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Wed, 31 Mar 10
Indonesia to establish rainforest trust fund
http://news.mongabay.com/2010/0330-indonesia_trust_fund.html
Mongabay: Indonesia is preparing to establish a trust fund to reduce deforestation, reports the Jakarta Globe. The National Forest Trust Fund, which will be raised by the Ministry of Forestry from foreign donors, would be an expansion of a pilot initiative established last year in a debt-for-nature swap between Indonesia and the United States, according to Hadi Daryanto, director general of forest production at the Ministry of Forestry. The money, which would be managed by an independent group, ...

Wed, 31 Mar 10
Greenpeace: Facebook Has a Hand in Global Warming
http://www.pcworld.com/article/192925/greenpeace_facebook_has_a_hand_in_global_warming.html?tk=rss_news
PC World: Greenpeace has charged that Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Google and others are contributing to global warming by using coal to power data centers for their cloud-based services. The charges are dramatic --- but are they on target? A new Greenpeace report, titled "Make IT Green: Cloud Computing and its Contribution to Climate Change," warns that the data centers of cloud computing giants including Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo, and others are in large part powered by coal, which ...

Wed, 31 Mar 10
EPA: No greenhouse gas regulations before 2011
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/30/epa-greenhouse-gas-regulations
Guardian: The EPA began finalizing a timeline for greenhouse gas regulations today, starting with the formal determination that no power plants, industrial facilities or other stationary sources will be federally regulated for greenhouse gases before January 2011. It's the start of a series of official measures related to greenhouse gas regulations expected this spring. Those include EPA's vehicle emissions standards, which could be finalized later this week; a determination on the size of ...

Wed, 31 Mar 10
Last minute U-turn saves Tesla's electric sports car
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2260483/minute-u-turn-saves-tesla
Business Green: Tesla has this week signed a deal with Lotus that will allow the electric car firm to continue to sell its high-profile Roadster sports car up until it begins to ship its planned Model S electric sedan. The company, which recently filed for a $100m IPO, signaled earlier this year that it would halt production of the Roadster during 2011. The move was intended to increase the firm's focus on the development of its more affordable Model S and also served to underline the Roadster's ...

Wed, 31 Mar 10
Electric cars give power back to grid
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62T3QF20100330?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29
Reuters: NEWARK, Del. (Reuters) - At first glance, the Toyota Scion sitting in the University of Delaware parking lot looks like a normal boxy car. But a second look shows it lacks a tailpipe, and has an electrical outlet set into the grille below the hood. Inside, the Scion's identity as an electric car is revealed by the lack of a fuel gauge, and by a dashboard display showing that it has used 54.3 kilowatt hours to drive 210 miles. But this is no ordinary electric car because, in ...

Wed, 31 Mar 10
Greenpeace Links Apple iPad to Global Warming
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and-Wireless/Greenpeace-Links-Apple-iPad-to-Global-Warming-778895/
eWeek: A new Greenpeace report questions the degree to which the Apple iPad, and devices that similarly rely on cloud computing, are contributing to global warming. It also calls on IT leaders such as Facebook, Google and Microsoft to be drivers of critical climate-change goals. A March 30 report from Greenpeace aligns the Apple iPad with global warming, as the original green company seeks to raise new questions about the environmental effects of cloud computing. The term suggests a ...

Wed, 31 Mar 10
Sarkozy seeks US-French action on climate: Kerry
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100330/pl_afp/usfranceclimatewarmingdiplomacy
Agence France-Presse: French President Nicolas Sarkozy told US Senators Tuesday that he hopes for US-French action to "put some pressure" on countries reluctant to battle climate change, one of the lawmakers said. "He was very, very clear -- first topic he brought up was the need to have the United States lead and be engaged with France on the climate change, energy issue," Democratic Senator John Kerry told reporters after the talks. "He's going to make a proposal about how we can jointly put some ...

Wed, 31 Mar 10
Oil conglomerate 'secretly funds climate change deniers'
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7538934/Oil-conglomerate-secretly-funds-climate-change-deniers.html
Telegraph: Koch Industries, which is owned and run by two Kansas-based brothers and has substantial oil and chemicals interests, spent the sum between 2005 and 2008 to finance "organisations of the 'climate denial machine'", claims the environmental campaign group Greenpeace. Despite the relatively small size of the conglomerate, the sum is three times that spent by ExxonMobil, the western world's biggest oil company, in the same period. A Greenpeace investigation also claimed that ...

Wed, 31 Mar 10
UN suspends latest carbon credit verification firms
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2260463/un-suspends-further-carbon
Business Green: The UN's carbon offsetting scheme has become mired in yet more controversy after the panel overseeing the initiative suspended its third auditor in 15 months. The executive board in charge of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) last week suspended Germany's TUEV SUED and also partially suspended Korea Energy Management Corporation, after spot checks undertaken at their offices revealed procedural breaches. Both firms are recognised by the UN as so-called designated ...

Wed, 31 Mar 10
Coal fuels much of Internet "cloud", says Greenpeace
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62T0MK20100330?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29
Reuters: The 'cloud' of data which is becoming the heart of the Internet is creating an all too real cloud of pollution as Facebook, Apple and others build data centers powered by coal, according to a new Greenpeace report. A Facebook facility will rely on a utility whose main fuel is coal, while Apple Inc, expecting its Web-browser iPad launch on April 3, is building a data warehouse in a North Carolina region powered by coal, the environmental organization said in the study to be released on ...

Wed, 31 Mar 10
Climate Contributed To Angkor's Collapse
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1843209/climate_contributed_to_angkors_collapse/index.html?source=r_science
redOrbit: Decades of drought, interspersed with intense monsoon rains, may have helped bring about the fall of Cambodia's ancient Khmer civilization at Angkor nearly 600 years ago, according to an analysis of tree rings, archeological remains and other evidence. The study, published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, may also shed light on what drives--and disrupts--the rainy season across much of Asia, which waters crops for nearly half the world's ...

Wed, 31 Mar 10
Global water crisis and cheaper technology sparks surge in desalination
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/30/water-desalination-record-droughts
Guardian: The world's unquenchable thirst for clean water drove a record increase in the desalination of seawater and reuse of sewage last year, new figures reveal, as water-stressed countries around the world try to build their way out of trouble. Making fresh water from the sea was once the preserve of cruise ships and oil-rich Gulf states that could afford the huge cost of energy required to remove the salt. But as rivers, lakes and aquifers dry up, rains become less reliable, and the cost ...

Wed, 31 Mar 10
Mystery of Great Civilization's Destruction Revealed
http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20100330/sc_livescience/mysteryofgreatcivilizationsdestructionrevealed
LiveScience: Climate change might have helped bring about the fall of the ancient Khmer civilization in Angkor, Cambodia, nearly 600 years ago, new research suggests. Historians have given various explanations for the fall of the empire that stretched across much of Southeast Asia between the ninth and 14th centuries (801 to 1400), from land overexploitation to conflict with rival kingdoms. But the new study offers strong evidence that two severe droughts, punctuated by bouts of heavy monsoon ...

Wed, 31 Mar 10
Pearl Jam guitarist sees business key to climate
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62T13L20100330?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29
Reuters: While many people dream of becoming a rock star, Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard says he is trying to be more of a businessman to help slow climate change. The U.S. band, which has sold 60 million albums since 1991, said Monday it was investing $210,000 to plant trees in Washington State to soak up an estimated 7,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide linked to a 32-date 2009 tour. "Pearl Jam is a band but we are also a business," guitarist and co-founder Gossard told Reuters in a ...

Wed, 31 Mar 10
US oil company donated millions to climate sceptic groups, says Greenpeace
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/30/us-oil-donated-millions-climate-sceptics
Guardian: A Greenpeace investigation has identified a little-known, privately owned US oil company as the paymaster of global warming sceptics in the US and Europe. The environmental campaign group accuses Kansas-based Koch Industries, which owns refineries and operates oil pipelines, of funding 35 conservative and libertarian groups, as well as more than 20 congressmen and senators. Between them, Greenpeace says, these groups and individuals have spread misinformation about climate science and ...

Wed, 31 Mar 10
ESA satelite will measure polar ice melt
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/video/2010/mar/30/satelittes-climate-change
Guardian

Wed, 31 Mar 10
Scientists hold breath over polar ice satellite launch after 2005 crash
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/30/satellite-launch-arctic-ice-measurement
Guardian: Link to this video Climate scientists are not usually concerned about the launch of new satellites. But at 2:57pm on 8 April, a UK-led team will be keeping everything crossed as the EUR140m CryoSat-2 satellite lifts off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Any uncharacteristic superstition will be because these scientists have tasted bitter disappointment before: five years ago, the precursor CryoSat probe crashed into the sea minutes after launch, destroying years of work in ...

Wed, 31 Mar 10
Ian McEwan tackles global warming in 'Solar'
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100330/ap_en_ot/eu_britain_ian_mcewan
Associated Press: A warming planet, deadlocked politicians, feuding scientists. The headlines about climate change are a source of worry and satisfaction to Ian McEwan. The British writer's new novel, "Solar," brings the problem of global warming up against the fallibility of human nature, a conflict vividly illustrated by the failure of December's Copenhagen conference and the scandal over leaked e-mails in which climate scientists bad-mouthed rivals and, skeptics say, distorted data to build their ...

Wed, 31 Mar 10
Global solar power capacity grew 44 pct in 2009
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62T3AQ20100330?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29
Reuters: Global installed solar photovoltaic power grew by 44 percent in 2009 on the back of German subsidies now under threat, the European Photovoltaic Industry Association said on Tuesday. The global industry added a record 6.4 gigawatts new capacity, bringing total capacity to more than 20 gigawatts (GW), the EPIA said, despite tightened credit which has particularly hit infrastructure and energy project finance. The increase was thanks to subsidies including a price premium for ...

Wed, 31 Mar 10
Gloom and Gaia
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8594000/8594561.stm
BBC: The man who achieved global fame for his theory that the whole earth is a single organism now believes that we can only hope that the earth will take care of itself in the face of completely unpredictable climate change. Interviewed by Today presenter John Humphrys, videos of which you can see below, he said that while the earths future was utterly uncertain, mankind was not aware it had "pulled the trigger" on global warming as it built its civilizations. What is more, he ...

Wed, 31 Mar 10
Vital role for bacteria in climate-change gas cycle
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100329203226.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Latest+Science+News%29
ScienceDaily: Isoprene is a Jekyll-and-Hyde gas that is capable of both warming and cooling the Earth depending on the prevailing conditions. It is an important industrial gas, necessary for the manufacture of important compounds such as rubber and vitamins, but very little is known about how isoprene is cycled in the environment. At the Society for General Microbiology's spring meeting in Edinburgh, Dr Terry McGenity revealed the identity of some crucial players in the gas cycle; ...

Wed, 31 Mar 10
Coal fuels much of Internet "cloud," Greenpeace says
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/coal-fuels-much-of-internet-cloud-greenpeace-says-1931087.html
Reuters: The 'cloud' of data that is becoming the heart of the internet is creating an all-too-real cloud of pollution as Facebook, Apple and others build data centers powered by coal, Greenpeace said in a new report to be released today. A Facebook facility being built in Oregon will rely on a utility whose main fuel is coal, while Apple is building a data warehouse in a North Carolina region that relies mostly on coal, the environmental organization said in the study. "The last thing ...

Wed, 31 Mar 10
James Lovelock: 'humans too stupid to stop climate change', says maverick scientist
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7537521/James-Lovelock-humans-are-too-stupid-to-prevent-climate-change-says-maverick-scientist.html
Telegraph: Prof Lovelock, the man behind the Gaia theory which says that the planet behaves like a single organism, claimed humans were "not clever enough' to handle the problems associated with global warming. In an interview, the globally respected environmental thinker and independent scientist applauded "good' climate sceptics and gave warning that global warming would one day lead to severe conflict. "I don't think we're yet evolved to the point where we're clever enough to handle as ...

Wed, 31 Mar 10
Forest carbon emissions fall as deforestation slows
http://www.carbonpositive.net/viewarticle.aspx?articleID=1946
Carbon Positive: The first decade of the 21st Century has seen the rate of worldwide deforestation fall for the first time since records began, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). At the same time, the planting of new forests and natural regeneration is making a significant contribution to reducing the rate of loss of global forest cover, the FAO says in its 'Global Forest Resources Assessment 2010'. "The study found that 13 million hectares (ha) of forest were lost each year ...

Wed, 31 Mar 10
Green economy grows despite policy vacuum
http://wwwp.dailyclimate.org/tdc-newsroom/2010/03/green-economy-grows-despite-policy-vacuum
Daily Climate: The green economy continues to show almost remarkable signs of vitality, business leaders say, despite the near-total collapse of global talks, stalemate in Washington, D.C., and polls showing decreased urgency to tackle global warming. Driving the industry, investors say, are consumer interest in the environmental and economic benefits of energy efficiency, corporate sustainability mandates and essentially a bet that at some point there will be a price on carbon ...

Wed, 31 Mar 10
Indonesia: Polluted rivers are a CO2 ticking time bomb
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010/03/30/polluted-rivers-%E2%80%98are-a-co2-ticking-time-bomb%E2%80%99.html
Jakarta Post: Nine of Indonesia's main rivers are contaminated with dangerously high levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) due to the dumping of industrial chemicals and agriculture and domestic waste, a four-year study shows. There is a far higher percentage of CO2 in the nine rivers than in the atmosphere, the survey shows. "The rivers are far more polluted than the atmosphere," said Elvin Alrian, director of the climate change and air quality unit at the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics ...

Tue, 30 Mar 10
Government set to unveil offshore drilling plan
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62T06520100330?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29
Reuters: The Obama administration is expected to announce by Wednesday its updated plan for oil and natural gas drilling in U.S. waters, including whether to allow exploration for the first time along the U.S. East Coast. The plan could pave the way for a significant new domestic source of energy, helping to reduce U.S. dependence on oil imports and boost supplies of natural gas used to displace coal in power plants as the country works to reduce emissions of climate-changing greenhouse ...

Tue, 30 Mar 10
Sierra Club chief explains climate change strategy
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-sierra30-2010mar30,0,4136949.story
LA Times: As an environmentalist, Michael Brune made a name for himself by spearheading an unrelenting and ultimately successful campaign to pressure Home Depot into phasing out sales of lumber from endangered rain forests. Now, Brune is taking the reins of the Sierra Club at a time when much of the movement has turned away from confrontational tactics in favor of compromise, especially on the push for sweeping new federal legislation on climate change. Brune, who took on Home Depot ...

Tue, 30 Mar 10
Europe's electricity could be all renewables by 2050
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100329/sc_afp/environmentclimateenergyeuroperenewables
Agence France-Presse: Europe could meet all its electricity needs from renewable sources by mid-century, according to a report released Monday by services giant PricewaterhouseCoopers. A "super-smart" grid powered by solar farms in North Africa, wind farms in northern Europe and the North Sea, hydro-electric from Scandinavia and the Alps and a complement of biomass and marine energy could render carbon-based fuels obsolete for electricity by 2050, said the report. The goal is achievable even without ...

Tue, 30 Mar 10
Chagos Islanders attack plan to turn archipelago into protected area
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/29/chagos-island-marine-reserve-plans
Guardian: The 55 islands and the sparkling seas around them are famed for their clean waters and pristine coral reefs. They are described by naturalists as the "other Galapagos", "a lost paradise" and a "natural wonder" and are officially recognised as a biodiversity hotspot of global importance. This week the British government, backed by nine of the world's largest environment and science bodies, including the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, the Royal Society, the RSPB and Greenpeace, is ...

Tue, 30 Mar 10
Economic crisis could worsen HIV/AIDS epidemic: U.N.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100329/hl_nm/us_crisis_epidemic
Reuters: Economic crisis and climate change concerns could affect the fight against the AIDS virus and lead to a "universal nightmare," the head of the United Nations' agency for HIV/AIDS said on Sunday. The global economic downturn has brought about greater inequality and could increase vulnerability and fuel the epidemic, said Michele Sidibe, executive director of UNAIDS. About 33.4 million people worldwide are infected with HIV and the AIDS virus. Since AIDS emerged in the 1980s, ...

Tue, 30 Mar 10
Population density corresponds with forest loss in the Congo Basin
http://news.mongabay.com/2010/0329-hance_congo_pop.html
Mongabay: Africa's greatest rainforest ecosystem, the Congo Basin, has undergone significant deforestation and degradation during the past century. A new study in the open access journal Tropical Conservation Science examined whether or not there was a connection between population density and forest loss. Since the 1980s the Congo rainforest has had the highest rate of deforestation of any tropical region in the world. A combination of commercial logging, illegal logging, clearing for ...

Tue, 30 Mar 10
A mistake about glaciers does not negate climate change
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/a-mistake-about-glaciers-does-not-negate-climate-change-20100329-r854.html
Sydney Morning Herald: To dismiss the implications of climate change based on an error about the rate at which Himalayan glaciers are melting is an act of astonishing intellectual legerdemain. Yet this is what some doubters of climate change are claiming. The reality is that our understanding of climate change is based on a vast and remarkably sound body of science - and is something we distort and trivialise at our peril. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has published four comprehensive ...

Tue, 30 Mar 10
Science alone not enough to boost world farm output
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62S4SX20100329?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29
Reuters: Feeding a fast-growing global population in the face of climate change and stagnant funding for food aid and farm research will require a fundamental revamp of agriculture, agricultural experts said. But unlike the "Green Revolution" that dramatically hiked agricultural output in Latin America and Asia from the 1950s, a new agricultural restructuring will need to focus as much on new seed varieties as on good governance, women's empowerment and things like curbing commodities ...

Tue, 30 Mar 10
EPA phases in permits for greenhouse pollution
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100329/pl_nm/us_usa_epa_emissions
Reuters: U.S. power plants, industrial facilities and other stationary sources of greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming will not be required to have Clean Air Act permits until January 2011, giving industry more time to prepare for the regulations, the Environmental Protection Agency said on Monday. Agency head Lisa Jackson had signaled to Congress in February that the EPA would delay the permit requirements for this year, following concerns from U.S. lawmakers and state officials ...

Tue, 30 Mar 10
Arctic coast nations agree to boost cooperation
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100329/wl_canada_afp/canadaarctictalks
Agence France-Presse: Arctic coastal states on Monday agreed to work more closely to map the Arctic seabed, regulate polar shipping, respond to accidents and safeguard the region's fragile environment. Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon told a press conference the delegates from five nations had agreed on the need for "deepening cooperation" in the Arctic. "We are not reacting to change but shaping it," Cannon said. In the light of the prospect of increased shipping in the ...

Tue, 30 Mar 10
On Global Warming, Scientists and TV Weathercasters Are at Odds
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/science/earth/30warming.html
New York Times: But it has also created tensions between two groups that might be expected to agree on the issue: climate scientists and meteorologists, especially those who serve as television weather forecasters. Climatologists, who study weather patterns over time, almost universally endorse the view that the earth is warming and that humans have contributed to climate change. There is less of a consensus among meteorologists, who predict short-term weather patterns. Joe Bastardi, for ...

Tue, 30 Mar 10
E.P.A. Delays Plants' Pollution Permits
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/science/earth/30emissions.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
New York Times: The Environmental Protection Agency said Monday that it would not require power plants or other industrial sites to obtain federal pollution permits for emitting greenhouse gases before next January. The statement formally affirms an agency announcement last month that it would phase in the regulation of climate-altering gases over a number of years, starting with the largest sources. E.P.A. regulation of carbon dioxide and other gases that contribute to global warming is a ...

Tue, 30 Mar 10
10 Things You Didn't Know About Climate Change
http://www.usnews.com/news/energy/articles/2010/03/29/10-things-you-didnt-know-about-climate-change.html
U.S. News and World Report: 1. Climate change is defined as any significant variation in climate measures--precipitation, temperature, wind--for an extended period, usually decades or longer. 2. Global warming is a rise in the average temperature of Earth's surface. 3. In order to estimate temperatures of the past, scientists analyze "proxy" indicators such as tree rings, ice cores, and ocean sediment. 4. A French mathematician, Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier, was the first to recognize a gradual ...

Tue, 30 Mar 10
'Gulf Stream isn't slowing down', finds research
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/gulf-stream-isnt-slowing-down-finds-research-1930657.html
Independent (UK): The Gulf Stream does not appear to be slowing down, according to scientists who have used satellites to monitor changes in the height of the sea. The stream brings heat northwards from the tropics and is a key factor in the climate of western Europe. Some models of climate change predict a slow down. Although the scientists, from Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, noticed dramatic short-term variability, there was no longer-term trend, they said. In fact since 1993 the ...

Tue, 30 Mar 10
Arctic talks open amid protests
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100329/wl_afp/canadaarctictalks
Agence France-Presse: Talks on preserving the Arctic amid a race for its rich resources opened Monday amid calls from protestors for the meeting to focus on the damage to the fragile region caused by climate change. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the summit in Chelsea, Canada, that the "those who have legitimate interests in the region" should be heard. "We need all hands on deck because there is a huge amount to do, and not much time to do it," she said. "What happens in the ...

Tue, 30 Mar 10
Shoppers choose green products to improve social status, says study
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/29/green-products-social-status
Guardian: Shoppers choose hybrid cars, "green" washing-up liquid and energy-saving devices over cheaper but dirtier alternatives partly to improve their social status, according to a new study published today. Researchers found consumers are willing to sacrifice luxury and performance to benefit from the perceived social status that comes from buying a product with a reduced environmental impact. Bram Van den Bergh of Rotterdam School of Management, one of the study's authors, said: ...

Tue, 30 Mar 10
Weathercasters take on role of science educators; feel some uncertainty on issue of climate change
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100329103658.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Latest+Science+News%29
ScienceDaily: In a time when only a handful of TV news stations employ a dedicated science reporter, TV weathercasters may seem like the logical people to fill that role, and in many cases they do. In the largest and most representative survey of television weathercasters to date, George Mason University's Center for Climate Change Communication shows that two-thirds of weathercasters are interested in reporting on climate change, and many say they are already filling a role as an informal science ...

Tue, 30 Mar 10
E20 fuel reduces carbon monoxide and hydrocarbon emissions in automobiles
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100329103700.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Latest+Science+News%29
ScienceDaily: A new study by the Center for Integrated Manufacturing Studies at Rochester Institute of Technology indicates that the use of E20 fuel, which blends 20 percent ethanol with gasoline, reduces the tail pipe emissions of hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide, compared with traditional gasoline or E10 blends. In addition, the research team found no measurable impact to vehicle drivability or maintenance in conventional internal combustion engines. The data illustrates the potential benefits of ...

Tue, 30 Mar 10
James Lovelock: 'Fudging data is a sin against science'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/29/james-lovelock
Guardian: As you travel along the drive to James Lovelock's house, located in a remote, wooded valley on the Cornwall-Devon border, you pass a sign by a gated cattle grid. "Experimental station," it reads. "Site of a new natural habitat. Please do not trespass or disturb." Thirty years ago, Lovelock planted 20,000 trees to create the much more biodiverse habitat around his home. But you suspect that, had this fiercely independent scientist and globally respected environmental thinker been ...

Tue, 30 Mar 10
Ecosystems under threat from ocean acidification
http://www.physorg.com/news189059534.html
Physorg: Acidification of the oceans as a result of increasing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide could have significant effects on marine ecosystems, according to Michael Maguire presenting at the Society for General Microbiology's spring meeting in Edinburgh this week. Postgraduate researcher Mr Maguire, together with colleagues at Newcastle University, performed experiments in which they simulated ocean acidification as predicted by current trends of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. The ...

Tue, 30 Mar 10
Mapping the landscape of NGOs working to protect forests
http://news.mongabay.com/2010/0329-mapping_ngos.html
Mongabay: A new report published by the UK Environmental Funders Network maps out the civil society organizations working to address deforestation. The report, 'Saving the Rainforests: Civil Society Mapping', profiles 65 environmental and social justice organizations, enabling readers to identify gaps and overlaps in the landscape of groups working to reduce global forest loss. The report specifically aims to inform grantmakers providing funds to civil society organizations. "The mapping ...

Tue, 30 Mar 10
New epoch to usher in cataclysmic extinction
http://www.thestar.com/news/sciencetech/environment/article/786825--new-epoch-to-usher-in-cataclysmic-extinction
Toronto Star: Humankind may be at the dawn of a new age, one that might not bring the word "Aquarius" to mind. In fact, the arrival of the Anthropocene epoch may include the sixth-largest mass extinction in the Earth's history, according to a report in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, which is to appear online Monday and in print Wednesday. Scientists behind the report say that in just two centuries, humans have wrought such vast and unprecedented changes that we actually ...

Tue, 30 Mar 10
China's drought-stricken south may get rain in next two days
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/03/28/bloomberg1376-L009EE0YHQ0X-4.DTL
Bloomberg: China's drought-stricken south may get relief from rain over the next few days as a lingering dry spell, blamed on climate change, leaves more than 18 million people facing water shortages. The drought is likely to continue despite efforts to seed clouds and showers that will accompany an east-moving cold front, the China Meteorological Administration said yesterday in an e-mailed statement. Drizzle and sporadic rain may fall in parts of Yunnan, Guizhou and Guangxi in the next two ...

Tue, 30 Mar 10
WHO alerts on health hazards of climate change
http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/news/article02/indexn2_html?pdate=290310&ptitle=WHO%20alerts%20on%20health%20hazards%20of%20climate%20change
Guardian Newspapers: THE World Health Organisation (WHO) has alerted on the enormous and diverse effects of climate change on health. It said areas with weak health infrastructure - mostly in developing countries like Nigeria - will be the least able to cope without assistance to prepare and respond. The WHO said in an article published yesterday in its Bulletin that overwhelming evidence shows that human activities are affecting the global climate, with serious implications for public health. It ...

Tue, 30 Mar 10
EPA proposes oil, gas sector should track its emissions
http://www.fwbusinesspress.com/display.php?id=12240
Business Press: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposed adding emissions data from oil and gas operations to a list of 31 other sectors from which the agency collects greenhouse gas emissions information. The EPA is proposing for the first time a national mandatory greenhouse gas reporting system to get "a better understanding of where GHGs are coming from," according to a March 23 statement. The information also will help the EPA and businesses draft policies and programs to reduce ...

Tue, 30 Mar 10
Renewables: Strong international competition in race for green jobs
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/18dbd5f6-3867-11df-aabd-00144feabdc0,Authorised=false.html?_i_location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F0%2F18dbd5f6-3867-11df-aabd-00144feabdc0.html&_i_referer=
Financial Times: Clean energy and "green" jobs were a mantra for politicians across the developed world before the financial crisis struck, and the effects of the recession served only to intensify the rhetoric. Meeting targets on greenhouse gas emissions and improving energy security will require hundreds of billions of dollars of investment in renewable technologies, and this opens up the attractive prospect of an explosive growth in jobs in these new industries at a time when more traditional jobs ...

Tue, 30 Mar 10
United Kingdom: The great offshore engineering adventure
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20527533.100-oceanology-the-great-offshore-engineering-adventure.html
New Scientist: THE race towards a low-carbon economy is about to speed up - a lot. By 2020, if all goes to plan, more than a quarter of the UK's electricity supply will come from offshore generators exploiting wind, wave and tidal power. Vast investment in new ideas and technologies will be needed if these machines are to perform in sites that are farther offshore, in deeper water or in more ferocious currents than ever before. This will not be the first time that UK waters have been used as an ...

Tue, 30 Mar 10
US proposes to veto mountaintop removal coal mine
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/us-proposes-to-veto-mountaintop-removal-coal-mine-1930127.html
Agence France-Presse: The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed an unprecedented veto to restrict or prohibit mining at a major proposed US mountaintop removal coal mining site. If the veto is finalized, it would invalidate a permit first issued in 2007 for the Army Corps of Engineers at the Spruce No. 1 surface mine in southern West Virginia. In explaining its decision, the EPA said Friday the Arch Coal Inc. mine would pollute surrounding water, fill over seven miles (11 kilometers) of ...

Tue, 30 Mar 10
United Kingdom: Exclusive: E.ON to target onsite renewable energy market
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2260379/exclusive-target-onsite
Business Green: E.ON is currently in talks with a number of solar panel manufacturers as it looks to break into the market for domestic and onsite renewable energy technologies that is expected to explode following the launch later this week of the government's feed in tariff scheme. Speaking to BusinessGreen.com, Michael Woodhead, managing director of the Sustainable Energy division at E.ON, said that the company was investigating developing a solar panel installation service for domestic and ...

Tue, 30 Mar 10
United States: Congress, blue ribbon commitee refuel Yucca Mountain debate
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2260368/congress-blue-ribbon-commitee
Business Green: As a committee assembled to discuss the future of nuclear waste disposal in the US, a bipartisan group of congressmen has obstructed the closure of a controversial project designed to tackle the problem. The Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future, announced in January by energy secretary Steven Chu, convened late last week to discuss the future of the nuclear energy sector in the US following the Obama administration's closure of the Yucca Mountain project. Yucca ...

Tue, 30 Mar 10
Rudd ominously silent on climate change
http://www.smh.com.au/business/rudd-ominously-silent-on-climate-change-20100328-r54s.html
Sydney Morning Herald: We know Kevin Rudd has what it takes to win elections and it would be amazing to see him lose the one this year. So we know he can survive as prime minister. A much harder question is whether he has what it takes to be a good prime minister. It's too soon to be sure - after all, John Howard had a terribly rocky first term - but it isn't looking good. It's unfair to say, as Tony Abbott does, that he's all talk and no action. If this line is biting in the electorate - as it seems ...

Mon, 29 Mar 10
Australia: Climate change protest targets coal ships
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/03/29/2858583.htm
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Rising Tide, a group fighting the causes of climate change, says it plans to block Newcastle Harbour again next year after staging what it describes as a successful protest at the weekend. A convoy of 60 kayaks, rafts and boats formed a blockade across the entrance to the harbour yesterday to stop coal ships entering or leaving. Newcastle Port Corporation says the six hour protest did not interrupt ship movements, with several ships loaded during the day. But Rising Tide ...

Mon, 29 Mar 10
Protest didn't stop Newcastle coal ships
http://news.brisbanetimes.com.au/breaking-news-national/protest-didnt-stop-newcastle-coal-ships-20100328-r4qk.html
AAP: A protest against the expansion of Newcastle's coal industry didn't interrupt shipping operations, the Newcastle Port Corporation says. Hundreds of protesters, many in kayaks, took to the water off Horseshoe Beach, Newcastle, on Sunday morning to prevent shipping movements at the world's top coal port. Rising Tide Newcastle spokeswoman Naomi Hodgson said the protest stopped ships from entering and leaving the port between 10am and 5pm (AEDT) on Sunday. "Today was ...

Mon, 29 Mar 10
Putting wind-generated power where it's needed
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-0328-wind-transmission-20100328,0,5855733.story
Chicago Tribune: The national push for more wind turbine-generated electricity could turn Illinois into a transmission hub. "Illinois is the crossroads. Historically, whether it's rails, shipping, travel, O'Hare airport, it's a geographical midpoint, or hub, positioned for all things moving west to east," said Thomas O'Neill, chief operating officer at Chicago-based Exelon Transmission Co., a unit of Exelon Corp. But while regulators are paving the way for wind-farm development with tax credits ...

Mon, 29 Mar 10
'Very dramatic' changes in Greenland: ice loss spreads north
http://news.mongabay.com/2010/0328-hance_greenland_melt.html
Mongabay: Over the past ten years scientists have measured increasing ice loss along southern Greenland. Now a new study in Geophysical Research Letters shows that the ice loss has spread north with likely consequences for global sea level rise. Collecting data from NASA's satellite Gravity and Recovery Climate Experiment, known as GRACE, and GPS measurements of the bedrock on the edges of the ice sheet, the Denmark Technical Institute's National Space Institute in Copenhagen was able to show ...

Mon, 29 Mar 10
Sea Lion Pups Starving Along California Shoreline
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125280004&ft=1&f=1025
National Public Radio: Starved and emaciated, sea lion pups are beaching themselves along the Pacific Coast. A strong El Nino tropical weather pattern is to blame. Unusually warm sea surface temperatures in the western Pacific are moving east, forcing the sea lions' natural food sources -- squid, hake, herring and anchovies -- to seek out cooler waters. Adult sea lions have enough fat stored up to survive the resulting food shortage, but their pups aren't so well-equipped. Richard Evans, medical ...

Mon, 29 Mar 10
The world plunges into darkness as millions switch off for climate change
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/earth-hour/the-world-plunges-into-darkness-as-millions-switch-off-for-climate-change-20100328-r59m.html?autostart=1
Sydney Morning Herald: ORGANISERS of Earth Hour are claiming that this year's event has been the most successful yet, with 126 countries and more than 4000 cities and towns taking part in the global protest. The event started on Saturday at 5.45pm Sydney time with the lights going out in the tiny Chatham Islands, 800 kilometres off the coast of New Zealand, before taking just over 24 hours to travel around the globe. Landmarks, including Beijing's Forbidden City, the Eiffel Tower in Paris and the ...

Mon, 29 Mar 10
Climate Change Killed Dinosaurs, Scientist Says
http://www.aolnews.com/science/article/ansmate-change-killed-dinosaurs-german-scientist-says/19417294
Aol News: Was it long-term climate change, rather than a rogue asteroid, that killed off the dinosaurs? That's the conclusion of German paleontologist Michael Prauss, who studied 65-million-year-old fossils drilled out of the earth in the Brazos River area of Texas and argues that radical changes to the flora and fauna of the era began long before arrival of the massive space rock widely associated with one of the largest mass extinctions in the history of the planet. That impact, at ...

Mon, 29 Mar 10
Asia pollution circles the globe in stratosphere: study
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/asia-pollution-circles-the-globe-in-stratosphere-study-1929607.html
Agence France-Presse: Pollution from Asia's booming economies rises into the stratosphere during the monsoon season then circles the world for years, according to a report out Thursday. A study by the Boulder, Colorado-based National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) said the strong air circulation patterns linked to Asia's monsoon rainy season serves as a pathway for black carbon, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and other pollutants to rise into the stratosphere. The stratosphere is the layer ...

Mon, 29 Mar 10
Global pace of deforestation slows: FAO
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/global-pace-of-deforestation-slows-fao-1929648.html
Agence France-Presse: The worldwide pace of deforestation has slowed down for the first time on record, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said on Thursday. On a total forest area of four billion hectares, the world lost 13 million hectares of forests per year between 2000 and 2010 - down from around 16 million in the 1990-2000 period, it said in a report. "For the first time, we are able to show that the rate of deforestation has decreased globally as a result of concerted efforts taken ...

Sun, 28 Mar 10
World's iconic sites go dark to fight global warming
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/worlds-iconic-sites-go-dark-to-fight-global-warming-1929559.html
Agence France-Presse: The world's tallest building went dark, the Eiffel Tower lost its glow and lights were shut off at other sites across the globe Saturday in a campaign to boost the fight against climate change. Ferry horns blared across Sydney harbour in a noisy start to the Earth Hour energy-saving event, involving 4,000 cities in a record 125 countries. It was to include 1,200 landmarks from the Forbidden City to Egypt's pyramids and the Las Vegas Strip, with iconic sites going dark for 60 ...

Sun, 28 Mar 10
Tuvalu to Times Square; landmarks off for Earth Hour
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100328/wl_nm/us_climate_earthhour
Reuters: Landmarks such as Sydney's Opera House, Beijing's Forbidden City and Taiwan's Taipei 101 office tower temporarily went dark on Saturday as nations dimmed the lights for Earth Hour 2010 to call for action on climate change. The symbolic one-hour switch-off, first held in Sydney in 2007, has become an annual global event and organizers World Wide Fund for Nature said they expect this year's to be the biggest so far. The remote Chatham Islands was the first of more than 100 ...

Sun, 28 Mar 10
Activists jet 12000 miles - to climate change meeting
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1261251/Activists-jet-12-000-miles--climate-meeting.html?ITO=1490
Daily Mail: Climate change activists opposed to air travel are travelling to a conference in South America...by plane. Campaigners from Climate Camp -- who helped blockade Heathrow at the height of the summer holidays in 2007 -- face claims of hypocrisy having decided to send two members to an international meeting in Bolivia to discuss 'transnational protests` against climate change. The 12,000-mile round trip to the Climate Change and Mother Earth`s Rights conference next month involves ...

Sun, 28 Mar 10
United Kingdom: CO2 ruling puts airport growth at risk
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7078774.ece
Times (UK): CAMPAIGNERS will seek to block airport expansion across Britain following a High Court judgment which criticised the government's decision to build a third runway at Heathrow. Environmental groups linked to Stansted, Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester and a string of other airports hope to use the ruling to launch fresh challenges against plans for mass growth in flights and passenger numbers. The judgment on Friday found that ministers had failed to take account of new, legally ...

Sun, 28 Mar 10
UK low carbon uptake 'too slow'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8590753.stm
BBC: The government must act faster if the UK is to fully benefit from low carbon technology, a report by MPs has warned. The Energy and Climate Change Committee said in 2008 there were 881,000 green sector jobs - but with extra funding that could rise by 44% by 2015. But it criticised slow uptake of carbon capture systems, electric cars and home insulation, calling on the government to invest more in the technologies. The Department of Energy and Climate Change said it was ...

Sun, 28 Mar 10
The trillion-dollar question is: who will now lead the climate battle?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/28/un-climate-change-meeting-london
Guardian: Some of the planet's most powerful paymasters will gather in London on Wednesday to discuss a nagging financial problem: how to raise a trillion dollars for the developing world. Those charged with achieving this daunting goal will include Gordon Brown, directors of several central banks, the billionaire philanthropist George Soros, the economist Lord (Nicholas) Stern and Larry Summers, President Obama's chief economics adviser. As an array of expertise, it is formidable: but then so ...

Sun, 28 Mar 10
United Kingdom: Big Ben in darkness as 4,000 cities switch off for Earth Hour
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/7531183/Big-Ben-in-darkness-as-4000-cities-switch-off-for-Earth-Hour.html
Telegraph: Some 4,000 cities in more than 120 countries switched off to reduce energy consumption at 8.30pm local time. In Britain, the lights went out at Buckingham Palace and Downing Street as well as Big Ben and other UK landmarks. Chelsea manager Luiz Felipe Scolari backs Rafael Benitez's rant at Sir Alex Ferguson The event began in the remote Chatham Islands off the coast of New Zealand, where, as local time hit 8.30pm, light switches were flicked to the off ...

Sun, 28 Mar 10
Masdar: Abu Dhabi's carbon-neutral city
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8586046.stm
BBC: The world's first zero-carbon city is being built in Abu Dhabi and is designed to be not only free of cars and skyscrapers but also powered by the sun. The oil-rich United Arab Emirates is the last place you would expect to learn lessons on low-carbon living, but the emerging eco-city of Masdar could teach the world. At first glance, the parched landscape of Abu Dhabi looks like the craziest place to build any city, let alone a sustainable one. The inhospitable terrain ...

Sun, 28 Mar 10
US skylines join world going dark for 'Earth Hour'
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100328/ap_on_re_us/earth_hour
Associated Press: Europe's best known landmarks -- including the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben and Rome's Colosseum -- fell dark Saturday, following Sydney's Opera House and Beijing's Forbidden City in joining a global climate change protest, as lights were switched off across the world to mark the Earth Hour event. In the United States, the lights went out at the Empire State Building in New York, the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., and the Coca-Cola headquarters in Atlanta, among many other sites in ...

Sun, 28 Mar 10
Australia: Lights out in Sydney as world begins Earth Hour
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/lights-out-in-sydney-as-world-begins-earth-hour-1929089.html
Agence France-Presse: Sydney's iconic Opera House and Harbour Bridge went dark along with millions of homes Saturday at the start of Earth Hour, a global switch-off aimed at revitalising efforts against climate change. Harbour ferry horns blared to signal the energy-saving event, which is supported by 4,000 cities in a record 125 countries and includes 1,200 famous landmarks from the Forbidden City to the pyramids to the Las Vegas Strip. "From Brazil to America, to Canada, all the way down to ...

Sun, 28 Mar 10
Global warming 'will split Scots isle in two' as rising sea surges inland
http://news.scotsman.com/inverness/Global-warming-will-split-.6185268.jp
Scotsman: PEOPLE living in low-lying South Uist have warned that their island could be split in two unless action is taken to tackle the impact of flooding and sea-level rise. The island in the Outer Hebrides is already dotted with large numbers of inland lochs, which locals believe will eventually join up. Under climate change scenarios published by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa), the seas around South Uist will rise by at least 37cm by 2080. Warmer, wetter winters ...

Sat, 27 Mar 10
UK High Court orders review of Heathrow expansion
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100326/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_britain_heathrow_expansion
Associated Press: Britain's High Court has thrown into doubt the government's plans to expand London's Heathrow airport with a third runway, ordering it Friday to take into account the latest data on climate change. The long-awaited court ruling means that Prime Minister Gordon Brown's government must hold new consultations about the environmental and economic impact of the 9 billion pound ($13.3 billion) expansion it announced a year ago. The Transport Office immediately pledged to do so, ...

Sat, 27 Mar 10
Asian Pollution Could Impact Entire World
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1842291/asian_pollution_could_impact_entire_world/index.html?source=r_science
redOrbit: Pollution originating in Asia is being lifted into the stratosphere during monsoon season, where it then circles around the globe for several years, according to a new National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) study released on Thursday. According to a press release put out on March 25 by the National Science Foundation (NSF), one of the sponsors of the study, the research team used satellite observations and computer modeling to demonstrate how summer circulation patterns force ...

Sat, 27 Mar 10
'Cap and Trade' Loses Its Standing as Energy Policy of Choice
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/science/earth/26climate.html?src=me
New York Times: Less than a year ago, cap and trade was the policy of choice for tackling climate change. Environmental groups and their foes in industry joined hands to embrace the approach, a market-driven system that sets a ceiling on global warming pollution while allowing companies to trade permits to meet it. President Obama praised it by name in his first budget, and the authors of the House climate and energy bill passed last June largely built their measure around it. Today, the ...

Thu, 25 Mar 10
France shelves carbon tax plan
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/7508231/France-shelves-carbon-tax-plan.html
Telegraph: Published: 7:00AM GMT 24 Mar 2010 The government shelved the proposed carbon tax, one of Mr Sarkozy's key reforms, a day after the president replaced a top minister in a reshuffle after his UMP party's defeat by Left-wing rivals in regional elections. Hundreds of thousands of protesters marched in the streets and teachers, train drivers and other public workers stayed off work to protest job cuts and plans for pension reform. The president has vowed to press on with ...

Thu, 25 Mar 10
Native groups vow to fight pipeline
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62M4R720100324?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29
Reuters: Aboriginal groups on Canada's Pacific Coast vowed on Tuesday to block Enbridge Inc's proposed Northern Gateway pipeline to carry oil sands crude to export markets including China. The groups said the environmental danger of oil tankers traveling through the coastal waters of British Columbia is too great, and the announcement could set the stage for a protracted legal and political fight over the pipeline. "Some people are saying (the pipeline) is a done deal. It's not," Art ...

Thu, 25 Mar 10
E.P.A. to Seek More Data on Emissions
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/science/earth/24epa.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
New York Times: The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed adding the oil and gas sector and facilities that inject carbon dioxide into the ground to the greenhouse gas sources that are required to report their annual emissions to the government. The agency already requires 31 industries, representing 85 percent of the annual production of climate-altering gases in the country, to track and report emissions. The new rule, if accepted after a public comment period, would also try to track ...

Thu, 25 Mar 10
With war and neglect, Afghans face water shortage
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100324/wl_nm/us_afghanistan_water
Reuters: Afghanistan needs billions of dollars for dams and irrigation to feed and provide power for its growing population after decades of war, with future water supply a major security challenge, Afghan and foreign officials say. Most of Afghanistan's precious water is allowed to flow out to its neighbors, a situation which must be changed quickly if the country is to sustain itself, deputy Water and Energy Minister Shujauddin Ziayee told Reuters recently. "In 30 years, the size of ...

Thu, 25 Mar 10
China should support solar thermal energy research
http://www.scidev.net/en/climate-change-and-energy/china-should-support-solar-thermal-energy-research-1.html?utm_source=link&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=en_climatechangeandenergy
SciDev.Net: China is rich in solar energy. More than two thirds of the country receives more than 2,200 hours of sunshine every year. Estimates put the amount of solar radiation landing on China as up to 10,000 times the energy capacity of the Three Gorges Dam. But despite the huge potential of solar power in China, the country has relied largely on fossil fuels to meet its energy needs and drive its economic success. Chinese people may be enjoying a higher standard of living, but not ...

Thu, 25 Mar 10
Financing solar power for the poor
http://www.scidev.net/en/climate-change-and-energy/financing-solar-power-for-the-poor-1.html?utm_source=link&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=en_climatechangeandenergy
SciDev.Net: As night falls, Shafiqul Islam, a teacher in the tiny Bangladeshi village of Saatkuta, can see the electric lights twinkling in Indian villages across the barbed wire fence that marks the border. But in his own village, 300 kilometres from capital city Dhaka and numbering just 125 households, electricity has been a dream. In common with 70 per cent of the 140 million Bangladeshis, Shafiqul's village is not on the electricity grid and people depend mainly on kerosene lamps for ...

Thu, 25 Mar 10
Solar power for the poor needs government support
http://www.scidev.net/en/climate-change-and-energy/solar-power-for-the-poor-needs-government-support.html?utm_source=link&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=en_climatechangeandenergy
SciDev.Net: Governments in South Asia must support solar power to make it affordable to the rural poor, says development expert Vishaka Hidellage. The accelerating demands for energy in fast-growing South Asia are mostly being met by increasing the centralised generation of non-renewable energy -- based on coal, gas and petroleum -- and its distribution through the electricity grid. Yet interest in renewable energy, such as grid-connected solar systems, is rising with the region's ...

Thu, 25 Mar 10
Residents Fret Over Parched Mekong River
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50772
Inter Press Service: Like many residents of this slow-paced Lao capital, graduate student Packno usually enjoys meeting up with her family and friends for dinner at any of the restaurants along the Mekong River. That's because once the sun begins to set, the riverside breeze also starts getting cooler. Or at least that's how it used to be. Nowadays, "it's still very hot in the evening at six or seven p.m. Since the Mekong has been running dry, the weather is getting hotter," says Packno, who preferred to ...

Thu, 25 Mar 10
Population growth should be curbed: conservationist Goodall
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100324/sc_afp/environmentbritainpopulation
Agence France-Presse: Humans should have fewer babies to help the global battle against climate change, according to the renowned British primatologist and conservationist Jane Goodall. Goodall, whose 1960s research on chimpanzees changed perceptions of relations between humans and animals, fears the controversial issue has slipped down the agenda in the debate about man's impact on the environment. "It's very frustrating as people don't want to address this topic," said the 75-year-old English ...

Thu, 25 Mar 10
"Mad scientist" talks up geo-engineering vision
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2260083/mad-scientist-talks-geo
Business Green: One of Britain's top climate scientists and a leading contributor to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) yesterday issued an impassioned plea for greater research into so-called geo-engineering technologies capable of altering the climate. Speaking at an event hosted by Lloyd's of London and Exeter University, professor Peter Cox argued that projects capable of reducing global temperatures may be necessary if world leaders are serious about their stated goal of ...

Thu, 25 Mar 10
Take a global view of climate change
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/34877.html
Politico: The Senate is due to unveil a bipartisan climate and energy package soon. As lawmakers consider it, they must not lose sight of the vital connection between people and nature. Numerous studies -- including last month's Quadrennial Defense Review by the Penatgon -- have detailed how the changing climate could affect people around the world, wreaking havoc on developing nations and punishing the poorest communities. But why should Americans care about these far-off communities ...

Thu, 25 Mar 10
Ships can cut CO2 by slowing down: study
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62N2IN20100324?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29
Reuters: Merchant ships can cut their carbon emissions by as much as 30 percent over the next three years by traveling more slowly, a Brussels-based environmental group said on Wednesday. The shipping sector accounts for nearly 3 percent of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and pressure has grown for cuts. A study commissioned by Seas at Risk found that by slow steaming, vessels can reduce their fuel consumption and cut CO2. The study, conducted by Dutch consultancy group CE ...

Thu, 25 Mar 10
Poor nations 'most at risk' from plant loss
http://www.france24.com/en/20100324-poor-nations-most-risk-plant-loss
Agence France-Presse: Global warming could reduce the range of plant biodiversity by more than nine percent by century's end, and poor countries least to blame for the problem will be worst hit, a study published on Wednesday says. German biologists used the UN climate panel's computer models for possible temperature rise, and crunched through data on "capacity for species richness," or CSR, meaning the likely count of plant species per area. In 13 out of 18 scenarios, global CSR "declined ...

Thu, 25 Mar 10
Restore Scotland's peatland bogs says nature body
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/8582584.stm
BBC: Clifton Bain, director of the IUCN Peatland Programme, said restoration projects would help Scotland meet climate change targets. He said: "Damaged peatlands are a major source of emissions, both here in Scotland and world wide. "Proposed changes to international rules on carbon accounting will allow Scotland to get full credit for its peatland restoration work, including the massive conservation efforts in the Flow Country of Caithness and Sutherland, one of the worlds largest ...

Thu, 25 Mar 10
Island claimed by India and Bangladesh sinks below waves
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/cif-green/2010/mar/24/india-bangladesh-sea-levels
Associated Press: For nearly 30 years, India and Bangladesh have argued over control of a tiny rock island in the Bay of Bengal. Now rising sea levels have resolved the dispute for them: the island has gone. New Moore island in the Sunderbans has been completely submerged, said oceanographer Sugata Hazra, a professor at Jadavpur University in Kolkata. Its disappearance has been confirmed by satellite imagery and sea patrols, he said. "What these two countries could not achieve from years of ...

Thu, 25 Mar 10
United Kingdom: Forests expert officially complains about 'distorted' Sunday Times article
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/24/sunday-times-ipcc-amazon-rainforest
Guardian: A leading scientist has made an official complaint to the Press Complaints Commission over an "inaccurate, misleading and distorted" newspaper story about a supposed mistake made by the UN's panel on global warming. Simon Lewis, an expert on tropical forests at the University of Leeds, says the story, published by the Sunday Times in January, is wrong and should be corrected. He says the story is misleading because it gives the impression that the Intergovernmental Panel on ...

Thu, 25 Mar 10
Global Warming Threatens Plant Diversity
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1840965/global_warming_threatens_plant_diversity/index.html?source=r_science
redOrbit: In the coming decades, climate change is set to produce worldwide changes in the living conditions for plants, whereby major regional differences may be expected to occur. Thus todayÂ´s cool, moist regions could in future provide habitats for additional species, and in arid and hot regions the climatic prerequisites for a high degree of plant diversity will deteriorate. This is the conclusion reached in a new study by scientists at the Universities of Bonn, GÃ¶ttingen and Yale, and published ...

Thu, 25 Mar 10
Is it a bike, is it a car? GM debuts electric mini-vehicle concept car
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2260168/gm-debuts-urban-electric
Business Green: General Motors (GM) has today unveiled a purely electric concept car tailored for densely populated urban environments that aims to provide an entirely new class of zero-emission transport. The auto manufacturer's Electric Networked-Vehicle or EN-V mini-vehicle was showcased earlier today at a pavilion at the Shanghai Expo, which it will share with Chinese joint venture partner SAIC Motor Corp. The Expo opens officially on 1 May and will run for six months. The two-wheel, ...

Thu, 25 Mar 10
United States: Lawmakers seek to keep Yucca nuclear waste dump
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62N6CM20100324?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29
Reuters: The U.S. Energy Department's push to scrap a long-planned national nuclear waste dump in Nevada has run into stiff opposition as lawmakers on Wednesday questioned the Obama administration's decision. A bipartisan group of lawmakers unveiled a resolution of disapproval in the House of Representatives on Tuesday aimed at making the department stop efforts to shelve the project and maintain all records relating to the proposed storage site. Lawmakers on a House Appropriations ...

Thu, 25 Mar 10
Global deforestation slowed over last decade: U.N
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62N6D620100324?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29
Reuters: Deforestation slowed in the last decade, in the first sign that global conservation efforts are bearing fruit, but an area the size of Costa Rica is still being destroyed each year, the United Nations said on Thursday. A report by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) found that about 13 million hectares of forest a year were converted to other uses or lost through natural causes in 2000- 2010, down from 16 million a year in the previous decade. The net loss of ...

Thu, 25 Mar 10
United Kingdom: Pale green measures that could bring 80m-tonne cut in CO2
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/mar/24/budget-green-plans-emissions-cut
Guardian: It looked like the palest of green budgets but Treasury calculations suggested that the series of small but significant transport, tax and investment measures announced could cumulatively lead to the reduction of nearly 80m tonnes of CO2 - nearly 15% of all UK climate change emissions - by 2020. The biggest benefits, said the Treasury, should come from the new green investment bank which the government hopes will encourage a Â£2bn kick-start for the low carbon economy. Together with ...

Thu, 25 Mar 10
Don't Risk 'Clean Energy' Future to Save Coal Jobs, Says BP's CEO
http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2010/03/24/24greenwire-dont-risk-clean-energy-future-to-save-coal-job-50806.html
Greenwire: The United States isn't going to get "beyond petroleum" anytime soon, but the chief executive of oil giant BP says it's time for the nation to start thinking beyond coal. The nation should not be trying to save coal jobs at the expense of cleaner fuel industries, Tony Hayward, head of BP PLC, told a Washington think tank audience yesterday, adding that there is no reason to keep building coal-burning power plants here. "We've got to find a better way to create jobs than ...

Thu, 25 Mar 10
Canada: Minister sees hidden agenda behind oil sands foes
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62N0A720100324?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29
Reuters: Some international groups behind campaigns opposing Canadian oil sands development are actually trying to erect trade barriers under the guise of protecting the environment, Alberta Energy Minister Ron Liepert said on Tuesday. Liepert, who has begun a communications push to sell the benefits of oil sands development to residents outside Alberta in the United States, declined to name "certain groups" aiming to block companies from boosting output from the unconventional ...

Thu, 25 Mar 10
Oil sands environmental debate seen more divisive
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62N5AO20100324?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29
Reuters: Canada's oil sands producers have pledged to improve their environmental records and do a better job communicating their efforts to the public, but environmentalists say they see no commitment to real change. The diverging views point to continued tough sell around the world for producers of the massive energy resource in northern Alberta, the world's second biggest oil reserve, and for the Alberta and Canadian governments. Executives at the Reuters Canadian Oil Sands Summit in ...

Thu, 25 Mar 10
Toshiba signals interest in Gates' nuclear master plan
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2260050/toshiba-signals-interest-gates
Business Green: Bill Gates' recently revealed plan to develop a new form of nuclear reactor that promises to use waste radio-active material as fuel received a dual boost this week, as Japanese electronics and engineering giant Toshiba expressed interest in joining the high profile project and a new survey suggested opposition to nuclear power in the US is on the wane. The Microsoft chairman and billionaire investment recently provided fresh details of his backing for nuclear energy start up ...

Wed, 24 Mar 10
France: Nicolas Sarkozy under fire after carbon tax plan shelved
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/23/nicolas-sarkozy-carbon-tax-france
Guardian: Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president who vowed to try to "save the human race" with a tax on carbon, was today accused by his junior ecology minister of pandering to "eco-scepticism" after the reform was in effect abandoned by the government. Chantal Jouanno made no secret of her fury after the prime minister, FranÃ§ois Fillon, said the government would not "sink the competitiveness" of French businesses by inflicting a tax on them that was not paid by their EU counterparts. "I ...

Wed, 24 Mar 10
Caracas peak blazes for third day in drought
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62M4K720100323?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29
Reuters: A blaze raged on the Avila mountain over Caracas for a third day on Tuesday, threatening wildlife in its national park and sending smoke billowing over the upper reaches of the Venezuelan capital. Since the weekend, the fire has lit up the night sky and consumed nearly 120 hectares (300 acres) of the Avila's thickly wooded slopes, which are home to more than 120 mammal species and 500 types of bird. The authorities said some 200 firemen, police and volunteers had been battling ...

Wed, 24 Mar 10
British company recruited to lead China's efforts to clean up its economy
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/23/china-decarbonise-economy-uk-company
Guardian: A British company was recruited today into a pioneering role in China's efforts to clean up and decarbonise its economy. International Synergies, a Birmingham-based firm, has been asked to share the UK's experience of improving energy efficiency and reducing waste with one of the biggest industrial powerhouses in China. Tianjin Economic-Technological Development Area, a zone in north-eastern China with a GDP of about Â£30bn pounds a year, aims to reinvent itself as the Silicon ...

Wed, 24 Mar 10
Global Warming Is Fact, and Denial Won't Change Climate Back
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2010/03/23/global-warming-is-fact-and-denial-wont-change-climate-back.html
U.S. News and World Report: Joseph Romm, a physicist, climate expert, and senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, blogs at ClimateProgress.org and is author of Straight Up and Hell and High Water. Big Oil wants us to remain addicted to oil, a major source of carbon pollution. So it and other special interests have conducted an aggressive disinformation campaign for more than a decade to convince Americans that there's a major disagreement among scientists on the dangers posed by carbon pollution, just ...

Wed, 24 Mar 10
Australia: Brown coal emissions rise 10% in a decade
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/brown-coal-emissions-rise-10-in-a-decade-20100322-qrdq.html
Age: GREENHOUSE gas emissions from Victoria's brown-coal fired power stations increased nearly 10 per cent over the past decade despite government programs designed to promote renewable energy. It reflects that more than three-quarters of the new electricity generation in Victoria to meet increasing national demand since 2000 comes from burning brown coal, the dirtiest major source of electricity. An analysis by consultants Green Energy Markets found generation at the four major ...

Wed, 24 Mar 10
Australia: Carbon doubt threatens $9b power station refinancing
http://www.theage.com.au/business/carbon-doubt-threatens-9b-power-station-refinancing-20100323-qu7g.html
Age: A KEY adviser to the federal government on the impact of cutting carbon dioxide emissions says unclear energy policy is threatening $9 billion in debt that power stations must refinance in the next five years. Richard Wagner, the head of investment banking at Morgan Stanley, which last year wrote a confidential report on the proposed scheme's effect on coal-fired generators, yesterday said uncertain carbon policy would pose a ''significant challenge'' to heavily geared generators ...

Wed, 24 Mar 10
United States: Cape Wind debated at last planned public hearing
http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100323/NEWS21/3230338/1018/OPINION
South Coast Today: The proposed Nantucket Sound wind farm will either make history or destroy it, according to speakers at what could be the last public hearing on the project. Barring a lawsuit that sends the project back for more review, Monday's hearing at Cape Cod Community College's Tilden Arts Center marked the final opportunity for opponents and supporters to be heard on the plan by Cape Wind Associates LLC to build 130 wind turbines on Horseshoe Shoal in the sound. In keeping with the ...

Wed, 24 Mar 10
California seeks smooth adoption of cap-and-trade
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62M0NG20100323
Reuters: California aims to avoid major economic shocks with its carbon cap-and-trade system slated to start in 2012, the state's chief climate change regulator said on Monday, adding that the most populous U.S. state would try to harmonize its system with any federal plan. California vaulted to the vanguard of U.S. climate change in 2006 with an aggressive law that aimed to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and make it the trend-setter in clean energy and ...

Wed, 24 Mar 10
Embracing the Anthropocene
http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/embracing_the_anthropocene/
Seed Magazine: In 2000, as the green shoots of spring cracked through winter`s icy grip on the northern hemisphere, a letter from the Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen and his colleague Eugene Stoermer appeared in the news bulletin of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme. In it, Crutzen and Stoermer made the case that the Holocene, the geological epoch that had held sway on Earth for the past 12,000 years, was at an end. In its place, with a start date pegged to the late 18th century commercialization ...

Wed, 24 Mar 10
United Kingdom: Green power revolution to create 500 jobs a month
http://news.scotsman.com/news/Green-power-revolution--to.6172059.jp
Scotsman: An average of 500 jobs will be created every month until 2020 in sectors ranging from offshore wind power to carbon capture technology. The study highlights for the first time how Scotland can capitalise on its natural advantages to make the most of the potential economic benefits of green business. Unveiling the report – produced with the support of several public agencies – finance secretary John Swinney said the opportunities were "vast". He went on: "Scotland's ...

Wed, 24 Mar 10
United States: Ritter signs bill requiring greater use of renewable energy by 2020
http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_14735606
Denver Post: Colorado, already viewed as a renewable energy leader, took another step Monday when Gov. Bill Ritter signed into law a bill that will give the state the highest renewable energy standard in the Rocky Mountain West. The measure requires that 30 percent of electricity be generated from renewable sources by 2020. "This is a commitment to clean energy that is unparalleled in the country," Ritter said. "There is no place in the world that compares to Colorado in research and ...

Wed, 24 Mar 10
Climate change kills off scented flowers - Is this the death of sweet romance?
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/indepth/climate-change-kills-off-scented-flowers-is-this-the-death-of-sweet-romance/story-fn4x9za1-1225844396066
Daily Telegraph: ROMANCE may never be as sweet again after scientists have discovered that climate change is killing the scent of flowers around the world forever. This is the concern of environmentalists as flowers are losing their scent due to climate change and air pollution. And their fragrance may be lost forever. Science and Technology Professor Emeritus at University Kebangsaan Malaysia, Dr Abdul Latif Mohamad, said genetically modified flowers might be the way out. Climate change ...

Wed, 24 Mar 10
Can Climate Models Predict Global Warming's Direct Effects in Your City?
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=climate-models-predict-global-warming-effects-in-cities
Scientific American: Nobody lives in the global average climate. Nor are the massive grid cells favored by climate models run on today's supercomputers as useful as they could be for planning purposes, given that they can encompass 10,000 square kilometers. Now the National Science Foundation (NSF), along with the U.S. Energy and Agriculture departments are teaming up to financially support the development of new computer models aimed at revealing the anticipated effects of climate change at the regional ...

Wed, 24 Mar 10
U.K. Conservatives Study 'Green Bonds' to Fund Bank
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601009&sid=aLTF2Qnt.YwA
Bloomberg: Britain's Conservative opposition is looking at ways to create "green bonds" in a way that won't add to the government's budget deficit, said Greg Barker, the party's lawmaker in charge of climate change policy. The party has asked an advisory panel to work out how the bonds could be used to spur companies to invest in clean energy technologies such as wind and solar power, Barker said in an interview in London. The bonds could help fund a green investment bank that the committee also ...

Wed, 24 Mar 10
UK venture capitalists throw weight behind green bank plan
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2260007/uk-venture-capitalists-throw
Business Green: One of the main arguments against the formation of a government-backed green investment bank has always been that it would step on the toes of the private sector, undermining the existing flow of investment towards low carbon projects. However, those investment firms likely to be directly affected by the introduction of a green bank appear to have allayed those fears after the British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (BVCA) yesterday released a new report signaling the ...

Wed, 24 Mar 10
France abandons plans for carbon tax: deputies
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100323/sc_afp/francewarmingpollutionenvironmenttax
Agence France-Presse: France is to abandon its planned carbon fuel tax which aimed to curb global warming, members of parliament quoted the prime minister as saying on Tuesday. A tax would have to be introduced at a European level in order "not to harm the competitiveness of French companies," Francois Fillon was quoted as saying by several MPs of the governing UMP party who attended a meeting with him. The carbon tax would have made France the first big economy to tax harmful carbon emissions, ...

Wed, 24 Mar 10
As whales head north, Arctic biologists play catch-up
http://wwwp.dailyclimate.org/tdc-newsroom/2010/03/as-whales-head-north-arctic-biologists-play-catch
Daily Climate: The season of migration has come again to the warm blue waters off the coast of Mexico. Mother gray whales are nursing their newborn calves, plumping them up for the 6,000-mile trip next month to summer feeding grounds in the Arctic. This migration, one of the longest of any of the world's wild mammals, has gone on for thousands of years. Increasingly, the watery voyage raises questions about how the changing climate is affecting species that live in the Arctic, the part of the world ...

Wed, 24 Mar 10
Graham Says Climate-Change Legislation May Be 'Very Difficult'
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-03-23/graham-says-climate-change-legislation-may-be-very-difficult-.html
Bloomberg: U.S. climate-change legislation will be harder to pass this year on the heels of the divisive congressional battle over health care, Senator Lindsey Graham said. The push by Democratic lawmakers to force a health-care bill opposed by Republicans through the Senate this week would "make it very difficult to do anything complicated and controversial' next such as climate-change legislation, Graham, a South Carolina Republican, told reporters in Washington yesterday. He said he will ...

Wed, 24 Mar 10
Rise of dinos linked to volcanism
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8580444.stm
BBC: Immense volcanic activity helped the dinosaurs rise to prominence some 200 million years ago, a study suggests. Dinosaurs were the dominant vertebrates on land for some 135 million years. While it is widely accepted that an asteroid or comet wiped them out, there has been less agreement on the factors which led to their ascendancy. Research in PNAS journal suggests volcanic eruptions changed the climate, causing a mass extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs' main ...

Wed, 24 Mar 10
Simple act, big impact: Earth Hour
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010/03/23/simple-act-big-impact-earth-hour.html
Jakarta Post: Climate change is attributable to human activities. Primary solutions, therefore, need to come from humans, from changes in individual behavior. The world's leading climate scientists, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), state that changes in the atmosphere, the oceans, glaciers and ice caps now show unequivocally that the world is warming due to human activities. This human-induced climate change will profoundly affect water and other natural resources, ...

Wed, 24 Mar 10
Seafarers' scourge provides hope for biofuel future
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100308151047.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Latest+Science+News%29
ScienceDaily: But new research by scientists at the BBSRC Sustainable Bioenergy Centre at the Universities of York and Portsmouth is uncovering how the tiny marine isopod digests the apparently indigestible. By examining genes that are expressed in the guts of gribble, the researchers have demonstrated that its digestive system contains enzymes which could hold the key to converting wood and straw into liquid biofuels. In new research, a team headed by Professor Simon McQueen-Mason and ...

Wed, 24 Mar 10
United Kingdom: Green advertising rules are made to be broken
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/23/green-claims
Guardian: From this week, we have a new checklist of dodgy green claims that advertisers should avoid. The list comes from the UK government's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). They are only guidelines and they won't save the planet. But, in keeping with its own strictures on greenwash, at least the department doesn't pretend that they will. Among the biggest bugbears revealed in the consultation document – the draft ppdate guidance on green claims - are general, ...

Wed, 24 Mar 10
Indonesia at the crossroads: Climate change and its challenges
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010/03/23/indonesia-crossroads-climate-change-and-its-challenges.html
Jakarta Post: During the global economic G8 Summit in Pittsburgh last September, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono declared, for the first time, that Indonesia would reduce its carbon emissions by 26 percent in 2020, with the bulk of those reductions coming from the forestry sector, i.e. about 13.3 percent. While we applaud the President's commitment to curbing greenhouse gas emissions, we are anxious to see how this vision shall become a reality. In the wake of the President's ...

Tue, 23 Mar 10
United Kingdom: What you should know before buying a green car
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-drive/green-driving/news-and-notes/what-you-should-know-before-buying-a-green-car/article1508514/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheGlobeAndMail-Front+%28The+Globe+and+Mail+-+Latest+News%29
Globe and Mail: Toyota's 8.5 million vehicle recall, including more than 300,000 units of its best-selling Prius hybrid, couldn't have come at a better time for Nissan. The Japanese auto maker, which sold 770,000 vehicles in the U.S. last year compared to Toyota's 1.7 million, is launching its own potentially revolutionary green car this spring: the plug-in electric Nissan Leaf. "We believe that people settled for hybrids because that was the best technology available," says Mark Perry, ...

Tue, 23 Mar 10
Democratic Senators Push for Climate Bill This Year
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-03-22/democratic-senators-urge-considering-climate-bill-this-year.html
Bloomberg: Twenty-two Democratic senators urged that the Senate take up energy and climate-change legislation this year focused on "jobs and reduced dependence on foreign oil.' The senators, including Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Maria Cantwell of Washington, said agreeing on a measure to fight global warming and revamp U.S. energy use is important to the economy and national security. "We recognize that achieving agreement in the Senate will be a challenge, but across the country, Americans ...

Tue, 23 Mar 10
Cornell Expert: World has underestimated climate-change effects
http://www.physorg.com/news188503833.html
Physorg: Professor Charles Greene asserts in the journal Oceanography that the world's policymakers have underestimated the potential dangerous impacts that man-made climate change will have on society. The world's policymakers have underestimated the potential dangerous impacts that man-made climate change will have on society, said Charles H. Greene, Cornell professor of earth and atmospheric sciences. As one of the authors of "A Very Inconvenient Truth," published in the ...

Tue, 23 Mar 10
After health, Obama allies zero in on climate
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gq4np7ynPuNQY39e5EHWd82GImyQ
Agence France-Presse: After a hard-fought victory on health care reform, President Barack Obama's allies in Congress are pledging to move forward on climate change -- but some environmentalists are skeptical. Twenty-two Democratic senators have signed a letter calling for climate legislation within the year, although some observers question if the White House will want another divisive vote as November midterm elections approach. Senator John Kerry, the chief architect of climate legislation, said ...

Tue, 23 Mar 10
Nestle fiasco continues: Indonesian oil palm planters threaten boycott too
http://news.mongabay.com/2010/0322-hance_nestle_boycott.html
Mongabay: Candy and food giant Nestle is finding itself between a rock and a hard place. The online campaign against Nestle continues: today protesters once again posted thousands of negative messages on the company's Facebook page, most demanding that Nestle cut out palm oil linked to deforestation from its products. At the same time, a new problem has cropped up for Nestle: Indonesian oil palm planters are threatening to boycott Nestle products. Proving that the issues surrounding oil palm ...

Tue, 23 Mar 10
Chevron to test youthful solar systems at aging oil refinery
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2259969/chevron-test-generation-solar
Business Green: In a move bound to be interpreted in some quarters as symbolic of the company's evolving low carbon energy strategy, oil giant Chevron announced yesterday that it is to use one of its former refineries in California to host a major new research project to assess the effectiveness of competing next generation solar technologies. The company said its new Project Brightfield research programme would be sited at its former refinery in Bakersfield, California, and would aim to evaluate the ...

Tue, 23 Mar 10
Plains Flooding And Climate Change Linked?
http://www.publicnewsservice.org/index.php?/content/article/13168-1
Public News Service: Although the Red River crested over the weekend in Fargo, climate scientists predict flooding events will become more common over time because of global warming. George Seielstad with the Union of Concerned Scientists says average temperatures in the Great Plains region have gone up 15 percent in the last 50 years. As a result, he says, a warmer planet creates warmer air, which holds more moisture. "Much more of the rain that we get comes in intense downpours and much less comes in ...

Tue, 23 Mar 10
Kenyan farmers get micro-insurance
http://www.scidev.net/en/agriculture-and-environment/kenyan-farmers-get-micro-insurance.html?utm_source=link&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=en_agricultureandenvironment
SciDev.Net: Kenyan smallholders are 'micro-insuring' themselves against crop losses under a scheme launched this month (5 March) that combines mobile phone payment with the use of automated weather stations. The scheme, Kilimo Salama -- a Swahili phrase for "safe farming" -- aims to give small-scale farmers in Kenya 'pay-as-you-plant' insurance, so if they lose their harvest they can still afford farming the following season. Farmers with as little as one acre of land pay an extra five per ...

Tue, 23 Mar 10
China: Hong Kong pollution hits new high
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8579495.stm
BBC: Air pollution levels in Hong Kong have reached a record high, prompting government warnings to people to avoid going out. The Environmental Protection Department said some Air Pollution Index readings were more than double the level at which people should stay indoors. Some schools stopped children playing outside to safeguard their health. The record levels follow severe sandstorms thousands of kilometres to the north around the Chinese capital. Officials said ...

Tue, 23 Mar 10
Drought crippling southwest China, millions without drinking water
http://news.mongabay.com/2010/0321-hance_china_drought.html
Mongabay: Over 50 million people are affected by a severe drought in southwest China, according to Xinhua, the nation's state media. The lack of rain and unseasonably high temperatures has also left 16 million people without easy access to drinking water. Since last autumn many regions have received only half their usual rainfall. The nation expects that nearly a million hectares will not produce crops due to the drought, while some rivers have dried up completely. China has sent more ...

Tue, 23 Mar 10
Iberdrola to build offshore wind farm in Germany
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100322/sc_afp/spaingermanyenergyalternativecompanyiberdrola
Agence France-Presse: Spanish renewable energy group Iberdrola Renovables announced Monday it will build an offshore wind farm in the Baltic Sea in Germany. The company has bought the rights to the installation from a joint venture formed by Deutsche Erneuerbare Energien, a subsidiary of Deutsche Bank, and Germany's Ventotec, it said in a statement. It did not reveal the price. The wind farm will have 80 turbines for a total output capacity of 400 megawatts. Iberdrola Renovables, a subsidiary ...

Tue, 23 Mar 10
German firm to build SE Asia's top commercial solar park
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100322/sc_afp/germanythailandenergyalternativesolar
Agence France-Presse: A German solar energy firm said Monday it would build South-East Asia's largest commercial solar power plant, based around 70 kilometres (45 miles) north of Thailand's capital Bangkok. The first part of the park, in Ayutthaya, should be open by the end of July this year, providing one megawatt of energy, said Hamburg-based Conergy in a statement. By the end of the year, the park should be completed, with a total power output of three megawatts. When fully operational, ...

Tue, 23 Mar 10
Eating less meat won't reduce global warming: study
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100322/sc_afp/scienceclimateanimalwarming
Agence France-Presse: Eating less meat will not reduce global warming, and claims that it will distract from efforts to find real solutions to climate change, a leading air quality expert said Monday. "We certainly can reduce our greenhouse gas production, but not by consuming less meat and milk," Frank Mitloehner, an air quality expert at the University of California-Davis, said as he presented a report on meat-eating and climate change at a conference of the American Chemical Society in ...

Tue, 23 Mar 10
Joint deal with Shell gives Beijing a stake in Australian coal-seam gas
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/mar/22/shell-petrochina-deal-australian-gas
Guardian: Shell has strengthened its hold on Australia's bulging gas reserves after Arrow Energy agreed to a joint $3.2bn (Â£2.1bn) takeover by the Anglo-Dutch oil company and PetroChina, which is majority-owned by the Chinese government. The deal, which has to be approved by the coal-seam gas producer's shareholders and Australian regulators, will also reinforce Shell's relations with Beijing. At Shell's strategy update last week, finance director Simon Henry told the Guardian the ...

Tue, 23 Mar 10
Volcanoes helped dinosaurs rule the Earth, say scientists
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/mar/22/volcanoes-helped-dinosaurs-rule-earth
Guardian: Volcanoes that spewed out lava and noxious gases for more than half a million years paved the way for dinosaurs to rule the Earth by wiping out their competitors, scientists say. The environmental devastation wrought by relentless volcanic activity at the end of the Triassic period 200m years ago laid waste to animal species that lived alongside the early dinosaurs, giving them the upper hand in the Jurassic period that followed. Before the rise of the dinosaurs, the animal ...

Tue, 23 Mar 10
Hunting for Projects to Help Fish and Wildlife Adapt to Climate Change
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=hunting-for-climate-change
Scientific American: For the average United States' city or 'burb dweller, firsthand evidence of climate change is rare. Hunters and anglers see it every day. That's one of the main messages from a coalition of hunting and fishing organizations that released a report Monday outlining the consequences of climate change for fish and wildlife in the United States. "It's very evident that major shifts are under way," said Richard Kearney, assistant regional director for climate change for the U.S. Fish ...

Tue, 23 Mar 10
How will tree diseases react to climate change?
http://www.physorg.com/news188488633.html
Physorg: Under a changing climate, patterns of forest disturbance are expected to change, but how will forest diseases respond? A summary of scientific information that addresses this question is now available on the Internet at http://www.fs.fed.us/psw/topics/insect_disease/. The site includes a searchable bibliography. The summary, titled "Review of Literature on Climate Change and Forest Diseases of Western North America" is sponsored by the USDA Forest Service. Currently the forested area ...

Tue, 23 Mar 10
Dirty Oil drives Canada's dirty secret into the open
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/comment/2259935/dirty-oil-drives-canada-dirty
Business Green: Anyone with an interest in climate change is likely to have heard of the threat posed by the development of Canada's tar sands, but that has not stopped a new documentary film from betting that the sheer scale of the problem still has the power to shock. Having seen Dirty Oil from director Leslie Iwerks it is clear that their gamble should pay off. It is easy to position the tar sands as a faceless scientific or even existential problem where hugely carbon intensive industrial ...

Tue, 23 Mar 10
Climate change to cost 6% of GDP each year: IMF
http://www.malaya.com.ph/03232010/busi4.html
Malaya: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) yesterday said that countries in the Southeast Asia, including the Philippines, are more vulnerable to climate change, whose threat to food security and increased health risks may possibly result in the loss of more than 6 percent of gross domestic product each year. John Lipsky, first deputy managing director of the IMF, said: "Southeast Asia is one of the most vulnerable regions in the world to climate change, given its long coastlines, its ...

Tue, 23 Mar 10
Iron seeding oceans poses toxic risk
http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Iron+seeding+oceans+poses+toxic+risk/2710418/story.html
Canwest News Service: Sprinkling iron in the sea has long been touted as a fix for global warming, but researchers are now warning such geoengineering could nourish toxic algae. Tests conducted by a Canadian-U.S. team show that enriching water with iron favours the growth of Pseudo-nitzschia, an algae that pumps out a potent neurotoxin. It can be lethal to seabirds and marine mammals, and is linked with amnesic shellfish poisoning in humans, which can be deadly. The findings "raise serious concerns" ...

Tue, 23 Mar 10
United States: Climate scientists face political barbs
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/health_science/20100322_Climate_scientists_face_political_barbs.html
Philadelphia Inquirer: When Pennsylvanians heard the so-called climategate scandal involved a researcher at Pennsylvania State University, the orderly world of the ivory tower was suddenly invaded by a shouting match worthy of talk radio. Confronted by a torrent of complaints and concerns from the public and from state officials, the university started a familiar procedure - a misconduct inquiry, which escalated into an investigation last month, focused on the activities of climatologist Michael ...

Tue, 23 Mar 10
World Bank helps Indonesia increase geothermal energy
http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2010/03/22/22climatewire-world-bank-helps-indonesia-increase-geotherm-67858.html
ClimateWire: The World Bank has announced $400 million to help double Indonesia's geothermal energy capacity, part of a broad effort at the bank to ramp up climate change spending in the developing world. Indonesian leaders estimate the country has about 28,100 megawatts of geothermal capacity -- the equivalent of about 12 billion barrels of oil. They are aiming to make the renewable power a major source of energy in the coming years, a goal that Indonesian officials note will require hefty ...

Tue, 23 Mar 10
Coffee growers fret about climate change
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125005431
National Public Radio: The effects of climate change may be coming to your coffee cup. The plants that produce coffee beans are notoriously sensitive, and small changes in temperature and precipitation can have big impacts on coffee quality and quantity. It may cause connoisseurs to cringe, but a warmer climate will encourage more coffee farmers to plant the heartier robusta varieties, which are caffeine-rich but bitter, instead of the mild, tasty Arabica coffees that Americans prefer. "I often call ...

Tue, 23 Mar 10
United States: Chevron is putting solar technologies to the test
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-chevron-solar22-2010mar22,0,6520345.story
LA Times: On a dirt plot near Bakersfield where a massive refinery once churned out gasoline and asphalt, one of the world's largest oil companies is looking for something more green. On Monday, Chevron Corp. plans to reveal that it has transformed the 8-acre site into a sprawling test facility with 7,700 solar panels. The panels, in various sizes, represent seven cutting-edge photovoltaic technologies from seven companies that Chevron is checking out as possible candidates to power its ...

Tue, 23 Mar 10
Drought, refugees, revolution and war - military prepares for climate doomsday
http://news.scotsman.com/uk/Drought-refugees-revolution--and.6169310.jp
Scotsman: MILITARY chiefs are holding "back room" discussions on how to cope with the threat of a world ravaged by wars provoked by uncontrolled climate change, an expert has warned. Gwynne Dyer, an influential lecturer in international affairs, said if the climate continues to change at its current rate there will be global conflict in decades. Tens of millions of climate refuges unable to feed themselves in their own dried-up countries will aim for places like Scotland where conditions will ...

Tue, 23 Mar 10
The secret of sea level rise: it will vary greatly by region
http://www.e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2255
Yale Environment 360: For at least two decades now, climate scientists have been telling us that CO2 and other human-generated greenhouse gases are warming the planet, and that if we keep burning fossil fuels the trend will continue. Recent projections suggest a global average warming of perhaps 3 to 4 degrees C, or 5.4 to 7 degrees F, by the end of this century. But those same scientists have also been reminding us consistently that this is just an average. Thanks to all sorts of regional factors -- ...

Tue, 23 Mar 10
Massive sandstorms choke cities across China
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/as_china_sandstorm
Associated Press: The dust works its way through keyholes and window frames, and smells like a filthy brew of dirt, smoke and metallic particles. The sky turns magenta and whole buildings disappear. Eyes tear up and throats get sore from coughing. Northern China's spring sandstorms blew in with particular ferocity over the weekend, bringing misery to people working outdoors Monday in Beijing and across a wide swath of the country. "It gets in your throat, under your clothes, in your bed," said ...

Tue, 23 Mar 10
Public support for nuclear power at new peak
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62L30120100322?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29
Reuters: The majority of Americans who favor nuclear-generated electricity hit a new high this year, according to a poll on Monday that suggests growing support for President Barack Obama's aid to the nuclear industry. Sixty-two percent of 1,014 U.S. adults, who were surveyed March 4-7 by Gallup, said they favored nuclear energy as one way to meet national electricity needs. Though a majority of Americans has long supported nuclear power, Gallup said the latest rating is the highest ...

Tue, 23 Mar 10
Ships skirt Calif. coast to avoid pollution rules
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100322/ap_on_bi_ge/us_ship_pollution
Associated Press: Cargo ships are avoiding the California coast because of tightened air pollution rules, causing problems for Navy missile tests. California Air Resources Board rules that went into effect last summer mandate that ships within 24 miles of the coast burn cleaner fuel. As a result, ships are staying farther at sea so they can burn dirtier, cheaper fuel. That has posed problems because the ships are now gathering in a spot where the Navy conducts missile tests. It has also caused ...

Tue, 23 Mar 10
United Kingdom: Wind farms produce 'fifth of expected electricity'
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/7492994/Wind-farms-produce-fifth-of-expected-electricity.html
Telegraph: The first detailed study of onshore wind farms has found that 20 of the sites produce less than 20 per cent of their maximum output with some producing less than 10 per cent. Blyth Harbour in Northumberland is thought to be the least efficient wind farm producing just 7.9 per cent of its maximum capacity while Chelker reservoir in North Yorkshire operates at 8.7 per cent of its capacity. The figures were compiled by lobby group Clowd using data collected by energy regulators ...

Tue, 23 Mar 10
Environmental refugees and global warming
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100317000027.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Latest+Science+News%29
ScienceDaily: Climate change and environmental degradation are likely to trigger increased migration in Sub-Saharan Africa with potentially devastating effects on the hundreds of millions of especially poor people, according to a paper in the International Journal of Global Warming. Environmental changes are especially pronounced in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), explain Ulrike Grote of the Institute for Environmental Economics and World Trade, at the Leibniz University of Hannover, and Koko Warner of ...

Tue, 23 Mar 10
In Cement, the Stirrings of a Potential Trap for Some Carbon
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/22/business/energy-environment/22cement.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
New York Times: It seems like alchemy: a Silicon Valley start-up says it has found a way to capture the carbon dioxide emissions from coal and gas power plants and lock them into cement. If it works on a mass scale, the company, Calera, could turn that carbon into gold. Cement production is a large source of carbon emissions in the United States, and coal-fired electricity plants are the biggest source. As nations around the world press companies to curb their greenhouse-gas emissions, a ...

Tue, 23 Mar 10
Did Climate Change Drive Human Evolution?
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124906102
National Public Radio: There's a plan afoot among evolutionary scientists to launch a big new project -- to look back in time and find out how climate change over millions of years affected human evolution. A panel of experts from the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C., has given its blessing to the plan. They say it could unveil a whole new side of human history. Anthropologist Rick Potts, who heads the human origins department at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, has been ...

Tue, 23 Mar 10
Hong Kong air pollution hits record levels
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100322/wl_asia_afp/hongkongchinaenvironmentairpollution
Agence France-Presse: Hong Kong's air pollution soared to record levels Monday, the Environmental Protection Department said, warning that a toxic stew enveloping the city was a danger to the public. The government agency said it found Air Pollution Index (API) readings that in several cases were more than double the level at which it advises the general public to stay indoors. "Today's API is at record high levels," an agency spokeswoman said in an email to AFP. Hong Kong's famed skyline and ...

Tue, 23 Mar 10
China: Air Pollution Hits Record High in Hong Kong
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/23/science/earth/23pollute.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
New York Times: Air pollution in Hong Kong, one of the perpetual banes of living and working in the Asian financial hub, skyrocketed to record levels on Monday, triggering an official government warning to avoid outdoor activities and physical exertion. Haze and pollution clouded the skyline looking towards the Wan Chai district in Hong Kong on Monday. Pollution levels have been elevated in the city for days, casting a gray pall over the harbor and obscuring views of Hong Kong's famed ...

Tue, 23 Mar 10
Wind contributing to Arctic sea ice loss, study finds
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/22/wind-sea-ice-loss-arctic
Guardian: Much of the record breaking loss of ice in the Arctic ocean in recent years is down to the region's swirling winds and is not a direct result of global warming, a new study reveals. Ice blown out of the region by Arctic winds can explain around one-third of the steep downward trend in sea ice extent in the region since 1979, the scientists say. The study does not question that global warming is also melting ice in the Arctic, but it could raise doubts about high-profile claims ...

Tue, 23 Mar 10
Climate change uncertainty is no reason for inaction since we can't rule out risk
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2010/mar/22/climate-change-uncertainty
Guardian: Climate change is sometimes presented in simple black and white terms. You either believe it or you don't. Perhaps after the recent controversies over email leaks and melting Himalayan glaciers, some may have decided to change camp. But this is a false dichotomy. Indeed the notion of "belief" plays no role at all in science, whether about climate change or anything else. The Royal Society, the UK's national academy of science, was founded 350 years ago on this very basis, with the ...

Tue, 23 Mar 10
United Kingdom: Study predicts commercial sector will dominate electric vehicle market
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2259926/study-predicts-commercial
Business Green: It may be the latest electric sports cars and sedans that dominate the headlines, but over the next five years it is the humble delivery van that is likely to determine the success of the burgeoning electric vehicle market. That is the conclusion of new research from analyst firm Frost & Sullivan to be released later this week, which predicts that electric buses, vans and trucks will account for 70 per cent of the electric vehicle market in the EU and North America by ...

Tue, 23 Mar 10
Climate change could slow SEAsia growth almost 7 pct: IMF
http://www.mysinchew.com/node/36693
Agence France-Presse: Southeast Asian economic growth could slow this century by almost seven percent a year unless action is taken against climate change, a senior IMF official said Monday. "If nothing is done, Southeast Asia could lose the equivalent of 6.75 percent of GDP each year by the end of this century. That's more than twice the estimated global average," John Lipsky, first deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), told a conference in Hanoi. He said climate change ...

Tue, 23 Mar 10
Taking action for World Water Day
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2010/mar/22/world-water-day-climate-change
Guardian: This is a tale of two countries – one landlocked, with two-thirds of its harsh environment given over to desert and where rainfall is thought to be reducing; the other low lying, with millions of inhabitants squeezed onto narrow spits of land prone to severe monsoon flooding. They may be continents apart, each with their own set of problems, but in both, girls miss out on school because they spend hours fetching water. Mothers give birth with no access to clean water. Children are ...

Tue, 23 Mar 10
Sandstorms across China prompt health warnings
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100322/ap_on_re_as/as_china_sandstorm
Associated Press: Sandstorms whipping across China shrouded cities in an unhealthy cloud of sand and grit Monday, with winds carrying the pollution outside the mainland as far as Hong Kong and Taiwan. It was the latest sign of the effects of desertification: Overgrazing, deforestation, urban sprawl and drought have expanded deserts in the country's north and west. The shifting sands have gradually encroached onto populated areas and worsened sandstorms that strike cities, particularly in the ...

Tue, 23 Mar 10
China: Hong Kong air pollution wheezes to record levels
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62L1CX20100322?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29
Reuters: Hong Kong's harbor was cloaked in thick smog on Monday as air pollution soared to record levels ahead of the Hong Kong Sevens rugby tournament this weekend, the city's premier sporting event. Taiwan, too, was hit by what are being called the worst sandstorms in 25 years, though particulate levels had declined on Monday and there were no findings of airborne toxins. Sandstorms from northern China were mostly blamed, with a second dust storm hitting Beijing on Monday, though ...

Tue, 23 Mar 10
Chair announced for climate probe
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8579929.stm
BBC: A chairman has been appointed to an independent review into the science published by the research unit at the centre of the "Climategate" row. Lord Oxburgh is a former chairman of the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology. "The shadow hanging over climate change and science more generally at present makes it a matter of urgency that we get on with this assessment," he said. The Lord's appointment was made on the recommendation of the UK Royal ...

Mon, 22 Mar 10
United Kingdom: Energy minister will hold summit to calm rising fears over peak oil
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/mar/21/peak-oil-summit
Guardian: Lord Hunt, the energy minister, is to meet industrialists in London tomorrow in a bid to calm mounting fears about the disruption that could follow a sudden shortage of oil supplies. In a significant policy shift, the government has agreed to undertake more work on whether the UK needs to take action to avoid the massive dislocation that could be caused by the early onset of "peak oil" – the point that marks the start of terminal decline in global oil production. Jeremy ...

Mon, 22 Mar 10
Global cooling is bunk, draft NASA study finds
http://wwwp.dailyclimate.org/tdc-newsroom/2010/03/global-cooling-is-bunk-draft-nasa-study-finds
Daily Climate: Global warming has neither stopped nor slowed in the past decade, according to a draft analysis of temperature data by NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. We conclude there has been no reduction in the global warming trend. - Jim Hansen et al., Goddard Institute for Space Studies The analysis, led by senior scientist Jim Hansen, attempts to debunk popular belief that the planet is cooling. It finds that global temperatures over the past decade have "continued to rise ...

Mon, 22 Mar 10
Leading climate officials urge progress in battle against global warming
http://www.theprovince.com/technology/Leading%20climate%20officials%20urge%20progress%20battle%20against%20global%20warming/2708310/story.html
Agence France-Presse: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has listened to and learned from recent criticism, but the threat of global warming is real and must be tackled, the group's head said Saturday. Rajendra Pachauri, the embattled head of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning panel of experts, has been criticized for endorsing climate projections based on faulty or inaccurate evidence. "There's been a lot of talking about climate change. It's an area under strict scrutiny," he acknowledged at ...

Mon, 22 Mar 10
Australia: Switch to gas-fired power reduces summer emissions
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/switch-to-gasfired-power-reduces-summer-emissions-20100321-qo6t.html
Sydney Morning Herald: GREENHOUSE gas emissions in NSW fell this summer compared with the previous year, despite higher than usual average temperatures. A report by The Climate Group released yesterday found that emissions from energy use in the state were down 5.7 per cent on the previous summer, a saving of more than 1.5 million tonnes and the equivalent of taking about 360,000 cars off the road for a year. The main reason for the decrease was a greater use of gas-generated electricity following ...

Mon, 22 Mar 10
Climate change, development blamed for rapidly rising number of '100-year storms'
http://www.eagletribune.com/punews/local_story_079234447.html
Eagle Tribune: In their worst form, they were known as "100-year storms": catastrophes that occurred once a century and caused devastating floods. And yet, in just the past four years, three times the Merrimack Valley and Southern New Hampshire have been hard-hit by storms that once came with interludes of decades between them. The most recent deluge was last week, when residents of Andover and Lawrence were forced out of their homes as their properties became drenched and heavily damaged by ...

Mon, 22 Mar 10
Climate change knocks at Kashmir's doors
http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_climate-change-knocks-at-kashmir-s-doors_1361485
DNA: The day temperatures in Srinagar hover around 22 to 26 degrees Celsius which is 11 degrees above normal in March. What has baffled the farmers and experts is the huge rainfall deficit in March that could affect the agriculture crops in Kashmir. "The temperatures are currently running between five to 10 degrees above normal. This is because the weather systems are not effective", said TK Jotshi, assistant director Metrological Center Kashmir. Met office records show there is a ...

Mon, 22 Mar 10
Retired Brandeis professor brings solar power to African villages
http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2010/03/21/retired_brandeis_professor_brings_clean_power_to_african_villages/
New York Times: Where nightfall once meant only darkness in the tiny Tanzanian island of Tumbatu, now there are 200 points of light. And Majuba Mohammed, a high school teacher, is the proud owner of one of them. He is talking excitedly by cellphone about the tiny solar panel on his roof that now charges that phone, and powers the lamp that lets his family read indoors at night. "The project is very beautiful and helpful, and it goes well,`` says Mohammed. Nearly 200 solar panels like his have ...

Mon, 22 Mar 10
For electric car batteries, Nissan bets on leasing
http://www.bendbulletin.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100321/NEWS0107/3210329/1001/NEWS01&nav_category=NEWS01
Bloomberg News: Lithium-ion batteries are the most expensive part for electric vehicles, at about $1,000 a kilowatt-hour, and most such vehicles will have capacity of about 20 kilowatt-hours, according to General Motors Vice Chairman Robert Lutz. Leasing will let customers avoid the batteries` depreciating value and disposal or resale, according to Nissan, whose new Leaf is an electric car. Nissan, seeking to lead the emerging market for electric autos, said it expects most customers will lease ...

Mon, 22 Mar 10
Australia: Carbon copy
http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2010/s2851825.htm
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: ANNE KRUGER, PRESENTER: Hello, I'm Anne Kruger, welcome to the program. In a week when a couple of Australian research heavyweights got right in behind the science of global warming. The CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology say the evidence is unquestionable. Climate change is real and the link with human activity, beyond doubt. MEGAN CLARKE, CSIRO: Our scientists and organisations around the world are now about 90 per cent confident that these things are happening at the same ...

Mon, 22 Mar 10
UNEP: Africa advised against coal power
http://news.brunei.fm/2010/03/21/unep-africa-advised-against-coal-power/
Afrolnews: As coal power stations are demolished, due to environmental damages, in many countries, they are being offered as a "cheap energy supply" for Africa. But specialists warn this will be expensive in the long run, especially as fresh funds are available for renewable energies. Achim Steiner, leader of the UN`s Kenya-based environmental agency UNEP, at a speech in Nairobi warned governments of Kenya and other African countries not to invest in coal power plants. Kenya, like most ...

Mon, 22 Mar 10
Hunt for 'rogue trader' over recycled carbon credits
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7069741.ece
Times (UK): A TINY London trading firm is at the centre of a shadowy chain of international deals involving the carbon market's first "rogue trader'. A mystery investor made a Â£1.8m profit last week by selling invalid carbon permits to unwitting buyers in Europe -- which caused a temporary trading freeze at two of the main carbon trading exchanges. Microdyne, a firm registered in Cyprus but based in Edgware, northwest London, confirmed this weekend that it bought and sold the permits to ...

Mon, 22 Mar 10
Japan planning 14 nuclear plants: report
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100321/wl_afp/japanenergynuclear
Agence France-Presse: Resource-poor Japan is planning to build at least 14 nuclear power plants over the next 20 years to reduce its reliance on other countries for its energy needs, a report said Sunday. The world's second biggest economy, which wants to double its provision for its fuel consumption, will make an announcement in June on whether it indends to press ahead with the plants, the Nikkei business daily said. Japan has few energy resources and relies on nuclear power from 53 plants for ...

Mon, 22 Mar 10
Cruise lines hope to sink U.S.-Canada pollution plan
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62K0ID20100321?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29
Reuters: Cruise companies are balking at a proposal to create a low-emissions buffer zone around the United States and Canada, saying it sets arbitrary boundaries based on faulty science that overstates the health benefits. The proposed Emissions Control Area would extend 200 nautical miles, which is 230 statute miles, around the coast of the two nations and set stringent new limits on air pollution from ocean-going ships beginning in 2015. The International Maritime Organization (IMO), ...

Mon, 22 Mar 10
Philippines: Drought drives monkeys out of forests, into streets
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/regions/view/20100318-259491/Drought-drives-monkeys-out-of-forests-into-streets
Philippine Daily Inquirer: LACK of food due to drought has forced monkeys to leave their sanctuaries in Barangay New Israel here and take refuge in nearby forested areas. "It all started when severe heat wilted some crops in the village including banana plants that serve as food for these animals," Darwin Paraiso, a village councilor, said. Paraiso said the monkeys started to form groups and scramble for food, particularly bananas donated by Dole-Stanfilco. The village councilor said there were ...

Sun, 21 Mar 10
Feeble wind farms fail to hit full power
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7069938.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=3392178
Times (UK): THE first detailed study of Britain's onshore wind farms suggests some treasured landscapes may have been blighted for only small gains in green energy. The analysis reveals that more than 20 wind farms produce less than a fifth of their potential maximum power output. One site, at Blyth Harbour in Northumberland, is thought to be the worst in Britain, operating at just 7.9% of its maximum capacity. Another at Chelker reservoir in North Yorkshire operates at only 8.7% of ...

Sun, 21 Mar 10
Solution to a thirsty world: sea water without the salt
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7069743.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=3392178
Times (UK): MIDDLE East government officials spent last week in Vienna, discussing oil at a meeting of Opec, the producers' cartel. In Oman, however, another dwindling resource was top of the agenda. In the coastal town of Al Khaluf, Oman's minister for water turned on a desalination plant that will provide the area with 100 cubic metres of fresh, clean water every day -- enough for 80,000 people. The plant was sold by Modern Water, a British company that claims places such as Oman will ...

Sun, 21 Mar 10
Britain. A breath of foul air
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/britain-a-breath-of-foul-air-1924790.html
Independent (UK): More than 50,000 people are dying prematurely in the UK every year, and thousands more suffer serious illness because of man-made air pollution, according to a parliamentary report published tomorrow. The UK now faces the threat of Â£300m in fines after it failed to meet legally binding EU targets to reduce pollution to safe levels. Air pollution is cutting life expectancy by as many as nine years in the worst-affected city areas. On average, Britons die eight months too soon because ...

Sun, 21 Mar 10
Zero Point Of Systemic Collapse
http://www.countercurrents.org/hedges190310.htm
Counter Currents: Aleksandr Herzen, speaking a century ago to a group of anarchists about how to overthrow the czar, reminded his listeners that it was not their job to save a dying system but to replace it: "We think we are the doctors. We are the disease.' All resistance must recognize that the body politic and global capitalism are dead. We should stop wasting energy trying to reform or appeal to it. This does not mean the end of resistance, but it does mean very different forms of resistance. It means ...

Sun, 21 Mar 10
Sandstorms sweep into Beijing
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2010/mar/20/sandstorms-beijing-china-drought
Guardian

Sun, 21 Mar 10
Brazil: WWF hopes to find $60 billion growing on trees
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/7488629/WWF-hopes-to-find-60-billion-growing-on-trees.html
Telegraph: If the world's largest, richest environmental campaigning group, the WWF -- formerly the World Wildlife Fund -- announced that it was playing a leading role in a scheme to preserve an area of the Amazon rainforest twice the size of Switzerland, many people might applaud, thinking this was just the kind of cause the WWF was set up to promote. Amazonia has long been near the top of the list of the world's environmental cconcerns, not just because it includes easily the largest and most ...

Sun, 21 Mar 10
A new world?: Social media protest against Nestle may have longstanding ramifications
http://news.mongabay.com/2010/0320-hance_socialmedia.html
Mongabay: Protest could change the palm oil industry and wake the world up to the power of 'social media'. The online protest over Nestle's use of palm oil linked to deforestation in Indonesia continues unabated over the weekend. One only needed to check-in on the Nestle's Facebook fan page to see that anger and frustration over the company's palm oil sourcing policies, as well as its attempts to censor a Greenpeace video (and comments online), has sparked a social media protest that is ...

Sun, 21 Mar 10
Indonesia: Customary laws protect forest better than govt does: Study
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010/03/20/customary-laws-protect-forest-better-govt-does-study.html
Jakarta Post: Research shows customary laws that were implemented by a number of local communities were far more effective than government policies to preserve forest in efforts to deal with climate change. For local communities, obliging traditional laws means respecting their ancestors. Preliminary research says communities of Baduy in Banten province, Kampung Kuta people in Ciamis, West Java province and Dayak people in Kalimantan are among local communities that issue unwritten laws to ...

Sun, 21 Mar 10
Canada: Shell defends its operations in oil sands
http://www.financialpost.com/news-sectors/energy/story.html?id=2703351
Financial Post: Royal Dutch Shell PLC, under pressure from a small group of shareholders, has responded to critics' concerns with a report detailing its activity in Alberta's oil sands. Royal Dutch Shell PLC, under pressure from a small group of shareholders, has responded to critics' concerns with a report detailing its activity in Alberta's oil sands. Shell said it published the 17-page report because it shares many of the same environmental and economic worries expressed by the shareholders ...

Sun, 21 Mar 10
United States: Too early to judge effectiveness of fish-saving plans, scientists say
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/03/19/90740/too-early-to-judge-effectiveness.html
McClatchy Newspapers: Neutral scientists said Friday that it's too soon to judge the effectiveness of ambitious plans to save fish in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. While calling the controversial water diversions "scientifically justified," National Research Council scientists cautioned that they cannot yet be definitively evaluated. The split verdict left farmers and environmentalists alike something to seize upon in a much-anticipated report. "There is great uncertainty," acknowledged Samuel ...

Sun, 21 Mar 10
Canada: Fix oilsands impacts, not just image
http://www.calgaryherald.com/business/oilsands+impacts+notjust+image/2705616/story.html
Calgary Herald: There are no toxic tailings lakes, dead ducks, heavy-hauler trucks or strip mines visible from space: there's none of that associated with in situ oilsands development. So, as industry tells us, in situ oilsands development is nothing to worry about, right? Not quite, according to a new report evaluating in situ oilsands' real impacts. While mining is currently the main method used to develop Alberta's oilsands, in situ techniques could eventually allow access to the 80 per cent of ...

Sun, 21 Mar 10
Climate change problems hit Native Americans close to home
http://billingsgazette.com/news/opinion/guest/article_de70469e-33df-11df-b1f0-001cc4c002e0.html
Billings Gazette: The history of American Indians is varied and each tribe has its own customs, but one belief that binds us all is our deep respect for the Earth and the gifts it has given us. This belief has inspired the Salish and Kootenai people's effort to protect our air, water and other natural resources for future generations. We now recognize that one environmental threat poses a challenge like no other: global climate change. It was with these thoughts in mind that I journeyed to Copenhagen, ...

Sun, 21 Mar 10
IPCC has underestimated climate-change impacts, say scientists
http://news.google.com/news/url?fd=R&sa=T&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailyindia.com%2Fshow%2F365610.php&usg=AFQjCNEMJJwCeQe6O9pzO-Qj715SpnhCzw
Asian News International: A team of scientists has determined that the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2007 4th assessment report underestimates the potential dangerous impacts that man-made climate change will have on society. According to Charles H. Greene, Cornell professor of Earth and atmospheric science, "Even if all man-made greenhouse gas emissions were stopped tomorrow and carbon-dioxide levels stabilized at today's concentration, by the end of this century, the global ...

Sat, 20 Mar 10
States sue EPA to stop greenhouse gas rules
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62I4DP20100319?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29
Reuters: At least 15 U.S. states have sued the Environmental Protection Agency seeking to stop it from issuing rules controlling greenhouse gas emissions until it reexamines whether the pollution harms human health. Florida, Indiana, South Carolina and at least nine other states filed the petitions in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, states said. They joined petitions filed last month by Virginia, Texas and Alabama. The Obama administration has ...

Sat, 20 Mar 10
Senate climate bill to give free permits: sources
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62G3YG20100319?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29
Reuters: U.S. power generating companies would get free pollution permits, at least initially, as part of a compromise climate change bill being written in the Senate that also would give the coal industry $10 billion to develop "clean" technology, sources said on Friday. Democratic Senator John Kerry is trying to push a bill through a skeptical Senate this year that would address global warming by reducing the 6.4 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions the U.S. puts into the atmosphere ...

Sat, 20 Mar 10
United States: Science justifies California water limits
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62I49Z20100319?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29
Reuters: Federal limits on water that can be pumped out of a major river delta for California farmers are scientifically justified, a much-anticipated report said on Friday, a finding hailed by environmentalists in the state's epic water wars. But the National Academy of Sciences stopped short of handing a decisive victory to environmental interests over agricultural interests. The academy said further study was required and that threats to Chinook salmon, delta smelt and other endangered fish ...

Sat, 20 Mar 10
United Kingdom: Energy firms could be forced to buy low-carbon power
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/mar/19/low-carbon-power-law
Guardian: The government will next week signal a move towards the introduction of a "low-carbon obligation" that would force British Gas and other suppliers of energy to buy a percentage of their power from nuclear and clean coal plants. The radical measure – an extension of the renewable obligation that is funding wind farms – will appear in a document to be published alongside the budget next Wednesday. The idea of a low-carbon obligation has been championed by Paul Golby, the chief ...

Sat, 20 Mar 10
Scientists: new study does not disprove climate change threat to Amazon
http://news.mongabay.com/2010/0319-hance_amazon_letter.html
Mongabay.com: Recently, Boston University issued a press release on a scientific study regarding the Amazon's resilience to drought. The press release claimed that the study had debunked the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) theory that climate change could turn approximately 40 percent of the Amazon into savannah due to declining rainfall. The story was picked up both by mass medai, environmental news sites (including mongabay.com), and climate deniers' blogs. However, nineteen of the ...

Sat, 20 Mar 10
Sustainable energy: a challenge nearly as great as global warming
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-03/fda-sea031910.php
EurekAlert!: The goal of the Global Sustainable Bioenergy (GSB) project is to create a global advisory panel for sustainable bioenergy similar to those that exist for subjects such as climate change and biodiversity. To reach this goal, the GSB project has organized five large international conventions in 2010, the third of which –The Latin American Convention of the Global Sustainable Bioenergy Project – will take place in SÃ£o Paulo, Brazil, from March 23 to March 25, at the headquarters of the FundaÃ§Ã£o ...

Sat, 20 Mar 10
About 110 nations back Copenhagen climate deal
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LDE62I1GX.htm
Reuters: The number of nations backing the non-binding Copenhagen Accord for fighting global warming has risen to about 110 and includes all major greenhouse gas emitters, according to a Reuters compilation on Friday. The accord, reached at the December summit, sets a goal of limiting a rise in temperature to less than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F), but does not say how to achieve the goal. Rich nations also aim to give $100 billion a year in climate aid from 2020. Major emitters -- led by ...

Sat, 20 Mar 10
Nations large and small join climate change campaign
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/earth-hour/nations-large-and-small-join-climate-change-campaign-20100319-qmay.html
Sydney Morning Herald: THEY range from the vulnerable, like low-lying Bangladesh, to the vast, such as the US; from the familiar - England, New Zealand - to the more obscure, such as the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Many are old hands, like Australia; some are first-timers, including Kosovo and Mongolia. What unites such a disparate group is concern about climate change. They have all signed on to participate in Earth Hour next Saturday. Now in its fourth year, Earth Hour has ...

Sat, 20 Mar 10
United Kingdom: MPs urge government to prepare for geo-engineering option
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2259801/mps-call-greater-focus-geo
Business Green: A parliamentary select committee of MPs warned yesterday that the groundwork for regulating geo-engineering projects must start now. The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee has claimed that hesitation may mean multi-lateral agreement on an international legislative framework is not reached before the impact of dangerous climate change is felt. The Committee published the findings of an inquiry undertaken as part of a unique collaboration with its equivalent body in the ...

Sat, 20 Mar 10
Indonesia to review forest carbon laws: official
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62I1A720100319?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29
Reuters: Indonesia has launched a review of laws governing a U.N.-backed carbon trading scheme aimed preserving rainforests, a forestry ministry official said on Friday. Indonesia in 2008 became the world's first country to design a legal framework for reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD), a scheme that would allow rich countries to pay developing nations not to chop down their trees. Forest preservation is seen as an important step in slowing global warming ...

Sat, 20 Mar 10
Bloomberg predicts renewable energy boom
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2259805/bloomberg-predicts-renewable
Business Green: Although annual global expenditure on renewable energy projects is expected to jump from $90bn (Â£59bn) last year to $150bn by 2020, it will need to increase by up to a third more if the world is to avoid dangerous levels of climate change. That is the conclusion of new research released this week by Bloomberg New Energy Finance, an analyst firm specialising in renewable energy and carbon markets, which warned yearly investment in renewable power sources must rise to $230bn by the end ...

Sat, 20 Mar 10
China says drought now affecting 50 million people
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62I1O520100319?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29
Reuters: A severe drought across a large swathe of southwest China is now affecting more than 50 million people, and forecasters see no signs of it abating in the short term, state media said on Friday. The drought began last autumn, and is the result not only of less rainfall but also unseasonably high temperatures, the official Xinhua news agency said, citing a central government meeting on the situation. It is affecting the provinces and regions of Guangxi, Sichuan, Guizhou and ...

Sat, 20 Mar 10
Senate Democrats, States Wary of Draft Climate Bill's Pre-emption Language
http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2010/03/19/19climatewire-senate-democrats-states-wary-of-draft-climat-57897.html
ClimateWire: Some Democratic senators and state and local air regulators are concerned that the latest draft of a Senate climate and energy bill would unduly strip authority from U.S. EPA and states. Details emerged earlier this week that draft legislation from Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) would curb EPA's authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act and would limit states' climate laws and regulations. But that decision is not ...

Sat, 20 Mar 10
EU acts to shut out recycled CERs
http://www.carbonpositive.net/viewarticle.aspx?articleID=1932
Carbon Positive: The European Commission has suspended the compliance process for surrendering Kyoto carbon offsets in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme as it tightens the rules to prevent used credits entering the scheme. The moves are in response to the revelations this week that used CERs – offsets already surrendered for compliance in Hungary - had been re-sold back into the market. This raised the risk that unwitting buyers might be left high and dry with unusable credits, prompting the Commission ...

Sat, 20 Mar 10
United Kingdom: Carbon Trust launches algae "dream team"
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2259794/carbon-trust-launches-algae
Business Green: The Carbon Trust has today launched a new Â£8m research project designed to establish the UK as a world leader in the development of algae-based biofuels for use in the automotive and aviation industry. The project will bring together a "dream team" of more than 70 leading scientists from 11 institutions, including the Universities of Manchester, Newcastle, and Southampton, the Plymouth Marine Laboratory and the Scottish Association for Marine Science. They will work on a wide ...

Fri, 19 Mar 10
Nestle drops Indonesian company after Greenpeace demos
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100318/sc_afp/indonesiaswitzerlandfoodcompanynestleenvironment
Agence France-Presse: Indonesian palm oil giant Sinar Mas rejected claims of environmental vandalism Thursday after Nestle, the world's biggest food company, dropped it as a supplier following protests by Greenpeace. It was the second embarrassing blow to Sinar Mas in three months after Anglo-Dutch company Unilever severed ties with it in response to Greenpeace claims it is destroying rainforests. Greenpeace activists held protests Wednesday at Nestle?s headquarters and factories in Britain, Germany ...

Fri, 19 Mar 10
EU carbon rises after UK auction
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62H15520100318?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29
Reuters: European carbon emissions futures were higher on Thursday as news broke that the EU Commission will change its carbon registry rules to prevent recycled Kyoto offsets entering the emissions trading scheme. EU Allowances for December delivery trading on the European Climate Exchange were up 5 cents or 0.38 percent at 13.09 euros a tonne at 1639 GMT. Volume was heavy at 11.297 lots traded. The European Commission said in a statement that it will suspend the process for ...

Fri, 19 Mar 10
Storms threaten butterflies' winter rest in Mexico
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62H3K720100318?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29
Reuters: Dense clouds of migrating monarch butterflies used to snap branches and cast shadows across the forests of central Mexico, but severe weather is posing a new threat to the annual phenomenon. The yearly 2,000-mile journey, which takes four generations of butterflies to complete, starts in Canada and ends in the Mexican state of Michoacan, which normally enjoys mild weather from November to March. Millions of the insects swarm to these arid hills each year, their orange-and-black ...

Fri, 19 Mar 10
EU understates emissions from oil: biodiesel lobby
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62H3UW20100318?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29
Reuters: The European Union is not taking full account of the environmental impact of oil-based road transport fuels, which could undermine the bloc's renewable energy goals, European biodiesel producers said on Thursday. The EU uses greenhouse gas emissions from fossil-based road fuels as a basis for calculating the climate benefits of crop-based biofuels. But biodiesel producers argue the EU's reference values for emissions from diesel and petrol are set too low. That's because they ...

Fri, 19 Mar 10
Spin, science and climate change
http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=15720419
Economist: CLIMATE-change legislation, dormant for six months, is showing signs of life again in Washington, DC. This week senators and industrial groups have been discussing a compromise bill to introduce mandatory controls on carbon (see article). Yet although green activists around the world have been waiting for 20 years for American action, nobody is cheering. Even if discussion ever turns into legislation, it will be a pale shadow of what was once hoped for. The mess at Copenhagen is one ...

Fri, 19 Mar 10
Crops hit as drought worsens in south-west China
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/314679,crops-hit-as-drought-worsens-in-south-west-china.html
Deutsche-Presse Agentur: The worst drought in 60 years is expected to cut crop yields by more than half in much of south-western China, bringing more misery to some of the nation's poorest villages, state media said on Thursday. Dry weather since August has left at least 25 million people short of drinking water in the two worst-hit provinces of Yunnan and Guizhou, with four other south-western provinces also badly affected. Grain output is forecast to fall by more than 50 per cent in Yunnan after the drought ...

Fri, 19 Mar 10
CO2-eating algae turns cement maker green
http://www.thestar.com/business/article/781426--co2-eating-algae-turns-cement-maker-green
Toronto Star: A mixture of hot gas rises out of a flue stack at the St. Marys Cement plant about 50 kilometres west of Waterloo. But not all the CO2-rich exhaust is vented to the open air. Some is redirected through a 15-centimetre thick pipe connected to the side of the stack. The pipe carries the gas into a high-tech facility where a species of algae from the neighbouring Thames River uses photosynthesis to absorb the carbon dioxide and release oxygen in return. "It's a small model of what ...

Fri, 19 Mar 10
Is global warming the new apocalypse?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/article7066030.ece
Times (UK): I spent my childhood bedtimes waiting for war. As the fading evening light turned the roses on my pink curtains into sinister faces, I would wonder why my father had not dug us an underground bunker in the garden. Because one day, I reasoned, someone was going to push the red button, and a mushroom cloud would billow over the horizon and suffocate us in its deadly, iconic grip; and thanks to my stupidly optimistic parents we'd be the only unbunkered family on the street. Children of ...

Fri, 19 Mar 10
Arizona's last new coal plant?
http://www.azcentral.com/business/articles/2010/03/18/20100318arizona-coal-plant.html
Arizona Republic: Salt River Project customers will begin paying about $6 more on their monthly bills this spring, most of which will pay for a new $1 billion coal-fired power plant near Springerville in northern Arizona. Unit 4 at the Springerville Generating Station began commercial operations in December and has been running at full throttle since then, burning about 60 rail cars' worth of coal a day from the Powder River Basin in Wyoming. The plant supplies low-cost electricity to the ...

Fri, 19 Mar 10
Mexico: Cancun Climate Talks Get Dim Prognosis Nine Months Before Start
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601072&sid=a0xlsy_i.u0k
Bloomberg: Government negotiators are already writing off chances for a global treaty to fight climate change, nine months before the annual talks begin in Cancun, Mexico. Kunihiko Shimada, principal international negotiator at the Japanese Ministry of the Environment, said yesterday a deal this year is "almost impossible." Jos Delbeke, who spearheads European Union climate policy at the European Commission, ruled out a "comprehensive legal agreement" in 2010. Their remarks call into ...

Thu, 18 Mar 10
Clean-up efforts pay off in Mexico City
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100317/sc_afp/environmentmexicopollutionair
Agence France-Presse: Long famous as one of the world's most polluted megalopolises, gritty Mexico City is beginning to see the fruits of years of clean-up efforts and to breathe somewhat cleaner air, experts say. "The pollution problem is still there, but it is a fact that we have been fighting pollution for more than 20 years and the improvement is undeniable," said Gustavo Alanis, with the NGO Mexican Center for Environmental Law. Unusually good air quality in recent weeks has unveiled post ...

Thu, 18 Mar 10
Report: EPA's focus on kids' environmental health lapses
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-03-17-epa-children-pollution_N.htm?csp=34&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+usatoday-NewsTopStories+%28News+-+Top+Stories%29
USA Today: During the past decade, the Environmental Protection Agency's commitment to keeping children safe from the effects of pollution has lapsed, and top officials routinely ignored scores of recommendations by the agency's own children's health advisory committee, according to a report released Wednesday by the Government Accountability Office. The report, delivered during a hearing of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Wednesday morning, documents a "reduced emphasis on ...

Thu, 18 Mar 10
Climate debated should be reframed: Malidives president
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100317/sc_afp/finlandmaldiveswarmingenergyeconomy
Agence France-Presse: The climate change debate should be reframed in economic and security terms ahead of a year-end UN summit in Mexico seeking a binding climate deal, the president of the Maldives said Wednesday. A price tag needs to be put on "the extent to which we destroy the atmosphere, the extent to which we pollute the atmosphere," President Mohamed Nasheed said at a climate change seminar in Helsinki. Climate change was not about "hugging trees", he said, insisting that beyond the ...

Thu, 18 Mar 10
Kenya: Farming feels like 'gambling,' but insurance helps cut risks
http://www.alertnet.org/db/an_art/60167/2010/02/17-114644-1.htm
Reuters: After two years of drought, the rains now falling in Kenya are not bringing the expected relief for Kenya's farmers. Why? Erratic weather means no one knows when to put in a crop anymore. "We are confused. It rains in the dry season. Has the rainy season of April and May shifted to now, or is this extra? It's hard to decide when to plant," remarks Rose Wanjiru while she inspects the maize in her field near Nanyuki, at the foot of Mount Kenya. Overhead, dark rain clouds - once a rarity ...

Thu, 18 Mar 10
Australia: Butterflies 'fly early as planet warms'
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2010/03/17/2846005.htm
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Australian scientists say they have uncovered a "causal link" between the early emergence of a common butterfly and human-induced global warming. Dr Michael Kearney of the University of Melbourne and colleagues report their study on the butterfly Heteronympha merope in this week's issue of Royal Society journal Biology Letters. "It's now coming out about 10 days earlier than it was 60 years ago," says Kearney. "When you look at the air temperatures over that time, it's ...

Thu, 18 Mar 10
Australia: Prepare for new farming revolution, CSIRO says
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/03/17/2848048.htm
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Australia's peak scientific body, farmers and supermarkets say they are gearing up for a new Green Revolution. In 50 years the world's population will be more than nine billion people, supplies of fertiliser could be severely depleted, and competition for land will have increased. According to CSIRO scientist Peter Carberry, these factors, combined with climate change, will challenge our agriculture industry like never before. Mr Carberry is deputy director of the ...

Thu, 18 Mar 10
Senators pump gas fee into bill
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/34536.html
Politico: Climate bill supporters are leaning toward exempting big oil companies from a broader cap on greenhouse gases as a way of winning critical support from industry players and key lawmakers. The three co-authors of the Senate climate bill hope the proposal -- backed by several large oil companies -- will bring a new set of players to the negotiating table. They are floating the idea of levying a carbon tax on each gallon of gasoline, which would be passed along to consumers at the ...

Thu, 18 Mar 10
United States: Underwater cable an alternative to electrical towers
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/17/business/energy-environment/17power.html
New York Times: Generating 20 percent of America's electricity with wind, as recent studies proposed, would require building up to 22,000 miles of new high-voltage transmission lines. But the huge towers and unsightly tree-cutting that these projects require have provoked intense public opposition. A blog about energy, the environment and the bottom line. Go to Blog Enlarge This Image <h6 class="credit">Eric Harger/Pattern Energy A worker guiding cable from a barge during the Trans Bay ...

Thu, 18 Mar 10
Algae's solar electrons hijacked to steal power
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18666-algaes-solar-electrons-hijacked-to-steal-power.html
New Scientist: An international gang of biologists has carried out an audacious heist, stealing valuable electrons from photosynthesising algae. The power grab could open a route to more efficient exploitation of photosynthesis to power machines: with biofuels we are already converting solar power into a form that engines can use, but almost three-quarters of the sunlight energy absorbed by the organisms is lost before it can be turned into the sugars or starches used to make ...

Thu, 18 Mar 10
White House: Economic recovery may stall without CO2 bill
http://www.nasdaq.com/aspx/stock-market-news-story.aspx?storyid=201003161608dowjonesdjonline000384&title=white-houseeconomic-recovery-may-stall-without-co2-bill
Dow Jones: Senior White House and Obama administration officials say they are worried the nation's economic recovery could stall if Congress doesn't pass a climate bill this year. The officials warn that investors are so uncertain about the future cost of emitting greenhouse gases that they are sitting on capital rather than pouring it into "clean" technology, new power plants or energy-intensive manufacturing. The administration has for months been moving away from advocating climate ...

Thu, 18 Mar 10
Coming soon: Oil-less economic growth
http://in.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idINIndia-46961420100317
Reuters: The world may soon achieve something long dreamed of by governments and policymakers: higher economic growth without using more oil. Rising efficiency, conservation and substitution are steadily reducing the amount of oil needed to fuel an increase in the goods and services produced around the world. Oil demand in the rich, industrialised countries of the West already appears to have peaked and the trend in developing economies is toward an ever-smaller increase in the amount ...

Thu, 18 Mar 10
Australia: Misgivings over minerals boom
http://www.smh.com.au/business/misgivings-over-minerals-boom-20100316-qcoj.html
Sydney Morning Herald: A TRAIN hauling nearly 100 carriages crawls through a warehouse as if straining from the effort. As each carriage reaches a trigger point, its belly breaks open to spew lustrous black coal onto a conveyor belt beneath the track. The sound of the belt and the intermittent screeching of the train brakes is deafening and the air leaves a chalky dryness on the tongue. About 50 trains a day pass through this "dump station" at the Kooragang terminal at Newcastle and a similar facility at ...

Thu, 18 Mar 10
Climate change and habitat loss posing great threat to Europe's small creatures
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2010/0317/1224266442290.html
Irish Times: THE LATEST European Red List, commissioned by the EU and released yesterday, shows that habitat loss and climate change are having a serious impact on Europe`s butterflies, beetles and dragonflies. Nine per cent of butterflies, 11 per cent of beetles -- which depend on decaying wood and are essential for recycling nutrients in the soil -- and 14 per cent of dragonflies are threatened with extinction in Europe. Ireland fares relatively well, with just one butterfly under serious ...

Thu, 18 Mar 10
Africans 'take blame for climate change'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8571589.stm
BBC: Many Africans blame themselves for climate change even though fossil fuel emissions there are less than 4% of the global total, a new survey suggests. The report, the most extensive survey ever conducted on public understanding of the issue, found that others blamed God for changes in weather patterns. It suggests dealing with climate change poses similar challenges to HIV and Aids, as people lack key information. It was carried out for the BBC World Service trust and ...

Thu, 18 Mar 10
China investigating child lead poisoning cases
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100317/ap_on_re_as/as_china_lead_poisoning
Associated Press: Chinese officials said Wednesday they are investigating heightened lead levels among hundreds of children in Hunan province thought to be linked to local smelters -- one of many cases underscoring the toll pollution is taking on the health of rural Chinese. Health checks last month showed excessive levels of lead in the blood samples of 254 out of 397 children under age 14 living in three villages closest to the factories in Hunan's Jiahe county, a county government spokesman ...

Thu, 18 Mar 10
UN rules out double track approach on Climate Change
http://www.ptinews.com/news/568687_UN-rules-out-double-track-approach-on-Climate-Change
Press Trust of India: Underlining that the UN will lead the climate change negotiations, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has rejected the possibility of a "double track" approach being adopted on Climate Change where simultaneous talks between the big economies run in parallel with the United Nations negotiations. "I think that 'double track' is not desirable at this time. That should be negotiated in United Framework Convention on Climate Change. That is the firm agreement of the member states," Ban said ...

Thu, 18 Mar 10
U.S. groups want to expand climate bill forestry aid
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62F27720100316
Reuters: U.S. environmental groups are trying to expand a climate change bill being written in the Senate to help foreign countries pay for enforcing laws they already have in place for protecting forests as one way of reducing carbon pollution. Global warming legislation passed in the U.S. House of Representatives last year would set up financial incentives encouraging new steps in the United States and abroad for reducing greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming. But there ...

Thu, 18 Mar 10
U.S. Chamber petitions EPA to reconsider greenhouse gas endangerment finding
http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2010/03/16/16greenwire-us-chamber-petitions-epa-to-reconsider-greenho-18205.html
Greenwire: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce petitioned U.S. EPA yesterday for reconsideration of the agency's finding that greenhouse gases "endanger" public health and welfare, a determination that sets the stage for broad climate change regulations. "The Chamber believes that the right way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere is through bipartisan legislation and comprehensive international agreements," said the chamber's chief legal officer and general counsel Steven Law in a ...

Thu, 18 Mar 10
CER recycling: Latest challenge for carbon market credibility
http://www.carbonpositive.net/viewarticle.aspx?articleID=1923
Carbon Positive: EU carbon market authorities, exchanges and traders are scrambling to defuse the threat that trading in recycled CER carbon credits poses for the credibility of the world's biggest carbon market. News that the Hungarian government had on-sold CERs already used for compliance in the EU ETS has been followed by reports more such trades have occurred. This has sent a wave of concern through the market amid fears that market confidence may be undermined by the trading of credits that have no ...

Thu, 18 Mar 10
Ted Turner unveils plan for 30MW solar ranch
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2259636/ted-turner-unveils-plan-30mw
Business Green: The US solar energy industry welcomed a major new player this week with news that a company backed by billionaire media mogul and vocal environmental campaigner Ted Turner has announced plans for its first solar farm. Turner, who founded CNN and is America's largest individual land owner, with control of ranches totalling around two million acres, announced earlier this year that his green investment firm Turner Renewable Energy had teamed up with Atlanta-based energy giant Southern ...

Thu, 18 Mar 10
Carbon traders voice fears over recycled carbon credits
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2259625/carbon-traders-voice-fears
Business Green: The integrity of the EU's emissions trading scheme could be badly undermined unless governments resist the temptation to sell on "recycled" certified emission reduction (CERs) credits that have already been surrendered by businesses. That is the stark warning from the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA), after the Hungarian government last week agreed to sell on two million "recycled" CERs to an undisclosed intermediary. Government officials confirmed the CERs ...

Wed, 17 Mar 10
China, Not UN, Controls Supply for CO2 Offsets, Stanford Says
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601091&sid=aSk2DK7U3h.g
Bloomberg: China's control over the prices of power from wind is dictating the supply of tradable emission credits in the UN carbon market, the world's second biggest, according to a report from Stanford University. The board overseeing the United Nations carbon market is forced to rely on data from China to judge when windfarms qualify for emissions credits, said Richard Morse, a Stanford University research associate and co-author of the report. The board, established to channel funds to ...

Wed, 17 Mar 10
United Kingdom: Sainsbury's makes low carbon R&D pledge
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2259630/sainsbury-makes-low-carbon
Business Green: Sainsbury's has today unveiled plans to invest a chunk of the Â£1bn it spends each year on business sustainability issues with Imperial College London in a bid to identify ways to accelerate carbon emission reductions across its stores. Justin King, the retailer's chief executive, said in a keynote speech at the Base conference in London today that the funding was a "relatively small" part of Sainsbury's annual investment budget, but would still represent a " substantial" sum for the ...

Wed, 17 Mar 10
Greenpeace protests LNG terminal near whale sanctuary
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100316/sc_afp/italygasenvironmentseawhales
Agence France-Presse: Three Greenpeace activists Tuesday staged a protest against the building of a gas treatment terminal off the coast of Liguria in northern Italy they say endangers a nearby whale sanctuary. The activists daubed "Balene Finite" (The End of Whales) on the side of a vessel operated by an energy consortium before boarding the boat and unfurling a banner reading "Fine del Santuario" (The End of the Sanctuary). The sanctuary is the main summer feeding area for Mediterranean blue ...

Wed, 17 Mar 10
Research suggests recycling is always best
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2259583/research-suggests-recycling
Business Green: The case for the rapid roll out of new recycling and waste-to-energy facilities was strengthened today with the release of a major new report assessing the environmental impact of different waste disposal approaches. The study from the government-backed WRAP advisory body updated research from two years ago by analysing around 200 different reports assessing the lifecycle impact of recycling, landfill and energy capture approaches for common waste streams. It concluded that ...

Wed, 17 Mar 10
UN climate envoy expects dual-track negotiations
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jgEChLfSlnFM9sVxr1mcG_iYxHvgD9EFMMIG3
Associated Press: Special U.N. climate envoy Gro Harlem Brundtland says she expects talks on a new climate change agreement to increasingly move outside formal U.N. negotiations. Brundtland says backstage discussions among the U.S., China, India, Brazil and South Africa, will play a critical role leading up to the next major U.N. climate conference in Mexico at the end of this year. The limited accord reached at the last climate summit in Copenhagen emerged from a late-night meeting among the ...

Wed, 17 Mar 10
Protected forest areas may be critical strategy for slowing climate change
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100316083719.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Latest+Science+News%29
ScienceDaily: A new study involving scientists from 13 different organizations, universities and research institutions states that forest protection offers one of the most effective, practical, and immediate strategies to combat climate change. The study was published in PLoS Biology and makes specific recommendations for incorporating protected areas into overall strategies to reduce emissions of greenhouse gasses from deforestation and degradation (nicknamed REDD). "Deforestation leads to about ...

Wed, 17 Mar 10
Ocean fertilization may backfire
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2010/03/16/MN2C1CE0E4.DTL
San Francisco Chronicle: For more than a dozen years, researchers have been fertilizing small patches of the world's oceans with iron to see if they could make the floating plants called phytoplankton flourish into massive blooms that would absorb carbon dioxide, the worst planet-warming greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. The idea was that the absorbed carbon would sink to the ocean bottom and remain there essentially forever. Many experts have hailed the idea as one surefire solution to the problem of global ...

Wed, 17 Mar 10
Climate threatens birds, says new bird report
http://www.physorg.com/news187949507.html
Physorg: Climate changes will have an increasingly disruptive effect on bird species in all habitats, with oceanic and Hawaiian birds in greatest peril, according to a new report on the state of birds released March 11 by U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar. "The State of the Birds: 2010 Report on Climate Change" follows a comprehensive report issued last year showing that nearly one-third of the nation's 800 bird species are endangered, threatened or in significant decline. The ...

Wed, 17 Mar 10
Battle Over Calif. Climate Change Law Takes Shape as Warring Parties Reveal Funding Sources
http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2010/03/16/16greenwire-battle-over-calif-climate-change-law-takes-sha-53612.html
Greenwire: The campaign to put suspension of California's climate change law before voters in November started taking shape this week as warring parties revealed key sources of funding and traded barbs over the nature of their financial support. Opposing the climate law are a Texas-based refining company that operates in California and the anti-tax Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. In documents filed with the California Secretary of State, a group calling itself the California Jobs Initiative ...

Wed, 17 Mar 10
Denmark: Copenhagen activist trial: 'I can't see what evidence there is for the charges'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/16/copenhagen-activist-trial
Guardian: Two environmental activists appeared in court today accused of terrorism-related offences during the Copenhagen climate summit in December. Natasha Verco, an Australian honours student, and Noah Weiss, an American citizen who lives in Denmark, will face similar charges in a trial which is due to last all week. Verco, who has organised non-violent direct action in her native country and who has been part of the Climate Justice Action (CJA) network in the lead-up to the summit in ...

Wed, 17 Mar 10
France: Sarkozy blames negligence for storm havoc
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62F3VM20100316?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29
Reuters: French President Nicolas Sarkozy blamed negligence and bad planning for the damage caused by storms which broke Atlantic sea walls last month, unleashing floods that killed more than 50 people. "This disaster is the result of a cascade of contentious decisions that went against common sense, of negligence, failure to respect regulations and expert advice that went unregarded," Sarkozy said in a speech to victims in western France. Declaring he would "assume his ...

Wed, 17 Mar 10
Climate 'fix' could poison sea life
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8569351.stm
BBC: Fertilising the oceans with iron to absorb carbon dioxide could increase concentrations of a chemical that can kill marine mammals, a study has found. Iron stimulates growth of marine algae that absorb CO2 from the air, and has been touted as a "climate fix". Now researchers have shown that the algae increase production of a nerve poison that can kill mammals and birds. Writing in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they say this raises "serious concern" ...

Wed, 17 Mar 10
United Kingdom: Labour to make energy co-operatives plan a key manifesto pledge
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2259532/labour-energy-operatives-plan
Business Green: The Labour Party is poised to include proposals for new energy co-operatives that could help households reduce energy bills and install green technologies as part of its election manifesto. According to reports in the Guardian, energy and climate change secretary Ed Miliband, who also has a central role in drawing up the party's manifesto, is keen to see the UK emulate energy co-operative schemes in the US and Europe that have seen neighbourhoods join forces to negotiate cheaper ...

Tue, 16 Mar 10
Poll charts rising U.S. environmental satisfaction
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62A3TG20100315?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29
Reuters: Americans have grown more content about current environmental quality over the past year, though 53 percent still rate conditions as only fair to poor, according to a Gallup poll released on Monday. Forty-six percent of the 1,014 adults surveyed March 4 to 7 described current U.S. environmental conditions as excellent or good. That was up from 39 percent in March 2009 and was the highest positive environmental rating measured by Gallup since 2002. The percentage of Americans ...

Tue, 16 Mar 10
Canada: Jim Prentice reaches out amid climate backlash
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/blogs/bureau-blog/jim-prentice-reaches-out-amid-climate-backlash/article1500876/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheGlobeAndMail-Front+%28The+Globe+and+Mail+-+Latest+News%29
Globe and Mail: Environment Minister Jim Prentice wants to know what Canadians think about a proposed new strategy to ensure the environment is taken into consideration when the federal government develops policies and programs. His department has posted a consultation paper, Planning for a Sustainable Future: A Federal Sustainable Development Strategy for Canada, online here. The strategy proposes a new approach to monitoring and reporting using data from the Canadian Environmental Sustainability ...

Tue, 16 Mar 10
Climate activists threaten direct action campaign against Scotland's 'Kingsnorth'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/15/ayrshire-power-station-new-kingsnorth
Guardian: Climate activists are predicting a campaign of direct action against a new coal-fired power station that could be the UK's first to fit carbon-capture technology. Campaigners say that if the proposed 1.6GW station in Ayrshire is approved, it will be the "new Kingsnorth", a reference to E.ON's controversial coal-fired plant in Kent that sparked battles between protesters and police before E.ON finally shelved it. The warnings from Friends of the Earth (FoE) Scotland, WWF ...

Tue, 16 Mar 10
Environmental groups call on Delmas to cancel shipment of illegally logged wood from Madagascar
http://news.mongabay.com/2010/0315-hance_ngos_madagascar.html
Mongabay: Pressure is building on the French shipping company Delmas to cancel large shipments of rosewood, which was illegally logged in Madagascar during the nation's recent coup. Today two environmental groups, Global Witness and the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) called on Delmas to cancel the shipment, which is currently being loaded onto the Delmas operated ship named 'Kiara' in the Madagascar port of Vohemar. Global Witness and EIA have composed an open letter to Delmas' CEO, ...

Tue, 16 Mar 10
Amazon confusion: new research shows forest is resilient to drought, but is this the whole picture?
http://news.mongabay.com/2010/0315-hance_amazon_drought.html
Mongabay: A drought that happens once in a hundred years had little negative or positive effect on the Amazon rainforest according to a NASA funded study in Geophysical Research Letters. "We found no big differences in the greenness level of these forests between drought and non-drought years, which suggests that these forests may be more tolerant of droughts than we previously thought," said Arindam Samanta, the study's lead author from Boston University. Employing NASA MODIS satellite ...

Tue, 16 Mar 10
Senate climate bill to set utility cap-trade: senator
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62E50F20100315?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29
Reuters: Compromise climate control legislation being developed in the U.S. Senate will use a cap-and-trade approach to reduce carbon emissions from utilities such as power plants, a key senator said on Monday. The senator, who asked not to be identified, added, "That's not to say there are not some details left to be resolved with utilities but the overall approach is that." In an interview with Reuters, the senator said: "There's more certainty about cap and trade for utilities" than ...

Tue, 16 Mar 10
White House task force finds gaps in federal global warming strategy
http://www.theolympian.com/2010/03/15/1173503/white-house-task-force-finds-gaps.html
Olympian: Climate change has already wrought "pervasive, wide ranging" effects on the United States, and the federal government has "significant gaps" in its strategy to cope with those effects as they accelerate in the future, a White House task force will warn in a report on Tuesday. The report will call for better risk assessments, more thorough scientific research and improved coordination of federal and local governments in order to handle the impacts of warming temperatures, according to ...

Tue, 16 Mar 10
Australia: Bureau of Meteorology backs up climate science data
http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/pacbeat/stories/201003/s2846811.htm
Radio Australia: The head of Australia's Bureau of Meteorology has come out in defence of the science which says that climate change is real. Director Greg Ayers says a century's worth of climate records show definitive evidence that the weather patterns are shifting and the planet is warming. There are more extremely hot days, fewer cold wet ones and the scientific observations confirm it's happening now. His comments follow similar remarks from Australia's peak scientific organisation, the CSIRO, in ...

Tue, 16 Mar 10
Energy bills to go up with tough EU clampdown on greenhouse gas emissions
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article7061938.ece
Times (UK): Energy bills will rise but thousands of jobs could be created in green industries under a European plan to impose the world's most stringent restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions. The Government will today support a proposal tabled in Brussels for a new, much more onerous EU target for cutting carbon dioxide even though other nations with higher emissions have failed to commit to reciprocal action. Ministers have abandoned their previous condition that the world must agree a ...

Tue, 16 Mar 10
Climate change beyond doubt, says Australian science chief
http://www.radioaustralianews.net.au/stories/201003/2845533.htm?desktop
Radio Australia: The head of Australia's peak science body has spoken out in defence of climate scientists, saying the link between human activity and climate change is beyond doubt. The head of the CSIRO, Dr Megan Clark, says the evidence of global warming is unquestionable, and in Australia it is backed by years of robust research. Dr Clark says climate records are being broken every decade and all parts of the nation are warming. "We are seeing significant evidence of a changing ...

Tue, 16 Mar 10
Will fight for Pachauri: Ramesh
http://www.indiablooms.com/NriDetailsPage/nriDetails150310a.php
India Blooms News Service: Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh on Monday said the UPA government will back Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) chairman RK Pachauri on the Himalayan glacier issue. "We are backing the IPCC chairman and will fight any attempt to unseat him," Ramesh said in the Rajya Sabha on Monday. He further said the Fourth Assessment Report of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), suggesting disappearance of Himalayan glaciers by 2035, was based on poorly ...

Tue, 16 Mar 10
Australian cities must transform for population growth
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62E0O520100315?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29
Reuters: Australia circa 2050, population 35 million, climate change induced rising sea levels have flooded the Gold Coast resort region, apartment blocks are now used to grow food and people commute in monorail pods above the sea. In another city, Australians live on floating island pods with apartments both below and above sea level, the population has shifted from land to the sea because of the sky-rocketing value of disappearing arable land. Climate change has also forced many ...

Tue, 16 Mar 10
Climate report shows Australia getting warmer
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62E14Z20100315?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29
Reuters: Australia's top scientists on Monday released a "State of the Climate" report at a time of growing scepticism over climate change as a result of revelations of errors in some global scientific reports. The scientists said their monitoring and research of the world's driest inhabited continent for 100 years "clearly demonstrate that climate change is real." "We are seeing significant evidence of a changing climate. We are warming in every part of the country during every season ...

Tue, 16 Mar 10
Australia 0.7 degrees warmer over past 50 years: scientists
http://www.physorg.com/news187851167.html
Agence France-Presse: Australia's top science body said on Monday temperatures had risen about 0.7 degrees Celsius (0.44 Fahrenheit) in the last 50 years, describing the finding as "significant evidence" of climate change. Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) head Megan Clark said warming had occurred across the country and during all seasons, with the last decade the hottest on record. "We are seeing significant evidence of a changing climate," she told ABC public ...

Tue, 16 Mar 10
Canada: Climate-change scientists feel 'muzzled' by Ottawa: Documents
http://www.montrealgazette.com/Climate+change+scientists+feel+muzzled+Ottawa+Documents/2684065/story.html
Canwest News Service: A dramatic reduction in Canadian media coverage of climate change science issues is the result of the Harper government introducing new rules in 2007 to control interviews by Environment Canada scientists with journalists, says a newly released federal document. "Scientists have noticed a major reduction in the number of requests, particularly from high profile media, who often have same-day deadlines," said the Environment Canada document. "Media coverage of climate change science, ...

Tue, 16 Mar 10
France: Paris talks keep up REDD momentum
http://www.carbonpositive.net/viewarticle.aspx?articleID=1921
Carbon Positive: The first steps to kick start a global REDD scheme to halt deforestation and build on progress in Copenhagen have been taken at a meeting in Paris. A further $1 billion has been promised and a ten-nation steering group established to drive the implementation of a global avoided deforestation and forest carbon enhancement mechanism over the next three years. French President Nicola Sarkozy hosted the closed-door International Conference on the Major Forest Basins last Thursday, the ...

Mon, 15 Mar 10
United States: Biomass plans moving too fast
http://www.record-eagle.com/local/local_story_072220517.html
Record-Eagle: A local environmental group is increasingly worried that Traverse City Light & Power is on an unstoppable fast track to building a local wood-burning power plant, but the public utility insists a decision hasn't been made. Light & Power officials are expected to decide next month whether to construct a biomass plant in Traverse City. The facility would be fired on wood, but could accept designated fuel crops or other items. Officials recently released a consulting firm's ...

Mon, 15 Mar 10
United States: Is herbicide atrazine bad for you?
http://www.pjstar.com/news/x90198110/Is-herbicide-atrazine-bad-for-you
Journal Star: The neighborhood where Tyrone Hayes grew up was developed by draining a swamp. He spent his youth fascinated with frogs, turtles, snakes and lizards that shared his stomping ground. Hayes graduated from Harvard University with a major in evolutionary biology, earned a Ph.D. at 24 and became the youngest tenured professor at the University of California-Berkeley. He became a world expert on frog development. Then he met atrazine, an herbicide used on more than 70 percent of ...

Mon, 15 Mar 10
China alleges diplomatic snub at Copenhagen summit
http://www.montereyherald.com/news/ci_14672589?nclick_check=1
Associated Press: Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said he was snubbed at last year's Copenhagen climate change conference and fired back Sunday at critics who accuse China of arrogance. China was blamed by some for undermining efforts to reach a binding agreement at the December conference and Wen was himself criticized for skipping a meeting of top leaders attended by President Barack Obama. However, Wen says he was never formally notified of the late-night Dec. 17 event and sent Vice Foreign ...

Mon, 15 Mar 10
United States: Natural-gas development brings mixed impacts
http://www.dailycomet.com/article/20100314/ARTICLES/100319683/1214?Title=Natural-gas-development-brings-mixed-impacts
Daily Comet: The conveyances room of the Terrebonne Parish Courthouse used to bustle with abstractors researching potential lease properties for oil-and-gas companies. Today, the room is much quieter, and veteran abstractor David Toups spends less time there. Instead, he`s providing the same service from his office, looking at similar records electronically from north Louisiana parishes like Caddo and Red River. He estimates that 20 to 30 percent of his business is researching natural gas ...

Mon, 15 Mar 10
Australia: Climate change is real and it's here: report
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change-is-real-and-its-here-report-20100314-q63a.html
Sydney Morning Herald: AUSTRALIA's two leading scientific agencies will release a report today showing Australia has warmed significantly over the past 50 years, and stating categorically that ''climate change is real''. The State of the Climate snapshot, drawn together by CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology partly in response to recent attacks on the science underpinning climate change, shows that Australia's mean temperature has increased 0.7 degrees since 1960. The statement also finds average daily ...

Mon, 15 Mar 10
Thousands of tons of illegal timber in Madagascar readied for export
http://news.mongabay.com/2010/0313-hance_mad.html
Mongabay: As the President of France, Nicholas Sarkozy, argues in Paris that more funding is needed to stop deforestation and mitigate climate change, a shipment of illegal rosewood is being readied for export in Madagascar by a French company with the tacit approval of the French government. The shipment of some 4,000-5,000 tons of rosewood will be shipped under the auspices of the French company, Delmas, according to Derek Schuurman, who has published papers on the illegal logging crisis for ...

Mon, 15 Mar 10
United Kingdom: Musicians look to clean up their acts
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/musicians-look-to-clean-up-their-acts-1921171.html
Independent (UK): Imagine U2 clambering on to a train to take them to a sold-out stadium; Keith Richards swigging from a bottle of organic, Fairtrade booze while Bon Jovi recycle their post-gig waste. Unlikely as it sounds, it may yet come to pass as rock'n'roll's tradition of painting the town red fades to an ethical shade of green. Polluting private jets, excessive dressing room demands and arena-busting tours are no long sustainable, according to the biggest study so far on the effect of the live ...

Mon, 15 Mar 10
UN climate change claims on rainforests were wrong, study suggests
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7437016/UN-climate-change-claims-on-rainforests-were-wrong-study-suggests.html
Telegraph: A new study, funded by Nasa, has found that the most serious drought in the Amazon for more than a century had little impact on the rainforest's vegetation. The findings appear to disprove claims by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that up to 40% of the Amazon rainforest could react drastically to even a small reduction in rainfall and could see the trees replaced by tropical grassland. The IPCC has already faced intense criticism for using a report by ...

Mon, 15 Mar 10
United Kingdom: Noisy wind farms face crackdown
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/7429753/Noisy-wind-farms-face-crackdown.html
Telegraph: At least one in six of the 255 wind farms in Britain have received noise complaints according to figures obtained by the Daily Telegraph. But local authorities have never managed to prosecute on the grounds of noise nuisance because it is so difficult to prove. The main problem is the intermittent nature of noise from wind farms that makes it difficult to measure. Inspectors have to be on the site when the noise is worst, even though that could be in the middle of the night. ...

Mon, 15 Mar 10
Report: Climate change threatens Louisiana's birds
http://www.wxvt.com/Global/story.asp?S=12134951
Associated Press: A new report says birds that live in and visit Louisiana's badly damaged and eroding coast are threatened by climate change. On Louisiana's coast, sea level rise and the loss of habitat will threaten migratory songbirds, ocean bird species and waterfowl, according to Melanie Driscoll, director of bird conservation at the Louisiana Audubon Society. The report, "The State of the Birds: 2010 Report on Climate Change," was released Thursday. A 2009 report on bird populations ...

Mon, 15 Mar 10
Progress seen on forest scheme, Germany to join
http://www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=215897
Agence France-Presse: Around 60 countries pushed ahead on Thursday with a multi-billion-dollar scheme to reduce climate-changing emissions from deforestation, to which Germany added its support, British minister Joan Ruddock said on Thursday. "There was a tremendous mood of determination to get things done. I regard this as quite a breakthrough, actually," Ruddock, who is secretary of state for energy and climate change, told AFP in a phone interview. Around 60 countries, gathering donor economies ...

Mon, 15 Mar 10
Shifting ice a problem for Antarctica penguins
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/03/12/MN2C1CDP5M.DTL
San Francisco Chronicle: Emperor penguins and chicks in Antarctica are the most severely threatened by impending climate changes, the report says. The birds need solid sea ice to lay eggs and raise chicks on. Shifting sea ice around Antarctica is already disrupting penguin colonies as the world's climate warms, according to a new report by a team of polar scientists. The researchers looked at the complex relationship between emperor and Adelie penguins and their changing habitats and studied how a ...

Mon, 15 Mar 10
United States: Report: Climate change would hurt coastal birds
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20100312/ARTICLES/100319725/1349?Title=Report-Climate-change-would-hurt-coastal-birds
Press Democrat: To a long list of predators and threats, the western snowy plover, a sparrow-sized bird that nests in sandy beaches on the Sonoma coast, has a new nemesis: climate change. The little brown, black and white shorebird is among the feathered species at risk from rising seas due to climate change, bird experts said. "They are already in trouble," Gary Langham, director of bird conservation for Audubon California, said of the plovers, a threatened species since 1993. "Climate change ...

Mon, 15 Mar 10
Lake Erie water quality worsening
http://www.monroenews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100313/NEWS01/703139975
Monroe News: Lake Erie was shrouded in fog Friday, but its future waters might be a muddier brown or an eerier bright green due to persistent pollution and climate change, experts suggest. The lake, especially its shallowest western basin bordering Monroe County and northwest Ohio, is suffering from farm-related and other runoff that threatens to return its health to that of the 1970s when it was written off as dead. "We don't want to be responsible for writing Lake Erie's obituary again," said ...

Mon, 15 Mar 10
Zimbabwe: Farmers urged to adjust to changing weather patterns
http://www.herald.co.zw/inside.aspx?sectid=16496&cat=1
Herald: Government has called on farmers to adjust to changing weather patterns and become more scientific in their approach to agriculture. In a speech read on his behalf by Mr Collins Mungate, a senior official in the Ministry of Media, Information and Publicity, Minister Webster Shamu said Zimbabwe -- like all other countries in the region -- was affected by the effects of global warming and climate change. "Our rainfall pattern, amount and distribution of rain have changed ...

Mon, 15 Mar 10
Kerry: Energy bill more about jobs
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hM1DYWlWj8EbMAj-WOC1Nui69qSgD9EDB6S80
Associated Press: Sen. John Kerry, hoping to win over wavering senators, said he is pushing environmental reforms to create jobs and spark energy independence, with climate benefits along "for the ride." In an interview with The Associated Press, the Massachusetts Democrat said legislation he's crafting with Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., will differ from a House-passed bill that embraces a so-called "cap and trade" approach to reduce pollution blamed for global ...

Mon, 15 Mar 10
Evangelicals seen as key in climate debate
http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20100313/LIFE/3130310
News Journal: Young people in evangelical churches have likely never heard a sermon linking scripture with a love of creation and caring for the earth. That explains the slowness of mainline evangelicals in signing onto the movement to lower carbon emissions and avert climate change, said the Rev. Richard Cizik, president of the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good. He's reached that opinion from hundreds of talks he's given on campuses, and it's sad news for Americans who believe ...

Mon, 15 Mar 10
Land loss, climate change endangering La. birds
http://www.dailycomet.com/article/20100313/ARTICLES/100319729/1026?p=1&tc=pg
Daily Comet: The combined forces of climate change and land loss pose a major threat to Louisiana bird species, especially those that depend on the disappearing coast, according to a report released Thursday by a partnership of university bird researchers, federal agencies and environmental groups. The State of the Birds: 2010 Report on Climate Change," released Thursday by U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, was prepared by a partnership of university bird researchers, federal agencies and ...

Mon, 15 Mar 10
United Kingdom: Climate change adverts draw mild rebuke from advertising watchdog
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/mar/13/government-cleared-climate-change-adverts
Guardian: Watch one of the contentious climate change adverts The advertising watchdog has mildly rebuked the government over the phrasing of a claim in two advertisements on the danger of climate change, while dismissing the rest of the complaints against the controversial television and newspaper campaign. The campaign, run by the Department of Environment and Climate Change last winter, brought in 939 complaints. Various groups said the adverts were political, too scary, and factually ...

Mon, 15 Mar 10
Genetic Mapping Of Algae Biofuel Species
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1836011/genetic_mapping_of_algae_biofuel_species/index.html?source=r_science
redOrbit: Using green algae to produce hydrocarbon oil for biofuel production is nothing new; nature has been doing so for hundreds of millions of years, according a Texas AgriLife Research scientist. "Oils from the green algae Botryococcus braunii can be readily detected in petroleum deposits and coal deposits suggesting that B. braunii has been a contributor to developing these deposits and may be the major contributor," said Dr. Timothy Devarenne, AgriLife Research scientist with the Texas ...

Mon, 15 Mar 10
Mary Robinson: 'I feel a terrible sense of urgency'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2010/mar/13/mary-robinson
Guardian: In 1993, three years into her presidency of Ireland, Mary Robinson paid a visit to west Belfast. The trip was controversial before she went – the Irish government didn't want her there, and neither did the British – but it became far more controversial when, in the course of her tour, she happened to shake the hand of a local politician, one Gerry Adams. The next day, "trying to be a good president, I washed the hair and waited for the hairdresser to arrive," Robinson told an RTÃ‰ radio show ...

Mon, 15 Mar 10
The Empathic Civilization: The Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis by Jeremy Rifkin
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/mar/13/empathetic-civilization-jeremy-rifkin-climate
Guardian: The Empathic Civilization: The Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis by Jeremy Rifkin 688pp, Polity Press, Â£17.99 Buy The Empathic Civilization: The Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis at the Guardian bookshop Whoever hacked into the emails at the University of East Anglia fired the opening salvo in a new kind of dirty war. The Copenhagen conference met on the basis that dealing with global warming was in everyone's interest. The idea that nearly 200 ...

Mon, 15 Mar 10
Climate Change Adds to Bird Stress
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/science/earth/13brfs-CLIMATECHANG_BRF.html
New York Times: Changes in the global climate are imposing additional stress on hundreds of species of migratory birds in the United States that are already threatened by other environmental factors, according to a new Interior Department report. The department's annual State of the Birds report shows that nearly a third of the nation's 800 bird species are endangered, threatened or suffering from population decline. For the first time, the report adds climate change to other factors threatening bird ...

Mon, 15 Mar 10
Something Worse Than Inaction
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/opinion/13sat2.html
New York Times: The Obama administration has always had a backup plan in case Congress failed to pass a broad climate change bill. The Environmental Protection Agency would use its Clean Air Act authority to regulate greenhouse gases. Regulation, or the threat of it, would goad Congress to act or provide a backstop if it did not. The House passed a bill last year seeking an economywide cap on emissions, but there has been no progress in the Senate. Now some senators seem determined to undercut the ...

Mon, 15 Mar 10
One body to coordinate Singapore's climate change policies
http://www.todayonline.com/Singapore/EDC100313-0000077/One-body-to-coordinate-Singapores-climate-change-policies
Today Online: As a global agreement on climate change gets closer to becoming reality, and Singapore gears up to deliver on its domestic commitments, a single body will now coordinate two key aspects - the international and the domestic - of the country's climate change policies. The Inter-Ministerial Committee on Climate Change will be reorganised to focus both on formulating and implementing mitigation measures at home, and on international negotiation strategies. Its National Climate ...

Sat, 13 Mar 10
United Kingdom: 55 charged over parliament protest
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5iOhuzVBxwPNPT3z3OeOl3E2x3q-g
Press Association: More than 50 climate change protesters who spent the night on the roof of the Houses of Parliament have been charged with trespass, Scotland Yard said. The demonstration by Greenpeace supporters in October last year was aimed at MPs returning from their summer break. Demonstrators unfurled a banner which said: "Change the politics, save the climate". Among those charged are 23 people accused of trespassing on a protected site on October 11 last year. Another seven ...

Sat, 13 Mar 10
Canada: British Columbia OKs 19 projects in clean power push
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62B3U020100312?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29
Reuters: British Columbia has given the green light to 19 private-sector clean energy projects that will generate enough power to supply nearly 218,000 homes in Canada's Pacific Coast province. The approvals, announced late on Thursday by BC Hydro, the government-owned electricity utility, mark the first phase in the provincial government's long-delayed push to generate more green power. Fourteen of the 19 proposals are 14 run-of-river hydroelectric projects, in which river water is ...

Sat, 13 Mar 10
NOAA director urges better explanations of climate
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5izQWR3jqOcjYYhQoCW_2NWYSAGtgD9ED90P80
Associated Press: Climate change is here and scientists need to do a better job of explaining it to the public, the director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Friday. "We are no longer constrained by talking about some possible future. Climate change is happening now and it's happening in people's back yards," Jane Lubchenco told reporters at a briefing. "Scientists have seriously underestimated the importance of explaining what we know about climate in a way people can ...

Sat, 13 Mar 10
Putin in deal to build nuclear reactors for India
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/12/russia-india-nuclear-reactor-deal
Guardian: India and Russia today signed a nuclear co-operation agreement, which paves the way for the building of about a dozen nuclear reactors in India, with Russian help, over the next few decades. The agreement came at the end of talks between Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his Indian counterpart, Manmohan Singh, in New Delhi. "We are building a strategic partnership with India in the nuclear sector," Putin told business leaders in a video conference earlier. No ...

Sat, 13 Mar 10
United Kingdom: Â£3bn coal power plant will test strength of Ed Miliband's environment rules
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/12/coal-power-environment-kingsnorth-miliband
Guardian: The first application to build a coal plant in Britain since energy secretary Ed Miliband introduced tough new environmental rules will be submitted next week, the Guardian has learnt. UK-based conglomerate Peel Group is pressing ahead with the Â£3bn project to build a 1.6GW plant at Hunterston in Scotland, which will partially fit experimental carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. Its former partner, Dong Energy, dropped out last year, citing the recession. The application, ...

Sat, 13 Mar 10
United Kingdom: Â£30bn high-speed rail plan signals end of the road for motorways
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/mar/11/new-high-speed-rail-network
Guardian: The government signalled the end of intercity motorway building today as it announced plans for a Â£30bn high-speed rail network, with the first phase between London and Birmingham opening in 2026. Lord Adonis, the transport secretary, said the motorway network had reached its limit and the burden of ferrying millions more people between cities would instead be taken by fleets of trains travelling at up to 250mph. Work on the first phase linking the capital and England's second city ...

Sat, 13 Mar 10
Sarkozy steps up calls for green Tobin tax
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2259404/sarkozy-steps-calls-green-tobin
Business Green: French president Nicolas Sarkozy has vowed to make proposals for an international tax on financial transactions -- designed to raise funds for climate-related projects -- a central issue when France takes the chair of the G20 group of large economies next year. Speaking at a conference on forests yesterday, Sarkozy reiterated his support for a so-called Tobin tax. This would raise much of the $100bn a year in climate funding for poorer nations, set to be delivered from 2020 as part of ...

Sat, 13 Mar 10
Climate change makes birds shrink
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8560000/8560694.stm
BBC: Songbirds in the US are getting smaller, and climate change is suspected as the cause. A study of almost half a million birds, belonging to over 100 species, shows that many are gradually becoming lighter and growing shorter wings. This shrinkage has occurred within just half a century, with the birds thought to be evolving into a smaller size in response to warmer temperatures. However, there is little evidence that the change is harmful to the birds. Details of ...

Sat, 13 Mar 10
List polar bear as endangered species
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/12/polar-bears-endangered-species-listing
Guardian: It is a familiar story in the climate change debate. The US government is at odds with the rest of the world and, despite criticism, wants other countries to change their minds and fall in line behind Uncle Sam. This time, the tale comes with an unexpected twist. This weekend, the US will warn that the threat from climate change to the survival of the polar bear is so great that the world must grant it the highest possible protection. At the meeting of the international body ...

Sat, 13 Mar 10
EU names and shames renewable energy laggards
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2259430/eu-names-shames-renewable
Business Green: The European Commission yesterday confirmed that the EU is on track to narrowly beat its goal of generating 20 per cent of its energy from renewable energy sources by 2020, releasing new figures that predict member states will together generate 20.3 per cent of their power from renewables by the end of the decade. The data shows that 12 of the 27 member states are on target to meet their renewable energy targets, while 10 countries are in a position to exceed their ...

Sat, 13 Mar 10
Natural gas: An unconventional glut
http://www.economist.com/business-finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15661889
Economist: SOME time in 2014 natural gas will be condensed into liquid and loaded onto a tanker docked in Kitimat, on Canada's Pacific coast, about 650km (400 miles) north-west of Vancouver. The ship will probably take its cargo to Asia. This proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant, to be built by Apache Corporation, an American energy company, will not be North America's first. Gas has been shipped from Alaska to Japan since 1969. But if it makes it past the planning stages, Kitimat LNG will be one ...

Sat, 13 Mar 10
Exxon chief doubts natural gas in cars is viable move
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/stories/DN-exxon_12bus.ART.State.Edition1.3ce820e.html
Dallas Morning News: Exxon Mobil Corp. chief executive Rex Tillerson, it seems, has not joined the T. Boone Pickens army. Pickens has been stumping for the past two years for Americans to shift to natural gas as a vehicle fuel, particularly for heavy duty trucks. He says the move would help wean the U.S. off of foreign oil, support domestic natural gas, cut energy costs and reduce pollution. Tillerson said he doubts natural gas would accomplish all of that. And he isn't just promoting his own ...

Sat, 13 Mar 10
Ocean acidification: Another path to EPA rules on carbon emissions?
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0312/Ocean-acidification-another-path-to-EPA-rules-on-carbon-emissions
Christian Science Monitor: Nearly three years after the US Supreme Court found that carbon dioxide was a pollutant that fell under the purview of the Clean Air Act, the US Environmental Protection Agency has agreed to explore approaches for tightening its regulations dealing with ocean acidification under the Clean Water Act. Ocean acidification results from the ocean's uptake of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Maine scientists have become increasingly concerned about the effect industrial emissions of CO2 ...

Sat, 13 Mar 10
Electric cars jostle for position on the power grid
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20527515.700-electric-cars-jostle-for-position-on-the-power-grid.html
New Scientist: IT MIGHT have hogged the limelight at last week's Geneva Motor Show in Switzerland, but the most arresting detail on Porsche's latest concept car (pictured) was actually somewhat mundane: a wall plug. But over the next 12 months plugs will be increasingly appearing on production models from the world's biggest car makers. And as they do, electricity providers and governments will be scrambling to prepare for the as-yet-unknown effects of shackling our transport power needs to the electricity ...

Sat, 13 Mar 10
Western U.S., Canada go own way on carbon trading
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1120328820100312
Reuters: As U.S. prospects for a national climate change bill fade, five U.S. states and Canadian provinces are on track to start a cap-and-trade market for carbon dioxide in 2012, say officials who see fading federal momentum boosting regional efforts. California, the keystone market with the eighth-largest economy in the world, New Mexico, and the Canadian provinces of Ontario, British Columbia and Quebec all plan to join the system meant to combat climate change and boost economies by ...

Sat, 13 Mar 10
Wind resistance: Analysis suggests generating electricity from large-scale wind farms could influence climate
http://www.physorg.com/news187606383.html
Physorg: Wind power has emerged as a viable renewable energy source in recent years -- one that proponents say could lessen the threat of global warming. Although the American Wind Energy Association estimates that only about 2 percent of U.S. electricity is currently generated from wind turbines, the U.S. Department of Energy has said that wind power could account for a fifth of the nation's electricity supply by 2030. But a new MIT analysis may serve to temper enthusiasm about wind power, at ...

Sat, 13 Mar 10
United Kingdom: Study reveals carbon footptint of UK music industry
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/12/uk-music-industry-carbon-footprint
Guardian: Each year the UK music industry is responsible for around 540,000 tonnes of greenhouse-gas emissions, according to researchers from the UK and US. Three-quarters of this is due to live music performances, while the rest is caused by music recording and publishing. "This is the first study to map the greenhouse-gas emission profile of the music industry," Catherine Bottrill of the University of Surrey told environmentalresearchweb. "Furthermore, there are few publicly available studies ...

Sat, 13 Mar 10
US carbon traders fear pink slips
http://www.smh.com.au/business/us-carbon-traders-fear-pink-slips-20100312-q2cr.html
Reuters: Wall Street was supposed to become the capital of a global carbon trading market worth a trillion dollars a year but now many who thought green trading desks would be the next big thing are fearing the pink slip. US banks had looked forward to a huge "cap-and-trade market" a system where companies would buy and sell the right to emit gases blamed for warming the planet. Many hired carbon traders, picked up assets, and trained members of energy desks to deal in emissions ...

Sat, 13 Mar 10
Study shows tax payers subsidizing ethanol at $4.18 per gallon
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nathanael-greene/study-shows-tax-payers-su_b_494877.html
Huffington Post: A new study by University of Missouri Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (PDF) reveals that the current corn ethanol tax credit is effectively costing tax payers $4.18 per gallon and is driving up grain prices. The study estimates that the tax credit, which would cost about $5.85 billion next year if extended, will lead to 1.4 billion gallons above the 12.6 billion gallons required by law through the Renewable Fuel Standard (see page 64). In other words, next year the oil ...

Sat, 13 Mar 10
Senate extends controversial biodiesel tax credit
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2259444/senate-extends-controversial
Business Green: The US biodiesel industry was celebrating this week after the Senate approved the extension of the controversial $1 (66p) a gallon tax credit that had been allowed to expire at the end of last year. The one-year extension of the tax credit, which will retroactively cover biodiesel produce since the turn of the year, was passed as part of the new jobs bill. The bill will still need to be reconciled with a similar bill passed by the House of Representatives and there is no set ...

Sat, 13 Mar 10
Climate Change Threatens Migratory Birds, Report Says
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/science/earth/13birds.html
New York Times: Changes in the global climate are imposing additional stress on hundreds of species of migratory birds in the United States that are already threatened by other environmental factors, according to a new Interior Department report. The latest version of the department's annual State of the Birds report shows that nearly a third of the nation's 800 bird species are endangered, threatened or suffering from population decline. For the first time, the report adds climate change to ...

Sat, 13 Mar 10
EPA to allow states address rising ocean acidity
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100312/ap_on_bi_ge/us_epa_acid_oceans
Associated Press: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday it will consider ways the states can address rising acidity levels in oceans, which pose a serious threat to shellfish and other marine life. The agency's decision was announced in a legal settlement with the Center for Biological Diversity. The environmental group sued the EPA last year for not requiring Washington state to list its coastal waters as impaired by rising acidity under the Clean Water Act. "It's one of the ...

Fri, 12 Mar 10
Climate change pushing bird species 'towards extinction:' US
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100312/ts_alt_afp/environmentclimateusbirds
Agence France-Presse: Climate change is pushing some bird species "towards extinction," US Interior Secretary Ken Salazar warned Thursday as a new report on the threats facing North American birds was released. "For well over a century, migratory birds have faced stresses," Salazar said. "Now they are facing a new threat -- climate change -- that could dramatically alter their habitat and food supply and push many species towards extinction." Birds that depend upon the ocean for survival "are among ...

Fri, 12 Mar 10
Central American shrimp, lobster fast disappearing
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100312/sc_afp/centrampanamaenvironmentfish
Agence France-Presse: Illegal fishing and climate change are decimating shrimp and lobster populations in Central America, threatening a two-billion-dollar industry and 136,000 jobs, regional experts said Thursday. "Pollution and warmer waters are impacting our species," especially shrimp and lobster, said Central American Organization of the Fisheries and Aquaculture Sectors (OSPESCA) regional director Mario Gonzalez. "The Pacific shrimp population, Panama excluded, has fallen dramatically" because ...

Fri, 12 Mar 10
Group: polluters use offsets to avoid carbon cuts
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100312/ap_on_sc/eu_climate_carbon_offsets
Associated Press: Major European polluters are buying their way out of making big cuts to greenhouse gas emissions by purchasing carbon offsets that pay for environmental programs in developing nations, a nonprofit group said Friday. To avoid the high cost of becoming greener, power companies and steel makers are using offsets to meet emissions-reduction requirements, and thus undermining the EU's cap-and-trade program that would otherwise punish them financially for not cleaning up their operations, ...

Fri, 12 Mar 10
Guyana: Indigenous leaders' objections to LCDS, REDD+ 'malicious distortion'
http://www.stabroeknews.com/2010/stories/03/11/indigenous-leaders%e2%80%99-objections-to-lcds-redd-%e2%80%98malicious-distortion%e2%80%99/
Stabroek News: The Office of Climate Change (OCC) last night described the objections by some indigenous leaders to the LCDS and REDD+ policies as "malicious misrepresentations and distortions" and a deliberate attempt to mislead the public on the two policies. The OCC referred to articles published in this newspaper and the Kaieteur News following a statement issued after a workshop on 'Indigenous Peoples Rights, Extractive Industries and National Development Policies in Guyana.' The statement had, ...

Fri, 12 Mar 10
Mysterious electric car firm bursts onto US market in job salvation push
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2259387/mysterious-electric-car-firm
Business Green: A previously unheralded electric car maker emerged as an unlikely saviour for the US auto industry this week, announcing plans to step in and take over a Toyota factory in Fremont, California when the Japanese car manufacturer vacates the plant at the end of the month, potentially saving 4,700 jobs. Aurica Motors said that when Toyota vacates the NUMMI plant on 31 March it wants to convert the facility to make its planned E-Car -- an all-electric vehicle featuring swappable battery ...

Fri, 12 Mar 10
Tax break to flip switch on US smart grid roll out
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2259386/tax-break-flip-switch-smart
Business Green: The emerging US smart grid industry has vowed to accelerate the roll out of new intelligent grid systems, after the government this week confirmed the sector will not be taxed on the federal grants that will largely fund the first wave of projects. Economic stimulus legislation introduced last year included a $3.4bn fund for Smart Grid Investment Grants, designed to kick-start the installation of smart-grid systems that promise to enhance the reliability of transmission networks, ...

Fri, 12 Mar 10
White House finalizing rules to cut car emissions
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62A5S320100311?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29
Reuters: The White House is finalizing rules on the first U.S. greenhouse gas emission standard for automobiles, which would raise average fuel economy 42 percent by 2016 in a bid to slash oil imports and fight climate change. The Environmental Protection Agency and the Transportation Department sent the final rules this week to the White House's Office of Management and Budget, according to a notice posted on the OMB website. The higher mileage requirements will reduce U.S. greenhouse ...

Fri, 12 Mar 10
Feds: US birds declining due to changing climate
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2010/03/feds-us-birds-declining-due-to-changing-climate/1
USA Today: Nearly one-third of U.S. bird species "are endangered, threatened or in significant decline," due to climate change, Department of the Interior chief Ken Salazar said Thursday. Salazar issued a report, "The State of the Birds: 2010 Report on Climate Change", created by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service in collaboration with conservation groups. In it, researchers looked at five factors affecting bird species and weighed them against climate change effects. The factors were ...

Fri, 12 Mar 10
Climate change threatens US migratory bird populations, Interior Department report says
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-us-climate-birds,0,6762224.story
Associated Press: Global climate change poses a significant threat to migratory bird populations, which are already stressed by the loss of habitat and environmental pollution, according to a report released Thursday. U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar joined scientists and conservation organizers at an Austin news conference to release the study, "The State of the Birds: 2010 Report on Climate Change." The report says oceanic birds, such as petrels and albatrosses, are at particular risk from ...

Fri, 12 Mar 10
Uranium mining focus of Va. forum
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100311/ap_on_bi_ge/va_uranium_forum
Associated Press: Opponents of uranium mining in Southside Virginia and the people who want to end a state moratorium on mining the fuel for nuclear power plants have one more difference of opinion: the size of the deposit. A speaker at a forum Thursday organized by environmentalists said the deposit totals 5.5 million pounds, not the 119 million pounds estimated by Virginia Uranium Inc. Environmental analyst Paul Robinson said much of the uranium deposit is "too diluted to be reasonably mined" ...

Fri, 12 Mar 10
Industries hoarding greenhouse gas emission permits
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/11/industries-greenhouse-gas-emission-permits
Guardian: Companies across Europe are hoarding permits to produce greenhouse gas emissions worth hundreds of millions of pounds, the Guardian can reveal. The surplus credits have been amassed from over-allocation of permits to pollute from the European emissions trading scheme, and by buying cheap credits from carbon-cutting projects in developing countries and holding on to their more expensive official EU allowances. The saved permits can be used to meet future targets to cut the ...

Fri, 12 Mar 10
NYC judge allows Chevron arbitration to proceed
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100311/ap_on_bi_ge/us_chevron_ecuador
Associated Press: A judge ruled Thursday that Chevron can proceed with an international arbitration claim against Ecuador related to a 17-year-old court battle over rain forest contamination in that South American nation. U.S. District Judge Leonard Sand in Manhattan rejected an attempt by Ecuador to block the arbitration but also said his decision was limited in scope and left the arbitration panel to decide what, if anything, it will hear and when. His ruling does not directly affect the ...

Fri, 12 Mar 10
Report says climate change threatens birds
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/6908657.html
Associated Press: AUSTIN, Texas -- An Interior Department report says global climate change poses a significant threat to migratory bird populations already stressed by the loss of habitat and environmental pollution. U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar joined scientists and conservation organizers at an Austin news conference Thursday to release a study entitled "The State of the Birds: 2010 Report on Climate Change." The report says oceanic birds, such as petrels and albatrosses, are at ...

Fri, 12 Mar 10
EPA to let states address rising ocean acidity
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100311/ap_on_bi_ge/us_epa_acid_oceans
Associated Press: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says it will consider ways the states can address rising levels of carbon dioxide in oceans. The agency on Thursday settled a lawsuit filed last year by the Center for Biological Diversity in San Francisco. The problem stems from oceans absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and results in the rising acidity of the water. It seriously threatens shellfish and other marine life. The lawsuit accused the EPA of acting improperly ...

Fri, 12 Mar 10
Italy to host Europe's biggest solar plant: company
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100311/sc_afp/italyuselectricityenergyalternativecompanysunedison
Agence France-Presse: Europe's most powerful solar power plant is set to start operations in Italy later this year, the US company building the installation on an area as large as 120 football pitches said on Thursday. The plant in Rovigo near Venice in northeast Italy will take up 850,000 square metres (9.15 million square feet) and produce 72 megawatts, SunEdison said in a statement announcing the start of construction. The current biggest plant in Europe, located in Spain, produces 60 megawatts ...

Fri, 12 Mar 10
Aquatic 'dead zones' contributing to climate change
http://www.physorg.com/news187537818.html
Physorg: The increased frequency and intensity of oxygen-deprived "dead zones" along the world's coasts can negatively impact environmental conditions in far more than just local waters. In the March 12 edition of the journal Science, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science oceanographer Dr. Lou Codispoti explains that the increased amount of nitrous oxide (N2O) produced in low-oxygen (hypoxic) waters can elevate concentrations in the atmosphere, further exacerbating the impacts of ...

Fri, 12 Mar 10
Americans Less Concerned About Climate Change, Gallup Poll Says
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-03-11/americans-less-concerned-about-climate-change-gallup-poll-says.html
Bloomberg: Americans are less concerned about the threat of climate change than they were two years ago and almost half say the seriousness of global warming is overblown, a Gallup Organization Inc. poll shows. Thirty-two percent of people questioned said they believe climate change will affect them or their way of life, down from a high of 40 percent in 2008, according to the survey by Gallup, a Washington-based polling company. Two-thirds say global warming won't affect them in their ...

Fri, 12 Mar 10
Is "More Jobs" Sustainable or Necessary in the Post-Peak Oil World?
http://www.culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=611&Itemid=66
Culture Change: What was required for a growing economy, that was supposed to uplift all of modern humanity, is at root a false notion for the manipulated public: the overwhelming majority must work for others to enrich the few so that all of society benefits through unlimited expansion. This problematic profit-scheme is failing to hold up, what with general economic uncertainty on the rise (apart from "Hope") and the advanced depletion of easily extracted, cheap oil. To put even greater pressure on ...

Fri, 12 Mar 10
Nearly half of Americans believe climate change threat is exaggerated
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/11/americans-climate-change-threat
Guardian: Public belief in climate science has seen a precipitous slide in the US, according to new polling that suggests fewer Americans are concerned about the threat posed by global warming. Nearly half of Americans – 48% – now believe the threat of global warming has been exaggerated, the highest level since polling began 13 years ago, the poll published today by Gallup said. It directly linked the decline in concern to the controversies about media coverage of stolen emails from the ...

Fri, 12 Mar 10
U.S. judge rules for Chevron in Ecuador case
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62A3RV20100311?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29
Reuters: Chevron Corp may pursue an international arbitration claim over environmental pollution allegations in Ecuador, a judge ruled on Thursday, part of a long-running case that carries a potential $27 billion liability for the second-largest U.S. oil company. The government of Ecuador had asked Manhattan federal court Judge Leonard Sand to prevent Chevron from taking the 17-year-old case to arbitration under the U.S.-Ecuador Bilateral Investment Treaty. U.S. courts had previously ...

Fri, 12 Mar 10
BP joins Brazilian oil rush with $7bn deal to exploit deep sea reserves
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/mar/11/bp-brazil-oil-deal
Guardian: BP has bought into the Brazilian oil rush with a $7bn (Â£4.65bn) deal that will boost the group's potential reserves by about 2bn barrels of oil. The deal, with Devon Energy of the US, will also create a joint venture to develop BP's controversial oil sands in Canada. A number of recent huge finds in water up to two miles deep and below a thick layer of salt on the seabed off the coast of Brazil has made the country the focus for international oil companies looking for new ...

Fri, 12 Mar 10
Scientists take another run at climate change
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/onpolitics/post/2010/03/scientists-take-another-run-at-climate-change/1
USA Today: Eight Nobel-prize winning economists and scientists have joined more than 2,000 others in signing a letter today that urges the Senate to take swift action on climate change. "The longer we wait, the harder and more costly it will be to limit climate change and to adapt to those impacts that will not be avoided," reads the letter, which is available on the Union of Concerned Scientists' website here. "Many emissions reduction strategies can be adopted today that would save consumers ...

Fri, 12 Mar 10
Can you fit a wind turbine in a housing estate?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8558306.stm
BBC: How many people are actually going to be able to install renewable energy-generating technology in their homes? That is the burning question which goes unanswered in the government's strategy document called "Warm Homes, Greener Homes", which outlines how it plans to cut carbon emissions from homes by 29% by 2020. The plan includes helping as many households as possible install loft and cavity wall insulation within the next five years, and fitting seven million homes with ...

Fri, 12 Mar 10
Vietnam forest fires rise sharply in drought
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/313125,vietnam-forest-fires-rise-sharply-in-drought.html
Deutsche-Presse Agentur: Drought-driven forest fires in Vietnam this year have already consumed an area greater than the entire area burned in 2008 or 2009, officials said Tuesday. Fires have destroyed 1,600 hectares of forest so far this year, said Do Thanh Hai, a senior official at Vietnam's Forest Protection Department. That area is more than 10 times the rate measured in the first two months of 2008 or 2009, which each saw just more than 140 hectares destroyed. Hai blamed the fires on a drought that has ...

Fri, 12 Mar 10
Canada: Dying duck pics sent to Alberta premier
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Environment/2010/03/11/13190126-qmi.html?cid=rssnewscanada
CNews: An admission by Premier Ed Stelmach that he had not seen recent photos of dying ducks at a Syncrude tailings pond has ruffled the feathers of Greenpeace. The environmental group on Wednesday presented Stelmach's spokesman, Jerry Bellikka, with two enlarged photos of tar-covered ducks, hoping the premier would take a look at the images. They were entered as evidence at the ongoing trial against Syncrude, which faces environmental charges related to the April 2008 incident in ...

Fri, 12 Mar 10
A Case Against Biofuels: Corn Ethanol's Hidden Costs
http://e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2251&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+YaleEnvironment360+%28Yale+Environment+360%29
Yale Environment 360: In light of the strong evidence that growing corn, soybeans, and other food crops to produce ethanol takes a heavy toll on the environment and is hurting the world's poor through higher food prices, consider this astonishing fact: This year, more than a third of the U.S.'s record corn harvest of 335 million metric tons will be used to produce corn ethanol. What's more, within five years fully 50 percent of the U.S. corn crop is expected to wind up as biofuels. Here's another sobering ...

Fri, 12 Mar 10
Fashion muses on global cooling
http://www.vancouversun.com/life/Chanel%20muses%20global%20cooling%20with%20iceberg%20show/2666451/story.html
Reuters: An event based around hundreds of fashionistas flying in from all over the world was never going to be a convincing platform for environmental campaigning, but designers in Paris haven't let that stop them. While British designer Vivienne Westwood regularly rails against global warming, fashion king Karl Lagerfeld trumped her with a rival theory at the Chanel show on Monday: the globe is in fact cooling, and he has an iceberg to prove it. "Have you felt any warming this ...

Fri, 12 Mar 10
Australia: Now taxpayers face $100m bill to fix insulation mess
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/energy-smart/now-taxpayers-face-100m-bill-to-fix-insulation-mess-20100310-pzeb.html
Sydney Morning Herald: TAXPAYERS will pay up to $100 million to remove foil insulation or install electrical safety switches in 50,000 homes in a bid to fix the government's suspended insulation scheme. The Assistant Climate Change Minister, Greg Combet, said yesterday removing insulation or installing the switches were now the only ways to ensure safety in homes fitted with foil insulation under the rebate scheme. The government had promised safety checks for the 50,000 homes to test for ceilings ...

Fri, 12 Mar 10
German solar subsidy cuts muddy 2010 outlook
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6294OA20100310
Reuters: Global solar demand has surged on brisk buying from Germany, but analysts are split over whether the market will break down once incentives in the world's largest solar market are pared back. The recent surge in sales has helped the industry recover from a brutal 2009, when prices for the modules that turn sunlight into electricity tumbled by more than 40 percent as a glut of supplies and difficult financial markets slowed growth. That rebound may be short-lived. UBS, in a ...

Fri, 12 Mar 10
Los Angeles electric rate linked to solar power
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/11/science/earth/11solar.html
New York Times: Los Angeles averages more than 300 days of sunshine a year, and it often seems as if environmentalists outnumber rattlesnakes in many parts of the sprawling city. It would seem, then, that solar energy would be a thriving local industry here. But that has never been the case, and experts cite cost as the main reason. Now, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, the largest municipal utility in the United States, is poised to pass a roughly 5 percent rate increase on ...

Fri, 12 Mar 10
Unveiled: Scotland's carbon capture plans to challenge climate change
http://news.scotsman.com/scitech/Unveiled-Scotland39s-carbon--capture.6141036.jp
Scotsman: THE Scottish Government has unveiled a vision for Scotland to lead the way globally in key technology to capture carbon dioxide from power stations and store it underground. A "road map" for the development of carbon capture and storage (CCS) has been drawn up. It reveals that between 2015 and 2020 the Scottish Government is aiming to have two power stations furnished with CCS technology up and running. And the report reveals Holyrood is aiming for Scotland to have a ...

Fri, 12 Mar 10
United States: Seas' acidity threatens life, livelihoods, film says
http://hamptonroads.com/2010/03/seas-acidity-threatens-life-livelihoods-film-says
Virginian-Pilot: Oceans are becoming more acidic, which poses another threat in Virginia to oysters, clams and crabs as well as to water quality and coastal ecosystems, a panel of scientists and environmentalists warned Wednesday. The experts, including researchers from Old Dominion University and the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, spoke after a special screening of the documentary film "Acid Test" at the Naro Expanded Cinema in Norfolk. More than 100 attended the free event, intended to ...

Fri, 12 Mar 10
Climate change affects indigenous peoples most: Scholar
http://focustaiwan.tw/ShowNews/WebNews_Detail.aspx?Type=aSOC&ID=201003110020
CNA: Indigenous peoples worldwide contribute little to global warming but suffer the most from its impact, a local professor said Thursday at an international indigenous conference in Taiwan. "Most indigenous peoples around the world are not the major source of air pollution, energy overuse or carbon dioxide emissions," said Jolan Hsieh, an associate professor at the College of Indigenous Studies of Taiwan's National Dong Hwa University. "However, who sustains the most damage of all ...

Fri, 12 Mar 10
Predicting future climate: Networking initiative to support interdisciplinary research
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100311092420.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Latest+Science+News%29
ScienceDaily: Specialists from various Earth system science disciplines recently gathered to address a major question: what will our environment look like in the future? Of course, possible answers to this question raise even more questions. For instance, if changing climatic conditions were to alter local vegetation, how would this new landscape react to future climatic trends? Answering these questions with certainty would allow us to manage better our natural resources by defining appropriate ...

Fri, 12 Mar 10
More maize ethanol may boost greenhouse gas emissions
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100311074121.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Latest+Science+News%29
ScienceDaily: In the March issue of BioScience, researchers present a sophisticated new analysis of the effects of boosting use of maize-derived ethanol on greenhouse gas emissions. The study, conducted by Thomas W. Hertel of Purdue University and five co-authors, focuses on how mandated increases in production of the biofuel in the United States will trigger land-use changes domestically and elsewhere. In response to the increased demand for maize, farmers convert additional land to crops, and ...

Fri, 12 Mar 10
France: Sarkozy to press G20 on climate funding
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62A2R120100311?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29
Reuters: France will push the Group of 20 countries to impose a tax on financial transactions to raise billions of dollars to help developing nations fight climate change, President Nicolas Sarkozy said Thursday. Speaking at a conference on forests, Sarkozy repeated his call for a renewed effort on climate change after the "frustrating" Copenhagen conference in December, aiming his fire at "all those who, behind their fine words, want to do nothing." "Those who don't want to do anything ...

Fri, 12 Mar 10
Trusting science on climate change
http://money.cnn.com/2010/02/25/news/economy/climate_change/
CNN: Those beating the global warming drum have sure taken a few lumps lately. First there were the hacked e-mails from climate scientists, which critics say show an effort to massage some data and keep some scientists out of the debate. Facebook Digg Twitter Buzz Up! Email Print Comment on this story Then there was an admission from the Untied Nations' top climate body saying that it relied on some flawed numbers to predict a Himalayan glacier would soon melt. Add to ...

Fri, 12 Mar 10
Kenya thanks Japan prince for climate support
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100311/wl_africa_afp/japanroyalsdiplomacykenyaghana
Agence France-Presse: Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki thanked Japan's Crown Prince Naruhito Thursday for his country's support in programmes to combat climate change, the government said. The prince arrived in Nairobi late Wednesday for a three-day trip that follows a visit to Ghana. Kibaki hailed Japan's "continued financial and technical support" notably in programmes to combat climate change, a statement from his office said. After meeting with Kibaki, the prince visited a Japanese school in ...

Fri, 12 Mar 10
Battle over climate science spreads to US schoolrooms
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20527514.100-battle-over-climate-science-spreads-to-us-schoolrooms.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=climate-change
New Scientist: SCHOOLS in three US states - Louisiana, Texas and South Dakota - have been told to teach alternatives to the scientific consensus on global warming. The moves appear to be allied to efforts to teach creationism in public schools. Such efforts have in the past been thwarted when courts ruled them unconstitutional, but those advocating the teaching of sound science may find it harder to fight misrepresentations concerning climate change. Last week, South Dakota's state legislature ...

Thu, 11 Mar 10
Deforestation conference to turn plans to action
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100310/ap_on_re_eu/eu_climate_forests
Associated Press: French President Nicolas Sarkozy will open a daylong conference Thursday of some 40 nations to start turning plans into action to save the world's forests and help rein in the noxious gases blamed for climate change. Ministers from countries of the Amazon and Congo river basins and Indonesia -- whose massive forests, most at risk, are at the heart of efforts to end deforestation -- were among those attending the one-day conference. A follow-up meeting is scheduled for May in Oslo, ...

Thu, 11 Mar 10
China to stick to climate change stand, expects India to follow suit
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/China-to-stick-to-climate-change-stand-expects-India-to-follow-suit/articleshow/5668686.cms
Times of India: China said it will not deviate from its stand on climate change even after it gave qualified approval to the Copenhagen climate accord on Tuesday. It expects India to stick to its stand as well, a senior Chinese official said on Wednesday. "In future negotiations and cooperation on climate change, we will continue to be good partners. The government of India and China have signed an MOU enhancing our climate partnership," Xie Zhenhua, vice minister of the National Development and ...

Thu, 11 Mar 10
Solar power could provide 10% of US energy: report
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100310/sc_afp/uscongresspoliticssolarenergy
Agence France-Presse: The United States could source 10 percent of its electricity from solar power by 2030, a report said Tuesday, winning support from a US lawmaker who wants to boost the number of US solar panels. The report, produced by the independent environmental group Environment America, was presented to Congress with backing from Senator Bernie Sanders who in February introduced legislation to install 10 million solar panels across the United States within a decade. Sanders praised the ...

Thu, 11 Mar 10
World's top scientists to review climate panel
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100310/ap_on_sc/un_sci_climate_panel
Associated Press: At a tumultuous time in U.N.-led climate negotiations, one of the world's most credible scientific groups agreed Wednesday to plug the recent cracks in the authoritative reports of the United Nations' Nobel Prize-winning global warming panel. "We enter this process with no preconceived conclusions," said Robbert Dijkgraaf, a Dutch mathematical physicist who co-chairs the group, the InterAcademy Council of 15 nations' national academies of science. U.N. Secretary-General Ban ...

Thu, 11 Mar 10
Scientists to review climate body
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8561004.stm
BBC: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has asked the world's science academies to review work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Work will be co-ordinated by the Inter-Academy Council, which brings together bodies such as the UK's Royal Society. The IPCC has been under pressure over small errors in its last major assessment of climate science in 2007. Mr Ban said the overall concept of man-made climate change was robust, and action to curb emissions badly ...

Thu, 11 Mar 10
UK academy aids study to regain climate data trust
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6292PZ20100310?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29
Reuters: Britain's science academy said on Wednesday it would take part in a review of U.N. climate science intended to restore trust after a 2007 report was found to have exaggerated evidence for global warming. "I can confirm that we are one of the parties (on the review panel)," Bill Hartnett, a spokesman for The Royal Society, said. The independent review will be launched at the United Nations headquarters late on Wednesday in New York. The U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on ...

Thu, 11 Mar 10
Feed-in tariff 'killing off' burgeoning UK small turbine industry
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/10/feed-in-tariffs-turbine-solar
Guardian: UK small wind turbine manufacturers say they will lose out to foreign solar panel manufacturers in the race to cash in on the UK government's new feed-in tariff scheme. They claim their products will be penalised because solar panel owners will receive higher government subsidies than wind turbine buyers. As the arrangement stands, a wind turbine would qualify for 26.7-34.5p per KWh in government subsidies, while solar panels would typically bring in 41p per KWh. Turbine ...

Thu, 11 Mar 10
Are new biofuels the ethical answer?
http://www.scidev.net/en/agriculture-and-environment/are-new-biofuels-the-ethical-answer-.html?utm_source=link&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=en_agricultureandenvironment
SciDev.Net: New biofuels offer a sustainable source of energy but we must consider the ethical and social implications, say Joyce Tait and Banji Oyelaran-Oyeyinka. Biofuels were first pioneered in the early days of car manufacturing. Cheap fossil fuels soon overtook them as our fuel of choice, but concerns about climate change have revived interest in them -- global biofuel production doubled between 2000 and 2007, and is expected to double again by 2011. 'First generation' biofuels, ...

Thu, 11 Mar 10
China unsure on warming cause, to stick with CO2 cuts
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62924T20100310?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29
Reuters: China's top climate negotiator said on Wednesday that the cause of global warming was still not clear but the problems it was creating were so serious that the world must anyway act to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Xie Zhenhua, vice-chairman of the powerful National Development and Reform Commission, also warned the United States it should not use domestic divisions over climate change as an excuse to pass its responsibilities off onto other countries. "There are still two ...

Thu, 11 Mar 10
'Famine marriages' just one byproduct of climate change
http://australia.to/2010/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1418:rights-famine-marriages-just-one-byproduct-of-climate-change&catid=94:breaking-news&Itemid=156
Inter Press Service: The negative fallout from climate change is having a devastatingly lopsided impact on women compared to men, from higher death rates during natural disasters to heavier household and care burdens. In the 1991 cyclone disasters that killed 140,000 in Bangladesh, 90 percent of victims were reportedly women; in the 2004 Asian Tsunami, an estimated 70 to 80 percent of overall deaths were women. And following the 2005 Hurricane Katrina in the United States, African-American women, ...

Thu, 11 Mar 10
Ecuador: Avatar Downfall a Blow for Indigenous Communities
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50610
Inter Press Service: Science fiction blockbuster Avatar was the big loser in the Oscar awards ceremony - not only a blow for director James Cameron but also seen as a symbolic reverse in the struggle to recover Amazon rainforest areas in Ecuador from the effects of oil pollution. Several environmental organisations, like the Rainforest Action Network (RAN) and the Amazon Defence Coalition, had asked Cameron to "let his legions of fans know that while Pandora is fictional, what is happening to (indigenous) ...

Wed, 10 Mar 10
At White House: 14 senators discuss climate-energy legislation
http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20100309/ts_csm/286234
Christian Science Monitor: The fate of President Obama's plan to shift America toward renewable energy and away from fossil fuels may depend on the outcome of a crucial White House meeting Tuesday with 14 key senators, many from coal- and oil-producing states, who have long opposed curbs on carbon emissions. Mr. Obama – often criticized for being too hands off on complex and controversial climate-energy legislation after it became stalled in the Senate last year – now appears to be making a full-court press to ...

Wed, 10 Mar 10
Global warming skepticism rising in the GOP
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-climate-politics10-2010mar10,0,2313379.story?track=rss
LA Times: It wasn't long ago that Marco Rubio and Tim Pawlenty -- two rising Republican stars -- supported legislation to limit greenhouse gas emissions. But in recent weeks, both have begun to express doubts about whether cars, factories and power plants have anything to do with global warming. The shift by Rubio and Pawlenty -- as well as other prominent Republicans -- reflects the rising power of climate change skeptics in the GOP, where global warming is becoming a litmus test for ...

Wed, 10 Mar 10
UN to review errors made by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article7055999.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=3392178
Times (UK): The United Nations is to announce an independent review of errors made by its climate change advisory body in an attempt to restore its credibility. A team of the world's leading scientists will investigate the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and ask why its supposedly rigorous procedures failed to detect at least three serious overstatements of the risk from global warming. The review will be overseen by the InterAcademy Council, whose members are drawn from ...

Wed, 10 Mar 10
Obama wants climate bill passed this year: Senator
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62854V20100309?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29
Reuters: U.S. President Barack Obama still wants Congress to pass a climate bill this year, Republican Senator Susan Collins told reporters on Tuesday after meeting with the president. Obama gathered key Republican and Democratic senators at the White House to talk about the climate bill, seeking to jump-start stalled efforts to overhaul U.S. energy policy.

Wed, 10 Mar 10
Chanel does climate change, with real icebergs
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j_R0XcblzMR_HryFs8xEdpThICawD9EBBV684
Associated Press: Models in head-to-toe yeti suits picked their way around towering but quickly melting icebergs, sloshing through a deep puddle of Arctic melt in their shaggy fake fur. Call it climate change chic, Chanel style. Designer Karl Lagerfeld looked Tuesday to global warming, turning the melting of the polar ice caps into fodder for Chanel's fall-winter 2010-11 ready-to-wear look. Because, after all, what use is the threat of a catastrophe of global proportions if not to fuel fashion ...

Wed, 10 Mar 10
United Kingdom: Hedegaard sets out strategy for global climate talks
http://www.europeanvoice.com/article/2010/03/hedegaard-sets-out-strategy-for-global-climate-talks-/67357.aspx
European Voice: Connie Hedegaard, the European commissioner for climate action, set out a strategy to restore momentum to international talks on climate change today, even though she admitted the chances of getting a global deal agreed by the end of this year were slim. International talks on a new global agreement to tackle climate change re-start next month in Bonn and build up to a major United Nations conference in CancÃºn, Mexico at the end of the year. Speaking to the European Parliament ...

Wed, 10 Mar 10
United Kingdom: Guardian Media Group launches sustainability vision
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sustainability/guardian-media-group-sustainability-vision
Guardian: Guardian Media Group, the multimedia business whose diverse portfolio includes the Guardian and Observer, today launches an integrated sustainability vision and strategy to address issues ranging from climate change to ethical procurement. The 'Power of 10' vision is based on the belief that the group, which also includes radio stations, magazines and business to business media, can have a multiplier effect by educating and influencing its millions of readers, web users, and listeners ...

Wed, 10 Mar 10
U.S. "cap and trade" rebranded "pollution reduction"
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6284M120100309?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29
Reuters: Like a savvy Madison Avenue advertising team, senators pushing climate-control legislation have decided to scrap the name "cap and trade" and rebrand their product as "pollution reduction targets." A clunky and difficult term to define for laymen and some politicians, "cap and trade" had become dirty words on Capitol Hill in recent months. Republicans called the plan nothing more than "cap and tax" and one influential senator took great pains last week to declare cap and trade ...

Wed, 10 Mar 10
Lieberman Says Climate-Change Proposal Will Be Ready This Month
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-03-09/lieberman-says-climate-change-proposal-will-be-ready-this-month.html
Bloomberg: Senator Joseph Lieberman said lawmakers plan to complete a draft of climate-change legislation this month before taking an Easter break, as Republicans insisted the measure should be narrower than a House-passed bill. Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, is working with Democrat John Kerry of Massachusetts and Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina to craft compromise legislation after proposals for a broad emissions-trading program drew criticism from both political ...

Wed, 10 Mar 10
China, India give qualified nod to climate deal
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100309/ap_on_re_eu/eu_climate_change
Associated Press: China and India have given their qualified approval to the Copenhagen climate accord calling for voluntary limits on greenhouse gas emissions. More than 100 countries had earlier responded to a request to be "associated" with the nonbinding agreement brokered by President Barack Obama at the December climate change summit in the Danish capital. But the delay in replying by the world's two fastest-growing polluters had raised concern the accord could be rendered meaningless, ...

Wed, 10 Mar 10
China and India endorse Copenhagen climate deal
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6283A120100309?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29
Reuters: China and India joined almost all other major greenhouse gas emitters Tuesday in signing up to the climate accord struck in Copenhagen, boosting a deal strongly favored by the United States. More than 100 nations have now endorsed the Copenhagen Accord, a non-binding agreement reached after two weeks of tortuous wrangling at a 194-nation summit in December. The accord plans $100 billion a year in climate aid for developing nations from 2020 and seeks to limit global warming to ...

Wed, 10 Mar 10
China and India Join Climate Agreement
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/10/world/10climate.html
New York Times: China and India formally agreed Tuesday to join the international climate change agreemen reached last December in Copenhagen, the last two major economies to sign up. The two countries, among the largest and fastest-growing sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the world, submitted letters to the United Nations agreeing to be included on a list of countries covered by the so-called Copenhagen Accord, a three-page nonbinding statement reached at the end of the contentious and chaotic ...

Wed, 10 Mar 10
China, India Sign Up to Copenhagen Climate-Change Agreement
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-03-09/china-india-sign-up-to-copenhagen-climate-change-agreement.html
Bloomberg: China and India signed on to the Copenhagen climate-change agreement reached in December in the Danish capital, meaning all the world's largest emitters have now agreed to the deal. Chinese lead negotiator Su Wei today wrote to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to add his country's name to the agreement. The letter was posted on the body's Web site. India Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh today told parliament that India had also signed up. "Our ...

Wed, 10 Mar 10
Obama to push climate change in White House meeting
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62833H20100309
Reuters: President Barack Obama will corral on Tuesday key Republican and Democratic senators whose support is critical for passing a climate change law, seeking to jump-start stalled efforts to overhaul energy policy. Obama called the White House meeting with top lawmakers and members of his cabinet to reinvigorate one of his policy priorities, which even his advisers admit has suffered from the president's intense focus on healthcare reform. The House of Representatives has already ...

Wed, 10 Mar 10
New study reveals scale of "outsourced emissions"
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2259196/study-reveals-scale-outsourced
Business Green: The extent to which the UK and other industrialised nations are "outsourcing " their carbon emissions to developing countries was again highlighted today with the publication of a major new report revealing that goods and services imported into developed countries typically account for around a third of their total carbon footprint. The study from a team of researchers at the Carnegie Institution for Science used published trade data for 2004 to assess the global trade flows for ...

Wed, 10 Mar 10
EU climate chief: global deal unlikely before 2011
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100309/ap_on_re_eu/eu_eu_climate_change
Associated Press: The European Union's climate change chief says a global deal on reducing greenhouse gas emissions may not be possible before 2011. EU Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard says it would be risky to expect a legally binding deal to emerge from the planned December U.N. climate summit in Cancun, Mexico. Hedegaard told the European Parliament on Tuesday that "remaining differences between parties may delay agreement on this until next year."

Wed, 10 Mar 10
Wild relatives of crops seen aiding climate fight
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LDE6272DL.htm
Reuters: Farm experts plan to track down wild relatives of crops such as rice or wheat with traits that make them able to resist global warming in a project costing perhaps $50 million, a leading expert said on Tuesday. "The wild relatives of cultivated crops ... are largely uncollected or conserved in gene banks," said Cary Fowler, head of the Rome-based Global Crop Diversity Trust which co-manages a "doomsday" seed vault on an Arctic island north of Norway. "We're at the early stages" ...

Wed, 10 Mar 10
Climate forest deal in sight: Indonesia
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100309/wl_asia_afp/unclimatewarmingforestsindonesiaus_20100309002156
Agence France-Presse: Wealthy and developing nations should be able to seal an agreement this year on deforestation, unlocking a key part of the next treaty on global warming, Indonesian negotiators said Monday. At December's Copenhagen climate summit, six nations pledged a total of 3.5 billion dollars to help developing countries fight the loss of forests, seen as a leading cause of global warming along with industrial pollution. Basah Hernowo, a senior official in Indonesia's forestry ministry, ...

Wed, 10 Mar 10
China supports nuclear power development in orderly way
http://english.cctv.com/20100309/101303.shtml
Xinhua: Nuclear power should be developed with due regulations and in an orderly way thanks to its strict requirement for human resources, technology, security and quality, a Chinese official said Monday here at the international conference on civilian use of nuclear energy. Nuclear power, a clean, safe and economic energy, "plays an important role in energy conservation, environment protection and the strive to cope with climate change," Deputy Director of China' s National Energy ...

Wed, 10 Mar 10
'Gribble' marine pest may be key to biofuel breakthrough, say scientists
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/earth-environment/article7054684.ece
Times (UK): A marine pest could be the key to a biofuel breakthrough, say scientists. Gribble, which resemble pink woodlice, plagued seafarers for centuries by boring through the planks of ships and destroying wooden piers. But now environmental scientists are taking a keen interest in the crustaceans. A team of British researchers has learnt that gribble have a gift for digesting wood not seen in any other animal. Enzymes produced by the tiny creatures are able to break down woody ...

Wed, 10 Mar 10
James Hansen keen on next-generation nuclear power
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/james-hansen-keen-on-next-generation-nuclear-power/story-e6frgcjx-1225838858482
Australian: RENEWABLE energy won't save the planet so it's time to go nuclear, according to one of world's most high-profile climate scientists. "We should undertake urgent focused research and development programs in next generation nuclear power," said atmospheric physicist James Hansen, head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and adjunct professor at Columbia University's Earth Institute in New York. While renewable energies such as solar and wind were gaining in economic ...

Wed, 10 Mar 10
EU faces court challenge over biofuels reports
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62801Q20100309
Reuters: Four environmental groups have sued the European Union's executive for withholding documents they say will add to a growing dossier of evidence that biofuels harm the environment and push up food prices. The lawsuit, lodged with the EU's General Court, the bloc's second highest court, alleges several violations of European laws on transparency and democracy. But the European Commission countered that the action was premature as it had not formally refused access and had already ...

Wed, 10 Mar 10
Cool it on efforts against new rules, EPA chief asks
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/biz/6903639.html
Houston Chronicle: The head of the Environmental Protection Agency on Monday pushed back against lawmakers' attempts to halt the EPA's regulation of greenhouse gases from power plants, refiners and other industrial facilities. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said the agency's proposed new rules, which would take effect next year, could help ignite new demand for clean energy technology. Instead of trying to block new rules, lawmakers should spend their energy focusing on "new legislation to do ...

Wed, 10 Mar 10
S Africa, India in race for UN climate chief job
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/environment/developmental-issues/S-Africa-India-in-race-for-UN-climate-chief-job/articleshow/5664227.cms
Times of India: South Africa will pit its tourism minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk against Indian environment secretary Vijay Sharma for the key post of UN's climate change chief. Sharma will face competition from van Schalkwyk as the UN seeks a replacement for Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Van Schalkwyk's nomination was approved by the South African government after President Jacob Zuma met with him at the weekend to emphasise ...

Wed, 10 Mar 10
United Kingdom: Gardeners urged to stop using peat-based compost
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/gardeners-urged-to-stop-using-peatbased-compost-1918355.html
Independent (UK): The star of the BBC's Gardeners' World has been drafted in by the Government as they try to persuade the public to stop using peat compost. Ministers hope that Diarmuid Gavin will help them convince gardeners to stop using peat, which is present in almost half of all compost sold by garden centres. Yesterday the Environment Secretary Hilary Benn announced a new target to phase out the use of peat compost in amateur gardens by 2020 but shied away from imposing a ban, provoking ...

Wed, 10 Mar 10
'No reason for US to wait for India, China on climate change'
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/Story/87282/World/'No+reason+for+US+to+wait+for+India,+China+on+climate+change'.html
Press Trust of India: The US should not wait for India and China to act on climate change and should go ahead with its environmental protection activities in terms of legislation besides research and development, a top official of the Obama Administration has said. Lisa Jackson, Administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), also decried lawmakers of the opposition Republican Party who have been opposing the Climate Change legislation and asking the Obama Administration not to take any ...

Wed, 10 Mar 10
Climate Change: Who Pays for Emissions in Global Trade?
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1970662,00.html?xid=rss-topstories
Time Magazine: Popularly, China is a villain in climate change. Many people who attended last year's chaotic U.N. climate-change talks in Copenhagen -- especially those who belonged to the U.S. delegation -- singled out China as the main reason the summit nearly collapsed. Chinese diplomats fought hard against any form of emissions regulation, even though their country is now the world's No. 1 national carbon emitter, and will emit far more carbon in the future than any other. In Washington, opponents of ...

Wed, 10 Mar 10
India backs Copenhagen climate deal: minister
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100309/sc_afp/indiaunclimatewarming
Agence France-Presse: India has decided to formally back a climate change accord struck in Copenhagen last year that includes non-binding limits on global warming, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said Tuesday. Ramesh told parliament that India, the last major emitter yet to formally endorse the agreement, would join the more than 100 other countries that have already "associated" with it. "We participated in the negotiations on the Copenhagen Accord and we stand by the accord," Ramesh ...

Wed, 10 Mar 10
Legal action targets EU biofuel policy
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2259153/legal-action-targets-eu-biofuel
Business Green: European biofuel developers are facing fresh uncertainty about the future of the industry, after four environmental groups yesterday launched legal action against the European Union, accusing it of withholding evidence that allegedly shows that current biofuel policies harm the environment and push up food prices. The lawsuit, filed on Monday by ClientEarth, Transport & Environment, the European Environmental Bureau and BirdLife International, will result in further investment ...

Wed, 10 Mar 10
Third of EU emissions 'imported'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8557461.stm
BBC: Rich countries including several EU nations are "importing" about a third of their CO2 emissions, says a study. US-based researchers used a global trade database to track goods and services, and assigned emissions to the countries where they were used. Nearly a quarter of China's emissions come from goods exported to the West. Writing in the journal PNAS, the researchers say this is an ethical reason why rich countries should lead global attempts to cut ...

Mon, 8 Mar 10
United Kingdom: BNFL memoir revives nuclear safety fears
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/mar/07/bnfl-director-book-sellafield-cancer-concerns
Guardian: The autobiography of a former director of British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) is likely to reignite fears about the safety of nuclear power, as Britain prepares for a new generation of reactors, by exposing the panic that rocked the industry two decades ago when a link was suggested between radiation and childhood leukaemia. At its height, workers at Sellafield were advised not to have children, while bosses at the Cumbrian nuclear complex even proposed establishing a sperm bank or calling ...

Mon, 8 Mar 10
Climate change scientists hit back
http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/pacbeat/stories/201003/s2839064.htm
Radio Australia: As scepticism about climate change gains traction around the world, a group of international scientists is trying to hit back. They've released a new study which they say shores up the facts and figures behind global warming. The researchers say the study not only updates the information which the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has about global warming, but shows the situation is much worse. Presenter: Di Bain Speaker: Professor David Karoly, Melbourne ...

Mon, 8 Mar 10
Green living with Ed Begley Jr.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/03/07/eco.ed.begley/
CNN: Actor Ed Begley Jr., best known for his roles in "St. Elsewhere", "The West Wing", "Best in Show" (he's also twice appeared on "The Simpsons") is the star of "Living with Ed". It's a reality show that follows him and his wife Rachelle Carson as they attempt to live the green life on the outskirts of LA, while competing to out-eco neighbor Bill Nye. Begley has been a committed environmentalist for decades, and is the author of "Living Like Ed: A Guide to the Eco-Friendly ...

Mon, 8 Mar 10
Wanted: an eco prophet
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/07/climate-change-inertia-prophet
Guardian: It's an exceptionally inconvenient truth. Only one American in three believes that human beings are responsible for climate change: a polling result 10% down on where opinion rested the year before. Worse, the number of Americans who believe that climate change is a hoax or a scientific conspiracy – not doubting, just damned blank certain – has doubled since 2008. Add in those who assert that the changes, if any, are of "no significant concern", and you've got 30% of the US denying, scoffing ...

Mon, 8 Mar 10
EDF nuclear reactor carries 'Chernobyl-size' explosion risk
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/mar/07/edf-nuclear-reactor-chernobyl-risk
Guardian: French anti-nuclear campaigners claim a new power plant being built in Normandy carries an accident risk of "Chernobyl proportions". Sortir du NuclÃ©aire, a protest network, says leaked confidential documents show that tests on the third-generation pressurised water reactor present a potentially catastrophic scenario. The network has eight internal papers showing the results of tests on the European Pressurised Reactor (EPR) that, it claims, reveal defects in the mechanism that ...

Mon, 8 Mar 10
Global climate change and biodiversity
http://nation.ittefaq.com/issues/2010/03/08/news0556.htm
New Nation: Dr. Mohammad Ibrahim, an eminent scientist of Bangladesh and nature lover notes that about 40 per cent of about 44 thousand species of the world are at stake due to climatic and other disasters. Human-induced climate change tends to reduce the genetic diversity of individual species. Again, successful adaptation to climate change may depend to a greater extent on the ability of species to disperse to new areas but this ability is also increasingly impeded by human-induced landscape change. ...

Mon, 8 Mar 10
United States: A municipal power co-op tied to area towns tackles a $2B hydroelectric project
http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100307/NEWS16/100309781/-1/RSS10
Toledo Blade: Three months after halting construction of a mammoth $3.3 billion coal-fired power plant it had proposed for southern Ohio's Meigs County, American Municipal Power Inc. is following through with a $2 billion investment in five hydroelectric projects at existing dams along the Ohio River. Seventy-nine of AMP's 126 member communities have committed themselves financially. Nearly a third of those investors are small and mid-sized communities in northwest Ohio and southeast ...

Mon, 8 Mar 10
Hydrogen highway inches closer
http://www2.canada.com/northshorenews/news/story.html?id=d1a8fba5-f9eb-4826-a5b1-516c621a5068
North Shore News: A few days before B.C. Transit unveiled 20 gleaming new hydrogen-powered buses in Whistler, the fleet got its first fuel-up at a North Vancouver company called Hydrogen Technology and Energy Corporation, or HTEC. But the three-year-old company doesn't yet have the plant equipment to ship hydrogen over long distances, so when the Whistler buses went back to the pump in the resort town, they refuelled with hydrogen brought in by tanker truck from Quebec. Critics of hydrogen ...

Mon, 8 Mar 10
Global climate battle plays out in World Bank
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6260GW20100307
Reuters: The United States and Britain are threatening to withhold support for a $3.75 billion World Bank loan for a coal-fired plant in South Africa, expanding the battleground in the global debate over who should pay for clean energy. The opposition by the bank's two largest members has raised eyebrows among those who note that the two advanced economies are allowing development of coal-powered plants in their own countries even as they raise concerns about those in poorer ...

Mon, 8 Mar 10
Millions of low-energy lightbulbs wasted as companies exploit loopholes
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/mar/07/energy-lightbulbs-wasted-lax-regulation
Guardian: Forty-two million energy-saving lightbulbs were sent out by utilities companies in the three months before Christmas under the government's Â£3bn energy-efficiency scheme, even though many are unlikely to be used. Since the scheme began less than two years ago, 224m bulbs have been distributed – almost 10 for each household. According to a survey by the Energy Saving Trust last year, the average home had six unused bulbs lying in drawers. When the government introduced the ...

Mon, 8 Mar 10
New Study: Humans Are Causing Climate Change
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1832779/new_study_humans_are_causing_climate_change/
redOrbit: The UK Met office says that it is becoming clearer that human activities are causing climate change. The office says that the evidence is stronger now than when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change carried out its last assessment in 2007. The review has assessed 110 research papers on the subject. The analysis, which was published in the Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change Journal, said the Earth is changing rapidly, most likely due to greenhouse gases. The ...

Mon, 8 Mar 10
How food and water are driving a 21st-century African land grab
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/07/food-water-africa-land-grab
Guardian: We turned off the main road to Awassa, talked our way past security guards and drove a mile across empty land before we found what will soon be Ethiopia's largest greenhouse. Nestling below an escarpment of the Rift Valley, the development is far from finished, but the plastic and steel structure already stretches over 20 hectares – the size of 20 football pitches. The farm manager shows us millions of tomatoes, peppers and other vegetables being grown in 500m rows in computer ...

Mon, 8 Mar 10
Rise in UK carbon emissions disputed by report
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/07/carbon-dioxide-global-warming-soil
Guardian: A major study for the UK government has cast doubt over claims that rising temperatures are causing soil to pump greater amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, further fuelling global warming. In 2005 it was reported in the science journal Nature that over the past 25 years 100m tonnes of carbon dioxide had been released by the soil of England and Wales. The figure cancelled out all emissions cuts in the UK since 1990. However, a national survey of the soils of Great ...

Mon, 8 Mar 10
US and Brazil sign deforestation agreement
http://news.mongabay.com/2010/0307-brazil_us_mou.html
Mongabay: Brazil and the United States have signed an agreement to worth together to reduce deforestation as part of an effort to slow climate change. The memorandum of understanding signed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Brasilia last Wednesday comes as talks on REDD, a proposed climate change mitigation mechanism that would pay tropical countries for reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation, move forward despite the lack of a formal climate treaty. Under the MOU, ...

Mon, 8 Mar 10
On global warming, the science is solid
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/6900556.html
Houston Chronicle: In recent months, e-mails stolen from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit in the United Kingdom and errors in one of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's reports have caused a flurry of questions about the validity of climate change science. These issues have led several states, including Texas, to challenge the Environmental Protection Agency's finding that heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide (also known as greenhouse gases) are a threat to human ...

Mon, 8 Mar 10
Bringing Al Gore back to Earth
http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/lorrie_goldstein/2010/03/05/13130901.html
Toronto Sun: Writing recently in the Op-Ed section of the New York Times, Al Gore said: "I, for one, genuinely wish that the climate crisis were an illusion." Funny, that`s exactly what I wish about Al Gore. Now reduced to preaching climate hysteria to the converted in the echo chamber of the liberal, warmist Times, the paper at least identified Gore thusly: "As a businessman, he is an investor in alternative energy companies." Bingo! Gore, our would-be carbon billionaire, has a dog ...

Mon, 8 Mar 10
India: Conserving and restoring moorlands can slow down climate change
http://news.oneindia.in/2010/03/07/conservingand-restoring-moorlands-can-slow-down-climatecha.html
Asian News International: Scientists have stressed that conserving and restoring the moorlands is important because they are some of the rarest habitats in the world, home to extremely rare animals and plants, and can also slow down climate change. Seventy-five per cent of the world's heather moorlands are in the UK. However, pollution, overgrazing and wild fires have damaged large areas. Several organisations in the Peak District National Park in England are trying to restore and conserve the moorland ...

Mon, 8 Mar 10
Cap-and-trade key to U.S. energy reform: Exelon CEO
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62519G20100306
Reuters: U.S. energy reform has stalled now that the Democrats have lost their filibuster-proof majority in the Senate and Republicans drift to a more negative position, a top industry executive said on Saturday. "What I see is a series of disjointed, piecemeal approaches that will not yield the optimal solution," Exelon Corp Chairman John Rowe said in remarks prepared for a conference at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A cap-and-trade system or a carbon tax are the only ...

Mon, 8 Mar 10
California looks to Australia for lessons on water management
http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/news/ci_14526188
Pasadena Star-News: Over the past decade, Australia has seen its temperatures rise, its reservoirs plummet, and its crops dry up - the result of the country's worst drought in 100 years. The experience rings familiar to California water managers. In response to its crisis, Australia has made a $50 billion government investment in water infrastructure, cut water allocations to farmers by 70 percent, and slashed household water use to a quarter of what is used in Californian homes. And it seems to ...

Mon, 8 Mar 10
Growing low-oxygen zones in oceans worry scientists
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/03/07/89918/growing-low-oxygen-zones-in-oceans.html
McClatchy Newspapers: Lower levels of oxygen in the Earth's oceans, particularly off the United States' Pacific Northwest coast, could be another sign of fundamental changes linked to global climate change, scientists say. They warn that the oceans' complex undersea ecosystems and fragile food chains could be disrupted. In some spots off Washington state and Oregon, the almost complete absence of oxygen has left piles of Dungeness crab carcasses littering the ocean floor, killed off 25-year-old sea ...

Mon, 8 Mar 10
Malawi: Climate change is changing farming methods
http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=50572
Inter Press Service: As they slept soundly on the night of Feb. 28, a family of four was killed when their house collapsed over their heads in Malawi's southern district of Chikhwawa. Christopher Ganizani, 27, his wife Grace, 29, and their children Rymon, six, and Christian, who was only nine months old, were buried alive under the rubble of their house, according to Chikhwawa police spokesman Sunday Ngulube. "The house, made of unbaked mud bricks, buckled under the intensity of the heavy rains ...

Mon, 8 Mar 10
Regional, global steps to curb climate impacts urged
http://nation.ittefaq.com/issues/2010/03/07/news0412.htm
New Nation: Supporting efforts of Bangladesh in the international area, experts and scientists have said that adequate national, regional and global steps are a must for reducing the adverse impacts of ongoing climate changes (CC). If the adverse impacts of CC could not be contained, agriculture, bio-diversity, ecology, environment, climatic paterns, human health and existence of the civilizations and habitations elsewhere would be under real threats, they said. Terming the task as the ...

Mon, 8 Mar 10
Will India formally associate with Copenhagen accord again?
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/5652831.cms
Economic Times: India's presence in the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon's high level advisory panel on climate change finance appears to indicate New Delhi's move towards formally associating with the Copenhagen Accord. Government sources close to the developments said it is a "matter of time"Â before India conveys its willingness to be listed in the preamble to the Accord. Besides five experts and representatives of financial institutions, the panel includes government members of ...

Mon, 8 Mar 10
United Kingdom: Grimsby to host a biofuel blockbuster
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/natural_resources/article7052507.ece
Times (UK): Grimsby or Hollywood? For most, it's not much of a choice. Tim Levy is the exception. As head of Future Capital Partners, a Mayfair investment firm, he has spent the past decade lining up financing for more than 300 films, including blockbusters such as Iron Man 2 and The Bourne Ultimatum. Today he is excited about a vacant lot in the gritty Lincolnshire port. Levy wants to build a refinery there that will turn wheat into petrol. The plant, he argues, will be a boon to British ...

Mon, 8 Mar 10
Windfarms find a home near Britain's eyesores
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/natural_resources/article7052505.ece
Times (UK): IT started as an idea over lunch. Richard Nourse, who had made millions as a top energy banker at Merrill Lynch, had just retired at the ripe old age of 42. Sharing a celebratory meal with the finance director of ESB, Ireland's state electricity giant and a former client, they chewed over how the company planned to clean up its dirty power-generation business. "If we need to decarbonise the power sector by 2030, it's a big challenge,' said Nourse. "[The finance director] said that ...

Sun, 7 Mar 10
Bangladesh: Dealing with climate change demands a more gendered approach
http://www.thefinancialexpress-bd.com/more.php?news_id=94193
Financial Express Bangladesh: Equal Rights, Equal Opportunities: Progress for all -- with this very theme, the women of the world will be observing International Women's Day 2010. The major concern of the present world is climate change and environmental degradation. In fact, involving women in protecting the environment would help societies develop the sense of responsibility needed to maintain a good balance between humans and the earth's resources. Environmental degradation, however, is a result of the ...

Sun, 7 Mar 10
Climate change skepticism a litmus test for GOP
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-nw-climate-politics-20100305,0,187394.story
Chicago Tribune: It wasn't long ago that Marco Rubio and Tim Pawlenty, two of the brightest fresh faces in the Republican Party, supported legislation to limit the greenhouse gas emissions that are blamed for global warming. But in recent weeks both have suddenly begun to express doubts about whether burning coal, powering cars with gasoline and other human activities in fact have anything to do with a warming Earth. The shifts by Rubio and Pawlenty -- as well as other prominent Republicans -- reflect ...

Sun, 7 Mar 10
United Kingdom: For 'climategate' scientist, nuance is the enemy
http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/article/775179--gorrie-for-climategate-scientist-nuance-is-the-enemy
Toronto Star: For two decades, Phil Jones was a household name only at home and among perhaps a couple of thousand scientists studying climate change. He crunched numbers at Britain's University of East Anglia – charting Earth's temperature – and became director of the university's world renowned Climatic Research Unit. Things were fine in his world, except that he was accumulating evidence of what he considered a looming global catastrophe and faced increasing harassment from those who ...

Sun, 7 Mar 10
The Wrong Kind of Green
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100322/hari
The Nation: At first glance, these questions will seem bizarre. Groups like Conservation International are among the most trusted "brands" in America, pledged to protect and defend nature. Yet as we confront the biggest ecological crisis in human history, many of the green organizations meant to be leading the fight are busy shoveling up hard cash from the world's worst polluters--and burying science-based environmentalism in return. Sometimes the corruption is subtle; sometimes it is blatant. In the ...

Sun, 7 Mar 10
United Kingdom: Noise complaints about one in six wind farms
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/7377641/Noise-complaints-about-one-in-six-wind-farms.html
Telegraph: ven turbines have sparked the most complaints about wind farms in the country. Residents complain of a noise like someone is "mixing cement in the sky" or a "clog is stuck in the tumble dryer" and they are not the only ones. New figures reveal that at least one in six wind farms have had complaints about noise causing a lack of sleep or just been "dreadfully irritating". The statistics show the growing concern around the health impacts of wind turbines as the Government plans ...

Sun, 7 Mar 10
Australia: Calls for early start to renewables scheme
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/calls-for-early-start-to-renewables-scheme-20100305-popp.html
AAP: THE opposition will push the government to bring forward changes in its renewable energy target by six months to drive investment in clean energy. The opposition environment spokesman, Greg Hunt, will move an amendment when the changes are put to Parliament this year, which if supported will bring the start date of the new regime forward from the start of next year to July 1. The Government was forced to shore up the 20 per cent target last week after investment in large-scale ...

Sun, 7 Mar 10
Australia: But we're warming to current idea
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/but-were-warming-to-current-idea-20100306-ppnh.html
Sydney Morning Herald: WARMER oceans, balmy evenings and high humidity have led to what meteorologists have described as ''remarkably tropical'' conditions. A two-degree increase in the water temperature off the Sydney coast has been attributed to a stronger east-coast current coming from the Tasman Sea. ''The front that is associated with this current is biologically active, which can be seen from the change in the ocean colour, meaning the chlorophyll concentration is much higher this month,'' Dr ...

Sun, 7 Mar 10
Scots minister urges world leaders to follow tree planting initiative
http://news.scotsman.com/politics/Scots-minister-urges-world-leaders.6129422.jp
Scotsman: WORLD leaders were yesterday urged to follow Scotland's example after ministers pledged to plant 100 million trees to cut carbon emissions. The promise is part of a global drive to plant one billion trees by 2015, supported by Climate Group states and regions including California, Quebec and Catalonia. Climate change minister Stewart Stevenson made the commitment at a conference in EdADVERTISEMENTinburgh on energy challenges. He said: "Tackling climate change will ...

Sun, 7 Mar 10
Polar explorer to take on new challenge
http://news.scotsman.com/news/Polar-explorer-to-take-on.6129208.jp
Scotsman: A SCOTTISH explorer who was part of the first British team to walk unsupported to the North Pole is to take on a new challenge helping scientists gauge the impact of greenhouse gas emissions on the Arctic Ocean. Charlie Paton is no stranger to the icy conditions of the Arctic. However, he admits he is nervous about his latest adventure, which will see him spend about ten weeks there. He will be collecting samples of sea water from beneath the Arctic ice ADVERTISEMENTfor ...

Sun, 7 Mar 10
United Kingdom: Solar panels the hot new item as pay-as-you-save launches
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2010/mar/06/solar-panels-pay-as-you-save
Guardian: If you want to install solar panels on your roof and take advantage of lucrative new feed-in tariffs but have been put off by a lack of funds, you could soon get a loan to cover the whole cost. This week the government unveiled plans to offer homeowners 20-year loans of up to Â£15,000 to allow families to invest in green technologies, safe in the knowledge that their loan would be taken over by the purchaser if they move before it's paid off. This follows an announcement by the ...

Sat, 6 Mar 10
Climate change debate grows heated
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-onthemedia6-2010mar06,0,4556647.column
LA Times: Less than a month after CNN proclaimed "Last Decade Was Warmest Ever," a headline in Britain's Daily Mail shouted that a top climate scientist had taken a "U-turn" and now "Admits: There Has Been No Global Warming Since 1995." Pity the poor reader, whipsawed in recent weeks by what appear to be conflicting signals on one of the most complex and momentous subjects of our time. Leading scientists reported their consensus that the Earth continues to warm. Then their own error ...

Sat, 6 Mar 10
Arctic Shelf Leaking Potent Greenhouse Gas
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50565
Inter Press Service: The frozen cap trapping billions of tonnes of methane under the cold waters of the Arctic Ocean is leaking and venting the powerful greenhouse gas into the atmosphere, new research shows. It is not known if this may be one of the first indicators of a feedback loop accelerating global warming. Researchers estimate that eight million tonnes in annual methane emissions are being released from the shallow East Siberian Arctic Shelf, which is equivalent to all the methane released ...

Sat, 6 Mar 10
Huge methane leak in Arctic Ocean: study
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/huge-methane-leak-in-arctic-ocean-study-1916947.html
Agence France-Presse: Methane is leaking into the atmosphere from unstable permafrost in the Arctic Ocean faster than scientists had thought and could worsen global warming, a study said Thursday. From 2003 to 2008, an international research team led by University of Alaska-Fairbanks scientists Natalia Shakhova and Igor Semiletov surveyed the waters of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf, which covers more than 772,200 square miles (two million square kilometers) of seafloor in the Arctic Ocean. "This ...

Sat, 6 Mar 10
Looming Climate Regulations Put EPA in Conservatives' Cross Hairs
http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2010/03/05/05greenwire-looming-climate-regulations-put-epa-in-conserv-18635.html
New York Times: U.S. EPA moves toward regulating greenhouse gases is drawing fire from conservatives who are hoping to slow the agency's efforts using many of the same political strategies that they used to stall climate legislation on Capitol Hill. The agency has in recent weeks become a favorite target for conservative political candidates and commentators and tea party movement-linked blogs and rallies. "Most believe that cap and trade is dead in the U.S. Senate, and when they hear that the ...

Sat, 6 Mar 10
China may start its first city-wide carbon cap-and-trade system
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601080&sid=arHr7BXpQIfQ
Bloomberg: China may start its first city-wide carbon cap-and-trade system by June as the world's biggest polluter seeks to rein in emissions, a project adviser said. The northeast port city of Tianjin plans to impose a mandatory limit on energy used to heat buildings in the first half of this year, John Shi, chief executive officer of the carbon credit trader Arreon Carbon U.K. Ltd., said in an interview. Property managers able to reduce energy use to below the limit will earn credits they can ...

Sat, 6 Mar 10
Life After Growth
http://www.countercurrents.org/heinberg040310.htm
Counter Currents: In 2008 the U.S. economy tripped down a steep, rocky slope. Employment levels plummeted; so did purchases of autos and other consumer goods. Property values crashed; foreclosure and bankruptcy rates bled. For states, counties, cities, and towns; for manufacturers, retailers, and middle- and low-income families, the consequences were--and continue to be--catastrophic. Other nations were soon caught up in the undertow. In late 2009 and early 2010, the economy showed some signs of ...

Sat, 6 Mar 10
Drought affects 6 million in southern China
http://asia.news.yahoo.com/ap/20100303/tap-as-china-drought-bb10fb8.html
Associated Press: Workers have begun tapping into underground water reserves to help the nearly 6 million people who have been affected by the worst drought to hit China's southern province of Yunnan in 60 years, a local official said Wednesday. Severe water shortages for crops and livestock prompted the local government to send dozens of teams out Wednesday to six major drought-hit regions around Yunnan to pump water from underground sources, said a director at the Yunnan Land Resources Bureau, who ...

Sat, 6 Mar 10
War over the Arctic? Global warming skeptics distract us from security risks
http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20100302/cm_csm/284276_1
Christian Science Monitor: Skepticism about climate change is going mainstream, and that is worrying. One-third of Americans now say global warming doesn't exist – triple the percentage of three years ago. This defiance of science isn't just harmful for the environment. It's also distracting us from growing threats to US national security. Actual – not theoretical – effects of climate change are turning the Arctic into a potential military flash point. Expected melting of summer sea ice in the Arctic ...

Sat, 6 Mar 10
Climate change shareholder actions hit record high
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2259015/climate-change-shareholder
Business Green: The number of climate change-related shareholder actions has soared 40 per cent during the 2010 proxy season to a record 95 resolutions, according to new figures from sustainable investment lobby group Ceres. The flurry of shareholder resolutions, many of which all on companies to provide more detailed information on the risks they face as a result of climate change and imminent carbon regulations, are expected to increase further after the Securities and Exchange Commission recently ...

Sat, 6 Mar 10
Budget silent on wind power, climate change
http://www.canada.com/business/Budget+silent+wind+power+climate+change/2644956/story.html
Canwest News Service: Canada's wind energy sector is among the groups losing out in the latest federal budget which will maintain hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies for fossil fuel industry companies from Western Canada. The government has announced more than $100 million over four years in new spending to promote renewable energy in the forestry sector but Thursday's federal budget was silent on its recent international climate change commitments toward developing countries. Robert ...

Sat, 6 Mar 10
Methane releases from Arctic shelf may be much larger and faster than anticipated
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100304142240.htm
ScienceDaily: A section of the Arctic Ocean seafloor that holds vast stores of frozen methane is showing signs of instability and widespread venting of the powerful greenhouse gas, according to the findings of an international research team led by University of Alaska Fairbanks scientists Natalia Shakhova and Igor Semiletov. The research results, published in the March 5 edition of the journal Science, show that the permafrost under the East Siberian Arctic Shelf, long thought to be an impermeable ...

Sat, 6 Mar 10
Snowball Earth: New evidence hints at global glaciation 716.5 million years ago
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100304142228.htm
ScienceDaily: Geologists have found evidence that sea ice extended to the equator 716.5 million years ago, bringing new precision to a "snowball Earth" event long suspected to have taken place around that time. Led by scientists at Harvard University, the team reports on its work in the journal Science. The new findings -- based on an analysis of ancient tropical rocks that are now found in remote northwestern Canada -- bolster the theory that our planet has, at times in the past, been ice-covered ...

Sat, 6 Mar 10
Humans must be to blame for climate change, say scientists
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/humans-umustu-be-to-blame-for-climate-change-say-scientists-1916506.html
Independent (UK): Climate scientists have delivered a powerful riposte to their sceptical critics with a study that strengthens the case for saying global warming is largely the result of man-made emissions of greenhouse gases. The researchers found that no other possible natural phenomenon, such as volcanic eruptions or variations in the activity of the Sun, could explain the significant warming of the planet over the past half century as recorded on every continent including Antarctica. It is ...

Sat, 6 Mar 10
95 per cent chance that Man is to blame for global warming, say scientists
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7050341.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=3392178
Times (UK): The evidence that human activity is causing global warming is much stronger than previously stated and is found in all parts of the world, according to a study that attempts to refute claims from sceptics. The "fingerprints' of human influence on the climate can be detected not only in rising temperatures but also in the saltiness of the oceans, rising humidity, changes in rainfall and the shrinking of Arctic Sea ice at the rate of 600,000 sq km a decade. The study, by senior ...

Sat, 6 Mar 10
Ireland: NTR launches foundation to tackle climate change
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2010/0305/1224265630754.html
Irish Times: IRISH RENEWABLE energy group NTR yesterday launched a not-for-profit foundation that will provide funding and other support for climate change initiatives around the world. Former US president Bill Clinton gave his support to the initiative at a launch in New York yesterday and urged the 120 executives and local dignitaries who attended to seize the economic opportunities provided by climate change initiatives as a way of stimulating growth and saving the planet. "I think you ...

Sat, 6 Mar 10
China to unveil multibillion-dollar renewable energy plan
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2259005/china-unveil-multi-billion
Business Green: The Chinese government is working on a 10 year initiative that would see 15 per cent of the country's electricity generated from low carbon sources by 2020, according to reports in the China Daily. Zhang Guobao, head of the National Energy Administration, told the state-owned paper that the plan, which would see billions of dollars invested in wind, solar and nuclear power, is set to be launched in the coming months. He also revealed that the recently formed National Energy ...

Sat, 6 Mar 10
Japan rift risks watering down climate bill
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6241K620100305?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29
Reuters: A rift within Japan's government over legislation to fight climate change has raised the risk of it watering down plans for an emissions trading system that is at the core of its drive for greener policies. In its latest draft for a climate bill expected to be submitted to parliament next Friday, the environment ministry is vague on details of how the scheme would set emission limits and when trading would start. The environment ministry has favored setting volume caps on ...

Sat, 6 Mar 10
Drought extinguishes Venezuela's lightning phenomenon
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/05/venezuela-lightning-el-nino
Guardian: Darkness rarely lasted long in the skies over Lake Maracaibo. An hour after dusk the show would begin: a lightning bolt, then another, and another, until the whole horizon flashed white. Electrical storms, product of a unique meteorological phenomenon, have lit up nights in this corner of Venezuela for thousands of years. Francis Drake abandoned a sneak attack on the city of Maracaibo in 1595 when lightning betrayed his ships to the Spanish garrison. But now the lightning has ...

Sat, 6 Mar 10
Interior to announce sage grouse finding Friday
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100305/ap_on_bi_ge/us_sage_grouse
Associated Press: The Interior Department plans to announce whether it will pursue endangered species protection for sage grouse, a decision with major ramifications for the West's renewable energy and oil and gas industries. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is expected to say Friday whether the department will pursue listing the chicken-sized bird as endangered, threatened, or not endangered or threatened. Many of the West's sagebrush expanses are considered good habitat for sage grouse, but are ...

Sat, 6 Mar 10
The Thirsty Caribbean
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50544
Inter Press Service: Caribbean countries are considering options like desalination plants and cloud seeding to confront a drought that threatens the regional economy and which experts warned about years ago. In St. Lucia and Trinidad and Tobago, the authorities are warning of prosecution, including jail time, if consumers violate measures introduced to curb the use of water other than for drinking, cooking and bathing. In a paper presented in a 2007 conference in Barbados, entitled "Coping with ...

Sat, 6 Mar 10
Europe's Green Diplomacy: Global Climate Governance Emerges as Test Case for EU
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,681931,00.html#ref=rss
Spiegel: Europe's new foreign service could provide an opportunity for more effectively addressing the challenges of climate change. The Lisbon Treaty provides new tools for the Europe Union to combat climate change. But Brussels will have to figure out how to put its new foreign service to use in order to avoid another failure of global environmental leadership like the one seen Copenhagen. Leading by example is no longer enough. The failure of the Copenhagen climate conference to ...

Sat, 6 Mar 10
Methane escaping from Arctic faster than expected and could stoke global warming, warn scientists
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1255652/Climate-change-Methane-escaping-Arctic-faster-expected-stoke-global-warming-warn-scientists.html
Daily Mail: The potent greenhouse gas methane, is bubbling out of the frozen Arctic much faster than expected and could stoke global warming. Methane had become trapped in the permafrost over time and now 8million tonnes of it is seeping out due to rising temperatures, researchers said today. 'Subsea permafrost is losing its ability to be an impermeable cap,' Natalia Shakhova, a scientist at the University of Fairbanks, Alaska, said in a statement. She co-led the study published in ...

Sat, 6 Mar 10
Study Says Undersea Release of Methane Is Under Way
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/05/science/earth/05methane.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
New York Times: Climate scientists have long warned that global warming could unlock vast stores of the greenhouse gas methane that are frozen into the Arctic permafrost, setting off potentially significant increases in global warming. Now researchers at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, and elsewhere say this change is under way in a little-studied area under the sea, the East Siberian Arctic Shelf, west of the Bering Strait. Natalia Shakhova, a scientist at the university and a leader of ...

Thu, 4 Mar 10
Palm oil tested on sustainability
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/LC04Ae01.html
Asia Times: Palm oil plantations play a major role in the growing problems of deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions in Indonesia and tropical woodlands around the world. Last week's gathering of the International Conference on Oil Palm and Environment (ICOPE) is one move toward making the industry part of the solution. Whether the palm oil industry can, in fact, be part of the solution to deforestation is a proposition that divides palm oil producers, manufacturers, retailers, and, ...

Thu, 4 Mar 10
Climate change will impact infectious diseases worldwide, but questions remain as to how
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=climate-change-will-impact-infectio-2010-03-03
Scientific American: As climatologists weather the IPCC controversy, another storm is brewing, and this one is filled with not with bloggers but with beasts, bugs and bacteria. It is the potential plague of infectious diseases--threatened to be made worse, many scientists propose, by projected changes in the Earth's climate. At a symposium held yesterday at the New York Academy of Sciences, researchers from public health, climate, medicine and other fields gathered to discuss some of the big questions ...

Thu, 4 Mar 10
Initiatives not enough to face climate change
http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=128478
Daily Star: Climate change is already a reality for Bangladesh, but the initiatives taken by the World Bank and other development partners to tackle its impacts are inadequate, said State Minister for Environment and Forest Dr Hasan Mahmud yesterday. Hasan Mahmud was the chief guest at the consultation meeting of the World Bank environment strategy held at a city hotel. The World Bank organised the consultation meeting as part of the process of updating its global environment strategy for ...

Thu, 4 Mar 10
Cap-and-trade drop draws support
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/33803.html
Politico: Democrats pushing a climate change bill have been desperately looking for a few more Lindsey Grahams on the Republican side of the aisle. All they had to do was drop the toxic "cap and trade' aspect of the legislation, and Republican doors started opening. "Any movement away from an economywide cap-and-trade system is a movement in the right direction,' said GOP Conference Chairman Sen. Lamar Alexander, who said the new direction "makes a lot more sense.' Republicans ...

Thu, 4 Mar 10
Most Canadians don't do enough to fight climate change: survey
http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Most+Canadians+enough+fight+climate+change+survey/2636165/story.html
Vancouver Sun: When it comes to helping the environment, most Canadians don't even give themselves an "A" for effort. Only one in five people say they're doing as much as they can to reduce their impact on climate change, according to a national survey released Wednesday. However, about 80 per cent of respondents to the World Wildlife Federation survey said they want to do more to reduce their environmental impact. "The survey results clearly show that Canadians are motivated to do ...

Thu, 4 Mar 10
S&P warns carbon risks are set to bite
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2258858/warns-carbon-risks-set-bite
Business Green: Growing numbers of firms believe exposure to rising carbon prices will have a significant impact on their business from 2012 onwards when the third phase of the EU emissions trading scheme (ETS) comes into effect, according to a new survey published by credit ratings agency Standard and Poor's. The survey, which canvassed the views of 513 corporate issuers rated by Standard & Poor's on their current and anticipated carbon exposure, found that to date European companies' carbon ...

Thu, 4 Mar 10
Carbon traders pessimistic over global expansion
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2258850/carbon-traders-pessimistic
Business Green: Carbon traders are increasingly sceptical that major new cap-and-trade schemes will emerge over the next five years, although they remain bullish over the prospects for existing carbon trading schemes such as the European emissions trading scheme (ETS). That is the central conclusion of a major annual survey of nearly 4,800 carbon market participants operating in 118 countries undertaken by analyst Point Carbon. Taken prior to Republican senator Lindsey Graham's declaration ...

Thu, 4 Mar 10
Government report warns climate change policies could damage air quality
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2258856/government-report-warns-climate
Business Green: Measures designed to cut carbon emissions could inadvertently undermine efforts to improve air quality unless the government tightens integration between climate change and air pollution policies. That is the conclusion of a major new report from Defra released today, which estimates the UK economy would save Â£24bn by 2050 adopting measures that jointly help prevent carbon emissions and air pollution. The study, titled Air Pollution: Action in a Changing Climate, acknowledges ...

Thu, 4 Mar 10
Scientists Take Steps to Defend Work on Climate
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/03/science/earth/03climate.html
New York Times: For months, climate scientists have taken a vicious beating in the media and on the Internet, accused of hiding data, covering up errors and suppressing alternate views. Their response until now has been largely to assert the legitimacy of the vast body of climate science and to mock their critics as cranks and know-nothings. But the volume of criticism and the depth of doubt have only grown, and many scientists now realize they are facing a crisis of public confidence and have to ...

Thu, 4 Mar 10
Indonesia's Protected Forests Now Open to Development
http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/business/indonesias-protected-forests-now-open-to-development/361392
Jakarta Globe: President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has signed a decree to allow mining, power plants and other projects deemed strategically important to take place in protected forests. The decree, which took effect on Feb. 1, is certain to anger environmental groups given that the country already has one of the fastest rates of deforestation in the world. "The use of forest areas for development activities can be done for unavoidable strategic purposes," said the decree, which said key ...

Wed, 3 Mar 10
Australia has hottest and driest summer on record
http://news.mongabay.com/2010/0302-australia.html
Mongabay: Western Australia endured its hottest summer on record, according to the state weather bureau. At 29.6Â°C, temperatures were 0.2Â°C warmer than the previous record, set in 1997-1998. Western Australia has been keeping state-wide temperature data since 1950. Perth, the state's capital, had its driest summer since record-keeping began in 1897. Only 0.2 millimeters of rain fell in between December and the end of February. Perth's average maximum summer temperature was 31.8Â°C, 1.5Â°C ...

Wed, 3 Mar 10
Senator Graham calls cap-and-trade plan dead
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62142T20100303?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29
Reuters: The idea of imposing a broad cap-and-trade system to cut America's greenhouse gas emissions is dead and will be replaced with a new approach, an influential Republican senator said on Tuesday. Lindsey Graham, one of three senators working against daunting odds to produce a compromise climate bill, has recently turned against imposing the kind of cap-and-trade system used in Europe, which involves companies buying and selling pollution permits. Graham did not specify whether ...

Wed, 3 Mar 10
United Kingdom: Houses with low energy efficiency will lose value in government plans
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article7047481.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=3392178
Times (UK): Houses with low energy efficiency will lose value under government plans to intervene in the property market to help cut greenhouse gas emissions from homes by a third by 2020. Estate agents will be given guidance telling them to take more notice of energy efficiency when deciding the value of homes. Ministers believe that homeowners are more likely to pay for efficiency measures such as solar panels and insulation if their investment clearly increases the property's value. The ...

Wed, 3 Mar 10
India proposes coal tax to pay for clean energy push
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2258824/india-proposes-coal-tax-pay
Business Green: The Indian government is expected to back up its recent commitment to curb carbon emissions with a controversial move to levy a new tax on coal in order to pay for the roll out of renewable energy technologies. Speaking in his annual budget speech to the Indian parliament, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee said that a clean energy tax of 50 rupees ($1) a tonne will be leveled on all domestically produced or imported coal with the resulting revenue ring-fenced for use in a new national ...

Wed, 3 Mar 10
Britain plans soft loans for home efficiency
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6212CD20100302?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29
Reuters: British households will be able to take out soft loans to improve the efficiency of their homes, under a new proposed law to fight climate change and cut fuel poverty, the government said on Tuesday. The aim is to overcome the high upfront cost of home refurbishments, for example to insulate lofts, thicken walls and install draught-proof windows, by allowing people to take out long-term loans at subsidized interest rates. The cash-strapped British government hoped high demand ...

Wed, 3 Mar 10
Sweden to build 2,000 new wind turbines: minister
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100302/sc_afp/swedengovernmentenergyenvironment
Agence France-Presse: Sweden will build 2,000 new wind turbines over the next decade as part of a bid to dramatically increase its production of renewable energy, Enterprise and Energy Minister Maud Olofsson said Tuesday. "Sweden has extremely good prospects for rapidly increasing the production of renewable energy, especially from the burning of biofuels, cogeneration plants and windpower," Olofsson wrote in a newspaper column. The Scandinavian country would for instance build "2,000 new wind ...

Wed, 3 Mar 10
U.S. Pays a Price for Dirty Air
http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20100302/hl_hsn/uspaysapricefordirtyair
HealthDay: In the state of California, failure to meet federal and state standards for air pollution was responsible for nearly $200 million in hospital medical expenses over a three-year period, a new study reports. The Rand Corp., which released the study March 2, estimates that excessive levels of air pollution -- including ozone and fine particles in the air -- caused nearly 30,000 emergency hospital visits and admissions over the time period from 2005 to 2007 in California. Government ...

Wed, 3 Mar 10
UN mulls global environment organization
http://news.mongabay.com/2010/0302-hance_weo.html
Mongabay: Mass extinction, ocean acidification, deforestation, pollution, desertification, and climate change: the environmental issues facing the world are numerous and increasingly global in nature. To respond more effectively, the United Nations is considering forming a World Environmental Organization or WEO, similar to the World Trade Organization. The idea was first seriously considered at Copenhagen in December, but has taken a step forward at an annual meeting of the United Nation ...

Wed, 3 Mar 10
Al Gore, ghost of climate change past
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/mar/02/al-gore-climate-change
Guardian: Al Gore, the ghost of climate change past, showed up to haunt the New York Times's opinion pages this past Sunday. Eloquent and impassioned as ever, the former vice-president reminded us that the current controversy over scientific malfeasance won't change the fact that the polar ice caps are melting and the earth continues to heat up. "I, for one, genuinely wish that the climate crisis were an illusion," he wrote. "But unfortunately, the reality of the danger we are courting has not ...

Wed, 3 Mar 10
Senator Graham calls cap and trade climate plan dead
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62142T20100302?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29
Reuters: Senator Lindsey Graham said on Tuesday a proposed economy-wide cap-and-trade system for reducing emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases was dead and would be replaced in a new bill. Graham, a Republican, did not specify whether cap-and-trade might be used to control emissions in just one sector, such as utility companies, instead of earlier efforts for an economy-wide mechanism. "The cap-and-trade bills in the House and Senate are dead. The concept of ...

Wed, 3 Mar 10
A gas tax to cure global warming? Compromise looks to revive stalled plan
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/A-gas-tax-to-cure-global-warming_-Compromise-looks-to-revive-stalled-plan-85863197.html
Washington Examiner: A group of senators are trying to resuscitate global warming legislation, but the potential inclusion of a new gas tax threatens to keep action on one of President Obama's signature initiatives stalled. Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., have pushed aside the politically unpopular idea of passing a "cap and trade" system for regulating most emissions and would instead go after power plants, motor vehicles and manufacturers with targeted ...

Wed, 3 Mar 10
Alberta works quietly to improve image of oil sands
http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2010/03/01/01climatewire-alberta-works-quietly-to-improve-image-of-oi-75823.html
ClimateWire: South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R) talked about tires on a recent Saturday. An Indiana congressman heard about engines days later. And in Wisconsin, the discussion centers on monster shovels that trundle through pit mines on tank treads. These aren't masculine chats about molded metal and mechanics. The unpublicized conversations are about oil. A specific sludge of lampooned and coveted crude: Canada's gooey bitumen from the Albertan "oil patch." The forested province is ...

Wed, 3 Mar 10
Electric cars moving from prototype to showroom
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/01/business/global/01autoshow.html
New York Times: Gherardo Corsini, director of electric vehicle implementation at General Motors' Opel/Vauxhall unit, made his way Sunday to Geneva from Germany more quietly than most. He was at the wheel of a prototype of the Opel Ampera. "Getting lots of curious looks at the rest area," one of Mr. Corsini's passengers, Dietmar Thate, manager of social media for Opel, tweeted after the car made a short stop Sunday. The hybrid car, which will be put on display this week at the Geneva ...

Wed, 3 Mar 10
United Kingdom: Boilers that generate electricity could power homes more efficiently than grid
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/02/domestic-combined-heat-and-power-boilers-electricity
Guardian: Domestic gas boilers that can simultaneously generate electricity and heat will be unveiled in the UK today, providing a lower-carbon option to power homes. The so-called micro-combined heat and power (micro CHP) units look like ordinary wall-hung gas boilers, but as well as generating heat for radiators and water, they produce electricity as a byproduct. Traditional boilers are highly efficient at generating heat within the home, with more than 90% of the energy in the fuel ...

Wed, 3 Mar 10
Climate talks seek to prepare ground for Mexico meeting
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20100302a6.html
Kyodo News: Climate negotiators from about 30 countries and international organizations began exploring ways Monday to advance talks on a new framework to combat climate change beyond 2012. At a two-day meeting in Tokyo, working-level participants at the Informal Meeting on Further Actions against Climate Change, cochairs Japan and Brazil will lead discussions on how to build on the failed Copenhagen Accord, and move toward the next meeting in Mexico, scheduled for late November. In his ...

Wed, 3 Mar 10
Oil palm plantations support fewer ant species than rainforest
http://news.mongabay.com/2010/0302-ants_palm_oil.html
Mongabay: Oil palm plantations support substantially less biodiversity than natural forests when it comes to ant species, reports new research published in Basic and Applied Ecology. Tom Fayle, a University of Cambridge biologist, and colleagues sampled ant populations in Danum Valley Conservation Area, a rainforest, and nearby oil palm plantations in Sabah, a state Malaysian Borneo. The researchers counted 16,000 worker ants from 309 species in the natural forest but only in 110 species at the ...

Wed, 3 Mar 10
United Kingdom: Climategate scientist questioned in Parliament
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18599-climategate-scientist-questioned-in-parliament.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=climate-change
New Scientist: Beleaguered climate scientist Phil Jones from the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK, yesterday answered his critics during questions from a British parliamentary committee. In 30 minutes of tense cross-examination by the House of Commons science and technology committee, he denied that the thousand-plus emails from his unit published on the web three months ago showed he and his colleagues doing anything beyond "standard practice". Jones's ...

Wed, 3 Mar 10
Indonesia mulls invite to join Basic negotiating group
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2258787/indonesia-mulls-invite-join
Business Green: In what could prove a significant development for faltering international climate change negotiations, Indonesian officials have revealed the country has been invited to join Brazil, South Africa, India and China, in the so-called Basic Group that negotiated the controversial Copenhagen Accord with the US. Agus Purnomo, special assistant to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyuno on climate change affairs, told the Jakarta Post that the president had received an informal invitation from ...

Wed, 3 Mar 10
There's no war to fight over global warming
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20527490.100-theres-no-war-to-fight-over-global-warming.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=climate-change
New Scientist: WHAT is it like being a climate scientist at the moment? Not much fun. It's a bit like your next-door neighbour being accused of a crime and everyone in the city you live in, including yourself, being told they are under suspicion as well. Accusations about lack of integrity, deceit and bias are flying thick and fast. To most climate scientists, these accusations seem deeply unfair: mistakes may have been made, but it is wrong to condemn the whole of climate science as incompetent, ...

Wed, 3 Mar 10
United Kingdom: Government plans 'green loans' to make homes more efficient
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/government-plans-green-loans-to-make-homes-more-efficient-1914587.html
Independent (UK): Plans for "green loans" to help householders make their homes more energy efficient by installing technology such as solar panels and insulation were announced by the Government today. The scheme will see the loans tied to the house where the eco-measures are installed, so they can be paid back over a long enough period that the savings on energy bills outweigh the payback costs. The Pay As You Save programme aims to overcome the financial barriers - such as upfront costs - ...

Wed, 3 Mar 10
United Kingdom: Government launches green home loan revolution
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2258775/government-launches-green-home
Business Green: The government today set out its vision for reducing carbon emissions from the UK's homes, unveiling wide-ranging plans designed to accelerate the rollout of energy efficiency measures, improve householders access to green loans and subsidies and provide a major boost to the emerging green home improvement sector. The 52-page Warm Homes, Greener Homes strategy sets a series of energy efficiency targets, including commitments to cut carbon emissions from UK homes by 29 per cent by ...

Wed, 3 Mar 10
Will polar bears make it back to shore?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/7078673/Will-polar-bears-make-it-back-to-shore.html
Telegraph: The pair became stranded after climbing onto the chunk of ice during a expedition to hunt seals. Soon the ice floe shrank down to just a few yards and rapidly drifted down the Olga Strait of Svalbard in Norway. But although the bears look frightened, huddled together in the centre of the iceberg, experts predicted that the agile swimmers will be able to get safely back to shore. Images of polar bears stranded out at sea are often used to highlight the affect of global warming ...

Wed, 3 Mar 10
Nuclear projects face financial obstacles
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/01/AR2010030103975.html
Washington Post: Hopes for a nuclear revival, fanned by fears of global warming and a changing political climate in Washington, are running into new obstacles over a key element -- money. A new approach for easing the cost of new multibillion-dollar reactors, which can take years to complete, has provoked a backlash from big-business customers unwilling to go along. Financing has always been one of the biggest obstacles to a renaissance of nuclear power. The plants are expensive, and ...

Wed, 3 Mar 10
Supermarkets to offer 'green energy makeovers'
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/7345251/Supermarkets-to-offer-green-energy-makeovers.html
Telegraph: Ed Miliband, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, will announce a package of measures today to make Britain's homes "greener and warmer". A key element will be the Pay as You Save or PAYS scheme which provides "green home loans" of up to Â£10,000 through supermarkets, DIY chains or local authorities but allows the homeowner to pay back the cost over time as savings are made on energy bills. For example, a home owner can insulate the loft or have solar panels installed and pay the ...

Wed, 3 Mar 10
Ancient corals hold new hope for reefs
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100301182106.htm
ScienceDaily: Fossil corals, up to half a million years old, are providing fresh hope that coral reefs may be able to withstand the huge stresses imposed on them by today's human activity. Reef ecosystems were able to persist through massive environmental changes imposed by sharply falling sea levels during previous ice ages, an international scientific team has found. This provides new hope for their capacity to endure the increasing human impacts forecast for the 21st century. In the ...

Wed, 3 Mar 10
British scientist in climate row admits 'awful' emails
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100302/wl_afp/britainclimatewarmingresearch
Agence France-Presse: A British climate researcher at the centre of a row over global warming science has admitted he wrote some "pretty awful" emails to sceptics when he was refusing their requests for data. But Phil Jones, of the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit, defended Monday his decision not to release the data about temperatures from around the world, saying it was not "standard practice" to do so. "I have obviously written some pretty awful emails," Jones told British ...

Wed, 3 Mar 10
PNG carbon trader joins forces with Aust technology group
http://tvnz.co.nz/world-news/png-carbon-trader-joins-aust-tech-group-3389371
AAP: ASX-listed m2m Corporation Ltd has dropped a $10 million merger with Carbon Planet and gone into business with a man accused of running a carbon "cargo cult" in Papua New Guinea. Former disqualified Australian horse trainer and Philippine cock-fighting syndicate operator Kirk Roberts, and his company Nupan, is now working for technology investment group m2m to develop carbon trading projects in PNG. At a volatile meeting between PNG government and forest landowners on Monday ...

Wed, 3 Mar 10
EU Public Asked How to Shield Forests From Climate Change
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/mar2010/2010-03-01-03.html
Environment News Service: EU Public Asked How to Shield Forests From Climate Change Environment News Service (ENS) EU Public Asked How to Shield Forests From Climate Change BRUSSELS, Belgium, March 1, 2010 (ENS) - Wildfires, storms, droughts and heat waves - European forests are beset with threats from a warming planet. Today, the European Commission opened a wide-ranging public discussion on how best to safeguard EU forests from the impacts of climate change. The request for public input is ...

Wed, 3 Mar 10
Indonesian-Australian carbon project in Sumatra
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100302/wl_asia_afp/indonesiaaustraliaclimatewarmingenvironment
Agence France-Presse: Indonesia and Australia announced on Tuesday a multi-million dollar initiative to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and forest degradation on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. The Sumatra Forest Carbon Partnership worth 30 million Australian dollars (27 million dollars) will address immediate threats to forest on mineral soils in Jambi province. The announcement in a statement by Australian Climate Change Penny Wong and Indonesian Forestry Minister Zulkifli ...

Wed, 3 Mar 10
'Climate Change is Killing People in Drylands"
http://www.indepthnews.net/news/news.php?key1=2010-03-01%2002:38:53&key2=1
InDepthNews: "Enhancing soils anywhere enhances life everywhere," says UN's top official Luc Gnacadja, who is tasked with combating land degradation and drought – not only in Africa, the most vulnerable continent, but all along the drylands belt running from Latin America through Sahel and Asia. Gnacadja is executive secretary of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), which along with the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Convention on Biological Diversity ...

Wed, 3 Mar 10
Qatar, Germany set up solar power joint venture
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100302/ap_on_bi_ge/ml_qatar_solar
Associated Press: A state-run foundation in the natural gas-rich state of Qatar says it is setting up a joint venture plant with Germany's SolarWorld to produce the main ingredient in solar panels. Qatar Foundation says the deal marks "the first phase" in the Persian Gulf state's push into the solar energy field. The deal gives Qatar Foundation a 70 percent stake in the project, and Qatar Development Bank another 1 percent. Bonn, Germany-based SolarWorld will hold the rest. The companies ...

Wed, 3 Mar 10
Norway latest to announce carbon fraud crackdown
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2258755/norway-latest-announce-carbon
Business Green: Norway looks to have become the latest in a string of European countries to fall foul of complicated fraud involving EU carbon credits. Three people were charged late last week with alleged VAT fraud, while at least two firms are also under investigation over suspected fraudulent trading of EU emission allowances. The Norwegian government also announced it will emulate a number of other European governments by changing the rules governing VAT to tackle so-called carousel ...

Wed, 3 Mar 10
Expert: Climate change effort will take centuries
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/mar/02/expert-climate-change-effort-will-take-centuries/
Las Vegas Sun: Adele Morris is a fellow and policy director at the Brookings Institution, which, in partnership with UNLV, runs the Brookings Mountain West think tank. Her work focuses on energy and natural resource policies related to the economics of climate change. Brookings Mountain West brought her to the university last week. How do you connect environmental and economic issues? There is increased awareness now of the external costs of natural resources use. The market process ...

Wed, 3 Mar 10
Spain proposes doubling of renewable energy capacity
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2258758/spain-proposes-doubling
Business Green: Spain is hedging its bets on renewable energy sources as a means to revive its recession-hit economy -- with a proposal to more than double production from clean energy to over 20 per cent of total energy use by 2020. According to Reuters reports, the Spanish government is seeking cross-party consensus on its plans to turn a record 3.6 per cent decline in the economy in 2009 into 2.9 per cent growth in 2012, driven in large part by investment in more renewable energy ...

Wed, 3 Mar 10
Japan: Mitsubishi completes new giant solar cell plant
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2258724/mitsubishi-completes-giant
Business Green: One of the world's largest solar panel producers, Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, has underlined its growing confidence in the global solar market, announcing yesterday that it has completed work on a giant new solar cell factory and is to raise production of photovoltaic (PV) inverters from this May. The company said that construction has been completed on its second PV cell production plant -- its Nakatsugawa Works Iida Factory -- in Nagano Prefecture, Japan. It added that the ...

Tue, 2 Mar 10
Earthquake prone Japan sees green in new nuclear power plants
http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20100301/wl_csm/281642
Christian Science Monitor: Japan is pressing ahead with an expansion of nuclear power, despite public unease and vocal opposition from activists. Poor in natural resources, the country has long dreamed of reducing its fossil fuel dependency through domestic nuclear power. Now it's casting nuclear energy as a key to the fight against global warming, an argument that critics reject. Japan's debate closely mirrors those worldwide, as governments highlight nuclear power as an easier way to cut carbon ...

Tue, 2 Mar 10
Climate Change Likely Caused Polar Bear to Evolve Quickly
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=polar-bear-genome-climate
Scientific American: Climactic changes might currently be threatening the survival of polar bears (Ursus maritimus), but similar shifts appear to have played an important part in bringing the species into existence in the not too distant past. Researchers announced today that they have sequenced the mitochondrial genome of an ancient polar bear. The genetic traces they found in the bear's 110,000- to 130,000-year-old jawbone reveal that the species likely split from brown bears (U. arctos) just 150,000 ...

Tue, 2 Mar 10
Climate scientists quizzed by British lawmakers
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100301/ap_on_sc/eu_britain_hacked_e_mails
Associated Press: Academics at a British climate research center at the center of a controversy about the science of global warming defended their work during cross-examination at Parliament on Monday, rejecting allegations that they manipulated climate data. But a former researcher at the University of East Anglia's prestigious Climatic Research Unit admitted he had withheld some scientific data about global temperatures collected from around the world and written some "awful" e-mails to critics who ...

Tue, 2 Mar 10
Canada: Sustainable Energy bets on Ontario solar market
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6205BV20100301?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29
Reuters: Sustainable Energy Technologies Ltd, a solar equipment maker that recently relocated to Toronto from Calgary, may soon land its first large-scale orders in its new home province, the world's newest "go-to" region for solar power. The company, whose shares have risen 150 percent in the past year, also expects to announce a tie-up soon with a top European solar panel maker to supply the Ontario market with thin-film panels carrying Sustainable Energy's power inverters, its chief ...

Tue, 2 Mar 10
Coffee supplies hit by rising demand, climate change
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2010/03/coffee-supplies-hit-by-rising-demand-climate-change/1
USA Today: More coffee drinking coupled with climate change have reduced supplies of beans, producers said at an international conference over the weekend. "There is already evidence of important changes," said Nestor Osorio, the head of the International Coffee Organization, which represents 77 countries that export or import beans. "In the last 25 years the temperature has risen half a degree in coffee producing countries, five times more than in the 25 years before." Warming ...

Tue, 2 Mar 10
Why we are failing orangutans
http://news.mongabay.com/2010/0301-thompson_orangutans_interview.html
Mongabay: It is no secret that orangutans are threatened with extinction because their rain forests are being destroyed at an alarming rate. Ten years ago, Shawn Thompson, a writer, former journalist and university professor, set out to chronicle the threat to orangutans in a book released in March 2010. The book is called The Intimate Ape: Orangutans and the Secret Life of a Vanishing Species. The book spends most of the time talking about the nature of orangutans and the relationships between ...

Tue, 2 Mar 10
Inhofe accused of turning climate row into 'McCarthyite witch-hunt'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/01/inhofe-climate-mccarthyite
Guardian: The US Congress's most ardent global warming sceptic is being accused of turning the row over climate science into a McCarthyite witch-hunt by calling for a criminal investigation of scientists. Climate scientists say Senator James Inhofe's call for a criminal investigation into American as well as British scientists who worked on the UN climate body's report or had communications with East Anglia's climate research unit represents an attempt to silence debate on the eve of new ...

Tue, 2 Mar 10
India proposes coal tax for clean energy
http://www.upi.com/Science_News/Resource-Wars/2010/03/01/India-proposes-coal-tax-for-clean-energy/UPI-89761267464322/
United Press International: The Indian government proposed a coal tax Friday aimed at creating a fund for promoting clean energy. Indian Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said a clean energy tax of $1 per metric ton would be applied to domestic and imported coal. The minister also proposed tax incentives to boost investment in solar, wind and geothermal power generation. The National Clean Energy Fund, Mukherjee said, is being created to fund research and innovative projects in clean energy ...

Tue, 2 Mar 10
Trade row looms as adviser calls for carbon tax on China
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/mar/01/carbon-tax-trade-china
Guardian: Ministers should consider a carbon tax on imports to help struggling British manufacturers, according to one of the government's key advisers, despite fears such a measure could lead to a global trade war. Lord Turner, who heads the UK committee on climate change, said the government should "rigorously assess" bringing in levies on cheap imports from countries outside the European Union, which are not subject to carbon-related costs such as the EU emissions trading ...

Tue, 2 Mar 10
Climate change may extend allergy season: study
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6203YT20100301
Reuters: Sneezing, congestion, and runny noses from hay fever may be lasting longer because climate change may be extending pollen seasons, doctors in Italy said on Monday. Pollen seasons as well as the amount of pollen in the air progressively increased during a six-year study in Italy, the doctors told a meeting of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology in New Orleans. The team at Genoa University recorded pollen counts, how long pollen seasons lasted and sensitivity ...

Tue, 2 Mar 10
US climate change bill options for senators
http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKN0118965120100301
Reuters: A new U.S. climate change bill could make its debut in the Senate soon in what likely would be the last big effort by Democrats to enact major environmental reforms this year. The House of Representatives narrowly passed a "cap and trade" bill in June to bring down U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases blamed for global warming. But that bill, and a similar one approved in November by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, did not gain broad ...

Tue, 2 Mar 10
Chinese political advisors asked for practical advice on climate change
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2010-03/02/c_13193075.htm
Xinhua: China's top political advisor Jia Qinglin on Monday urged political advisors to offer practical suggestions to the country's pressing task of coping with climate change. Jia, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), a political advisory body, made the call as he presided over a lecture given to the Standing Committee of the 11th CPPCC National Committee. Xie Zhenhua, Vice Minister of the National Development and ...

Tue, 2 Mar 10
From coal to clean energy: an Iraq war veteran's next fight
http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2010/0301/From-coal-to-clean-energy-an-Iraq-war-veteran-s-next-fight
Christian Science Monitor: As a captain in the Army, I was used to seeing the blasted, wasted landscapes of unfamiliar countries. From the window of a plane or the door of a helicopter, they were a familiar sight, the last high-level view before descending into a nasty fight. I expected such images of destruction in Iraq and Afghanistan. But not in West Virginia. Yet the ugly reality of mountaintop removal coal mining is what greeted me on my return home after a year-long tour in Iraq. Seeing the land I ...

Tue, 2 Mar 10
MacGen Australia's heaviest emitter
http://www.theage.com.au/business/macgen-australias-heaviest-emitter-20100301-pdj1.html
Age: NSW power company Macquarie Generation is Australia's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, according to Department of Climate Change data. The company, which operates the massive Liddell and Bayswater coal-fired power stations in the NSW Hunter Valley, reported total direct (so-called ''Scope 1'') emissions of 25.3 million tonnes of carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gasses, or about 4 per cent of Australia's total. It is the first time the figures have been collated under the ...

Tue, 2 Mar 10
New research sheds light on Antarctic ice melting
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124178690
National Public Radio: There may be no polar bears at the South Pole, but there sure is a lot of ice. In fact, more than 90 percent of the Earth's glacial ice is in Antarctica. Now, new research shows the continent's ice is melting in more places than previously known. Host Guy Raz speaks to scientist Jane Ferrigno of the U.S. Geological Survey about the Antarctic Peninsula's ice retreat. GUY RAZ, host: In Antarctica, you'll find 90 percent of the world's glacial ice, but new research from the ...

Tue, 2 Mar 10
China preparing for ice-free Arctic as global thaw uncovers new opportunities
http://www.latimes.com/business/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-eu-china-arctic,0,6349420.story
Associated Press: China is starting to prepare for the commercial and strategic opportunities arising as global warming melts the polar ice cover in the Arctic, an international peace research group said Monday. Researchers expect the North Pole to be ice free during summer months in a matter of decades, opening up new shipping lanes and potential resource exploration in an area believed to contain as much as a quarter of the world's undiscovered oil and gas. Competing sovereignty claims in the ...

Tue, 2 Mar 10
Global warming raises Taiwan typhoon danger
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hKrR122mMtwyO5S8kAl0wwRpgw0w
Agence France-Presse: Global warming is raising the danger from typhoons, Taiwan experts warned Monday, saying the island may be hit in a year or two by a powerful storm like the one which killed more than 700 last August. Typhoon Morakot dumped a record 3,000 millimetres (120 inches) of rainfall and caused massive mudslides in the south of the island, and the government should be prepared for similar disasters in the future, they said. "A typhoon as powerful as Morakot is very likely to strike ...

Tue, 2 Mar 10
Guyana forests worth more than gold
http://news.uk.msn.com/environment/articles.aspx?cp-documentid=152366860
MSN: Anacondas, giant otters and the world's largest bird of prey proved to be worth more than their weight in gold when dredging for the metal was banned in their forest home, conservationists have said. The ban on gold dredging in the unspoilt region of Guyana follows a campaign by Amerindian villagers, backed by scientists from the Zoological Society of London. PhD students Rob Pickles and Niall McCann travelled to the Rewa Head in the South American country to study giant otters ...

Tue, 2 Mar 10
Global Warming Kicks Up Allergy Storm
http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20100301/hl_hsn/globalwarmingkicksupallergystorm
HealthDay: The rise in temperatures associated with climate change might have an unexpected consequence: more allergies among more people. New research from Italy suggests that higher temperatures are lengthening the pollen season for some plants and trees, increasing the pollen load they produce and causing a rise in the number of people who are developing allergies to certain pollens. "The increase of global radiation determines an advance [of pollen season] and an increased period of ...

Tue, 2 Mar 10
Rogue Democrats propose new roadblock for EPA carbon rules
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2258704/rogue-democrats-propose
Business Green: The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is facing a further challenge to its right to regulate carbon emissions, after two senior Democrats in the House of Representatives defied the Obama Administration to file a resolution that would block the agency's plan to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Congressmen Ike Skelton and Collin Peterson joined with Republican Jo Ann Emerson last week to table a resolution of disapproval challenging the EPA's ruling that greenhouse gas emissions ...

Tue, 2 Mar 10
United Kingdom: Thames Barrier closed again to protect capital
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/thames-barrier-closed-again-to-protect-capital-1914071.html
Press Association: The Thames Barrier was closed for the third time in two days today to protect London from a combination of high tides and swollen rivers following heavy rainfall over the weekend. But the Environment Agency said the risk of flooding across England and Wales was easing, and the number of flood warnings and watches in place is expected to decrease. The flooding risk rose after days of heavy rain swelled rivers and saturated the ground. A storm which left at least 51 people ...

Tue, 2 Mar 10
Gore Feels the Heat, Comes In From the Cold
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/03/01/al-gore-is-back/?test=latestnews
Fox News: Al Gore has come in from the cold -- writing an Op-Ed for the New York Times just two days after FoxNews.com noted the former vice president's seeming unwillingness to comment on the Climate-gate scandal. Gore won a Nobel Prize and an Oscar for his film, An Inconvenient Truth,which explored the topic of climate change and argued that man is one of the main causes for it. But in the last three months, as global warming has gone from a scientific certitude to the subject of satire, Gore ...

Tue, 2 Mar 10
Oil firms braced for anti-tar sand resolutions
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2258694/oil-firms-braced-anti-tar-sand
Business Green: British companies involved in the controversial extraction of oil from Canadian tar sands in Alberta are preparing themselves for a backlash from shareholders and environmentalists hell bent on highlighting their opposition to the plans. According to reports in The Observer yesterday, an increasingly vocal group of shareholders and environmentalists are planning to turn the forthcoming BP, Shell and Royal Bank of Scotland annual meetings into a referendum on these controversial ...

Tue, 2 Mar 10
United Kingdom: Billions of midges freeze to death
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article7044805.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=3392178
Times (UK): At least one benefit has resulted from the worst winter to grip the Highlands in decades. Billions of midges have frozen to death hibernating in the ground, according to the world's leading expert on the biting beastie. The news will be greeted with joy by the country's tourist operators. The Scottish tourism industry is estimated to lose about Â£300 million a year in badly bitten vistors who swear never to return after being breakfasted upon by the voracious and swarming ...

Tue, 2 Mar 10
Green fuels cause more harm than fossil fuels, according to report
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7044708.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=3392178
Times (UK): Using fossil fuel in vehicles is better for the environment than so-called green fuels made from crops, according to a government study seen by The Times. The findings show that the Department for Transport's target for raising the level of biofuel in all fuel sold in Britain will result in millions of acres of forest being logged or burnt down and converted to plantations. The study, likely to force a review of the target, concludes that some of the most commonly-used biofuel crops ...

Tue, 2 Mar 10
Australia: AGL revives major wind farm plan after policy change
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSSGE61R02V20100301
Reuters: Australia's largest energy retailer, AGL Energy Ltd (AGK.AX), revived plans to build a major wind farm on Monday, after the government vowed to increase investment security in the sector. AGL said the Macarthur wind farm, previously estimated to cost A$800 million ($716 million), will be constructed in a joint venture with New Zealand's state-owned generator Meridian Energy Ltd [MEREN.UL], with AGL taking all of the wind farm's energy output and renewable energy certificates, it said ...

Tue, 2 Mar 10
Climate Group Plans Review
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704089904575093922862906324.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Wall Street Journal: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's announcement over the weekend that it will seek independent experts to investigate how factual errors were published in its latest report is a key aspect of the organization's effort to understand and divulge its institutional problems, officials there say. The announcement by the United Nations-sponsored organization Saturday comes as it gears up to produce another big report on global warming. The IPCC, which won a Nobel Peace ...

Tue, 2 Mar 10
Climate scientist at centre of email row to face questions from MPs
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/01/hacked-climate-email-scientist-parliamentary-committee
Guardian: The climate scientist at the centre of a media storm over private emails released on to the internet will face his first public questions on the affair today when he appears before a parliamentary committee. The science and technology select committee is expected to ask Phil Jones, head of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, to explain emails that critics claim show he manipulated data and censored research. It will be the first time Jones has ...

Tue, 2 Mar 10
Bangladesh: Chunati forest to be regenerated
http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=128185
Daily Star: The government has approved the first public sector project under Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) to regenerate degraded reserve forest in Chunati under Cox's Bazar district. About 7,764-hectare area of degraded forest would be reforested under the Chunati Reforestation Programme, State Minister for Environment and Forests Hasan Mahmud told a seminar here yesterday. It will be the second CDM project in the country to tap opportunities of global carbon market as the government ...

Tue, 2 Mar 10
Gore takes aim at climate change skeptics
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/gore-takes-aim-at-climate-change-skeptics-1913871.html
Reuters: Former US Vice President Al Gore on took aim at skeptics who doubt the reality of human-caused climate change, saying he wished it were an illusion but that the problem is real and urgent. Gore, who has made the fight against climate change his signature issue since leaving the White House in 2001, specifically addressed challenges to the accuracy of findings by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. "I, for one, genuinely wish that the climate crisis were an ...

Tue, 2 Mar 10
UK flood warnings remain as heavy rain eases
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/mar/01/uk-flood-warnings-rain-weather
Guardian: Flood warnings remain in force today despite some respite from the deluge of rain that hit the UK over the weekend. The Environment Agency had 18 flood warnings in place this morning and 140 flood watches, although it said it was not expecting any flooding of property. The remaining risk of flooding – the warnings apply to north-east England, parts of East Anglia, and the river Arun in West Sussex – is posed by river water still running down after the weekend rainfall, the ...

Tue, 2 Mar 10
Google touts solar thermal breakthrough
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2258673/google-touts-solar-thermal
Business Green: Google's high-profile plan to develop renewable energy that is cheaper than coal could soon bear fruit, after the search giant revealed it has developed a new mirror technology that could slash the cost of building a solar thermal plant. According to reports by Reuters, the internal prototype for the new concentrated solar technology promises to cut the cost of solar thermal power systems in half. Bill Weihl, Google's green czar, told the news agency that if development and ...

Tue, 2 Mar 10
Green Measures Expose Bias Against Urban Poor
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50492
Inter Press Service: Edgar Borras sifts through his remaining possessions in a demolished shanty beside a Manila waterway, preparing to bring them to his wife and 12-year-old son who now live in a remote relocation site in a province outside the Philippine capital. "They want to come back here. They don't like it there. It's too far," Borras said in an interview, referring to the site in Calauan in Laguna province, some 74 km away. Before a November 2009 government order to move flood-prone ...

Tue, 2 Mar 10
Mexico: Ecological Smoke from Fuel Efficient Stoves
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50484
Inter Press Service: The lives of many rural women and children in Mexico are changing, and the country's high deforestation rate could be reduced, as inexpensive fuel-efficient cook stoves are being distributed by non-governmental organisations with corporate and government support. The open cooking fires replaced by the improved stoves cause respiratory and eye infections, as well as severe burns, which are especially frequent among young children who stumble or fall into their mothers' fire ...

Tue, 2 Mar 10
China eyeing perks of ice-free Arctic: study
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100301/sc_afp/chinaarcticbusinessenvironmentresearch
Agence France-Presse: China has started exploring how to reap economic and strategic benefits from the ice melting at the Arctic with global warming, a Stockholm research institute said Monday. Chinese officials have so far had been cautious in expressing interest in the region for fear of causing alarm among the five countries bordering the Arctic, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said. "The prospect of the Arctic being navigable during summer months, leading to both ...

Tue, 2 Mar 10
GE to switch to gearbox-free offshore wind turbines
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2258655/ge-switch-gearbox-free-offshore
Business Green: Engineering giant General Electric has confirmed its future portfolio of offshore wind turbines are to do away with gear boxes in an attempt to improve reliability. The company acquired Norway-based offshore wind turbine manufacturer ScanWind -- which specialises in direct drive turbines that do not feature gear boxes -- last September and is currently working on integrating its technology into its own offshore wind turbines. Speaking to BusinessGreen.com, Carlos Haertel, ...

Tue, 2 Mar 10
United Kingdom: Miliband plots "local energy revolution"
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2258654/miliband-plots-local-energy
Business Green: Energy and climate change secretary Ed Miliband will this week outline plans to kick-start a "local energy revolution" that will make it simpler for local councils to generate and sell energy back to the grid. The proposed legislation, which would be enacted if Labour wins the forthcoming election, would build on the imminent feed-in tariff incentive scheme by allowing councils to individually or jointly form renewable energy companies. Under the plan, a dedicated support ...

Tue, 2 Mar 10
UN proposes WTO-style environment watchdog
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2258653/un-proposes-wto-style
Business Green: A global environmental watchdog modelled on the powerful World Trade Organisation (WTO) could be formed as part of any international climate change treaty, according to environment ministers meeting in Bali last week who agreed to form a new working group to investigate proposed reforms to environmental governance procedures. Speaking to reporters at the close of the meeting, Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), signalled there was growing support ...

Tue, 2 Mar 10
A turnaround on climate change
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2832420.htm
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: "Public loses faith in climate change" was the headline of a report in Britain's The Guardian newspaper last month. According to a Mori poll, the proportion of British adults who believe climate change is "definitely" a reality has fallen from 44 to 31 per cent over the past year. And while only six per cent said climate change was not happening at all, the pollster suggested that because those over 64 were not polled, the survey exaggerates the share of true believers. In the ...

Tue, 2 Mar 10
Australia: Rudd sees Greens deal as climate solution
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/politics/rudd-sees-greens-deal-as-climate-solution/story-e6frgczf-1225835358601
Australian: Email Share Add to Digg Add to del.icio.us Add to Facebook Add to Kwoff Add to Myspace Add to Newsvine What are these? KEVIN Rudd has raised the prospect of a deal on climate with the Greens, who want an interim carbon price to end the Senate deadlock over an emissions trading scheme. But he is playing down the likelihood of using the impasse as a double dissolution election trigger in October, as talks continue between Climate Change Minister Penny Wong and the Greens' ...

Mon, 1 Mar 10
UN and U.S. Officials Mount Defense of Science Behind Global Warming
http://e360.yale.edu/content/digest.msp?id=2289&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+YaleEnvironment360+%28Yale+Environment+360%29
Yale Environment 360: UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Lisa P. Jackson, head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, have reasserted that the science behind global warming is incontrovertible and that government officials should reject attempts to derail climate change initiatives because of errors in reports by the UN's panel on global warming. Referring to mistakes in a 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Ban said in a message to environmental ministers meeting in Indonesia, ...

Mon, 1 Mar 10
Poor nations could be paid to preserve marine CO2 -UN
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/JAK197575.htm
Reuters: Developing countries could in future earn money from reducing carbon emissions by protecting oceans and marine ecosystems, a top U.N. official said on Thursday. Sea grasses, mangroves and salt marshes naturally store huge amounts of carbon but this is released as greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, when wetlands are drained or disturbed. The head of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Achim Steiner, said a combination of public and private funds could be used ...

Mon, 1 Mar 10
Nuclear Energy's Comeback Is Fueled By Lobbying Dollars, Not By Safer or Better Technology
http://www.alternet.org/environment/145813/nuclear_energy's_comeback_is_fueled_by_lobbying_dollars,_not_by_safer_or_better_technology/?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=alternet_environment
AlterNet: The mystery has been solved. Where is this "new reactor renaissance" coming from? There has been no deep, thoughtful re-making or re-evaluation of atomic technology. No solution to the nuke waste problem. No making reactors economically sound. No private insurance against radioactive disasters by terror or error. No grassroots citizens now desperate to live near fragile containment domes and outtake pipes spewing radioactive tritium at 27 US reactors. No, nothing about ...

Mon, 1 Mar 10
Climate Refugees, Hotspot Case Study: Mexico
http://www.countercurrents.org/deprez270210.htm
Counter Currents: 'Hotspot' case study: Mexico With a confluence of climate and non-climate drivers, the ubiquitous presence of land degradation, and an irregular geographical population and land distribution, Mexico, not just Chile, stands out as a candidate to witness the next environmental shock and its consequences and an exemplary potential hotspot for environmentally-induced migration in Latin America.1 Its adjacency to the United States has in part facilitated international migration as a viable ...

Mon, 1 Mar 10
Australia: The case for ecosocialism
http://www.greenleft.org.au/2010/828/42597
Green Left: The rapid melting of the Arctic sea-ice is one of the most alarming examples of the looming climate change catastrophe. But where most see disaster, some of the world's richest corporations see a business opportunity. The rate of Arctic ice melt in recent years has surprised and worried experts. It is not just the fragile Arctic ecosystem that is under threat. As the ice retreats due to global warming, less sunlight is reflected back into space by the white surface. This means ...