanolmaker, based in Sioux Falls, S.D., says ...

Sun, 15 Feb 09
: Center for Biological Diversity Declares Legal War on Global Warming
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2009/2009-02-13-091.asp
Environment News Service: To fight climate change, the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity Thursday opened a new law institute in San Francisco and announced the dedication of an initial $17 million to the project. The Climate Law Institute will use existing laws and work to establish new state and federal laws that will eliminate energy generation by the burning of fossil fuels - particularly coal and oil shale. Burning these materials emits greenhouse gases into the atmosphere that have already ...

Sun, 15 Feb 09
Mass Media Often Failing In Its Coverage Of Global Warming, Says Climate Researcher
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090213114321.htm
ScienceDaily: "Business managers of media organizations, you are screwing up your responsibility by firing science and environment reporters who are frankly the only ones competent to do this," said climate researcher and policy analyst Stephen Schneider, in assessing the current state of media coverage of global warming and related issues. Schneider, a coordinating lead author of chapter 19 in the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published in 2007, is calling for the news ...

Sun, 15 Feb 09
Including Native Perennials In Biofuel Crops Could Keep Watersheds Healthy
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090213114218.htm
ScienceDaily: Field work and computer simulations in Michigan and Wisconsin are helping biofuels researchers understand the basics of getting home-grown energy from the field to consumers. Preliminary results suggest that incorporating native, perennial plants during biofuels production reduces emissions of greenhouse gases, improves water quality and enhances biodiversity. The results are part of an experimental effort to make biofuels economically and environmentally sustainable. "If we can make ...

Sun, 15 Feb 09
Irish firms still committed to energy efficiency research
http://www.edie.net/news/news_story.asp?id=15998
Edie: In spite of the tough economic climate, a significant proportion of Irish companies intend to carry on investing in research and development, particularly when it comes to boosting their energy efficiency levels, a new study has found. Research carried out across Europe by accountancy firm KPMG found that firms all over the continent are currently suffering from a lack of confidence. While the Czech Republic and Greece were found to have the least optimistic expectations over ...

Sun, 15 Feb 09
European cities pledge to cut carbon
http://www.edie.net/news/news_story.asp?id=15997
Edie: A coalition of European cities have formalised plans to work together to reduce their contribution to climate change. The Covenant of Mayors sees cities sign up to making deeper carbon cuts by 2020 than are currently required by the EU. London is among the cities to have adopted the new goals, though City Hall had already set a goal of reducing the capital's emissions by 60% by 2025, I greater target than that set by Europe. Signing the Covenant also gives cities more ...

Sun, 15 Feb 09
Cap-and-Trade in Washington State by 2012? Maybe Not
http://www.climatebiz.com/blog/2009/02/13/cap-and-trade-washington-state-2012-maybe-not
ClimateBiz: Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire has proposed legislation that would enable the state to participate in a regional greenhouse gas (GHG) cap-and-trade system in 2012. But the details of how the system would work -- including the contentious issues of offsets and whether emissions credits will be auctioned or freely allocated -- are left to an as-yet unnamed panel to decide. By the time these hard decisions are made, a federal program may or may not be in place, which may or may not ...

Sun, 15 Feb 09
Sundance Honor for Film of Early Save-the-Earth Activists
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=118503
New York Times: WHEN he was just 11 years old and living in Princeton, Robert Stone borrowed his parents' Super 8 camera and made his first film, about the pollution he saw around him. He made it in honor of the country's first Earth Day, which was held that year. Thirty-nine years later, Mr. Stone, now a well-known documentary filmmaker, has made "Earth Days," a film about the start of the environmental movement in this country. It was recently given the honor of being chosen as the closing film at ...

Sat, 14 Feb 09
Australia: Bushfires still burning, one week on
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/02/14/2491514.htm
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: One week after Victoria's deadly bushfires began, firefighters are still battling 19 blazes burning across the state. Favourable weather conditions this weekend are expected to assist fire crews batting the bushfires, which have claimed at least 181 lives, destroyed more than 1,800 homes and scorched 450,000 hectares of land to the north, north-east and east of Melbourne. The blazes have also left about 7,000 people homeless and the death toll is expected to rise. Of the ...

Sat, 14 Feb 09
Low Carbon Price To Cut Renewables Investment
http://planetark.org/enviro-news/item/51596
Reuters: Record low carbon prices have cut the attractiveness of investments in renewable energy and may even favor the construction of new, high-carbon coal plants, conflicting with the aims of Europe's carbon market. The EU emissions trading scheme is the 27-nation bloc's main weapon to fight global warming. It imposes a cap on carbon emissions by factories and power plants using a fixed quota of emissions permits. The scheme is meant to force power plants, for example, to cut their ...

Sat, 14 Feb 09
'Blame global warming' for higher temps
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-02/14/content_7476978.htm
China Daily: Temperatures in most cities rose above 20 C on Friday, 10 degrees above the seasonal average and despite some light rain falling the day before, the NMC said. In large parts of Hunan, the mercury rose to 30 C, while Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu province, saw its highest temperature for the time of year in nearly a century, topping out at 27.7 C. In Yibin, Sichuan, temperatures rose 10 C to 36 C in just an hour on Thursday afternoon, before falling back to normal ...

Sat, 14 Feb 09
Global Warming: No time to hesitate
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/400073_warmreported.html
Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Global warming will act locally. As a new report documents, Washington faces serious troubles that must move state leaders to act quickly and aggressively. This is no time for hesitation. Without concerted action at every level, climate change will only worsen. States and countries that use the economic downturn as an excuse for inaction will find themselves even bigger losers as the economy revives. Worse, the overall scale of problems with higher temperatures, wildfires, ...

Sat, 14 Feb 09
US stimulus bill likely to revive green power
http://uk.reuters.com/article/usTopNews/idUKTRE51C6OF20090213
Reuters: The U.S. renewable energy sector, which has been hit hard by the banking crisis, will get a new lifeline from the economic stimulus package that is expected to pass the U.S. Congress on Friday. The flow of new wind and solar projects has slowed to a dribble in the past few months, forcing some solar companies to lay off workers and others to temporarily idle production lines as banks shut off capital flows to the industry. "I think this is very, very helpful and productive," ...

Sat, 14 Feb 09
Research highlights potential for improved solar cells
http://www.innovations-report.de/html/berichte/biowissenschaften_chemie/research_highlights_potential_improved_solar_cells_127256.html
Innovations Report: A team of Los Alamos researchers led by Victor Klimov has shown that carrier multiplication--when a photon creates multiple electrons--is a real phenomenon in tiny semiconductor crystals and not a false observation born of extraneous effects that mimic carrier multiplication. The research, explained in a recent issue of Accounts of Chemical Research, shows the possibility of solar cells that create more than one unit of energy per photon. Questions about the ability to increase ...

Sat, 14 Feb 09
In a recession, CO2 offset buyers want quality
http://uk.reuters.com/article/behindTheScenes/idUKTRE51B40M20090212
Reuters: Prices are falling in a voluntary market in carbon offsets which allows companies to show they are cutting their contribution to climate change but in a recession buyers are concentrating on what they buy and not how many. With companies struggling to raise cash, buying carbon offsets -- often used for brand management -- may be seen as an unnecessary luxury, but market participants and analysts say the market is surviving, although at lower prices. "Buyers are definitely more ...

Sat, 14 Feb 09
Clinton tries to build China climate pact
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/14/hillary-clinton-china-climate
Guardian: Hillary Clinton hopes to recruit China as a partner in American efforts to reduce global warming when she embarks on her first trip as secretary of state with a seven-day tour through Asia this week. Clinton believes that creating common ground on climate change, starting with a presidential summit later this year, will help reconfigure America's ties with China, advisers say. A partnership between the world's two biggest polluters would significantly raise the prospects of a global ...

Sat, 14 Feb 09
Tree-huggers v nerds
http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13109915
Economist: LAST December California approved a power line between San Diego and the Imperial Valley--a spot blessed with sun, wind and geothermal energy resources. The Sunrise Powerlink would twist around a state park, an Indian reservation and much of a forest (see map). Its builders would be banned from harming burrowing owls or rattlesnakes. It is just the sort of green infrastructure project that might be expected to delight environmentalists. Their response? An appeal and a petition to the state ...

Sat, 14 Feb 09
Nations must 'act now' on climate change
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5c388b14-f925-11dd-ab7f-000077b07658.html
Financial Times: Countries must begin adapting to the effects of climate change as a matter of urgency or face serious effects from global warming, a leading industry group warned on Thursday. Water and sewage infrastructure, the electricity network and transport were all at risk from the effects of climate change, including floods, droughts and severe storms, said the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, an international body for the engineering industry. It urged governments around the world ...

Sat, 14 Feb 09
Canada: Scientist: Politicians ignoring climate change warnings
http://www.edmontonsun.com/News/Canada/2009/02/12/8369921.html
Canadian Press: An award-winning scientist says Canada's countless lakes contain vital warnings about the effects of climate change but politicians are allowing the information to dribble through their fingers. Biologist David Schindler of the University of Alberta says the warnings include dwindling water levels and lakes emitting high amounts of greenhouse gases. There is also evidence of the growing destruction of fresh water habitat that supports plants, fish and other organisms. He ...

Sat, 14 Feb 09
Great Lakes not enough to quench water shortage: Report
http://www.montrealgazette.com/Great+Lakes+enough+quench+water+shortage+Report/1282988/story.html
Canwest News Service: Even the Great Lakes aren't great enough to sustain North Americans' reckless water use in the event of a continentwide water shortage, according to a new report. The report -- titled Sentinels of Change and set for release in Friday's edition of Science -- suggests the Great Lakes' scant renewal rates would not provide enough water to get through a full-blown crisis. "I think we have to stop considering the Great Lakes as the thing that's going to irrigate the Red River Valley ...

Sat, 14 Feb 09
Coal exec eyes carbon control details
http://uk.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idUKN1246703720090213
Reuters: The second largest U.S. coal producer, Arch Coal Inc (ACI.N), could support a carbon control program that helps develop technology allowing continued use of coal, Arch Chairman and CEO Steven F. Leer said Thursday. President Obama has proposed, and many analysts expect Congress to pass, a program that caps total U.S. carbon emissions and allows companies to trade allowances as they find ways to comply. "We think ultimately this Congress will pass a cap and trade," Leer ...

Sat, 14 Feb 09
Australia: Climate change to bring worse bushfires
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2008/s2491257.htm
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: MARK COLVIN: There was Black Friday in 1939, Ash Wednesday in 1983, and now this. Some climatologists are already seeing it as an accelerating pattern of bushfire activity, made worse by global warming. Stephan Faris, who's visiting Australia for the Perth Writers Festival, is an international journalist who's written a book called "Forecast" about the future effects of climate change on politics, immigration, water sharing and international conflict. He believes the ...

Sat, 14 Feb 09
Weather Eye: is extreme weather a sign of global warming?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weather/article5730098.ece
Times (UK): The horrific bushfires in southern Australia last week came during a fierce heatwave when the temperature soared to 48.8C (119.8F) at Hopetoun, Victoria -- believed to be the highest temperature recorded so far south in the southern hemisphere. Apart from the heat, hardly a drop of rain has fallen in the region this year. This follows 12 years of abnormally low rainfall, the worst drought on record for southern Australia, which has turned huge swathes of farmland to dust. Is ...

Sat, 14 Feb 09
United States: FAA finds Cape Wind project would cause radar interference
http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2009/02/faa_finds_cape.html
Boston Globe: Federal aviation officials issued a report today finding that the Cape Wind project, which calls for erecting 130 wind turbines in Nantucket Sound, would pose a "presumed hazard" for airplanes because of interference with air traffic control radar systems. "Initial findings of this study indicate that the structure as described exceeds obstruction standards and/or would have an adverse physical or electromagnetic interference effect," the Federal Aviation Administration said in the ...

Sat, 14 Feb 09
Seeing The Forest And The Trees Helps Cut Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090213114313.htm
ScienceDaily: Putting a price tag on carbon dioxide emitted by different land use practices could dramatically change the way that land is used -- forests become increasingly valuable for storing carbon and overall carbon emissions reductions become cheaper, according to research presented today at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. "Without valuing the carbon in land, we risk losing large swaths of unmanaged ecosystems to agricultural crops and ...

Sat, 14 Feb 09
'Facts suggest that letting bikers sidle up alongside cyclists in bus lanes is a recipe for disaster'
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/james-daley-facts-suggest-that-letting-bikers-sidle-up-alongside-cyclists-in-bus-lanes-is-a-recipe-for-disaster-1606977.html
Independent (UK): For more than a month now, cyclists in London have been forced to share most of the city's major bus lanes with motorcyclists -- the bright idea of Mayor Boris Johnson who, in spite of his self-professed love of bicycles, seems to be doing everything he can to make life more difficult for those of us who share his alleged passion. Allowing bikers into bus lanes has -- as predicted -- made the experience of cycling in London just that little bit more dangerous. One motorbike on its own ...

Sat, 14 Feb 09
'Crazy ideas ' to fight global warming revealed by scientists
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/4611654/Crazy-ideas--to-fight-global-warming-revealed-by-scientists.html
Telegraph: As further evidence emerges of the threat of climate change, scientists around the world are developing tools to try to stop the temperatures rising. The science known as "geo-engineering" is considered dangerous by some for interfering with the world's delicate ecosystems, however advocates claim that it could "save the world" from catastrophic global warming. A new series on Discovery Channel from this Sunday looks at some of the methods being proposed by scientists around ...

Sat, 14 Feb 09
'CO2 reduction treaties useless'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7888994.stm
BBC: A new report says treaties aimed at reducing CO2 emissions are useless. The Institution of Mechanical Engineers report says we have to accept the world could change dramatically. It also says we should start planning our major infrastructure now to accommodate more extreme weather events and sea level rises. While not against attempts to reduce emissions, the report's authors say we should be realistic about what can be achieved with this ...

Sat, 14 Feb 09
New biofuels to come from many sources: conference
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51C5R320090213?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: New-generation biofuels will come from a wide range of sources and no single feedstock may dominate, a conference on second generation biofuels organized by German commodity analysts F.O. Licht heard on Friday. Non-food plants and crops mentioned at the conference as possibilities for use in future biofuels range from corn husks, grasses and algae to jatropha oilseeds, tree bark and twigs. First generation green fuels aimed at reducing global warming are largely produced from ...

Sat, 14 Feb 09
Democrats: U.S. carmakers must make "tough decisions"
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51C5QQ20090213?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: General Motors Corp and Chrysler LLC must show in their turnaround plans next week that they are willing to "make the tough decisions" on debt restructuring, fuel efficiency and other issues, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Friday. Pelosi and House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank said in a joint letter to each company that despite recession and other national economic hardship, GM and Chrysler still had a high bar to meet by the end of March if they expect ...

Sat, 14 Feb 09
U.S. court overturns ban on W. Virginia surface mining
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51C65820090213?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: A U.S. Court of Appeals on Friday overturned a lower court ruling that had banned surface, or mountaintop, mining in West Virginia, according to court documents. The ruling was hailed by the coal mining companies who have turned to mountaintop mining as an economical alternative to traditional underground mines in Appalachia where production is declining. The environmentalists who brought the original case said they would assess their next legal move, but vowed to fight on ...

Sat, 14 Feb 09
Now for a Water Bankruptcy
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45769
Inter Press Service: Rarely a week goes by without a problem of water scarcity hitting the headlines. The acute droughts in Kenya, Argentina and the U.S. state of California are among the latest phenomena to illustrate that the global environment has been dangerously degraded. And participants in the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, heard that the planet could be destined towards "water bankruptcy". It might surprise many to learn, then, that water issues are not directly included in the ...

Sat, 14 Feb 09
Argentina: Tenacious Drought Puzzles Climate Experts
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45768
Inter Press Service: For months now, yellowed pastures, cracked soil and dead livestock have been the landscape of what otherwise are the most productive farming areas of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. Scientists say it is so far impossible to determine if the drought is a manifestation of climate change processes. "Climate change cannot be characterised by one single event, but rather by a series over the long term," University of Buenos Aires climatologist Vicente Barros, member of the ...

Sat, 14 Feb 09
Samsung to unveil solar-powered mobile
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2236482/samsung-unveil-solar-powered
Business Green: Electronics giant Samsung appears to have won the race to develop the world's first solar-powered mobile phone with the news it is to unveil its new Blue Earth mobile phone at next week's Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona. According to reports, the touch-screen phone will feature an integrated solar panel on the back of the handset capable of topping up the battery throughout the day. Samsung failed to give technical specifications on how much energy the solar panels will ...

Sat, 14 Feb 09
Australian bushfires pump out millions of tonnes of carbon
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/13/carbonemissions-australia
Guardian: The deadly bush fires in Australia have released millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, equivalent to more than a third of the country's CO2 emissions for a whole year, according to scientists. The blazes in Victoria have so far claimed more than 180 lives and destroyed more than 750 homes. To make matters worse, the climate costs will also be dire because of the type of forest that burned, according to Mark Adams of the University of Sydney. "Once you burn millions ...

Sat, 14 Feb 09
Patriot Coal Fined $6.5M for Damage to West Virginia Streams
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2009/2009-02-12-091.asp
Environment News Service: One of the largest coal mining companies in the United States has agreed to pay a $6.5 million civil penalty to settle violations of the Clean Water Act, federal and West Virginia agencies have announced. The consent decree signed by Patriot Coal includes the third largest penalty ever paid in a federal Clean Water Act case for discharge permit violations. In a joint complaint filed with the consent decree, the United States and the State of West Virginia alleged that Patriot Coal ...

Sat, 14 Feb 09
Millions of animals dead in Australia fires
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090211/ap_on_re_au_an/as_australia_wildfires_animals_5
Associated Press: Kangaroo corpses lay scattered by the roadsides while wombats that survived the wildfire's onslaught emerged from their underground burrows to find blackened earth and nothing to eat. Wildlife rescue officials on Wednesday worked frantically to help the animals that made it through Australia's worst-ever wildfires but they said millions of animals likely perished in the inferno. Scores of kangaroos have been found around roads, where they were overwhelmed by flames and smoke ...

Sat, 14 Feb 09
EU renewables rules threaten to leave heat pumps out in the cold
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2236471/eu-renewables-rules-leave-heat
Business Green: Some of the most efficient forms of heat pump and waste heat capture technologies could be excluded from contributing to EU renewable energy targets, under rules that experts are warning will undermine demand for one of the most cost effective forms of low carbon technology. Under rules proposed late last year as part of its wide-ranging climate change action plan, the EU said that technologies that exploit "ambient heat contained in water, air or the ground", such as ground or air ...

Sat, 14 Feb 09
Mercury pollution harms millions - and action on curbing its use is overdue
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/13/pollution-waste
Guardian: This month the world's environment ministers meeting in Nairobi, Kenya can take a landmark decision to lift a global health threat from the lives of hundreds of millions of people. A strategy to begin seriously dealing with mercury and the highly toxic compounds of the heavy metal will come before the UN Environment Programme's governing council when it meets from 16 February. The policy framework – the result of seven years of discussions spearheaded by Unep – represents the first, ...

Sat, 14 Feb 09
France: Paris digs deep to harness Earth's green energy
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090213/sc_afp/environmentfranceenergygeothermalclimate
Agence France-Presse: A major new project is under way in Paris to provide ecologically clean heating for an entire district by extracting piping hot water from nearly two kilometres under the earth. In a revival of the French capital's geothermal potential, drilling has just begun in the north of the city on a desolate building site sandwiched between the traffic-clogged inner ring road and the Saint-Denis canal. "In Paris we're trying to adopt a strategy in which France is largely behind other ...

Sat, 14 Feb 09
UN climate chief praises new US administration
http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2009/02/13/un_climate_chief_praises_new_us_administration/?rss_id=Boston.com+--+Latest+news
Associated Press: The U.N. climate chief praised President Barack Obama's pledge to tackle global warming and expressed hope Friday that the U.S. policy shift would boost chances for a new international agreement on cutting emissions of greenhouse gases. "It's been a night-to-day change in terms of the U.S. position on this topic," United Nations climate chief Yvo de Boer said in Tokyo, adding that he hopes that the more active American approach will encourage China and other developing nations to make ...

Sat, 14 Feb 09
Australia: More of NSW affected by drought
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21498,25043892-5005361,00.html?from=public_rss
AAP: HOT weather and little rainfall last month has increased the area in NSW affected by drought. The latest Government figures released today show 56.6 per cent of NSW is drought affected, up from 53.3 per cent in December. The area of the state on the verge of drought also increased in January, with marginal conditions recorded in 15.7 per cent of the state, up from 9.1 per cent in December. Little more than a quarter of NSW is classified as satisfactory. "We had a ...

Sat, 14 Feb 09
Invaders retreat
http://www.nature.com/climate/2009/0903/full/climate.2009.15.html
Nature: Glob. Change Biol. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2486.2008.01824.x (2009) Climate change might give unexpected help to conservationists by banishing stubborn invasive plants from some regions, say scientists. Ecological disturbances in the next century are widely expected to worsen invasions by foreign species, but the potential negative impacts of climate change on invaders have received little study. Bethany Bradley of Princeton University in New Jersey and colleagues focused on five of ...

Sat, 14 Feb 09
Waning attraction
http://www.nature.com/climate/2009/0903/full/climate.2009.16.html
Nature: Science 323, 753 (2009) The break-up of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet could cause a disproportionate amount of sea level rise along coastlines in North America and the Indian Ocean. Typical analyses suggest that if the ice sheet melted, it would raise average global sea level by five metres -- but this may understate the impacts on some regions, according to a new study. Jerry Mitrovica of the University of Toronto and colleagues used a technique called sea level fingerprinting ...

Sat, 14 Feb 09
Japan: Carbon emitters hold talks in Tokyo
http://www.spacedaily.com/2006/090212043327.0lh8dcf7.html
Agence France-Presse: The world's major carbon emitters were in "full negotiation mode" Thursday as they met in Tokyo with the clock ticking to draft a new UN treaty on fighting global warming. Representatives from 22 countries, including major CO2 emitters China, India and the United States, as well as the European bloc are taking part in the informal two-day session. It marks one of the first negotiating opportunities on climate change since the inauguration of US President Barack Obama, who has ...

Sat, 14 Feb 09
Claiming the Arctic top priority for Russia
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2009/02/12/8365081-ap.html
Associated Press: Russia will modernize its icebreaker fleet and station more researchers in the Arctic as part of its push to stake its claim to the vast resources of the disputed polar region, a presidential envoy said Thursday. Artur Chilingarov, a famed polar scientist who was recently appointed to the post, said that Russia's sizable icebreaker fleet gives the nation a strong edge in Arctic exploration. He said that Russia would build a new Arctic research ship to supplement the Akademik ...

Sat, 14 Feb 09
U.K. Wants 'Sustainable Makeover' for Every Home to Cut CO2
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601072&sid=aJEkyFXQHLIk
Bloomberg: The U.K., enduring its worst winter since 1991, is planning to save energy and cut residential greenhouse-gas emissions to almost zero through a "sustainable makeover" on each of the country's 27 million households. Utilities that operate in Britain such as Electricite de France SA and E.ON AG, other businesses and local government may fund installation of insulation and solar panels on U.K. homes, recovering the costs through utility bills, under proposals today from the Department ...

Sat, 14 Feb 09
Marine biologists perplexed by jellyfish in Baltic Sea
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090213/sc_afp/swedenenvironmentoceansclimatefish_20090213001827
Agence France-Presse: Marine biologists have in recent years rung alarm bells over the invasion in the Baltic Sea of what they believed was a devastating jellyfish, but experts said Thursday they were wrong about the species. "It has previously been feared that the invasive jellyfish that disrupted marine ecosystems in the Black Sea had arrived in the Baltic Sea," Stockholm University said in a statement. But researchers at the university studying the spread of the American pseudo-jellyfish "have ...

Sat, 14 Feb 09
Canada: Environmentalists launch cheeky anti-oilsands campaign in newspaper personal ads
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/WeirdNews/2009/02/12/8371831-cp.html
Canadian Press: Environmentalists are fighting Alberta's oilsands in an unlikely forum - personal ads. In a cheeky campaign ahead of U.S. President Barack Obama's visit to Canada, Forest Ethics bought personals in about a dozen newspapers in the United States and Canada. The ads say the group is seeking a "patriotic, busy Chicago-Hawaiian man" who likes basketball and knows how to do the fist-bump. It goes on to say: "Meet me in Canada and we'll sweep aside the world's dirtiest oil, the tar ...

Sat, 14 Feb 09
'Climate refugees' headed to Washington
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/399958_climate13.html
Seattle Post Intelligencer: "Climate refugees." It's a term we should get used to, researchers warned on Thursday, predicting a flood of new residents driven north by heat waves, fires and other calamitous effects of global warming. With one speaker raising the specter of a new migration on the scale of the Great Depression, state and county officials admitted they have barely started getting ready. The warnings came at a conference of planners, scientists and government officials drilling into the ...

Sat, 14 Feb 09
Hillary Clinton's climate-saving voyage
http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20090213/cm_csm/echinawarm_1
Christian Science Monitor: Hillary Clinton chose Asia, particularly China, for her maiden voyage next week as secretary of State. While the most urgent issue is Beijing's help to end a global recession, Mrs. Clinton's more planet-saving goal is to enlist China to set curbs on its carbon emissions. Without that, President Obama may not be able to win enough Senate votes for a cap on US greenhouse gases. As the world's two largest emitters, China and the US will set the pace this year among all nations in ...

Sat, 14 Feb 09
United States: Climate change delaying gray whale vacations, scientists say
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/ci_11694775?IADID=Search-www.santacruzsentinel.com-www.santacruzsentinel.com
Santa Cruz Sentinel: Gray whales swim off the Big Sur coast as they migrate toward Baja California. Scientists say climate change is forcing the whales to begin their migration later«1» Out in the deep waters of Monterey Bay, gray whales will be swimming home later this month after a brief winter vacation in Baja California. Whale watchers and marine scientists say these whales have been delaying their southern sojourns and point to climate change as the culprit. Rising sea ...

Sat, 14 Feb 09
Global warming brings more feathered friends north in winter
http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/wildlife/story/689111.html
Anchorage Daily News: Climate-induced changes in vegetation are also altering the summer habitat of Alaska birds, and while some species may thrive amid the change, others won't, reported Matt Kirchhoff, director of bird conservation at Audubon Alaska. One example from the study, which drew on 40 years of data from the annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count, is the American robin. It's now wintering -- on average continent-wide -- more than 200 miles farther north than it used to in the 1960s. While ...

Sat, 14 Feb 09
UK should prepare for rising seas, heat waves and resource wars
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2236462/uk-should-prepare-consequences
Business Green: Every day could seem like Friday 13th over the coming decades if the UK does not act now to prepare for rising seas, higher temperatures and the increased likelihood of resource wars between nations, leading scientists and engineers have warned this week. Issuing arguably his starkest warning yet about the threat to international security presented by climate change, Sir David King, former chief scientific advisor to the government, said that a series of "resource wars " would ...

Sat, 14 Feb 09
Geoengineers wrap Greenland's glaciers in a blanket
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/video/2009/feb/12/greenland-climate-change
Guardian

Sat, 14 Feb 09
Did climate kill off the Neanderthals?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7873373.stm
BBC: Climate change, we're told, poses the single gravest threat to the survival of our species. And if the experience of our ancient relatives the Neanderthals is anything to go by, we should take note of the warnings. Recent research has suggested that climate change may have been the killer blow that finished off our closest evolutionary cousins. For about 400,000 years, the Neanderthals dominated Europe, hunting big game such as mammoth and bison. These hardy ...

Sat, 14 Feb 09
Climate Change And Fisheries: US Atlantic Cod Population To Drop By Half By 2050
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090212171941.htm
ScienceDaily: Scientists have for the first time calculated the likely impact of climate change on the distribution of more than 1,000 species of fish around the globe. The new research was carried out by scientists at the University of East Anglia (UEA), the Sea Around Us project at the University of British Columbia (UBC) and Princeton University.* It has long been known that ocean conditions such as temperature and current patterns are changing due to climate change, and that these ...

Sat, 14 Feb 09
Tracking Warming Trend In Northwestern North America
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090212150848.htm
ScienceDaily: A new Montana State University study says that weather, especially in late winter and early spring, is getting warmer in northwestern North America. The research, published in the January issue of Climatic Change, found that the coldest daily temperatures recorded in Bozeman, Mont., and Coldstream, British Columbia, have occurred less often over the past several decades. Extreme cold nighttime temperatures have become less frequent, and extreme warm nighttime temperatures have become ...

Fri, 13 Feb 09
Penguins in peril as food search turns into marathon
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article5719908.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=3392178
Times (UK): Penguins from the largest colony on mainland South America are being forced to swim the equivalent of two marathons farther to find food because of the effects of climate change. The survival of the Magellanic penguin colony at Punta Tombo, on the Atlantic coast of Argentina, is being threatened by the increasing distances the birds must travel to feed themselves and their chicks, research has shown. Dee Boersma, of the University of Washington in Seattle, said that Punta Tombo ...

Fri, 13 Feb 09
Model sees severe climate change impact by 2050
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51C03920090213?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Current efforts to limit greenhouse gas emissions will do little to ease damaging climate change, according to a report issued Friday that predicts Greenland's ice sheets will start melting by 2050. A computer model calculated that if carbon dioxide emissions continue to grow at the current rate over the next 40 years, global temperatures will still rise 2 degrees Centigrade compared with the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. This would push the planet to the brink, ...

Fri, 13 Feb 09
Climate change to cause dark night of the shoal
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090212/sc_afp/climatewarmingfish
Agence France-Presse: Climate change will cause key species of fish to migrate towards the poles, badly depleting many commercial fisheries, scientists said in a study published on Thursday. "The impact of climate change on marine biodiversity and fisheries is going to be huge," said its lead author, William Cheung, of the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia, eastern England. Cheung's team used a high-powered computer model, based on knowledge of 1,066 species of fish, ...

Fri, 13 Feb 09
Australia calls inquiry into own emissions plan
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51B78X20090212?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: The Australian government has convened a parliamentary inquiry into its plan for curbing greenhouse gas emissions, but denied on Friday it was backing away from the scheme which is due to launch next year. The government said in a brief statement on Thursday it had asked the lower house's economics committee to make inquiries and report back to parliament on its proposed emissions-trading scheme, part of a climate-change policy unveiled last December. The move prompted Greens Party ...

Fri, 13 Feb 09
Fish seen shifting 125 miles by 2050 due to warming
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51B78K20090212?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Global warming will push fish stocks more than 200 km (125 miles) toward the poles by mid-century in a dislocation of ocean life, a study of more than 1,000 marine species projected. Tropical nations were likely to suffer most as commercial fish stocks swam north or south to escape warming waters, the report said. Alaska, Greenland and Nordic nations would be among those to benefit from more fish. "We'll see a major redistribution of many species because of climate change," ...

Fri, 13 Feb 09
Report: U.S., China Can Cooperate on Climate
http://news.yahoo.com/s/oneworld/20090212/wl_oneworld/world3601691234480611
OneWorld US: The United States and China can overcome their diplomatic gridlock on climate change by focusing on mutually beneficial, large-scale programs including clean energy systems, says a new report from a Washington, DC think tank. "The time for large-scale U.S.-China cooperation on climate change and clean energy is now," says the report from the public policy research center Brookings Institution. "Unless both countries change course soon, ongoing investments in 20th century technologies ...

Fri, 13 Feb 09
United States: U.S. to mull protection for alpine rabbit on warming
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51B7IV20090212?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: The U.S. government has agreed to study whether the American pika, a tiny cold-loving relative of the rabbit, should be protected under the Endangered Species Act due to warmer temperatures, scientists said on Thursday. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is to determine whether the pika warrants protection under the act by May. If so, it must then decide whether it should be designated an endangered species nine months after that, they said. The pika could become the first ...

Fri, 13 Feb 09
Global Warming Lawsuit Settlement
http://www.smmirror.com/MainPages/DisplayArticleDetails.asp?eid=9580
Santa Monica Mirror: The City of Santa Monica was one of a half dozen plaintiffs in a lawsuit settled on Friday, February 6, establishing "important legal precedents related to global warming," said a statement released jointly by the plaintiffs. The suit was filed in August 2002 by Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, and the city of Boulder, Colorado, who were later joined by the California cities of Santa Monica, Arcata, and Oakland. Probably the most significant result of Friday's settlement is that it ...

Fri, 13 Feb 09
Carbon Dioxide Levels Rising Despite Economic Downturn
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1638617/carbon_dioxide_levels_rising_despite_economic_downturn/index.html?source=r_science
redOrbit: A leading scientist said on Thursday that atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide are hitting new highs, providing no indication that the world economic downturn is curbing industrial emissions, Reuters reported. Kim Holmen, research director at the Norwegian Polar Institute, said the measurements taken by a Stockholm University project on the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard off north Norway are in line with the long-term trend. Carbon dioxide is the main greenhouse gas emitted ...

Fri, 13 Feb 09
$400bn demand for green spending
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/12/green-spending-politics-environment-economics
Guardian: Governments across the world must commit to hundreds of billions of pounds in green investments within months in a combined attack on the global economic crisis and global warming, say leading economists including Nicholas Stern. The alliance of experts said in a report yesterday that about $400bn (£277bn) should be channelled to support low-carbon technologies such as home insulation and renewable energy. Given the urgency of both economic and climate crises, it wants the green ...

Fri, 13 Feb 09
Kaine, British ambassador sign global-warming pact
http://www.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/local/article/KAINEGATER12_20090212-113204/204843/
Richmond Times-Dispatch: Virginia and England`s first partnership was founded on the lucrative cash crop of tobacco. Today, 400 years later, the commonwealth and the United Kingdom came together under a different kind of green. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine and Sir Nigel Sheinwald, the British ambassador to the United States, signed an agreement to work together to reduce greenhouse gases, research low-carbon, renewable energy technologies and raise public awareness on the global issues of climate ...

Fri, 13 Feb 09
Team will use radar to measure thinning Arctic ice
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51B5F920090212?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Three British polar adventurers will this month begin a 620-mile trek to the North Pole with an experimental portable radar set to gauge exactly how fast Arctic ice sheets are melting, they said on Thursday. The 9-pound (4-kilogram) radar has been designed to give much more accurate read-outs of ice thickness than the current method of using submarines or satellites. Arctic ice cover in 2008 dropped to its second lowest extent during the melt season since satellite measuring ...

Fri, 13 Feb 09
Canada eyes climate deal with "open-minded" Obama
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51B5DC20090212?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Canada's Conservative government said on Thursday it hopes to reach a climate change deal with the U.S. Obama administration, saying an economic crisis is not an ideal time for Canada to be imposing new costs on industry on its own. "The election of President Obama presents, I think, a great opportunity for us to work together," Environment Minister Jim Prentice told reporters a week ahead of the summit in Ottawa between Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. The ...

Fri, 13 Feb 09
United States: Process turns raw biomass into biofuel
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1638440/process_turns_raw_biomass_into_biofuel/index.html?source=r_science
United Press International: U.S. biochemists say they have developed a two-step chemical process that can convert cellulose in raw biomass into promising biofuels. University of Wisconsin researchers said the new process is unprecedented in its use of untreated, inedible biomass as the starting material. They said the key to the new process is the first step, in which cellulose is converted into the "platform" chemical 5-hydroxymethylfurfural from which a variety of valuable commodity chemicals can be ...

Fri, 13 Feb 09
Volkswagen, Toshiba to develop electric car
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51B5WW20090212?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Volkswagen AG will team up with Toshiba Corp to develop an electric-powered version of its subcompact Up! concept car after signing a letter of intent on Thursday, Europe's largest carmaker said. "The objective is a cooperation for the development of electric drive units and the accompanying power electronics for Volkswagen's planned new small (car) family," it said in a statement. "Furthermore, Volkswagen and Toshiba are planning the development of battery systems with a high ...

Fri, 13 Feb 09
U.S. corn for ethanol to rise, growth to slow: USDA
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51B69720090212?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: U.S. corn used to produce ethanol will increase in 2009/10, but beyond that, growth is forecast to slow with demand mirroring changes in gasoline consumption, the Agriculture Department said on Thursday. USDA projected 4.2 billion bushels of corn will be used to produce ethanol in 2009/10, an increase from 3.6 billion bushels forecasted for the current year. Overall, ethanol is forecast to command about 33 percent of the corn crop compared to 30 percent in ...

Fri, 13 Feb 09
Smart Growth, Technology Could Reduce CO2 Emissions
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1638396/smart_growth_technology_could_reduce_co2_emissions/index.html?source=r_science
redOrbit: Georgia Tech study shows hybrid vehicles and higher density cities could eliminate future growth of CO2 emissions from autos A Georgia Tech City and Regional Planning study on climate change, published February 10, 2009 online by Environmental Science and Technology, shows that "smart growth" combined with the use of hybrid vehicle technology could reduce cities' carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions – the principal driver of global warming – significantly by 2050. According to Brian ...

Fri, 13 Feb 09
Major airlines call for climate deal to include aviation
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090212/sc_afp/environmenttransportaviationclimateun
Agence France-Presse: Four of the world's leading airlines on Thursday called for greenhouse gas emissions from aviation to be included in a new global climate deal. The Aviation Global Deal Group (AGD) said the industry needed a "pragmatic, fair and effective global policy solution," ahead of crucial United Nations climate negotiations in Copenhagen in December. "Aviation has a key part to play in reducing global emissions and for too long has been seen as part of the climate problem rather than ...

Fri, 13 Feb 09
Poland says awaits EU to allocate 2008 CO2 permits
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51B4YV20090212?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Poland will allocate 2008 carbon dioxide (CO2) emission permits to its industry only when the European Union's executive Commission passes them to Warsaw, an official said on Thursday. None of Poland's 208.5 million tons of annual European Union allowances (EUAs) for the 2008-12 trading period have so far been given to Polish industry, despite a nearing end-February deadline for 2009 EUAs. "When we issue those allowances depends on the European Commission, who have not passed ...

Fri, 13 Feb 09
Obama will discuss proposed Alaskan gas pipeline with Canadian leaders
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/12/obama-harper-alaska-natural-gas-pipeline
McClatchy: Barack Obama yesterday called Alaska's proposed natural gas pipeline "promising" as a national energy resource, and pledged to discuss it with Canadian leaders during his 19 February trip to Ottawa. "It's a project of great potential and something I'm very interested in," Obama said during an interview in the White House with members of the media from Alaska. "As I mentioned during the campaign, I actually think that for us to move forward on the natural gas pipeline as part of ...

Fri, 13 Feb 09
Every UK home to get green makeover
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2236399/every-home-green-makeover
Business Green: Every home and small business in the UK could gain access to free or low-cost measures to enhance their energy efficiency as part of a nationwide programme proposed by the government today, which promises to deliver a huge boost to providers of energy-efficient and microgeneration technologies. Likening the proposed "Great British Refurb" to the 1960s rollout of an entirely new gas network, energy and climate change secretary Ed Miliband said the government would aim to provide ...

Fri, 13 Feb 09
Northern Ireland environment minister receives no-confidence vote
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/12/sammy-wilson-climate-change
Guardian: Northern Ireland's environment minister Sammy Wilson was censured today by a committee at the Stormont Assembly with a vote of no confidence in the minister, who has denied manmade climate change. The vote followed the Democratic Ulster party MP's decision to ban a TV advert calling for emissions cuts which he branded "insidious New Labour propaganda". Some members of the committee said Wilson's views were not consistent with those of the Northern Ireland power sharing ...

Fri, 13 Feb 09
South American drought trims world soybean, corn production
http://www.agriculture.com/ag/story.jhtml?storyid=/templatedata/ag/story/data/1234274387943.xml
Agriculture Online: It's been awfully dry in South American soybean and corn country. USDA on Tuesday confirmed the drought down south has taken a toll on the region's crops and, in turn, soybean and corn supplies in the world market. Will this translate to a shift in acres in the U.S. this spring? The soybean crop took the biggest hit in Argentina, where overall production is pegged at 43.8 million tons. That's down 5.7 million tons from a month ago "as drought conditions and heat in the central growing ...

Fri, 13 Feb 09
EU plans new charges for lorries
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/2/hi/europe/7885420.stm
BBC: A panel of Euro MPs has voted to introduce extra road charges to curb congestion and pollution from lorries. The measures - not yet adopted by EU ministers and the full European Parliament - would beef up an existing "Eurovignette" directive. EU states would be free to impose levies on lorries using major roads. The current rules only apply to those on motorways that cross borders. Congestion charges - like the one in London - would apply to all traffic. The ...

Fri, 13 Feb 09
China: On maiden mission, Clinton bows to Asia's new power
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090212/pl_afp/usdiplomacyasia
Agence France-Presse: Hillary Clinton, who heads to Asia next week on her maiden mission, is bowing to an increasingly powerful region in order to tackle the global economic crisis, climate change and nuclear weapons. The new US secretary of state's choice of travel to Japan, Indonesia, South Korea and China, reflects the quest for a long-term strategy to deal with the changing dynamic in world economic, political and military power, analysts say. Her predecessors usually traveled first to Europe or ...

Fri, 13 Feb 09
The solar revolution starts in Amareleja
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/the-solar-revolution-starts-in-amareleja-1607882.html
France 24: The Alentejo region enjoys more sunlight each year than any other place in Europe. So it's here, in south-east Portugal, that an immense solar power station has been set up, producing more energy than any other in the world. This plant alone meets the needs of 30,000 Portuguese homes. Traditionally a farming area, now ravaged by desertification, the area round Moura aspires to be Europe's test site for economic development via the renewable energies sector. When the company Acciona ...

Fri, 13 Feb 09
US energy chief floats idea of a carbon tax: NYT
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090212/pl_afp/climateusenergycongress
Agence France-Presse: US Energy Secretary Steven Chu has floated the idea of a carbon emissions tax to fight global warming, in an interview with The New York Times Thursday. During the US presidential campaign, the notion was kept largely on the back burner as candidates were reluctant to promote the idea of costlier energy at a time when gasoline prices were soaring. But since President Barack Obama's administration took office in January, Congress has been working on setting up a system for ...

Fri, 13 Feb 09
Will companies stay green in recession?
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/02/11/pm_green_companies/
Marketplace: KAI RYSSDAL: Goodness knows you've heard the word a lot on this program. You've probably used it yourself at some point in the past couple of years: Sustainability. Companies have caught on too. A lot of them have launched what they call sustainability initiatives -- doing well by being good. That usually means cutting energy and water use and waste. They've hired sustainability directors, carefully calculated their carbon footprints, and banished styrofoam from the ...

Fri, 13 Feb 09
Canada: Climate change brings airborne migrants to B.C
http://www2.canada.com/vancouversun/news/westcoastnews/story.html?id=d7aaf46d-5daf-4a41-b749-65dec9f92e08
Vancouver Sun: Spotting a common nighthawk in Fort Nelson three decades ago was grounds for "a cerebral orgasm," remarks Wayne Campbell, retired curator of birds for the Royal B.C. Museum. Today the species is as common as its name. "They're nesting there now," he said. "It's unbelievable, crazy." The nighthawk is not alone. Birds of all descriptions are winging their way northward as never before on record, spurred on by the dubious forces of global warming and climate change. For ...

Fri, 13 Feb 09
Australian bushfires rage
http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090209/full/news.2009.89.html
Nature: Australian firefighters are desperately trying to extinguish the worst bushfires that the country has seen in decades, causing more than 170 deaths so far in the state of Victoria. While strong winds continue to fan the flames, thousands of homeless families in search of shelter and food are flooding Red Cross relief centres set up around the state. Nature asks if savage blazes such as these will get more frequent in a warming world, and looks at the environmental fallout from the ...

Fri, 13 Feb 09
South Carolina regulators OK nuclear power project
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51B46920090212?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: South Carolina regulators have unanimously approved a request by the state's largest utility, South Carolina Electric & Gas (SCE&G), to join with a state-owned utility to build two nuclear reactors. The South Carolina Public Service Commission vote on Wednesday gave South Carolina Electric & Gas the right to begin raising electricity rates next month to help pay for its portion of the $9.8 billion project. SCE&G, a subsidiary of SCANA Corp, and Santee Cooper, ...

Fri, 13 Feb 09
CO2 hits new peaks, no sign global crisis causing dip
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51B44Z20090212?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Atmospheric levels of the main greenhouse gas are hitting new highs, with no sign yet that the world economic downturn is curbing industrial emissions, a leading scientist said on Thursday. "The rise is in line with the long-term trend," Kim Holmen, research director at the Norwegian Polar Institute, said of the measurements taken by a Stockholm University project on the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard off north Norway. Levels of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas from ...

Fri, 13 Feb 09
US legislators to move on cap-and-trade before June
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2236369/legislators-move-cap-trade
Business Green: Draft climate change legislation will be presented to the US House of Representatives by 25 May, according to Representative Edward Markey, chairman of the House Energy and Environmental subcommittee. The committee's aim, Markey said, is to complete draft legislation addressing the issue of climate change and present it to the House of Representatives by Memorial Day this year. Speaking to delegates at the CERAWeek 2009 conference earlier this week, he said the aim was to take ...

Fri, 13 Feb 09
The fight for water in North America
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7829850.stm
BBC: The arid states of America's south-west have been getting drier in recent years. Since 2000, the Colorado River - which provides water for seven US states in the region - has carried less water than at any time in recorded history. And while the drought is worsening, the demand for water in this booming part of the country is increasing. The states dependent on the Colorado River for their water are seeking solutions to their water shortage, with some suggesting that ...

Fri, 13 Feb 09
UK plans efficiency retrofits for all homes
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51B4KS20090212?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Britain proposed on Thursday to allow all households from 2012 to apply for loans and cash to save energy and cut carbon emissions, costs energy companies are likely to meet and pass on to all consumers. Green groups welcomed the plans but criticized a perceived lack of clarity and timidity in timing and funding. "We need to move from incremental steps forward on household energy efficiency to a comprehensive national plan," said Energy and Climate Change minister Ed ...

Fri, 13 Feb 09
Australia: Creating the perfect firestorm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7879141.stm
BBC: Bushfires are an expected hazard for the people who live in the Australian state of Victoria, but the scale of the weekend's disaster has left everyone shocked. Scientists understand the processes which trigger fires all too well and recent conditions have been shown to be frighteningly perfect. It has been extremely warm with temperatures over 40C. Strong winds have also been blowing from the interior of the continent. "In south-east Australia, bad fire days are ...

Fri, 13 Feb 09
Scientists say Antarctic climate evidence too strong to ignore
http://www.physorg.com/news153408758.html
Physorg: More than 50 top international polar scientists will meet at Victoria University of Wellington this week to discuss their cutting-edge climate change research. The focus will be establishing models that explain how Antarctica's ice sheets have behaved in Earth's recent past and explore how they may change in the future. For several years, scientists from Italy, Germany, New Zealand and the United States have been studying a 1300 metre-long rock core recovered by the ...

Fri, 13 Feb 09
Study: Birds shifting north; global warming cited
http://www.physorg.com/news153460765.html
Associated Press: When it comes to global warming, the canary in the coal mine isn't a canary at all. It's a purple finch. As the temperature across the U.S. has gotten warmer, the purple finch has been spending its winters more than 400 miles farther north than it used to. And it's not alone. An Audubon Society study to be released Tuesday found that more than half of 305 birds species in North America, a hodgepodge that includes robins, gulls, chickadees and owls, are spending the winter about ...

Fri, 13 Feb 09
Birds are shifting north; global warming cited
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Science/2009/02/10/8330151-ap.html
Associated Press: When it comes to global warming, the canary in the coal mine isn't a canary at all. It's a purple finch. As the temperature across the continent has become warmer, the purple finch has been spending its winters more than 640 kilometres farther north than it used to. And it's not alone. An Audubon Society study to be released Tuesday found that more than half of 305 birds species in North America, a hodgepodge that includes robins, gulls, chickadees and owls, are spending the ...

Fri, 13 Feb 09
Global warming through a mom's eyes
http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20090210/cm_csm/ybennett_1
Christian Science Monitor: Hard times can reveal our hidden talents Lincoln at 200: still a light for democracy's moral purpose Letters to the Editor Obama buys time for zombie banks More » San Francisco -- I was driving home with my sons one day when we began talking about what place on earth each of us most wanted to visit. "The top of the world!" said my nearly always exuberant 4-year-old. Was he thinking of the Himalayas, I wondered, or the Arctic? "The Arctic!" he said. He wanted to go ...

Fri, 13 Feb 09
EU cities in joint green pledge
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7881432.stm
BBC: More than 350 cities across Europe - including 15 in the UK - have signed a "covenant" committing them to cuts of more than 20% in CO2 emissions by 2020. The "covenant of mayors" was signed at the European Parliament in Brussels. The EU as a whole aims to achieve a cut of 20% in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. The CO2 Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) will play a key role in that. But the EU's emissions allowances have hit a record low of 9.5 euros (£8; $12) a tonne, ...

Fri, 13 Feb 09
Corn Falls as World Use Falling Faster Than Weather Cuts Crops
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601012&sid=aOIDwu4G09vk
Bloomberg: Corn fell for the first time in four sessions on speculation that global demand is declining faster than drought is damaging crops in South America. Worldwide corn reserves will total 136.7 million metric tons at the end of September, up 7 percent from a year earlier, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said today. Global output will be 786.5 million tons, down 0.6 percent from a January forecast, the agency said, citing smaller South American crops. Demand will reach 777.5 million ...

Fri, 13 Feb 09
Economic Downturn No Reason to Delay Emissions Reductions
http://www.statesmanjournal.com/article/20090210/COLUMN0103/902100344/1001/NEWS
Statesman Journal: Despite the economic downturn, now is the time to enact strong policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This is the most important conclusion to be drawn from a new study published by Susan Solomon, one of the world's leading climate scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In their report published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Solomon and her co-authors said that if human-induced carbon dioxide emissions continue to be ...

Fri, 13 Feb 09
Climate change may kill the Amazon rainforest
http://www.physorg.com/news153505622.html
Physorg: The dieback of the Amazonian forests caused by climate change is not inevitable but remains a distinct possibility, according to a study led by the Professor of Ecosystem Science at Oxford. The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is a detailed examination of the climatic and ecological evidence of the likelihood of an Amazon dieback. The researchers conclude that the fate of Amazonian forests will critically depend on the interaction between global ...

Fri, 13 Feb 09
Canada: Sierra Club sending Obama strong anti-oilsands message
http://www.canada.com/Technology/Sierra+Club+sending+Obama+strong+anti+oilsands+message/1274809/story.html
Canwest News Service: The Sierra Club is hoping to use the upcoming visit of U.S. President Barack Obama to deter the United States from supporting the Alberta oilsands as a viable energy source. By launching a new website, circulating a petition and hosting a film festival with a focus on the environmental group's concerns, the Sierra Club hopes it will be enough to keep Obama's goals of cleaner energy intact by staying away from the oilsands. "In short, the message is, 'Don't buy our dirty oil,'" ...

Fri, 13 Feb 09
UK's CO2 plan 'certain to fail'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7881868.stm
BBC: The UK's plans to cut emissions by 80% by 2050 are fundamentally flawed and almost certain to fail, according to a US academic. Roger Pielke Jr, a science policy expert, said the UK government had underestimated the magnitude of the task to curb greenhouse gas emissions. He added that it would be more effective to "decarbonise" economic growth rather than focus on targets. Professor Pielke said that a country's greenhouse gas trajectory was determined by three factors: ...

Fri, 13 Feb 09
Land "wasted" for fuel as millions go hungry
http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/front/Land_wasted_for_fuel_as_millions_go_hungry.html?siteSect=105&sid=10314895&rss=true&ty=st
Swissinfo: Far from being a miracle alternative energy solution, agrofuels are a dead end with disastrous consequences for developing countries, Swissaid has claimed. Caroline Morel, director of the Swiss non-governmental organisation, says it is unacceptable that agricultural land in the developing world – where millions suffer from hunger – is being used to run cars. "To fill the tank of a car with 95 litres of ethanol, 200 kilos of maize are needed – enough to feed a person for one ...

Fri, 13 Feb 09
Payments for eco services could save the Amazon
http://news.mongabay.com/2009/0212-amazon_wwf.html
Mongabay: Paying for the ecological services provided by the Amazon rainforest could be the key to saving it, reports a new analysis from WWF. The study, Keeping the Amazon forests standing: a matter of values, tallied the economic value of various ecosystem services afforded by Earth's largest rainforest. It found that standing forest is worth, at minimum, $426 per hectare per year for production of non-timber forest products (honey, fiber, mushrooms, medicinal plants, etc), erosion ...

Fri, 13 Feb 09
Green light for solar panels in Scotland
http://www.panda.org/what_we_do/climate_change/news/?uNewsID=156161
WWF: The majority of householders in Scotland will be able to install solar panels and other energy generating equipment without planning permission from now on, although government ministers have yet to decide whether to exempt wind turbines and air-source heat pumps. Ground-source and water-source heat pumps will get the green light, as will flues for biomass systems which use organic materials. The move was announced by finance secretary John Swinney, who said the concession would cut ...

Fri, 13 Feb 09
More power needed behind renewable energy push
http://www.panda.org/what_we_do/climate_change/news/?uNewsID=155281
WWF: WWF has told an audience of energy experts and senior government officials from more than 20 countries that the world's leading governments and businesses must lead the planet towards the benefits of renewable energy and a sustainable future. At the second World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi last week delegates were told that if everybody in the world consumed resources like the average person in a G8 country then another three planet Earths would be needed to sustain ...

Thu, 12 Feb 09
Solar Shakeout Less Likely To Hit Wafers, Silicons
http://planetark.org/enviro-news/item/51552
Reuters: Solar energy companies which operate further away from end-customers -- such as wafer and silicon producers -- are likely to fare better during a looming shakeout in the sector than their cell and module-making peers. In recent years, solar companies have enjoyed significant growth rates and a keen appetite from investors. But the crisis in financial markets has taken its toll on the industry and a falling oil price has curbed demand for renewables, prompting analysts and industry ...

Thu, 12 Feb 09
Ford Jumps Back Into Green Car Fray
http://planetark.org/enviro-news/item/51569
Reuters: Henry Ford once famously said "you can't build a reputation on what you are going to do." But a renewed commitment to build more fuel-efficient and battery-powered cars and hybrids has become central to the high-stakes turnaround plan at Ford Motor Co as it looks to ride out the industry's worst downturn in decades. In recent weeks, Ford has shown it wants back in the green car game by detailing an aggressive plan to roll out electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles over the next ...

Thu, 12 Feb 09
Consumers Energy Delays Michigan Coal Power Project
http://planetark.org/enviro-news/item/51573
Reuters: Consumers Energy said Wednesday it pushed back the planned start-up of a proposed 800-megawatt coal-fired power plant in Michigan from 2015 to 2017 due to regulatory delays and a request by the state governor for further review on new coal plants. Last week, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, a Democrat, put plans for seven coal plants on hold pending further review and called on the state to reduce use of fossil fuels for generating electricity to 45 percent by 2020. Consumers, ...

Thu, 12 Feb 09
Mass Deaths Feared In Sealed-Off Australia Town
http://planetark.org/enviro-news/item/51575
Reuters: Surviving residents of Marysville, where up to 100 more people are feared killed in Australia's bushfires, are still being kept out of town to shield them from traumatic scenes there, authorities said on Wednesday. The rising death toll in Australia's deadliest bushfires now stands at 181, but could exceed 200, authorities say. If the Marysville deaths are confirmed, the toll may reach 300. A firefighter who drove through Marysville only 10 minutes before the firestorm hit on ...

Thu, 12 Feb 09
Koala Love Story Wins Hearts After Deadly Aussie Fires
http://planetark.org/enviro-news/item/51576
Reuters: A love story between two badly burned koalas rescued from Australia's deadliest bushfires has provided some heart-warming relief after days of devastation and the loss of over 180 lives. The story of Sam and her new boyfriend Bob emerged after volunteer firefighter Dave Tree used a mobile phone to film the rescue of the bewildered female found cowering in a burned out forest at Mirboo North, 150 km (90 miles) southeast of Melbourne. Photos and a video of Tree, 44, approaching ...

Thu, 12 Feb 09
Obama 'must act now' on climate
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7885036.stm
BBC: The planet will be in "huge trouble" unless Barack Obama makes strides in tackling climate change, says a leading scientist. Prof James McCarthy spoke on the eve of the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), which he heads. The US president has just four years to save the planet, said Prof McCarthy. If major policy changes do not happen within Mr Obama's term of office, they will not happen at all, he warned. "We have a ...

Thu, 12 Feb 09
Big Science Role Is Seen in Global Warming Cure
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=118203
New York Times: Steven Chu, the new secretary of energy, said Wednesday that solving the world's energy and environment problems would require Nobel-level breakthroughs in three areas: electric batteries, solar power and the development of new crops that can be turned into fuel. Dr. Chu, a physicist, spoke during a wide-ranging interview in his office, where his own framed Nobel Prize lay flat on a bookcase, a Post-it note indicating where it should be hung on the wall. He addressed topics ...

Thu, 12 Feb 09
Community wind farm promises local turbines for local people
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2236313/community-buys-wind-turbines
Business Green: A co-operative group has this week become the first owners of a community wind farm in the East Midlands, as part of a initiative that the government hopes will be replicated across the country and provide an effective and sustainable new form of financing for cash-strapped wind farm projects. The 1,100 members of the Fens Co-op have raised £2.6m to buy two 2MW operational turbines in Lincolnshire from developer Fenland Windfarms Ltd. Under the scheme, groups and individuals were able ...

Thu, 12 Feb 09
United Kingdom: Government touts top ten green business tips
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2236312/decc-touts-top-ten-green
Business Green: The government has launched a new campaign to promote the cost-free steps businesses can take to help reduce their environmental impact and save them money. The recently launched Real Help for Businesses Now campaign features a new list of top ten tips compiled by Defra and the Department for Energy and Climate Change and designed to help small firms take immediate steps to cut their environmental footprint. Lord Hunt, Minister for Sustainability, urged managers at small ...

Thu, 12 Feb 09
Coal industry to Obama: Friend or foe?
http://www.reuters.com/article/reutersEdge/idUSTRE51A7Q820090211
Reuters: President Obama appears committed to developing clean coal technology and his administration might not be as opposed to the fossil fuel as the industry feared, analysts and mining experts say. Coal producers, blamed by environmentalists for causing global warming through carbon emissions, were wary of a new administration pledging to advance alternative energy sources. The miners watched as Nobel laureate Steven Chu, the new head of the Energy Department, called coal -- that ...

Thu, 12 Feb 09
Dump corn stalks at sea to slow global warming?
http://features.csmonitor.com/discoveries/2009/02/11/dump-corn-stalks-at-sea-to-slow-global-warming/
Christian Science Monitor: It`s tough slogging these days for people interested in capturing greenhouse-gas emissions at the source and burying them in deep rock formations, or, short of that, figuring out how to suck CO2 out of the atmosphere once it gets there. What to do while research continues on the feasibility (or infeasibility) of these approaches and the world still struggles to reduce emission in the first place? Bundle up crop residue -- straw, corn stalks, and their ilk -- and heave it overboard in ...

Thu, 12 Feb 09
Australia: Extreme weather forces rethink on lifestyle
http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=2&ContentID=124279
West Australian: Victoria's emergency services commissioner has drawn a direct link between the State's bushfire tragedy and climate change. Bruce Esplin said the advice of climatologists was that the extreme conditions that prevailed across Victoria on Saturday, when temperatures touched 49C in the north of the State and wind gusts reached 100kmh, would become more common. He said Australians had to rethink their relationship with the bush in an environment more prone to extreme ...

Thu, 12 Feb 09
California utility in big solar thermal deal
http://uk.reuters.com/article/behindTheScenes/idUKTRE51A7UM20090211
Reuters: Southern California Edison said on Wednesday it signed a series of contracts with BrightSource Energy for the supply of 1,300 megawatts of clean solar thermal power. The California utility, a unit of Edison International, continues its practice of buying power from renewable power developers like BrightSource rather than owning the generation assets itself, said Stuart Hemphill, head of SCE's renewable power efforts. Privately-held BrightSource has agreed to build and place in ...

Thu, 12 Feb 09
Australia: Climate change threatens tingles
http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=77&ContentID=124292
West Australian: Rare tingle forests in the South-West were under more threat from climate change than prescribed burns or bushfires, Curtin University Associate Professor Grant Wardell-Johnson said yesterday. He feared that the number of tingles would dwindle within 50 years. The bitter debate over plans for a controlled burn in 1219ha of rare tingle forest near Walpole flared again yesterday after calls to increase prescribed burning in WA. The Conservation Council has said that the ...

Thu, 12 Feb 09
Activists push for offshore energy drilling ban
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2009/02/11/ap6040999.html
Associated Press: Environmental advocates urged Congress on Wednesday to reinstate the broad moratorium on offshore oil drilling, but a key congressman said on that issue "the ship may have already sailed." Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, said the political reality is that the broad moratorium across 85 percent of the country's Outer Continental Shelf - lifted by Congress last fall - is unlikely to be reimposed. But Rahall, who opened the first of ...

Thu, 12 Feb 09
Bushfires Blazing in Extreme Heat Kill 181 Australians
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2009/2009-02-11-01.asp
Environment News Service: The worst bushfires in Australian history now blazing across Victoria have claimed the lives of at least 181 people and left 5,000 people others, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told the federal Parliament today. The death toll is expected to rise as police and rescue workers continue to recover and identify bodies. Police officials now say that most of the fires were not intentionally set, but the hunt continues for arsonists believed responsible for fatal fires in Gippsland, east of ...

Thu, 12 Feb 09
Oil Industry Ready to Work on Global Warming
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=118193
New York Times: Confronted with a sharp change of priorities in Washington, international oil executives are expressing an eagerness to work with President Obama to fashion new policies to tackle global warming. At an industry conference here this week, the executives struck a conciliatory tone on how to limit the emissions that are contributing to climate change, with many of them sounding like budding conservationists as they stressed energy efficiency and the need to develop renewable ...

Thu, 12 Feb 09
Oilsands targeted in advance of Obama's visit to Canada
http://www.fortmcmurraytoday.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1431347
Fort McMurray Today: Environmental groups have stepped up their attacks on the Alberta oilsands, launching an ad campaign against the "dirtiest oil on earth" ahead of U.S. President Barack Obama's visit next week. Obama has reportedly planned a quick visit -- about six hours -- to Canada on Feb. 19. The network of Canadian and American environmental groups is launching a cross-border campaign urging the U.S. president to stand strong on his new energy economy agenda and reject entreaties from ...

Thu, 12 Feb 09
United Kingdom: Millions face 'stealth tax' on heating bills to subsidise green energy
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1142710/Millions-face-stealth-tax-heating-bills-subsidise-green-energy.html
Daily Mail: Millions of families face yet another hike in heating bills to pay for a massive expansion of green energy. Ministers say that the money raised will subsidise solar panels, wind turbines and wood-burning boilers for hundreds of thousands of homes. But critics warn that the levy is an 'insidious' stealth tax that will hammer households at a time of rising unemployment, falling incomes and economic uncertainty. We are already paying an average of £410 more on our annual ...

Thu, 12 Feb 09
Ethanol, So Recently a Savior, Is Struggling
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=118189
New York Times: Barely a year after Congress enacted an energy law meant to foster a huge national enterprise capable of converting plants and agricultural wastes into automotive fuel, the goals lawmakers set for the ethanol industry are in serious jeopardy. As recently as last summer, plants that make ethanol from corn were sprouting across the Midwest. But now, with motorists driving less in the economic downturn, the industry is burdened with excess capacity, and plants are shutting down virtually ...

Thu, 12 Feb 09
Garnaut says emissions trading could start trade war
http://www.abc.net.au/rural/news/content/200902/s2489439.htm
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Australia's leading climate change economist says the Federal Government risks a global trade war by over-compensating big polluters under its emissions trading scheme. The Government says it will provide trade-exposed industries like aluminium and steel with the majority of their carbon pollution permits for free, when it moves to reduce overall Australian emissions. Professor Ross Garnaut says any assistance needs to be dropped once an global emissions trading scheme is ...

Thu, 12 Feb 09
EU Carbon Trading Not Cutting Carbon
http://www.environmentalleader.com/2009/02/11/eu-carbon-trading-not-cutting-carbon/
Environmental Leader: Business week reports that despite the acclaim of Europe`s climate-change policies, they aren`t actually cutting carbon. While the EU`s Carbon-Trading policies allow companies to buy and sell permits, the number of those permits is not actually being reduced. But because governments can tout the job creation, business development, and energy security benefits of renewables; and industry has lobbied for a flood of cheap permits - nobody has an incentive to change things. Green ...

Thu, 12 Feb 09
Green home refurbishments could save householders £300
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/4592993/Green-home-refurbishments-could-save-householders-300.html
Telegraph: Unveiling a new drive to reduce carbon emissions from residential homes, Ed Miliband, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, is preparing to set out ways to make it easy for householders to install environmentally-friendly technologies. As well as cutting emissions, he will say that a "green refurbishment" which could include fitting insulation or smart metres, would save home owners hundreds of pounds a year in energy bills. The Local Government Association called on energy ...

Thu, 12 Feb 09
Ocean advocates slam expanded U.S. offshore drilling
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE5196K020090211?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Ocean advocates from Hollywood to North Carolina's fragile beaches on Wednesday assailed a proposed expansion of offshore oil and gas drilling along the entire U.S. East Coast and four parts of California. "Ecosystems are disrupted top to bottom by the short and long term effects of oil," Ted Danson, actor and founder of American Oceans Campaign, told the House of Representatives Natural Resources Committee. "More oil spills mean less abundant oceans. More oil spills mean fewer ...

Thu, 12 Feb 09
Kissing, climate change to heat up science meet
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090211/sc_afp/scienceusconferenceclimate
Agence France-Presse: The consequences of climate change, the birth of the universe and the science of kissing are among the topics set to be explored at a top scientific conference that opens Thursday in Chicago. As many as 10,000 researchers from across the globe are expected to attend the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), which runs through Monday. The conference theme, "Our Planet and its Life: Origins and Futures" was chosen in recognition of the ...

Thu, 12 Feb 09
Tesla says likely to be profitable by mid-2009
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51A7HE20090211?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Electric car start-up Tesla Motors Inc on Wednesday said it should be profitable by the middle of this year and that it sold out of its Roadster sports car model until early November. Founder and Chief Executive Elon Musk, in a company newsletter, also said the company expects to receive funds from a $350 million Department of Energy loan within four to five months that will go toward a new four-door electric sedan set to go into production in 2011. "The Obama administration ...

Thu, 12 Feb 09
Polar bears in western Arctic going hungry
http://www.peopleandplanet.net/doc.php?id=3501
Edmonton Journal: Polar bears in the western Arctic are struggling to find food during the critical spring period, according to a recent report. University of Alberta and Environment Canada scientists compared current samples of the bears' waste with those from 20 years ago and determined that nearly a third more polar bears are going hungry in the spring than went hungry in the 1980s. A recent study predicted that two-thirds of the world's polar bears -- including all of those in Alaska and ...

Thu, 12 Feb 09
US interior secretary halts offshore drilling plan
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/11/offshore-drilling-plan-obama-interior-department
McClatchy: US interior secretary Ken Salazar yesterday ordered an assessment of offshore oil and gas resources to help the Obama administration decide where to allow energy production along the nation's coastlines. The review could include test drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico near Florida's shores, as well as along the state's east coast. Salazar delayed a five-year drilling plan that had been issued in the final hours of the Bush administration. It would have opened all of the ...

Thu, 12 Feb 09
Denmark: Vestas wind turbines prove resilient amid economic gloom
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/11/wind-turbines-vestas
Guardian: Vestas, the world's largest wind turbine maker, brought some cheer to a renewable power sector struggling against the credit crunch. The Danish company today reported a better-than-expected 51% rise in its full-year operating profit and maintained its 2009 sales and profit forecasts. But it admitted that profit growth seen over the last three years would slow during the next 12 months and said costs would be cut back if there was improvement in demand over the next ...

Thu, 12 Feb 09
Nicholas Stern: Spend billions on green investments now to reverse economic downturn and halt climate ch
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/11/stern-climate-change
Guardian: Governments across the world must commit to hundreds of billions of pounds in green investments within months in a combined attack on the global economic crisis and global warming, according to leading economists including Nicholas Stern. The team says some $400bn (£277bn) should be channelled to support low-carbon technologies such as home insulation and renewable energy. Given the urgency of both the economic and climate crises, it wants the green investment made by this summer and ...

Thu, 12 Feb 09
What a slump in carbon prices means for the future
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16583-what-a-slump-in-carbon-prices-means-for-the-future.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=climate-change
New Scientist: It is getting progressively cheaper to pollute the atmosphere. The price of permits to emit carbon dioxide has crashed, falling to 9.30 euros ($12) per tonne of CO2 on Tuesday, close to the all-time low of 8 euros. In the medium to long term, this might affect the European Union's ability to meet its ambitious targets for reducing emissions by 20% by 2020 relative to 1990 levels. A low price is bound to have more immediate effects too. Will it affect the Kyoto ...

Thu, 12 Feb 09
Clean and Green Gets a New Champion
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45736
Inter Press Service: The launch of a new international agency devoted solely to the promotion of renewable energy last month was applauded by many environmental groups, but left others wondering whether it is too little, too late. On Jan. 26, 75 countries signed the statutes of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the first intergovernmental agency exclusively focused on the promotion of green power sources like wind and solar. "This is very historic," Michael Eckhart, executive ...

Thu, 12 Feb 09
Global Warming Pushes North American Birds Northward
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2009/2009-02-10-01.asp
Environment News Service: Driven by a warming climate, North American birds are moving northward and inland, according to new analyses by scientists with the National Audubon Society of 40 years of observations by birdwatchers. Sophisticated computerized analysis of data gathered during Audubon's Christmas Bird Counts since 1968 show that 58 percent of the 305 widespread species that winter on the continent have shifted north, some by hundreds of miles. "Experts predict that global warming will mean ...

Thu, 12 Feb 09
Stern calls on world to commit $400bn to green stimulus plans
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2236252/stern-calls-world-commit-400bn
Business Green: A major new UK report has called on governments to include a minimum of $400bn of green spending in their various economic stimulus plans or risk locking the global economy into several more decades of carbon intensive growth. The research from the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment and the new Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy was carried out by many of the academics who worked on the influential Stern Review, and assessed the economic case ...

Thu, 12 Feb 09
United Kingdom: London to trial free green home makeovers
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2236240/london-trial-free-green-home
Business Green: The roll out of a free green home makeover service for London's social housing developments could take its first steps next month with the launch of a pilot project in Lewisham, which if successful could be replicated across the capital. The project, which is co-funded by Lewisham Council and the London Development Agency, will provide a block of 36 maisonettes with a free "green home concierge service" from G-Ten, the environmental arm of concierge services firm Ten Lifestyle ...

Thu, 12 Feb 09
Merged climate, pollution fight seen saving cash
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51A4TN20090211?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Merging separate fights against air pollution and climate change could save cash and encourage developing nations such as China to do more to curb global warming, researchers said Wednesday. "There are big gains to be made" from a combined policy, said Petter Tollefsen, a researcher at the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research, Oslo (CICERO). The European Union alone could make efficiency gains of 2.8 billion euros ($3.62 billion) a year by 2020 by ...

Thu, 12 Feb 09
United Kingdom: Climate Camp to target the City
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/11/emissionstrading-carbonemissions
Guardian: The organisers of Climate Camp, a protest group that has previously demonstrated at coal power stations and Heathrow airport, have chosen London's financial centre as the target of their main summer protest this year. The decision to target the City is aimed at throwing a spotlight on the carbon trading system, one of the central planks of the EU's attempts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from businesses. Carbon trading in the US is also being pushed by the Obama administration, ...

Thu, 12 Feb 09
Russia: Putin petitioned over Siberian power station
http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/what_we_do/forests/news/?uNewsID=156361
WWF: A petition jointly organised by WWF-Russia and signed by more than 8,000 people was handed in to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin this week against the construction of a hydro-electric power station in Siberia that would threaten the indigenous population as well as the local ecosystem. The construction project, in the Evenk municipal district, could drive as many as 2,000 Evenki out of their homes and deer-herding pasture lands and, according to the evaluation data, one million ...

Thu, 12 Feb 09
United States: A warming trend?
http://suburbanjournals.stltoday.com/articles/2009/02/11/madison/news/0211cvj-warmingtrend.txt
Suburban Journals: Even though this week's 70-degree temperatures were hardly a summer scorcher, for Julie Kalin, of Maryville, the warmer weather was just excuse to get her son, Alex, 4, outdoors following a winter of bitter, icy weather. "It's a little windy," she said Monday at Woodland Park, when temperatures topped 71 degrees. But while jacket-and-shorts weather is a nice perk in normally frigid February, she said, it does raise some concerns. "It actually seems a little scarier to ...

Thu, 12 Feb 09
In Australia, Victoria state premier stands by 'stay and defend' policy
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-fg-australia-fires11-2009feb11,0,2182276.story
LA Times: More than 900 homes have been destroyed, and 7,000 people have registered for assistance with the Red Cross, officials said. Victoria state Premier John Brumby said today that a blanket evacuation order for a million people was not practical and that the government was maintaining its policy allowing residents to stay and battle fires if they wish. "We've had a stay-or-go policy in this state for more than 20 years, and it's overwhelmingly served us well," he told Australian ...

Thu, 12 Feb 09
Philippines: World Bank's carbon finance program no tilting at windmills
http://businessmirror.com.ph/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5951:wbs-carbon-finance-program-no-tilting-at-windmills&catid=34:perspective&Itemid=62
Business Mirror: In Bangui Bay, the humming of the 40 meter-long rotor blades of wind turbines 70 meters up in the air blends with the murmur of the breeze and the rush of the waves up and down the sandy shore. Just a few hundred meters away, this symphony is imperceptible. But the presence of the wind farm resonates beyond its placid realm, creating an even bigger story: the emergence of the Philippine carbon market that may yet revolutionize renewable energy financing in the country. Nobody in ...

Thu, 12 Feb 09
Brazil: Global warming may drive the Amazon rainforest toward seasonal forests rather than savanna
http://news.mongabay.com/2009/0211-amazon.html
Mongabay: Changes in rainfall resulting from climate change may drive the parts of Amazon rainforest toward seasonal forests rather than savanna, argue researchers writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Comparing climate simulations by 19 global climate models with observations from the 20th century, Yadvinder Malhi and colleagues found that most projections underestimate rainfall, suggesting the Eastern Amazon will still have enough precipitation to support seasonal ...

Thu, 12 Feb 09
Global warming drives birds north
http://news.mongabay.com/2009/0211-birds.html
Mongabay: Nearly 60 percent of the 305 species found in North America in winter have shifted their ranges northward by an average of 35 miles, according to an assessment by the Audubon Society. The findings are based on 40 years of data from the group's Christmas Bird Count -- an effort that enlists citizens in a massive bird census each year -- and suggest "that global warming is having a serious impact on natural systems." Over the past 40 years the average January temperature in the United ...

Thu, 12 Feb 09
China and the US - the road to rapprochement on climate change
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/11/network-us-china-climate-change
Guardian: In a new report released by the Asia Society's Center on US-China Relations and the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, a group of more than 50 experts on China, politics and business aim to provide Barack Obama's new US administration with a policy roadmap for cooperation with China. Common Challenge, Collaborative Response: A Roadmap for US-China Cooperation on Energy and Climate Change was produced by the Initiative for US-China Cooperation on Energy and Climate Task Force, co-chaired by ...

Thu, 12 Feb 09
Climate change suspected in loss of salamanders
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/02/10/MNHB15RC6G.DTL
San Francisco Chronicle: Salamanders, those lowly amphibians that Bay Area folks can find in their moist backyards, are disappearing from a volcano in Guatemala and the mountains of Mexico - possibly another victim of climate change, UC Berkeley researchers say. With frog populations all over the world on the decline for decades, the latest discovery adds up to a "global amphibian crisis," the Berkeley team contends in the current online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of ...

Thu, 12 Feb 09
Climate change: Britain predicts global catastrophe
http://www.thisdayonline.com/nview.php?id=135381
This Day: The British Government yesterday predicted that the world will witness a round of global catastophies arising from increased temperature of the earth by the year 2050, unless the international community agree to take concerted steps towards addressing the problem of global warming and climate change. The alarm came at the inauguration of the House of Representatives Committee on Climate Change, but the Speaker of the House, Honourable Dimeji Bankole, laid the blame on the doorsteps of ...

Thu, 12 Feb 09
Canada: Blue-box leftovers go to China and back
http://www.thestar.com/News/Ontario/article/584523
Toronto Star: Ontario's recycling scraps – dirty peanut butter jars, plastic toys, and unsorted paper – are being shipped to Asia at a rate of thousands of tonnes a month. The blue-box castoffs are sorted by low-paid workers in huge factories, and recycled into inexpensive toys, shoes and colourful cardboard packages, before being sold back to Ontarians, where they fill the blue boxes once again. Garbage experts say this revolving door is a necessary evil that will continue until the ...

Thu, 12 Feb 09
Australia's fires taken as a portent of global warming
http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/uncategorized/australias-fires-taken-as-a-portent-of-global-warming_100153621.html
Indo-Asian News Service: Sonja Parkinson, whose Kinglake home was among more than 750 houses destroyed in Saturday`s blaze north of Melbourne, blames state authorities in Victoria. 'We saw the fire and heard the roar over the hill. We saw the orange flame. There wasn`t any warning,' she said. 'We were listening to the radio the whole time and they didn`t know.' Others who have lost homes, loved ones and livelihood have taken their frustrations out on the fire brigade. Australia has the world`s ...

Thu, 12 Feb 09
United Kingdom: Prince of Wales 'could star with Harrison Ford' in bid to save rainforests
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/theroyalfamily/4591310/Prince-of-Wales-could-star-with-Harrison-Ford-in-bid-to-save-rainforests.html
Telegraph: He will visit the Amazon in Brazil next month to deliver a keynote speech in the run-up to November's Copenhagen summit on climate change according to The Sun. The heir to the throne set up the Prince's Rainforests Project in October 2007 in an attempt to increase global awareness of the threat to rainforests - the project works alongside other governmental and non-governmental initiatives as it tries to engage public interest on the subject. Last October, the Prince argued ...

Thu, 12 Feb 09
United States: Climate change to have many impacts on Washington state
http://www.oregonlive.com/newsflash/index.ssf?/base/news-45/123434304986270.xml&storylist=orenvironment
Associated Press: During the next 50 years, climate change will have a dramatic impact on Washington state -- snowpack is expected to decrease, water shortages are coming, wildfires could double in size, and more people may die -- according to a new report from scientists across the region. The report from the Climate Impacts Group at the University of Washington paints a bleak picture of the impact of climate change on human health, agriculture, energy supply and demand, streamflow and water ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Water scenario grave in India by 2020
http://news.chennaionline.com/newsitem.aspx?NEWSID=7b88abdc-1f6e-4eff-a58b-412799ad02c2&CATEGORYNAME=CHN
Chennai Online: India is expected to experience severe water stress by 2020 with the per capita availability of water projected to be less than 1,000 cubic metres. Indian water scenario was a matter of grave concern, as 85 per cent of water was used for agriculture, 10 per cent for industry and five per cent for domestic use, according to a paper presented at a national symposium here. Being a developing nation with a large population on the negative side of the poverty line, economic water ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
United Kingdom: Gas-guzzling drivers to pay more
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/7881783.stm
BBC: Drivers of so-called "gas-guzzlers" will have to pay more to park their cars in Edinburgh from next year under new rules approved by the city council. The scheme is the first in Scotland to use a sliding scale for residents' permits based on a car's CO2 rating. Charges will almost double to £320 per year for the most polluting cars, while "greener" cars will pay £15. It was widely supported in a public consultation, but opponents have questioned the impact on ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Lower-priced photovoltaic cells will help utilities meet new standards
http://online.barrons.com/article/SB123421621016065117.html?mod=googlenews_barrons
Barron's: SINCE THE U.S. PHOTOVOLTAIC (PV) market is expected to be the industry growth driver over the next several years, we encourage investors to track the renewable-energy dynamics of U.S. utility companies. We are thus providing frequent updates of recent solar developments from different states and cities. These updates detail changes to state renewable portfolio standard (RPS) programs and also highlight the implications for solar PV. In this report, we are highlighting the ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
EU to launch environment project 'auction'
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jJm4VlyndN495vNIL5-nKNvAbiRw
Agence France-Presse: The European Union will offer almost 100 environmental projects from developing countries around the world in an auction to try to attract donors to back them, the European Commission said Tuesday. The "Auction Floor," to be held in Brussels on March 13, will allow developing projects to meet potential donors such as local authorities, representatives of EU member states and private sector foundations. "We are trying to find funding partners for some of the project proposals ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Australia's fires, the world's fires
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0211/p08s01-comv.html
Christian Science Monitor: The record toll in lives and destruction from Australia's wildfires is forcing a fresh look at dealing with such threats. How to deter arson? How to prepare homeowners? Scientists can't link this specific event to global warming, but they forecast a need to adapt to erratic weather. This has implications for fire preparedness the world over. Bush fires are as permanent a fixture in Australia as the great red Uluru Rock. Eucalyptus, with its highly flammable oil, provides ample tinder ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
India: Delayed clearance clouds CDM projects
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/Economy/Policy/Delayed_clearance_clouds_CDM_projects/articleshow/4108960.cms
Economic Times: Domestic companies such as Mahindra & Mahindra, Suzlon Energy, Tata Steel, Reliance Industries, Oil & Natural Gas Corp (ONGC), National Thermal Power Corp (NTPC) and DLF are waiting for the UN-led clean development mechanism (CDM) executive board's approval to implement their CDM projects. Of the 1,174 projects cleared by the Indian government, 748 are pending for registration with the international agency. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is the regulatory ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Salazar Delays Bush Offshore Oil, Gas Drilling Plan
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=awTvRYSdu918&refer=home
Bloomberg: U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said he will delay a proposal made in the last days of the Bush administration to expand drilling for oil and natural gas in the Outer Continental Shelf. "We need to set aside the Bush administration's midnight timetable for its OCS drilling plan and create our own timeline," Salazar, a former Democratic senator from Colorado, said at a press conference today. Salazar said he will extend the public comment period by 180 days, get a report on ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Tapping Sun to Cost New Jersey Utility $773 Million
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aY1mO4yrMsPA&refer=us
Bloomberg: Public Service Enterprise Group Inc. plans to spend $773 million over five years to install solar panels on power poles and government buildings in New Jersey to meet the Garden State's requirement for more renewable energy. The owner of New Jersey's largest utility will add 120 megawatts of non-polluting generating capacity, enough to power about 100,000 homes, Alfred Matos, vice president for renewable energy, said in an interview. PSEG today asked state regulators to raise monthly ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Salazar puts coastal drilling plans on hold
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/02/10/MNB015R7TQ.DTL&tsp=1
San Francisco Chronicle: President Obama is shelving a plan announced in the final days of the Bush administration to open much of the U.S. coast to oil drilling, including 130 million acres off California's coast from Mendocino to San Diego. On Tuesday, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar ordered the plan be put on hold while his agency conducts a 180-day review of the country's offshore oil and gas resources. Salazar's critical comments about the plan signaled that the new administration will seek to rewrite it ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
New Report Calls for US-China Collaboration on Climate Change
http://www.voanews.com/english/AmericanLife/2009-02-10-voa60.cfm
Voice of America: In talks with Chinese leaders on her first diplomatic trip to Asia next week, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is expected to discuss how the two nations can work together to curb climate-changing industrial emissions. China recently overtook the United States as the world's top polluter. A new report published by Asia Society and the Pew Center on Global Climate Change urges the United States and China to collaborate on ways to reduce their contributions to global ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
US Interior Secretary breaks with 'drill-only' energy policy
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5glW00sGMMZGkn7yY2dNB3f1LuOTA
Agence France-Presse: US Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Tuesday moved away from "drill-only" energy policies as he blocked a last-minute attempt by the administration of George W. Bush to push through the sale of offshore leases to gas and oil companies. "On January 16, the last business day of the Bush administration, the administration proposed a new five-year plan for offshore oil and gas leasing," Salazar told a news conference. What Salazar called a "midnight action" by the previous ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Salazar rejects Bush drilling plan
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gB6bi0EyTozdEPy0KGisTQNaS2PQD968VBBO0
Associated Press: Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has rejected a Bush administration plan to open vast waters off the Pacific and Atlantic coasts to oil and gas drilling, promising "a new way forward" in offshore energy development including new wind projects. Salazar at a news conference Tuesday criticized "the midnight timetable" for new oil and gas development on the country's Outer Continental Shelf proposed by the Bush administration four days before President Barack Obama took office Jan. ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
United States: Oil And Gas Production A Major Source Of Dallas-Fort Worth Smog
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090210162037.htm
ScienceDaily: The first comprehensive analysis of air emissions associated with natural gas and oil production in the Barnett Shale area finds that emissions can be a significant contributor to Dallas-Fort Worth smog formation, comparable to the combined emissions from all Metroplex cars and trucks. In addition to emissions of smog-forming compounds, such as nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds (VOC), the report also considers air toxic chemicals and greenhouse gases. Emissions of carbon ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
New research reveals increasing impact of climate change on investment decisions
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-02/cdp-nrr020609.php
EurekAlert: New research by the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) with responses from 80 of CDP's signatory investors across the globe revealed that three-quarters factor climate change information into their investment decisions and asset allocations. Of these, more than 80% consider climate change to be important relative to other issues impacting their portfolio. Interestingly, some of the institutions surveyed revealed a willingness to go beyond requesting disclosure on climate change, such as ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
United Kingdom: Parking permits for gas-guzzlers in capital to cost £320 every year
http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/transport/display.var.2488387.0.Parking_permits_for_gasguzzlers_in_capital_to_cost_320_every_year.php
Herald: DRIVERS of the most polluting vehicles in the Scottish capital are to be hit with higher parking charges, it was announced yesterday. The cost of annual parking permits for vehicles with the highest emissions will double to £320 a year under a new Edinburgh Council City scheme, first highlighted in The Herald in 2006. But motorists with cleaner and more efficient cars will see the cost of parking reduced to as little as £15 a year. The council said it hopes the creation ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Overkill: did humans cause a mass extinction?
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/world-history/overkill-did-humans-cause-a-mass-extinction-1604968.html
Independent: The most popular theory for the cause of this mass extinction was first put forward by American scientist Paul Martin, nearly 40 years ago. He put it down to the arrival of Homo sapiens. In both America and Australia these mass mammal extinctions followed shortly after the arrival of the first humans. In Australia they began about 40,000 years ago, in the Americas about 13,000 years ago. According to Martin, because animals in these continents had never come across humans, they were ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Australia fears more than 200 dead in bushfires
http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsindex.php?id=388976
Reuters: Australian police combed through a blackened landscape searching for clues in the hunt for possible arsonists on Tuesday as the death toll from the nation's worst bushfires looked likely to top 200. Victoria state Police Commissioner Christine Nixon launched the nation's biggest arson investigation, dubbed "Operation Phoenix", vowing to catch anyone who started a blaze. The bushfires which swept through Victoria on Saturday night were "suspicious" because there were no natural ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Salazar Broadens Offshore Energy to Wind, Waves, Currents
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2009/2009-02-10-091.asp
Environment News Service: On its last business day in office, the Bush administration proposed a new five year plan for offshore oil and gas leasing to follow the current plan, in effect through 2012. Today, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar put the brakes on this "midnight action" in favor of building a framework for offshore renewable energy development to incorporate "the great potential for wind, wave, and ocean current energy into our offshore energy strategy." At a news conference in Washington, ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
China: Holding Back the Sands
http://www.cibmagazine.com.cn/Features/Focus.asp?id=819&holding_back_the_sands.html
China International Business: Early next month -- on March 12 to be precise -- millions of Chinese people will head out to the countryside to plant trees. This has been happening every year for the last 30 years, with 500 million volunteers participating in National Tree Planting Day in 2007, planting over 2.27 billion trees between them according to official statistics. This is one small part of China's continual battle against its increasingly arid landscape. Yet, despite these people's best interests -- and the ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Australia sifts through ash to ID bushfire victims
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE5171EI20090211
Reuters: Forensic police sifted through ash and the twisted remains of houses on Wednesday to identify those killed in the nation's deadliest bushfires, but some are so badly burned they may never be identified. "In some of these cases it will be weeks before positive identification can be made," Victoria state premier John Brumby said, as the official toll was put at 181 but media said could reach as high as 300. One razed town, Marysville, may have an additional 100 dead, said local ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Google tool helps consumers reduce energy usage
http://tech.yahoo.com/news/nm/20090211/wr_nm/us_google_smartgrid
Reuters: Google Inc on Tuesday said it would use its software skills to help consumers track their home energy usage and thereby lower demand and the global warming emissions that come from producing electricity. The move is part of Google's effort to pump hundreds of millions of dollars into renewable energy, electricity-grid upgrades and other measures that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The company has already invested in several fledgling solar, wind and geothermal companies, ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Google Taking a Step Into Power Metering
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=118074
New York Times: Google will announce its entry Tuesday into the small but growing business of "smart grid," digital technologies that seek to both keep the electrical system on an even keel and reduce electrical energy consumption. Google is one of a number of companies devising ways to control the demand for electric power as an alternative to building more power plants. The company has developed a free Web service called PowerMeter that consumers can use to track energy use in their house or ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
For east Europe, geothermal can replace some gas
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51A01H20090211?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Lajos Barath last year took an ancient route to energy for his hospital. Switching the heating and hot water entirely to geothermal energy, he was building on a Roman discovery continued by the Turks. Besides saving energy costs, the two wells 2,150 meters (7,000 feet) deep from which hot water is pumped proved a good investment last month, when Russia cut off gas supplies through Ukraine in freezing midwinter. "We set up an energy system in our hospital ... which is based on a ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Greece wins acclaim saying yes to clean energy, no to new coal and nuclear
http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/what_we_do/climate_change/news/?uNewsID=156262
WWF: Greece yesterday outlined an energy future of strong support for renewable energy, with development minister Kostis Hatzidakis ruling out investment in new coal-fired of nuclear power plants. The announcement was especially gratifying to WWF-Greece, founder with other partners of a "No-to-coal" coalition which has enlisted strong community support – particularly in areas proposed or suggested for new coal-fired plants. "We congratulate Mr Hatzidakis for ending the coal drama ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Record number of global firms to face calls for carbon disclosure
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2236192/record-number-global-firms-face
Business Green: More than 3,700 of the world's largest companies will today receive information requests from the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) asking them to publicly release data on their carbon emissions and climate change strategy. The initiative has grown significantly since last year when 2,800 businesses were contacted, and the 50 largest companies in Russia, 100 new companies in eastern Europe and 350 extra firms in Japan can expect to receive information requests from the CDP for the first ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Climate Change Lessons from the Slopes
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/analysis/2236190/climate-change-lessons-slopes
Business Green: A recent study presented at last month's American Geophysical Union conference holds chilling news for the $2 billion US ski industry: climate change might end skiing in Aspen and Park City by 2100. It stands to reason that if the snow pack dries up, the ski industry could, too. But the study from Mark Williams and Brian Lazar could be a harbinger of things to come for other consumer-facing industries as well. As one of the first industries to face climate change head-on, skiing ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Climate change nudges American birds northward
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51981720090210?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Climate change is pushing American birds northward, with some finches and chickadees moving hundreds of miles (km) into Canada, an Audubon Society study reported on Tuesday. Drawing on citizen observations over a 40-year period, the society's scientists found that 58 percent of 305 widespread bird species found in the contiguous United States shifted significantly to the north. While there are many factors that can make birds move, there's no question this is caused by ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
United Kingdom: National Grid to pipe carbon dioxide emissions under North Sea
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/utilities/article5705182.ece
Times (UK): National Grid is drawing up plans for a new business unit that will pipe carbon dioxide emissions from UK power stations for storage in geological formations beneath the North Sea, The Times has learnt. National Grid believes the business, dubbed National Grid Carbon, can play a major role in the company's long-term growth by serving UK power plants fitted with carbon capture and storage (CCS) equipment. Chris Train, the director of network operations, said that the group is ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Oil refiners to pay $141 million over pollution
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE5197X920090210?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Two oil refiners in Wyoming and Kansas have agreed to pay a total of $141 million to settle air pollution violations, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said on Tuesday. Frontier Oil Corp is set to pay a $1.23 million civil penalty and spend about $127 million on pollution control upgrades for alleged violations at its refineries in Cheyenne, Wyoming and El Dorado, Kansas. Separately, Wyoming Refining Co has agreed to pay a $150,000 fine and to spend $14 million on ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Solution for the world's water woes
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7881382.stm
BBC: Rising populations and growing demand is making the world a thirsty planet, says David Molden. In this week's Green Room, he says the solution lies in people reducing the size of their "water footprints". Each of us can make a difference if we first consider the water implications of our lifestyles and the water footprint we are leaving behind Today, one-third of the world's population has to contend with water scarcity, and there are ominous signs that this proportion could quickly ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Oil crosses over into the ethanol business
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090210/ap_on_bi_ge/refiners_ethanol
Associated Press: If federal renewable fuel mandates require ethanol to be mixed into gasoline, the nation's largest independent oil refiner figures it might as well just do it itself. The ethanol industry is under duress partly due to overcapacity and biorefineries can now be had for pennies on the dollar. Valero Energy Corp. became the first conventional energy company to test the waters last week, bidding $280 million for five ethanol plants owned by VeraSun Energy Corp., which is now under ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Can algae save the world - again?
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE5196HB20090210?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Can algae save the world again? The microscopic green plants cleaned up the earth's atmosphere millions of years ago and scientists hope they can do it now by helping remove greenhouse gases and create new oil reserves. In the distant past, algae helped turn the earth's then inhospitable atmosphere into one that could support modern life through photosynthesis, which plants use to turn carbon dioxide and sunlight into sugars and oxygen. Some of the algae sank to sea or lake ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
U.S. extends comment period for offshore drilling
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE5196K020090210?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: The Interior Department on Tuesday extended the public comment period by 180 days on a 5-year proposal to expand offshore oil and natural gas drilling. The Bush administration had drawn up an offshore drilling plan during the final days of its term, setting a 60-day comment period for the proposal. New U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said he would add another 180 days for public comment, providing a total of 240 days to review the drilling plan through this ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Congress seen backing renewable energy standard
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE5195A820090210?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: There is enough support in the U.S. Congress to pass legislation requiring utilities to generate a portion of their electricity supplies from wind, solar and other renewable energy sources, the chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee said on Tuesday. The committee held a hearing on draft legislation that would set a national renewable electricity standard, which would help meet President Barack Obama's goal to double renewable energy production over the next ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Scientists losing war of words over climate change
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16576-scientists-losing-war-of-words-over-climate-change.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=climate-change
New Scientist: Who understands the probabilities of climate change? Certainly not the general public, if psychological tests on volunteers in the US are to be believed. The public, it seems, thinks climate scientists are less certain about their conclusions than they actually are. The results could explain why the minority views of "climate sceptics" get proportionally more attention from the general public than those of climate scientists. Scientists are by their nature reluctant to express ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
GM leader says he'll meet stringent fuel standards
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090210/ap_on_go_co/gm_fuel_standards
Associated Press: General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner said Tuesday the automaker is committed to meeting tighter fuel efficiency requirements as he met with House and Senate leaders who could play a role in developing global warming legislation. Wagoner was on Capitol Hill to meet with Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va. The two Democrats recently took control of committees with jurisdiction over the auto industry. Even in its weakened shape, GM has "prioritized all the ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Hot and dry Australia sees wildfire danger rise
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090210/ap_on_re_ca/as_australia_global_warming
Associated Press: Australia may be getting a glimpse of its globally warmed future. Experts agreed Tuesday that no one drought, flood or wildfire can be attributed to global warming, but they stressed that the eucalyptus forest and farms of southeastern Australia are becoming warmer, drier and more prone to fire as the planet heats up. Some say rising temperatures are making Australia's climate more extreme at the edges. Snow will disappear from the few mountains that still have it, the cyclones ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Firm looks to team wave with wind power
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2236161/firm-looks-team-wave-wind-power
Business Green: Scottish renewables firm Green Ocean Energy hopes to have a working prototype of a 500KW wave power machine that could be fitted to the base of offshore wind turbines by 2010. The company says the economics of both machines are enhanced as infrastructure such as the foundation and cabling can be shared. The Wave Treader system has two arms that extend either side of a fixed structure which lifts and falls with the waves, driving hydraulic fluid. The hydraulic fluid spins ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
High Carbon Dioxide Boosts Plant Respiration, Potentially Affecting Climate And Crops
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090209205202.htm
ScienceDaily: The leaves of soybeans grown at the elevated carbon dioxide (CO2) levels predicted for the year 2050 respire more than those grown under current atmospheric conditions, researchers report, a finding that will help fine-tune climate models and could point to increased crop yields as CO2 levels rise. The study, from researchers at the University of Illinois and the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, appears the week of February 9 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Climate Change Paradox: Wind Turbines in Europe Do Nothing for Emissions-Reduction Goals
http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,606763,00.html#ref=rss
Spiegel: Germany's renewable energy companies are a tremendous success story. Roughly 15 percent of the country's electricity comes from solar, wind or biomass facilities, almost 250,000 jobs have been created and the net worth of the business is 35 billion per year. But there's a catch: The climate hasn't in fact profited from these developments. As astonishing as it may sound, the new wind turbines and solar cells haven't prohibited the emission of even a single gram of CO2. Under ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Biofuels study sees 90 billion gallons by 2030
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090210/ap_on_bi_ge/biofuels_study
Associated Press: The U.S. could produce enough ethanol to displace nearly a third of all gasoline use by 2030, but gas would have to cost more than it does today for the plan to work, according to a study released Tuesday by Sandia National Laboratories and General Motors Corp. The researchers found that annual ethanol production from plant waste and energy crops could reach 90 billion gallons by that date, with 75 billion gallons coming from cellulosic feedstocks such as switchgrass, corn stover, ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Coalition Calls For US To Lead Climate Change Battle
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1636874/coalition_calls_for_us_to_lead_climate_change_battle/index.html?source=r_science
redOrbit: A coalition of lawmakers, corporate chiefs and environmentalists said on Monday that the United States needs to take the lead in preserving tropical forests in the fight against climate change, Reuters reported. Members of the Avoided Deforestation Partners coalition told a Capitol Hill forum that deforestation accounts for 20 percent of the carbon emissions that spur global warming. New legislation on climate change is expected some time this year, as Congress seeks new ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
European cities sign climate change agreement
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090210/ap_on_re_eu/eu_eu_climate_change
Associated Press: Mayors from more than 350 cities across Europe signed an EU climate change agreement Tuesday pledging to cut carbon dioxide emissions by more than 20 percent by 2020. The pact covers urban areas across 23 EU countries and includes cities like London, Paris and Madrid. Cities in Switzerland, Norway, Ukraine and Turkey have also signed it, and faraway places -- like New York; Buenos Aires, Argentina and Christchurch, New Zealand -- also backed the initiative. European ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
United Kingdom: DUP stands by climate change sceptic environment minister
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/10/sammy-wilson-climate-change
Guardian: Despite petitions calling for his sacking and even fellow unionists accusing him of turning Northern Ireland into a laughing stock, the Democratic Unionist party is sticking by climate change sceptic Sammy Wilson, who is the province's environment minister. All the major parties in the Northern Ireland assembly have now said Wilson is unfit to hold the office, after he used his powers this week to ban government television adverts from the province's airwaves. Wilson said the Act On ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Carolina wren, others nudged north
http://www.thestate.com/local/story/679863.html
Associated Press: The Carolina wren -- the state bird of South Carolina -- has turned into a Yankee. It`s among more than half of 305 bird species in North America that are spending the winter about 35 miles farther north than they did 40 years ago, according to an Audubon Society study to be released today. Based on Audubon`s calculations, the Carolina wren is now commonly seen in the winter well into New England, as well as its namesake state of South Carolina. Birds of South ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
The tiny, slimy savior of global coral reefs?
http://features.csmonitor.com/environment/2009/02/06/the-tiny-slimy-savior-of-global-coral-reefs/
Christian Science Monitor: Coral reefs, already declining in many areas around the world, face even tougher times ahead, say scientists. Warming and increasingly acidic oceans, combined with other stresses could conceivably spell the end for reefs as we know them, they warn. But Andrew Baker, a scientist at the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, has a more optimistic view. He thinks that corals have an innate – if limited – capacity to adapt to rising temperatures. And he ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
As birds winter, signs of warming
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/health_science/daily/20090210_As_birds_winter__signs_of_warming.html
Philadelphia Inquirer: The American robin, once a harbinger of spring, is now a year-round resident here, hunkering down for the winter in thickets. For years, Schuylkill Haven birder and wildlife author Scott Weidensaul used to relish seeing the first turkey vulture that would venture north of the Kittatiny Ridge come the melting snow. Now, he sees them throughout the winter. The story is much the same nationwide. Among more than 300 species that the National Audubon Society has data on going back ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Scientists blame warming for change in bird migration
http://www.beaufortgazette.com/local/story/700077.html
Beaufort Gazette: It's not unusual in the late fall and winter months for Hilton Head Island bird watchers to spot warblers and tropical birds that normally would migrate to Florida or Central America this time of year. "Spring is coming earlier," said Barry Lowes of the Hilton Head Island Audubon Society. "The birds are migrating earlier. ... In the fall we get birds that should be way down in Central and South America." When warm temperatures carry through winter months, the birds linger and ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Climate change is altering the range of birds
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/399450_birds10.html
Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Years ago, the Anna's hummingbird used to winter in the U.S. only as far north as California but now is a regular Christmas visitor to Seattle and throughout the Pacific Northwest. Climate change appears to be the reason. "They are more aggressive and displacing native species like the rufous hummingbirds," said Matt Mega, conservation director for the Seattle Audubon Society. One method of tracking changes in bird migratory and wintering patterns is the annual Audubon Christmas Bird ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
United States: Shrinking water supplies imperil farmers
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123423167165366189.html
Wall Street Journal: Dwindling water supplies are compounding economic woes in California's Central Valley, causing farmers to leave fields fallow and confront the prospect of going under. Bill Diedrich, a farmer in California's Central Valley, inspects his almond trees. His nephew, Todd Diedrich, is letting 1,000 acres of his family's 1,500-acre farm go fallow this year to concentrate use of scarce water. The state's water supply has dropped precipitously of late. California is locked in the third ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Australia fires point to risks of shifting population
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123418933637463673.html
Wall Street Journal: The wildfires that have so far claimed more than 170 lives in Australia highlight the vulnerabilities in countries where populations are spilling into rural areas already under stress from sometimes extreme weather conditions. Police suspect arsonists played a role in starting at least some of the blazes in Australia, contributing to one of the worst natural disasters in the country's history. Investigators fanned out across the region Tuesday. In some places, officials still ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
United Kingdom: Skiing is 'doomed' -- so enjoy it while it lasts
http://news.scotsman.com/latestnews/Skiing---is-.4962678.jp
Scotsman: SCOTLAND may be blanketed in snow this week, but the ski industry is doomed to disappear within decades, a leading climate expert has warned. Alex Hill, the chief government adviser with the Met Office, told The Scotsman there was no future for skiing in Scotland because climate change would see winters become too warm for regular snowfall. Environmental groups last night agreed with this claim. However, although members of the ski industry agreed that climate change was having an ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Birds being forced north by climate change
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/range-species-california-2304045-bird-scientists
Orange County Register: Already hammered by increasing wildfire, Orange County's plummeting population of coastal cactus wrens might face even harder times ahead: a new study shows global warming could evict the species from 30 percent more of its range by the end of the century. A famously threatened species, the California gnatcatcher, could lose as much as 56 percent of its range. The dire forecasts are part of a newly released study by Audubon California predicting dramatic shifts in the ranges of ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Study: Warming climate to hurt California bird species
http://www.modbee.com/state_wire/story/594377.html
Associated Press: Since 1967, birder and teacher Gene Cardiff has trekked with students to California's mountains and deserts to catch a glimpse of the white-headed woodpecker, or other rare sights. But Cardiff, an ornithologist who lives near San Bernardino, said the state's drought conditions over the past few years have devastated bird food sources in his area's forests and deserts, leading to fewer birds to watch. "I can't do a good job teaching my class because there are no birds to see," ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Irish firm launches most efficient solar panel ever
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2236140/irish-firm-launches-efficient
Business Green: It might not be famed for its sunshine, but Ireland last week became home to what its developers claim is the most efficient solar panel ever produced. County Mayo-based Surface Power last week launched the commercial version of its solar hot water panel, following independent certification from testing firm TUV Rhineland which found that when compared to other solar hot water panels, the vacuum collector design was in one case 131 per cent more efficient during the morning and ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
New Tool Gets Handle On Cropland CO2 Emissions
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1636575/new_tool_gets_handle_on_cropland_co2_emissions/index.html?source=r_science
redOrbit: For the first time, farmers have data that tracks at the county level on-site and off-site energy use and carbon dioxide emissions associated with growing crops in the United States. This information is vital for examining changes in cropland production and management techniques and could play an even bigger role as more land is devoted to bioenergy crops, said Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Tristram West, lead author of a paper published on line in the Journal of Environmental ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Scottish ski industry could disappear due to global warming warns Met Office
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/scotland/4579829/Scottish-ski-industry-could-disappear-due-to-global-warming-warns-Met-Office.html
Telegraph: The country's five resorts are currently enjoying exceptional conditions after heavy snowfall in the Highlands, but climate change may mean they have less than 50 years of ski-ing left. Alex Hill, chief government advisor with the Met Office, said the amount of snow in the Scottish mountains had been decreasing for the last 40 years and there was no reason for the decline to stop. He added: "Put it this way, I will not be investing in the ski-ing industry. Will there be a ski ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Crisis to see Japan 08/09 CO2 emissions fall sharply: media
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51941K20090210?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: The global economic downturn will help reduce Japan's greenhouse gas emissions by some 50 million tons of CO2 equivalent in the current fiscal year, Kyodo news agency reported on Tuesday. Citing a preliminary analysis by the environment ministry, Kyodo said this new estimate could affect Tokyo's discussions on crafting steps to tackle global warming and also how much Japan would cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. Emissions rose to 1.371 billion tons of CO2 equivalent in the ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Low-meat diet could slash cost of climate change action
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16573-lowmeat-diet-could-slash-cost-of-climate-change-action.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=climate-change
New Scientist: Cutting back on beefburgers and bacon could wipe $20 trillion off the cost of fighting climate change. That's the dramatic conclusion of a study that totted up the economic costs of modern meat-heavy diets. The researchers involved say that reducing our intake of beef and pork would lead to the creation of a huge new carbon sink, as vegetation would thrive on unused farmland. The model takes into account farmland that is used to grow extra food to make up for the lost meat, but ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Normal Rocky Mtn. Snowpack Good for Missouri River Users
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2009/2009-02-09-095.asp
Environment News Service: The normal mountain snowpack is providing Missouri River water users "a glimmer of hope" for continued recovery of water storage in the six big reservoirs, according to the latest report issued today by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Given that the mountain snowpack is near normal for this time of the year, but the plains snowpack is below normal, the current forecast for runoff in 2009 is 22.3 million acre-feet, about 90 percent of average. "The snowpack is a good sign, but ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Ultra-Accurate Forecasts Help Utilities Harness the Wild Wind
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2009/2009-02-09-091.asp
Environment News Service: The National Center for Atmospheric Research has reached an agreement with Xcel Energy to provide detailed, localized weather forecasts that will enable the utility to better integrate electricity generated from wind into the power grid. The forecasts will help operators make critical decisions about powering down coal-fired and natural gas-fired plants when sufficient winds are predicted to generate the required amount of electricity to serve Xcel customers. "One of the major ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Pennsylvania Fights Court Ruling to Keep Its Mercury Rule
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2009/2009-02-09-092.asp
Environment News Service: Pennsylvania has filed an appeal with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court seeking to overturn a recent state court opinion that declared the state's Mercury Rule "unlawful, invalid and unenforceable." The Commonwealth Court's January 31 order blocks the Department of Environmental Protection from continued implementation and enforcement of the state-specific rule requiring controls on coal-fired power plants to remove mercury from airborne emissions. Pennsylvania's mercury regulation was ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Californians Find New Ways to Maximize Every Precious Drop
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2009/2009-02-09-094.asp
Environment News Service: There is 70 percent chance of rain in Los Angeles today, which would bring some relief to the parched area. Even so, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is asking that residents find ways to reduce water use at home. To help people understand how dry the area really is, the utility has unveiled a new Internet tool to track Southland water reserve levels. Metropolitan General Manager Jeffrey Kightlinger said the new tool's debut in January on the district's ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Los Angeles Mayor Calls for 24/7 Water Conservation
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2009/2009-02-09-097.asp
Environment News Service: In response to severe, statewide water shortages, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa today called for an acceleration of water restrictions under his 20 year water strategy as well as implementation of shortage-year water rates. The mayor wants to move Los Angeles to implementation of Phase III of the City's Water Conservation Ordinance, which will restrict outdoor irrigation to two days a week - on Mondays and Thursdays only. "Water shortages are becoming permanent ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Indonesian ecolabeling initiative providing cover for rainforest destruction
http://news.mongabay.com/2009/0210-telepak_indonesia.html
Mongabay: The Indonesian Ecolabel Institute is facilitating rainforest destruction by issuing "sustainable forest management certificates" to companies that convert natural and peatlands into industrial timber estates, allege national environmental groups. Telapak and Forest Watch Indonesia say the Indonesian Ecolabel Institute (LEI) has issued sustainability certificates to two companies with documented environmental abuses in Sumatra: Riau Andalan Pulp and Paper, a subsidiary of Asia Pacific ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Plant-based solar specialist moves towards production
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2236139/plant-solar-specialist-moves
Business Green: Anyone who paid attention in biology classes knows plants turn sunlight into energy through the process of photosynthesis. Well now a US company hopes to give plants another, rather more mechanical, role in turning solar power into usable energy, by using them as a key component in the manufacture of solar panels. California-based BioSolar has developed new bio-based polymers made from renewable plant sources that it claims will provide a cheaper and more effective alternative to the ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Australia Fire Toll Could Exceed 200
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=118000
New York Times: The toll from Australia`s wildfires could exceed 200 dead, a top official said Tuesday, as investigators warned it will take months to identify the bodies and determine whether arsonists were responsible for the worst blaze which killed scores of people. Police have so far confirmed 181 deaths as the fires ripped across the southern state of Victoria on Saturday. But the state`s premier, John Brumby, said more than 50 people remained missing Tuesday afternoon. 'These are people ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Salamander Decline Found In Central America
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090209205311.htm
ScienceDaily: The decline of amphibian populations worldwide has been documented primarily in frogs, but salamander populations also appear to have plummeted, according to a new study by University of California, Berkeley, biologists. By comparing tropical salamander populations in Central America today with results of surveys conducted between 1969 and 1978, UC Berkeley researchers have found that populations of many of the commonest salamanders have steeply declined. On the flanks of the ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
No Joy In Discoveries Of New Mammal Species, Only A Warning For Humanity, Paul Ehrlich Says
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090209205309.htm
ScienceDaily: In the era of global warming, when many scientists say we are experiencing a human-caused mass extinction to rival the one that killed off the dinosaurs, one might think that the discovery of a host of new species would be cause for joy. Not entirely so, says Paul Ehrlich, co-author of an analysis of the 408 new mammalian species discovered since 1993. "What this paper really talks about is how little we actually know about our natural capital and how little we know about the services ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Tandem Mission Brings Ocean Currents Into Sharper Focus
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090209082350.htm
ScienceDaily: What's true for television screens and digital images also applies to satellite data. The more resolution, the better. When the two ocean-observing satellites OSTM/Jason-2 and Jason-1 begin their tandem mission in February, they'll be flying in a new configuration designed to get the most detailed measurements possible of the ocean surface. They'll enable scientists to distinguish much smaller ocean features than they could with only one satellite and see more quickly how these ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
United Kingdom: 'Green' tariffs must go beyond legal obligation
http://www.edie.net/news/news_story.asp?id=15972
Edie: The UK's electricity watchdog has published new guidelines in an attempt to clear up consumer confusion over the credibility of claims concerning green tariffs offered by energy companies. Ofgem's guidelines will be used to inform an independent accreditation scheme which will rate the environmental credentials of competing tariffs. The relative 'greenness' of different tariffs has always been a subject of some debate, with some offering electricity from renewable sources while ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Irish firm unveils 'most efficient solar panel'
http://www.edie.net/news/news_story.asp?id=15969
Edie: A renewable energy technology firm in Ireland has claimed that it has designed the most efficient solar panel in the world to date. Mayo-based company Surface Power has announced plans to launch the new renewable energy product, which has been tested by Independent Certification and compared to over 50 other collectors holding the Solar Keymark. Company founder John Quinn commented: "The solar panel is a hot water type designed specifically for the retrofit market although it ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
United States: S.F. to Turn Brown Grease into Biofuel
http://www.climatebiz.com/news/2009/02/09/sf-brown-grease-biofuel
ClimateBiz: The city of San Francisco is embarking on a pilot project to turn brown waste grease, known as FOG, in biofuel with help from $1.2 million in state and federal grants that will fund a public-private partnership with Philadelphia company BlackGold Biofuels and engineering firm URS Corp. The plant will recycle the waste formed by used cooking fat, oil and grease, or FOG, that melds with food scraps. FOG is a bane for commercial kitchens, which capture the stuff in grease traps ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
South Africa: Exhausted Firefighters Hoping for Relief
http://allafrica.com/stories/200902090812.html
Cape Argus: Exhausted Western Cape firefighters are hoping milder conditions on Sunday will provide some relief from a week of fires fuelled by sweltering heat and strong winds. But by Saturday afternoon raging fires near Piketberg and in the Cederberg were still out of control and spreading fast, despite non-stop efforts by firefighters, farm workers and two air force helicopters. Meanwhile, several fires continued burning throughout the city and in Stellenbosch where ground teams and ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Australia bushfire toll 181 and rising, arson probe
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE5171EI20090210?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Cooler weather helped thousands of firefighters begin to get a grip on Australia's deadliest bushfires on Wednesday but 181 people were confirmed dead in parts of the southeast devastated by the infernos. Forensic police sifted through ash to identify bodies and the Sydney Morning Herald said the death toll could reach 300 as many burned-out areas had not yet been searched. Victoria state Premier John Brumby said there may be 50 to 100 dead in Marysville, a town of some 500 ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Irish minister bans climate change adverts
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/irish-minister-bans-climate-change-adverts-1605489.html
Independent: An advertising campaign urging people to help tackle climate change has been banned by Northern Ireland's Environment minister because he does not believe humans are the main cause of global warming. Sammy Wilson said the ads suggested that turning off a television rather than putting it on standby could help save the planet, a notion he described as "patent nonsense". The East Antrim MP said he was in favour of encouraging people in Northern Ireland to save energy, but added ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Kerry, Lugar: U.S. has opportunity to lead on climate, forest conservation
http://news.mongabay.com/2009/0209-avoided_deforestation.html
Mongabay: Bipartisan support for including forest protection in a solution to climate change The United States can reassert itself as a global leader on the environment by supporting an initiative to fight climate change by protecting forests, said leaders from a broad range of political, environmental, development and business communities at a meeting on Capitol Hill Monday. Joined by senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Richard Lugar, the "Avoided Deforestation Partners" coalition issued a "call to ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Dramatic Rise In Sea Level And Its Broad Ramifications Uncovered
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090209205314.htm
ScienceDaily: Scientists have found proof in Bermuda that the planet's sea level was once more than 21 meters (70 feet) higher about 400,000 years ago than it is now. Storrs Olson, research zoologist at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, and geologist Paul Hearty of the Bald Head Island Conservancy discovered sedimentary and fossil evidence in the walls of a limestone quarry in Bermuda that documents a rise in sea level during an interglacial period of the Middle Pleistocene in ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
How An Antarctic Worm Makes Antifreeze And What That Has To Do With Climate Change
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090209205321.htm
ScienceDaily: Two Brigham Young University researchers who just returned from Antarctica are reporting a hardy worm that withstands its cold climate by cranking out antifreeze. And when its notoriously dry home runs out of water, it just dries itself out and goes into suspended animation until liquid water brings it back to life. Identifying the genes the worm uses to kick in its antifreeze system can be useful information - similar genes found in other Antarctic organisms are currently being used ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Harvard's Holdren Wields Oscar-Worthy Climate Pitch for Obama
http://news.yahoo.com/s/bloomberg/20090210/pl_bloomberg/at9qr0jjwycs
Bloomberg: When David Letterman, the late-night TV host, needed a scientist to explain climate change on his show last April, he chose John Holdren, the Harvard University physicist who helped Al Gore earn an Academy Award. Holdren's dire predictions about global warming, illustrated in riveting charts and graphs, helped ex-Vice President Gore win an Oscar for his 2006 documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth." Holdren also helped persuade Ford Motor Co. and ConocoPhillips Co. executives to accept ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Study: Birds shifting north; global warming cited
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090210/ap_on_sc/birds_global_warming
Associated Press: When it comes to global warming, the canary in the coal mine isn't a canary at all. It's a purple finch. As the temperature across the U.S. has gotten warmer, the purple finch has been spending its winters more than 400 miles farther north than it used to. And it's not alone. An Audubon Society study to be released Tuesday found that more than half of 305 birds species in North America, a hodgepodge that includes robins, gulls, chickadees and owls, are spending the ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
The 20 bird species that moved the farthest north
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090210/ap_on_sc/birds_biggest_movers
Associated Press: The following 20 birds moved the most north of all 305 species studied by the Audubon Society. For five of the birds on the list -- Wild Turkey, Marbled Murrelet, Ring-billed Gull, House Finch and "Rufous-sided" Towhee (lumped) -- climate change is probably not the main reason for the northward shift. ___ Rank, Species, Estimated miles moved north 1966-2005 1. Purple Finch, 433.0 2. Wild Turkey, 407.6 3. Marbled Murrelet, 361.9 4. Ring-billed Gull, ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
State list of birds becoming more, less common
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090210/ap_on_sc/birds_states
Associated Press: A state-by-state list of birds that are becoming more common and less common, perhaps because of shifts related to climate change, and the estimated miles the birds have moved north over the last 40 years, according to the Audubon Society. ___ ALABAMA Less common species: * White-crowned Sparrow, 21.7 * American Black Duck, 182.0 * Fox Sparrow, 286.8 * Purple Finch, 433.0 * Pine Siskin, 288.2 More common species: * Osprey, ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Australia firms eye energy savings to cut carbon costs
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51913720090210?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Australian businesses plan to slash energy consumption and step up efficiency to hold down the expenses of greenhouse gas reduction programs, a survey of chief executives of top 200 firms by PricewaterhouseCoopers showed. The survey showed 93 percent of the chief executives planned to use energy more efficiently to lessen the costs of greenhouse gas emissions when Australia introduces a cap-and-trade emissions trading scheme (ETS) in mid-2010. Respondent CEOs were keen to ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Australia fires a climate wake-up call: experts
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE5191DF20090210?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Reuters: Weekend bushfires in Australia that killed 173 people are a climate change wake-up call for the public and politicians and a window to the future, experts said on Tuesday. With the death toll still growing from the nation's deadliest fires, some analysts say the sheer scale of the tragedy might prompt industry to back-off calls to weaken the government's emissions targets or delay a carbon-trading scheme set for 2010. "What the bushfires might do is suck the oxygen out of the ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Australian wildlife devastated by fires, say carers
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090210/sc_afp/australiaweatherfireanimals
Agence France-Presse: Cuddly Australian icons such as kangaroos and koalas have been "devastated" by the bushfires that have razed swathes of native habitat and destroyed animal shelters, wildlife experts said Tuesday. As the human toll climbed above 170, animal rescue workers said the cost to the region's unique wildlife may never be known. "We're not seeing a lot of injured animals yet because the fires were so hot the animals were just killed on the spot," Wildlife Protection Association of ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
"Smart cities" mean rivalry in power, construction
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE5190L820090210?sp=true
Reuters: In the city of the future, could power suppliers be rivaled by construction firms? An embryonic movement is growing in Europe to build "smart cities" that will challenge the status quo. The vision is fueled by the fear of climate change and the need to find green alternatives to dirty coal, unpopular nuclear power and unreliable gas imports from Russia. Such cities would become self-contained units, their buildings gleaning energy from the powerful weather systems sweeping ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
United Kingdom: Why water, oil and coal do mix
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7771874.stm
BBC: The vast cooling towers in Didcot dominate the Oxfordshire landscape as they belch out plumes into a clear sky. It evokes an image of cigarette smoke on an industrial scale. But the association is misleading. As the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) says: "While existing coal plants are a contributing factor to climate change, the damaging emissions are invisible." "People associate cooling towers with pollution," bemoans Steve Waygood, ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Calls for Northern Ireland environment minister to quit over CO2 ad ban
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/feb/10/climate-change-sceptic-environment-minister
Guardian: Northern Ireland's environment minister, climate change sceptic Sammy Wilson, faced resignation calls last night after he banned government climate change adverts from local television. Wilson blocked the broadcasting of the Act on CO2 ads because he believed it was green "propaganda". The Democratic Unionist MLA is renowned for being a vocal climate-change sceptic. The Greens said the minister's action in banning the adverts had made a laughing stock out of Northern ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Green dollar strong despite downturn
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2236110/green-pound-strong-despite
Business Green: The US may be in the worst recession in decades, but the green consumer market has remained relatively immune to the downturn, according to a new survey of spending trends. The study, commissioned by environmental certification non-profit Green Seal and green PR firm EnviroMedia, found that half the people surveyed claimed to be spending the same amount on environmentally sustainable products as they were before the financial crisis, while 19 per cent said they were spending ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
What Kind Of Green Jobs Will Stimulus Spawn?
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100497752&ft=1&f=1025
National Public Radio: The economic stimulus plan will provide roughly $70 billion for the nation's energy economy, most of it for "green" energy. Whether that will buy more jobs than spending the money elsewhere is open to debate, but green energy advocates view it as good news.

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Could US bailouts curb corporate calls for climate change action?
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2236125/bailouts-curb-corporate-calls
Business Green: Following hot on the heels of president Obama's decision to cap the pay of senior executives at companies bailed out by the US taxpayer, questions are now being raised over the extent to which the government should now shape the climate change policy of propped-up financial institutions. According to reports at Dow Jones, American International Group (AIG), the insurance giant that was rescued from collapse by the US government last year, has withdrawn its membership from the US ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
B&Q's bluster on micro-wind power runs out of puff
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/feb/10/renewableenergy-windpower
Guardian: Well, it's about time. On Friday, the DIY chain B&Q announced that it was withdrawing its micro-wind turbines from sale. I've been campaigning against these windmills since the chain first stocked them in October 2006. This might seem like an odd thing for an environmentalist to do, but as I've pointed out B&Q greatly exaggerated what these turbines could deliver. I feared both that they would give renewable electricity a bad name and that they would be used by the company to ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Australian bushfires: When two degrees is the difference between life and death
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/10/australia-bush-fires
Guardian: The day after the great fire burned through central Victoria, I drove from Sydney to Melbourne. For much of the way – indeed for hundreds of miles north of the scorched ground - smoke obscured the horizon, entering my air conditioned car and carrying with it that distinctive scent so strongly signifying death, or to Aboriginal people, cleansing. It was as if a great cremation had taken place. I didn't know then how many people had died in their cars and homes, or while fleeing the ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Obama green stimulus to cut US emissions by at least 61m tonnes
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2236134/obama-green-stimulus-dissected
Business Green: The proposed "Green New Deal" environmental measures proposed as part of President Obama's $800bn economic stimulus package will deliver minimum greenhouse gas emissions savings of 61 million tonnes a year - equivalent to taking 13 million cars off the road - and could result in far deeper emission cuts. That is the conclusion of a new report from climate change consultants ICF International (ICFI), commissioned by Greenpeace, which aimed to measure the impact on US carbon emissions ...

Wed, 11 Feb 09
Australia: 'Climate change' brings extreme weather
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/climate-change-brings-extreme-weather-20090210-82is.html
AAP: Climate change experts have warned that severe weather events are likely to occur more often in Australia as global warming continues. Commenting on the Victorian bushfires, climatologist Professor David Karoly told the ABC's Lateline program on Monday night that hot temperatures in Melbourne on Saturday and in many parts of southeastern Australia were "unprecedented". "The records were broken by a large amount and you cannot explain that just by natural variability," he ...

Tue, 10 Feb 09
UK and China work on carbon capture
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/4571967/UK-and-China-work-on-carbon-capture.html
Telegraph: It is estimated that China builds around one coal power station a week, causing millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide to be pumped into the atmosphere. In an effort to tackle the problem, the Department of Energy and Climate Change has invested more than £3 million in developing Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) in China, a new technology that will take the CO2 and store it underground. A conference of scientists from around the world will meet to discuss the technology at a ...

Tue, 10 Feb 09
Rethinking a global post-Kyoto solution
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nb20090210d1.html
Japan Times: New ways of thinking on climate change are needed if the world is to create a workable post-Kyoto Protocol framework to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, European scholars told a recent symposium in Tokyo. Gwyn Prins, a professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science, speaks at the Jan. 21 symposium at Keidanren Kaikan in Tokyo. SATOKO KAWASAKI PHOTOS Solutions to climate change must be ecologically sustainable and economically viable, the scholars said, ...

Tue, 10 Feb 09
ITC's Green Power Express Would Carry US Wind Power
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aRZ5hqMIyuqo&refer=us
Bloomberg: ITC Holdings Corp. said it wants to build the world's largest renewable-energy transmission system, a $12 billion project to bring electricity from wind farms in the Dakotas to Chicago. The Michigan power transmission company's proposal, known as the Green Power Express, calls for about 3,000 miles of new lines that could move 12,000 megawatts of power from the upper Midwest to cities where there's demand for the electricity. The project, announced today, would cross portions of North ...

Tue, 10 Feb 09
Millions in South Asia face growing water crisis
http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=4&theme=&usrsess=1&id=243431
Statesman: UN environmental agency's report warned that hundreds of millions of South Asians face growing water crisis due to over-exploitation, climate change and inadequate cooperation among countries which are threatening river basins that sustain about half of the region's 1.5 billion people. According to the UNEP, South Asia is home to one-fourth of the global population, including some of the world's poorest people, who have access to less than 5 per cent of the planet's freshwater ...

Tue, 10 Feb 09
India: With rains missing, wheat production likely to fall
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Lucknow/With_rains_missing_wheat_production_likely_to_fall/articleshow/4101955.cms
Times of India: Some call it as an impact of global warming, others describe it as vagaries of weather. But in any case, temperatures this winter, barring the first week of January, have constantly been 2-3 degrees above the normal in the state so far. And with no rains at all, authorities fear that wheat crop production may fall by 10-20 per cent. "The state has fixed a target of 274 lakh metric ton of wheat production this year, but due to warm weather conditions and no rainfall till date in ...

Tue, 10 Feb 09
Australians 'unprepared' for fire's fury
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2009/02/09/2486355.htm?site=science&topic=latest
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Australians remain unprepared to deal with bushfires despite a long history of loss and devastation from natural disasters, according to some of the country's leading bushfire researchers. The comments come as Australia deals with the loss of more than 126 lives and 700 homes after devastating bushfires swept the southern state of Victoria. In the wake of the nation's worst fire in recorded history, other experts are also warning worse may be yet to come with climate change and ...

Tue, 10 Feb 09
Scientists uncover a dramatic rise in sea level and its broad ramifications
http://esciencenews.com/articles/2009/02/09/scientists.uncover.a.dramatic.rise.sea.level.and.its.broad.ramifications
eScience: Scientists have found proof in Bermuda that the planet's sea level was once more than 21 meters (70 feet) higher about 400,000 years ago than it is now. Their findings were published in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews Wednesday, Feb. 4. Storrs Olson, research zoologist at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, and geologist Paul Hearty of the Bald Head Island Conservancy discovered sedimentary and fossil evidence in the walls of a limestone quarry in Bermuda that ...

Tue, 10 Feb 09
Death toll in Australian wildfires rises past 170
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jlUCqDbfvOMgcnOmIjSnqFNni6iQD968C5IG0
Associated Press: Disaster teams found charred bodies on roadsides and in crashed cars -- grim signs of the futile attempt to flee raging wildfires fed by 60 mph winds, record heat and drought that caught even fire-savvy Australians by surprise. As the death toll rose Tuesday to 173 in Australia's worst wildfire disaster, suspicions that some of the 400 blazes were caused by arson led police to declare crime scenes in some of the incinerated towns, Victoria police said. The fires near Melbourne ...

Tue, 10 Feb 09
Australia declares bushfire disaster a crime scene
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSSYD388883
Reuters: Australian police treated the country's entire bushfire disaster zone as a crime scene on Tuesday as investigators combed through a blackened wasteland to find clues to the culprits behind the country's deadliest fires. Arson investigators began their work even as about 25 fires still raged across southern Victoria, including some of the hardest-hit areas north of Melbourne where so far 173 people have been confirmed dead, many burnt in cars and their own homes. "All of the ...

Tue, 10 Feb 09
The Role of Climate Change in Australia's Fires
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1878220,00.html
Time Magazine: The raging infernos that have left more than 160 people