A Few Things Ill Considered

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Another week of Climate Disruption News

September 20, 2009

• Equinox, Copenhagen, Climate Week, US-EU Tiff, Border Tax, Subsidies, UNCCD, FAO Meetings
• Melting Arctic, Methane, Geopolitics, Antarctica, Bottom Line, World Bank, Solar Cycle, Health Impacts, Grumbine
• Food Crisis, Food Production
• Hurricanes, GHGs, Temperatures, Aerosols, Paleoclimate, ENSO, Glaciers, Sea Levels, THC, Satellites
• Impacts, Forests, Climate Refugees, Wildfires, Floods & Droughts
• Mitigation, Transportation, Buildings, Sequestration, Geoengineering
• Journals, Misc. Science, Lovelock, Hansen, Borlaug
• UN, Carbon Trade, Carbon Tax, Optimal Carbon Reduction Strategy, Law & Activism
• America, Obama, Britain, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, India, China, Japan, Asia, Africa, South America, Canada
• Ecological Economics, IPAT, Apocalypso, Media, Video, Courts, Betting
• Energy, Wind, Solar, Coal, Biofuel, Nukes, Peak Oil, Grid, Efficiency, Cars, Business, Greenwashing
• Joe's List, Carbon Lobby, Miscellaneous Climate, Useful Links
• Shameless Self Promotion, .sig

Equinox is coming up this week:

• USNO: Equinoxes, Solstices, Perihelion, and Aphelion, 2000-2020

  Speculation about the upcoming Copenhagen conference is building:

• COP15: United Nations Climate Change Conference Copenhagen 2009
• 2009/09/20: ChicagoTrib: 9 hurdles to climate treaty -- Administration working toward deal ahead of Copenhagen
• 2009/09/20: BostonGlobe: The essential pillars of a new climate pact
• 2009/09/20: Guardian(UK): Copenhagen summit -- We saved the economy; now for the world
• 2009/09/19: OBMB: Is the US Hoping to Reset the Copenhagen Clock?
• 2009/09/18: G&M: Twiddling our thumbs while waiting for a U.S. climate-change bill
  Having ceded important parts of Canada's climate-change policies to the United States -- or, to put matters more mildly, having decided to wait on the United States -- the Harper government can hardly take a lead in North America on reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. With climate-change talks resuming in Copenhagen in December, the U.S. remains a long way from developing a coherent position -- which means Canada is stalled, too. Today, as yesterday, the U.S., Canada and other key industrial countries are in Washington discussing their pre-Copenhagen thinking, knowing there's no consensus and huge differences between them and developing countries. For the U.S., as so often is the case, climate change is tied up in congressional politics. Until the dust settles, it will be difficult for U.S. negotiators to make commitments at Copenhagen.
• 2009/09/15: Ecologist: Copenhagen and population growth: the topic politicians won't discuss
• 2009/09/16: Grist: Suddenly, a few reasons to be optimistic about Copenhagen
• 2009/09/16: NYT:CW: Senate Delay on Climate Bill Could Stymie Copenhagen Talks
  Climate change activists reacted sharply yesterday to indications from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) that cap-and-trade legislation may have to wait until 2010, warning that the delay could derail international negotiations in Copenhagen.
• 2009/09/17: Reuters: India says ready to issue non-binding emissions cut
  India is ready to quantify the amount of planet-warming gas emissions it could cut with domestic actions to fight climate change, the environment minister said on Thursday, but will not accept internationally binding targets. Jairam Ramesh's comment marks a shift in the position of India, which is under no obligation to cut emissions and is trying to reach out to rich nations by underscoring the actions it is taking to fight global warming. The stand is likely to strengthen India's stance at crucial negotiations in Copenhagen in December on a treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which obliges 37 developed nations to cut emissions by an average of 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12.
• 2009/09/15: NatureCF: Plan B for Copenhagen
• 2009/09/15: EarthTimes: US wants workable rather than ideal climate deal in Copenhagen
• 2009/09/15: BBC: Surviving Kyoto's 'do or die' summit
  Global warming is the first truly global problem that needs all nations to work together in order to limit its impact, says carbon markets expert Graciela Chichilnisky. In this week's Green Room, she highlights a way forward that could suit all nations at the "do or die" summit in Copenhagen.
• 2009/09/14: HillTimes: Canada has 'tremendous' challenge ahead on climate change: experts
  Canada's low-profile ambassador for climate change Michael Martin will be negotiating at Copenhagen's critical climate change meeting, but the Prime Minister's in charge.

A series of meetings: Major Emitters Forum, the UN and G20 is being called 'Climate Week':

• UN: 2009 Summit on Climate Change [Sept 22nd in NYC]
• 2009/09/16: Yahoo:AFP: Week of meetings could make or break climate effort
  Key meetings unfolding in Washington, New York and Pittsburgh in the coming week may determine whether a two-year effort to combat climate change will triumph or be written off as a flop of historic dimensions. [...] Pressure is mounting for a breakthrough in what has been dubbed "Climate Week," which kicks off in Washington on Thursday and Friday with a ministerial-level gathering of the world's 17 largest carbon polluters. Next Tuesday, UN chief Ban Ki-moon will host a climate summit in New York, to be followed by a two-day G20 summit in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on September 24-25.
• 2009/09/19: NYT: No Climate Change Leader as Nations Prepare to Meet
• 2009/09/18: Reuters: G20 climate finance deal unlikely: sources
• 2009/09/20: Guardian(UK): UN plans 'shock therapy' for world leaders on environment
• 2009/09/19: ABC(Au): [Aussie PM Kevin] Rudd heads to US for economy, climate talks [at UN, Clinton Global Initiative & G20 summit in Pittsburgh]
• 2009/09/19: WaPo: Familiar Issues Vex Climate Pact
  Delegates from the world's economic powers convened in Washington for a new round of climate talks this week, searching for a way to improve the chances of securing a new global warming pact in a time of intense economic and political uncertainty. The meeting of the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate -- which includes the world's 17 biggest emitters of greenhouse gases -- marked the start of three weeks of negotiations that could help determine whether the international community can reach a meaningful agreement by the end of the year to curb climate change.
• 2009/09/18: EurActiv: EU achieves unity ahead of Pittsburgh
  The EU will go with a clear position to the G20 meeting next week in Pittsburgh, the Union's leaders announced yesterday evening (17 September) following an extraordinary summit held in Brussels.
• 2009/09/17: TerraDaily: World's big polluters kick off climate talks in Washington
• 2009/09/17: TIGBlog: Climate Movement, meet Global Capitalism. Global Capitalism, meet the Climate Movment: On the G20 and the fight for climate justice
• 2009/09/17: EarthTimes: EU summit to target China, India on G20 climate financing
  The European Union is to challenge rising powers such as China and India to brake their soaring greenhouse gas emissions in return for Western funding, EU diplomats said Thursday as the bloc opened an informal summit in Brussels. It will cost around 100 billion euros (147 billion dollars) per year by 2020 to fight climate change in developing countries, but "this estimate presupposes appropriate mitigating actions by developing countries, especially those that are economically more advanced," a revised draft statement prepared for the summit said. Moreover, "all countries, except the least developed," should help pay the world's poorest states to fight climate change, it said.
• 2009/09/11: Reuters: U.S. must lead at G20 on climate, says group
  The United States should show decisive leadership at the Group of 20 summit in Pittsburgh this month and rally heads of state to prepare for the next global crisis -- climate change. In a speech before the G20 meeting on September 24-25, Nancy Birdsall, president of the Washington-based Center for Global Development, said preparing for climate change was key because it was a new issue and because the world's poor will be severely hurt by it.
• 2009/09/17: SpaceDaily: World's big polluters kick off climate talks in Washington
• 2009/09/15: Reuters: China's Hu to unveil new climate proposals to U.N.
• 2009/09/16: COP15: China and USA team up on climate issues -- The world's biggest greenhouse gas emitters find common ground in climate talks

  There were reports last week of US-EU differences over climate policy:

• 2009/09/16: Telegraph(UK): Barack Obama and EU 'clash over climate change'
  The European Union has clashed with Barack Obama's administration over climate change amid fears negotiations on regulating greenhouse gases could break down, according to reports.
• 2009/09/16: TreeHugger: Europe - US Split on National Emission Reduction Counting Could Threaten Post-Kyoto Agreement
• 2009/09/15: Guardian(UK): US planning to weaken Copenhagen climate deal, Europe warns
  Key differences between the US and Europe could undermine a new worldwide treaty on global warming to replace Kyoto, sources say

The issue of carbon tariffs / border taxes remains hot:

• 2009/09/18: EurActiv: France, Germany to call for EU border tax on CO2
• 2009/09/18: Google:AFP: Sarkozy, Merkel want carbon tax on imports
• 2009/09/14: EurActiv: Sarkozy renews pressure for CO2 border tax
  French President Nicolas Sarkozy repeated calls to impose a European tax on goods imported from countries with less stringent environmental laws as he outlined plans for a new carbon tax on French households and industries last week (10 September).

The subsidies, tax breaks and rebates afforded fossil fuels in the USA have come in for examination:

• 2009/09/18: ELI: [link to 1.4 meg pdf] U.S. Tax Breaks Subsidize Foreign Oil Production
• 2009/09/19: AutoBG: Study: U.S. subsidises fossil fuels 2.5 times more than renewables
• 2009/09/19: Report: HoustonChronicle: Fossil fuels' subsidies far outpace renewables'
  The U.S. government delivered more than twice as many federal dollars to research initiatives, tax incentives and other programs benefiting fossil fuels than it supplied to renewable energy from 2002 to 2008, according to a report released Friday by two public policy groups. Over that seven-year period, government subsidies to fossil fuels such as oil, coal and natural gas totaled about $72 billion, according to the study by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the Environmental Law Institute.
• 2009/09/18: MillerMcCune: Tax Code Mocks Federal Energy Intent
  Arcane bits of the tax code provide a huge tacit subsidy for the producers of fossil fuels, according to a recently released study. From 2002 through 2008, the U.S. federal government spent about $72 billion subsidizing fossil fuel industries, much of those benefits embedded in arcane tax codes written in another era, for a different kind of energy economy.
• 2009/09/18: NRDC:SwitchBoard: Government Energy Subsidies Still Focusing on Carbon-Intensive Technologies
• 2009/09/18: Eureka: US tax breaks subsidize foreign oil production
• 2009/09/17: NYT:GW: White House Wants Fuel Subsidy Cuts on G-20 Agenda
• 2009/09/16: OilChange: Money for Nothing, and your Climate for Free
  According to a leaked letter, the Obama Administration is set to propose ending fossil fuel subsidies next week at the Pittsburgh G20. The letter, authored by Michael Froman who is an Obama advisor on international economic affairs, calls on the G20 to eliminate all fossil fuel and electricity subsidies, as a "logical step in combating global climate change".

The UN Convention to Combat Desertification conference opens Monday in Buenos Aires:

• 2009/09/20: EarthTimes: Investment in climate change is not charity, UN says
  Buenos Aires - The failure of the international community to invest in adapting to climate change will jeopardize the world's common future, the head of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) has said. The ninth UNCCD conference opens Monday in Buenos Aires with a view to keeping the key issue of desertification on the global agenda amid the widespread economic crisis. The experts are clear that there is much room for progress, as degraded land can be rehabilitated. And that is what the 12-day conference, which will bring together more than 2,000 people, including delegates from 191 countries, UN agencies, NGOs and others, will seek to promote.

And the FAO has a couple of meetings upcoming as well:

• FAO: World Summit on Food Security -- (16-18 Nov.)
• FAO: How to Feed the World in 2050 -- (12-13 Oct.)

  The Arctic melt continues to garner a lot of attention:

• 2009/09/19: BBC: Arctic trail blazers make history
  Two German ships have become the first Western commercial vessels to navigate the Northeast Passage - a shipping route which goes from Asia to Europe around the Russian Arctic.
• 2009/09/18: CCurrents: Pause In Arctic's Melting Trend
• 2009/09/18: CBC: Arctic sailor sees melting sea ice first-hand
  Manitoban Cameron Dueck has just sailed the Northwest Passage to draw attention to climate change in the Arctic. Dueck and his crew left Victoria, B.C. on June 6 aboard the 40-foot fiberglass sailboat, named Silent Sound.
• 2009/09/18: NatureN: Arctic sea ice levels third-lowest on record -- No sign that long-term trend is reversing, scientists caution
• 2009/09/18: PhysOrg: Understand the Arctic before exploiting it
• 2009/09/18: PhysOrg: Arctic ice pack at third lowest extent since 1979: US
• 2009/09/16: TerraDaily: Greenland icesheet could melt faster than thought: study
• 2009/09/18: CCP: NSIDC Report of September 17, 2009: Arctic sea ice reaches annual minimum extent
• 2009/09/18: HotTopic: Third [Arctic]
• 2009/09/17: CDreams: Arctic Ice Melts to Third-Smallest Area
• 2009/09/17: BBC: This summer's melt of Arctic sea ice has not been as profound as in the last two years, scientists said as the ice began its annual Autumn recovery
• 2009/09/18: CBC: Nunavut tests aerial surveys of polar bears
• 2009/09/17: DotEarth: Finding Meaning in Arctic Ice
• 2009/09/17: Eureka: Arctic sea ice reaches minimum extent for 2009, third lowest ever recorded
• 2009/09/17: CCP: B. M. Vinther et al., Nature, 461 (17 September 2009), Holocene thinning of the Greenland ice sheet
• 2009/09/16: ABC(Au): Arctic shipping shortcut bad for climate
• 2009/09/16: Eureka: Melting of the Greenland ice sheet mapped
• 2009/09/15: NatureN: Greenland project drills down to record depths -- Researchers read our climate record from a mile-long core of ice

  That Damoclean sword still hangs overhead:

• 2009/09/16: ES&T: Greenhouse gas leaking from Arctic Ocean floor by Noreen Parks
• 2009/09/17: CCP: V. Krey et al., Environ. Res. Lett., Vol. 4 (2009), Gas hydrates: entrance to a methane age or climate threat?

  As for the geopolitics of Arctic resources:

• 2009/09/17: Reuters: Sovereignty, oil hunt complicate Arctic research
  Russian and U.S. oceanographers studying the impact of global warming on the Bering Strait in late August enjoyed seas on some days that were so calm their ship made the only ripples. But the serenity of the seascape belied increasingly turbulent waters for scientific research as countries exert sovereignty over Arctic territory and Big Oil boosts exploration efforts.
• 2009/09/17: CBC: Heat-loving bacteria in Arctic could point to oil
• 2009/09/17: PhysOrg: Researchers find high numbers of heat-loving bacteria in cold Arctic Ocean
• 2009/09/17: Reuters: Former Cold War foes team up to probe warming seas [in a mission, called RUSALCA, or Russian-American Long-term Census of the Arctic]
• 2009/09/16: CanWest: Our territory, our law, PM [Harper] says of Beaufort -- PM refuses to commit to discussing dispute with U.S. president
• 2009/09/13: Times(UK): Oil giants zero in on untapped Greenland -- The high price of crude and rising demand make exploration of the coastline viable
• 2009/09/14: OilChange: The New Arctic Oil Rush Begins

  While in Antarctica:

• 2009/09/18: CCP: Wingham, Wallis & Shepherd, GRL 36 (2009), Spatial and temporal evolution of Pine Island Glacier thinning, 1995-2006
• 2009/09/14: NewScientist: Antarctica's hidden plumbing revealed

  And on the Bottom Line:

• 2009/09/19: CSW: New report says many adaptation measures can be half as expensive as doing nothing
• 2009/09/17: WSJ:EnvCap: Climate Costs: Plenty of Guesses, Few Answers
• 2009/09/16: SolveClimate: Ignoring Climate Change Carries a High Price Tag
• 2009/09/16: Reuters: China think-tank charts costs of low-carbon growth
• 2009/09/15: PlanetArk: Many Climate Change Costs Seen Avoidable
• 2009/09/14: TreeHugger: Climate Change Could Cost Nations 19% of GDP by 2030: New Report
• 2009/09/14: Reuters: Many climate change costs seen avoidable
  Climate change could cost some countries up to 19 percent of their gross domestic product by 2030, a panel including major insurance, banking and consulting companies as well as the European Commission said on Monday. Developing nations will be most vulnerable to the effects of climate change but a lot of their economic loss could be avoided, a report by the Economics of Climate Adaptation (ECA) Working Group said.

The World Bank promulgates contradictory policies:

• 2009/09/17: ENN: Climate mitigation needn't stifle development, says [WB] report
• 2009/09/16: Guardian(UK): World Bank warns 2C rise will cripple development efforts
• 2009/09/15: TerraDaily: Rich nations must lead global warming battle: World Bank
• 2009/09/15: EarthTimes: World Bank: Developing countries can't survive climate crisis alone
• 2009/09/16: Times(UK): World Bank spends billions on coal-fired power stations despite own warnings
• 2009/09/15: TreeHugger: World Bank: Hundreds of Billions USD Needed Yearly to Fight Climate Change
• 2009/09/15: BBC: [World] Bank urges climate 'action now'
  Climate change will be a serious barrier to growth in poorer nations and must be curbed, says the World Bank. The bank's World Development Report (WDR) urges a rapid scaling-up of spending on clean energy research and protection for poorer countries.

More on the solar cycle:

• 2009/09/17: UCAR: Solar Cycle Driven by More than Sunspots; Sun Also Bombards Earth with High-Speed Streams of Wind

  Paywalled simultaneous editorials in the Lancet and BMJ warn of GW engendered health risks:

• 2009/09/16: CBC: Climate change threatens 'health catastrophe,' MDs say
• 2009/09/16: SolveClimate: Doctors: Act Now or Health Consequences of Climate Change Will Be Catastrophic
• 2009/09/15: Reuters: Climate cuts urged to avert "health catastrophe"
  The world will face a "global health catastrophe" if governments fail to agree deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions as part of a U.N. pact in Copenhagen in December, several leading doctors have declared. "What's good for the climate is good for health," according to an editorial published in the British Medical Journal and The Lancet on Wednesday.
• 2009/09/16: CBC: Climate change threatens 'health catastrophe,' MDs say
• 2009/09/15: BBC: Doctors warn on climate failure
  Failure to agree a new UN climate deal in December will bring a "global health catastrophe", say 18 of the world's professional medical organisations. Writing in The Lancet and the British Medical Journal, they urge doctors to "take a lead" on the climate issue. In a separate editorial, the journals say that people in poor tropical nations will suffer the worst impacts.

Rob Grumbine continues his gentle education series:

• 2009/09/15: MGS: Good science, wrong answer

  The food crisis is ongoing:

• 2009/09/16: WFP: Hungry Get Hungrier As Funding For Food Aid Stutters
• 2009/09/14: FAO: Helping farmers in Zimbabwe grow food -- EU and FAO to distribute seeds and fertilizers to 176 000 farmers
• 2009/09/19: HotTopic: Oxfam: poor countries need funds to adapt
• 2009/09/18: CCurrents: One Billion Of The World's People Going Hungry
• 2009/09/18: UN: Funding shortage may force UN agency to reduce food aid to Kenyans
• 2009/09/17: MongaBay: Kenya's pain: famine, drought, government ambivalence cripples once stable nation
• 2009/09/17: Guardian(UK): Almost 4 million Kenyans on food aid as drought deepens
• 2009/09/16: Yahoo: World food aid at 20-year low, 1 billion hungry
• 2009/09/16: BBC: US curbs 'behind WFP Somali cuts'
  The World Food Programme says US curbs are in part behind its move to shut its Somali feeding programmes for more than 100,000 acutely malnourished children. The US restrictions affect funding for areas controlled by groups designated as terrorist. Washington has imposed sanctions on the hardline Somali Islamist group, al-Shabab. But the WFP says it is doing all it can to get the aid through without it being controlled by the Somali insurgents. Drought and war has left 109,000 children-under-five acutely dependent on the feeding centres run by the WFP.
• 2009/09/16: Guardian(UK): Oxfam: 4.5 million children at risk of aid 'raids' to pay for climate change
• 2009/09/16: CBC: World's hungry reach record 1 billion
• 2009/09/14: WaPo: Survey: Food banks under more stress
• 2009/09/14: EconView: Could It Happen Again?
• 2009/09/14: BBC: Eyewitness: Guatemala food crisis
  Guatemala has been hit by severe food shortages, with some 54,000 families living in the east of the country facing a critical situation. President Alvaro Colom last week declared a "state of public calamity" to try to mobilise funding to tackle severe food shortages in the country.
• 2009/09/14: BBC: Pakistan food stampede kills many
  At least 14 women and children have been killed in a stampede to get free flour in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi, officials say. Dozens more were injured in the crush, reports say.
• 2009/09/13: CBC: Thousands in Guatemala face food shortages, UN says

  And how are we going to feed 9 billion?

• 2009/09/19: TreeHugger: Permaculture Principles: Clearing Up the Ambiguity
• 2009/09/18: UN: More must be done to reform global food system to fight crisis, says UN expert
• 2009/09/18: AlterNet: Food Industry Is Now Calling Junk Food 'Healthy' - Why Could That Be?
• 2009/09/17: OLJ: The World Seed Conference: Good for farmers?
• 2009/09/17: CBC: Countries pledge food aid to Guatemala
  Mexico, Brazil and Venezuela have offered to send aid to Guatemala, which is facing food shortages
• 2009/09/14: Rabble: Local food is a future necessity
• 2009/09/14: SeedDaily: Nitrogen Soil Test Is Technology Breakthrough For Agriculture, Environment

  In the Pacific, Choi-Wan. Marty & Koppu blew around, while Fred faded in the Atlantic:

• 2009/09/18: Eureka: Slow-moving Marty headed for drier air, cooler waters
• 2009/09/18: Eureka: Typhoon Choi-Wan swinging by Japan on weekend
• 2009/09/17: Eureka: NASA's TRMM satellite sees heavy rainfall in Choi-Wan
• 2009/09/18: NASA: Slow-moving Marty Headed for Drier Air, Cooler Waters
• 2009/09/17: PhysOrg: NASA's Aqua satellite catches 2 views of super Typhoon Choi-Wan
• 2009/09/16: Wunderground: First Category 5 storm of the year is Choi-Wan
• 2009/09/15: EarthTimes: Typhoon hurts more than 50 in Hong Kong
• 2009/09/14: NASA: Fred Fades with a Satellite Exclamation Point
• 2009/09/14: NASA: Tropical Storm Koppu Poised for China Landfall
• 2009/09/14: NASA: Typhoon Choi-Wan Triggers Tropical Storm Warnings for U.S. Commonwealth of No. Mariana Islands

  While elsewhere in the hurricane wars:

• 2009/09/18: PlanetArk: Tonnes Of Driftwood From Taiwan Typhoon Clogs Japan
• 2009/09/17: EnvEcon: 10th anniversity of Hurricane Floyd
• 2009/09/16: Asia Times: Taiwan's Ma weathers typhoon fallout
  In what looked like a game of political lifeboat, Taiwan's premier Liu Chao-shiuan resigned late last week - after the government was heavily criticized for what media reports called a "slow, incompetent and uncaring response" to last month's Typhoon Morakot. And in this game of lifeboat, there are those who say Liu jumped - and those who say he was pushed. "Of course President Ma Ying-jeou wanted him to quit," said Li Wai, a television producer who supported Ma in the last election but who now has her doubts about the man many people have labeled "the Teflon president".

As for GHGs:

• 2009/09/15: PEF: That sinking feeling: BC's forests and CO2 emissions
• 2009/09/11: CCR: Forget about 2050, we're blowing the carbon budget right now
• 2009/09/15: TreeHugger: As its Glaciers Melt, Greenland on Track to Emit 10 Million Tons of CO2 a Year

  The US, Canada and Mexico moved to deal with HFCs this week:

• 2009/09/15: NRDC:SwitchBoard: Three Amigos Move on Super Greenhouse Gases [HFCs]
• 2009/09/15: CanWest: Canada, U.S. backs proposal to cut HFC greenhouse gases
• 2009/09/15: SolveClimate: German Climate Council Proposes 'Budget Approach' to Global Emissions
  [...] The budget approach, explains Stefan Rahmstorf, professor of ocean physics at Potsdam University and WBGU member, is based on the premise that there's a limited amount -- or fixed budget -- of CO2 that can be released worldwide between now and 2050 if we're to avoid raising global temperatures beyond a point that would cause irreversible climate change. "The fundamental idea behind the budget approach," says Rahmstorf, is that it ties reduction targets to total -- or cumulative -- rather than annual CO2 emissions.
• 2009/09/16: CBC: North America backs plan to cut greenhouse gases
  Small island nations gained North America's powerful backing Tuesday for a plan to convert the UN ozone treaty into a tool for phasing out some of the world's most powerful climate-warming gases. The Obama administration announced the United States, Canada and Mexico now support using the treaty to require cuts in powerful greenhouse gases known as hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs. The treaty, called the Montreal Protocol, is aimed at fixing the ozone layer. It has been signed by 196 nations, with East Timor announcing its decision to sign early Wednesday. That makes the ozone treaty the first global environmental agreement to achieve universal ratification.

As for the temperature record:

• 2009/09/19: Tamino: Seasonal Cycle in Central England Temperature [cool graph]
• 2009/09/15: Tamino: Seasons
• 2009/09/13: Tamino: Crystal Ball -- let's forecast global average temperature for the remainder of the year
• 2009/09/16: BBerg: World's Oceans Were Warmest on Record in June Through August
• 2009/09/17: KSJT: A bit brief ink: Ocean temps highest ever on record (but maybe it's the new, changing normal)
• 2009/09/16: ClimateP: Second warmest August on record and warmest June-July-August for the oceans -- despite deepest solar minimum in nearly a century
• 2009/09/17: Wunderground: Global ocean temperatures at record highs for 3rd consecutive month
• 2009/09/16: Guardian(UK): Ocean surfaces have warmest summer on record, US report finds
• 2009/09/16: NOAANews: Warmest Global Sea-Surface Temperatures for August and Summer
• 2009/09/16: DotEarth: August Seas Warmest in at Least 120 Years
• 2009/09/16: PhysOrg: Worlds oceans warmest on record this summer

  Aerosols are making their presence felt:

• 2009/09/17: PhysOrg: Scientists begin Southeast Asia study of aerosols linked to global warming

  The hazards of UV due to ozone depletion are rising:

• 2009/09/17: TreeHugger: Ozone Layer Shifting, More UV Radiation in Tropics and Antarctica Predicted by Physicists
• 2009/09/16: PhysOrg: NASA Satellite Data Show Progress of 2009 Antarctic Ozone Hole (w/ Video)
• 2009/09/15: UT: University of Toronto study shows climate change will lead to less ultraviolet radiation over northern high latitudes

  While in the paleoclimate:

• 2009/09/16: NatureN: Climate change warning from Greenland -- Small rise in temperature thousands of years ago caused rapid melting of the Greenland ice sheet
• 2009/09/16: Nature: (Letter$) Holocene thinning of the Greenland ice sheet by B. M. Vinther et al.
• 2009/09/16: NatureCF: Climate change warning from Greenland
  The Greenland ice sheet melted much more rapidly as a result of warmer temperatures in the recent past than previously estimated, a team of international scientists has revealed. They warn that future warming could have more dramatic effects on the ice than researchers have assumed.
• 2009/09/16: ENN: Himalayan glaciers 'grew' during warmer period [9 kya]
• 2009/09/14: SciDaily: New Carbon Dioxide Data Helps Unlock The Secrets Of Antarctic Formation [34 mya]

  While on the ENSO front:

• 2009/09/15: Eureka: Texas A&M researcher shows possible link between 1918 El Niño and flu pandemic

  Glaciers are melting:

• 2009/09/16: OPB: A Few Western Glaciers Growing; What's Up With That?
• 2009/09/16: Eureka: Melting of the Greenland ice sheet mapped

  Sea levels are rising:

• 2009/09/18: QuarkSoup: Ocean Rising
• 2009/09/18: DailyIndia: Climate change could swallow one-third of Bangladesh: [Bangladeshi Foreign Minister Dipu] Moni

  As for the THC:

• 2009/09/16: ENN: Global Warming Could Cool N. America in a Few Decades?

  Meanwhile in near earth orbit:

• 2009/09/18: PhysOrg: Capturing tomorrow's satellite data with today's instruments
• 2009/09/17: PhysOrg: Satellites Could Help Keep Hungry Populations Fed as Climate Changes
  In the early 1980s, scientists at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., developed the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), an innovative combination of two satellite measurements that allowed them to analyze changes in the "greenness" of Earth as viewed from space. Much like measurements from weather satellites allow meteorologists to track and monitor hurricanes, NDVI lets scientists track droughts, crop infestations, and even full-blown crop failures that lead to widespread famine.
• 2009/09/16: BBC: Ice mission returns for second go [Cryosat-2]
• 2009/09/14: BBC: The European space agency's mission [Cryosat-2] to assess the state of the world's ice cover is likely to launch in February
• 2009/09/14: PhysOrg: February [28th] launch for ESA's CryoSat[2] ice mission

  More GW impacts are being seen:

• 2009/09/19: ClimateP: Are walruses the latest canaries in the climate-destroying coal-mine?
• 2009/09/19: CanWest: 'Chikungunya is coming,' expert warns of virus
  North America and Europe face a new health threat from a mosquito-borne disease far more unpleasant than the West Nile virus that swept into North America a decade ago, a U.S. expert said Friday. Chikungunya virus has spread beyond Africa since 2005, causing outbreaks and scores of fatalities in India and the French island of Reunion. It also has been detected in Italy, where it has begun to spread locally, as well as France. "We're very worried," Dr. James Diaz of the Louisiana University Health Sciences Center told a meeting on airlines, airports and disease transmission sponsored by the independent U.S. National Research Council. "Unlike West Nile virus, where nine out of 10 people are going to be totally asymptomatic, or may have a mild headache or a stiff neck, if you get Chikungunya you're going to be sick," he said. "The disease can be fatal. It's a serious disease," Diaz added. "There is no vaccine."
• 2009/09/18: KSJT: AP, APRN: Dead walruses along Alaska's shore as another season of low ice comes to a close
• 2009/09/18: ABC(Au): Walruses die en masse as Arctic ice melts
  Hundreds of dead walruses have been found on Alaska's north-west coast, coinciding with reports that Arctic Sea ice has reached the third lowest level ever recorded.
• 2009/09/18: TreeHugger: New Orleans Wetlands Now the Fastest-Disappearing Land Mass on Earth
• 2009/09/16: Discovery: Arctic Geese Skip Migration as Planet Warms
• 2009/09/17: NatureN: Volcanoes stirred by climate change -- Impact of global warming on geological hazards 'poorly understood', experts warn
• 2009/09/17: SciDaily: Ocean Acidification: Impact On Key Organisms Of Oceanic Fauna May Be Worse Than Predicted
• 2009/09/17: Eureka: Study predicts effect of global warming on spring flowers
• 2009/09/17: BBC: Warming Arctic 'halts migration'
  Milder winters in the Arctic region have led to fewer Pacific brants, a species of sea goose, migrating southwards, say researchers. A study by the US Geological Survey (USGS) found that as many as 30% of the birds were overwintering in Alaska rather than migrating to Mexico. Until recently, more than 90% of the species were estimated to head south.
• 2009/09/16: NewScientist: Polar bears run riot as ice melts
  You can almost hear Sarah Palin cocking her rifle. As climate change causes sea ice to shrink, the number of "problem" polar bears appears to be increasing. "Hungry bears don't just lie down -- they go looking for an alternate food source," says zoologist Ian Stirling at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. "In many cases this brings them into human settlements and hunting camps." Stirling's team found that around the town of Churchill on the shores of Hudson Bay -- the "polar bear capital of the world" -- the number of bears reported as attacking humans, homes and hunting camps more than tripled between 1970 and 2005, from 20 to 90 per year. The shorter the sea ice season, the greater the reports of problem bear activity. This increase in problem bears comes despite a 22 per cent decline in the west Hudson Bay polar bear population since the late 1980s.
• 2009/09/14: SciNews: As climate shifts, birds follow
  Most bird species in California's Sierra Nevadas have altered their ranges during the last century in response to changes in temperature and rainfall
• 2009/09/15: TreeHugger: Oh No! Global Warming Is Affecting Beer Production [via hops]

  And then there are the world's forests:

• 2009/09/18: CommonTragedies: Counting Forests Not As Easy as 1,2,3...
• 2009/09/19: BBC: Meeting India's tree planting guru
  An Indian civil servant, SM Raju, has come up with a novel way of providing employment to millions of poor in the eastern state of Bihar.
• 2009/09/18: NatureN: Fungus genome boosts fight to save North American forests -- DNA sequence could advance efforts to control pine beetle infestations
• 2009/09/18: TerraDaily: Study Predicts An Uncertain Future For Forests
• 2009/09/17: PlanetArk: Scientists Take To The Trees To Measure Global Warming
• 2009/09/15: Eureka: Study predicts an uncertain future for forests
• 2009/09/13: MongaBay: 500 scientists call on Quebec to keep its promise to conserve half of its boreal forest
• 2009/09/14: Eureka: Forest ecologist sees climate consequences

  Climate refugees are becoming an issue:

• 2009/09/15: UN: UN refugee agency says as many as 65 dead or missing in Gulf of Aden
• 2009/09/14: BBC: Migrants risk lives for Europe
  Panorama reporter Paul Kenyon has returned to West Africa to trace the route of African migrants as they attempt a deadly four-day crossing of the Sahara desert on foot. They set out unaware that the Europe they dream of reaching is deep in recession and the welcome less than warm.
• 2009/09/13: Guardian(UK): Protecting climate change refugees
  Communities hardest hit by climate change are also the poorest. Their right to compensation and protection needs to be made law

As for heatwaves and wild fires:

• 2009/09/19: UPI: Bad fire conditions returning to LA
  As firefighters continue their struggle against California's huge Station Fire, weather forecasters predict a return to the conditions that fostered it. The National Weather Service said inland temperatures are expected to rise past 100 degrees Fahrenheit Monday, the Los Angeles Times reported. While the mercury is rising, humidity will head in the other direction, forecasters said.
• 2009/09/18: Guardian(UK): 13-year-old boy charged with starting Los Angeles wildfire
• 2009/09/17: EarthTimes: Greece warned it will face severe heatwaves from 2021
• 2009/09/16: ABC(Au): Joint effort to reduce bushfire risk
  A joint approach is being taken by various agencies to reduce fuel loads across South Australia ahead of the bushfire danger season. Burn-offs of native vegetation have begun, with the Environment Department, Forestry SA and SA Water working together for the first time.
• 2009/09/15: KSJT: LA Times: Mount Wilson and the fire next time
• 2009/09/14: Guardian(UK): Feeling the heat
  California's raging wildfires this summer are a sign of the climate changes already drying up America's great outdoors

And speaking of hydrological cycle disruptions [floods & droughts]:

• 2009/09/18: CSM: Severe drought affects 1.3 million in Syria
  More than 800,000 people have lost their livelihoods in a four-year dry spell exacerbated by climate change and rising food prices. Almost half of them live in urban makeshift camps.
• 2009/09/18: UN: Worst drought in Guatemala in decades affecting 2.5 million people, UN reports
• 2009/09/18: UN: UN authorizes emergency grant to assist Mexican flood survivors
• 2009/09/02: OnlineOpinion(Au): Prime Minister, we have a water problem
• 2009/09/16: AlterNet: Why Red-Colored Snow on the Rockies Is a Major Warning Sign That the West Is Drying Up
• 2009/09/16: Grist: The end of welfare water and the drying of the West
• 2009/09/15: TerraDaily: Indonesia flash floods kill 38: official
• 2009/09/15: ABC(Au): Heavy rain in the Perth metropolitan area has lifted Perth dams to their highest level in almost a decade
• 2009/09/14: TerraDaily: Gaza water supplies in danger of 'collapse': UN
• 2009/09/15: EarthTimes: Twelve killed, 25 missing in Indonesia floods
• 2009/09/15: BBC: A least 29 people have been killed and dozens injured in a cattle raid in drought-stricken central Kenya [GW & sec]
• 2009/09/15: CBC: Indonesia flash flood kills 15
• 2009/09/12: NYT: Mexico Now Enduring Worst Drought in Years

  Elsewhere on the mitigation front:

• 2009/09/17: MongaBay: Alleviating poverty and saving biodiversity are inherently linked argue scientists
• 2009/09/11: CNN: Putting cattle on a diet to curb climate change
  Methane from livestock estimated to produce up to 18 percent of global emissions - Dietary additives are showing great signs in reducing methane from cows - Additives need to be tailored to farming techniques, but initial results encouraging - "A rare good news story when it comes to climate change" says microbial prof.

Consider transportation & GHG production:

• 2009/09/18: BBC: Harrabin's notes: Shipping out
  In his regular column, the BBC's environment analyst Roger Harrabin takes a tour of the world's biggest container ship to get a taste of the measures the shipping industry could take if it were serious about reducing its CO2 emissions.
• 2009/09/15: BBC: Japan Airlines (JAL) plans to cut 6,800 jobs, as an airline trade body [IATA] upped its projected losses for the global industry this year
• 2009/09/15: CBC: Airline industry outlook worse than after 9/11: [IATA] report
  The financial outlook for the airline industry is worse today than it was in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, a group representing the industry says. The International Air Transport Association says global airline losses will total $11 billion US in 2009. That's $2 billion worse than the agency's last estimate.
• 2009/09/13: SwissInfo: Ships to power up with giant kites
  Cargo ships and other seagoing vessels may soon be partly powered by high-altitude kites under a European project supported by Swiss researchers. The Arc Engineering College in western Switzerland is one of nine European universities and partners working on the three-year KitVes venture, launched last year, to generate electricity on board ships. Unlike a previous concept announced in 2008, which uses kites to harness wind power to supplement ships' propulsion systems, the KitVes project generates electricity to support onboard auxiliary services, such as electronic equipment and air conditioning. It generates power by raising and lowering 100m2 kites to and from altitudes of 1,000 metres, explained Valérie Briquez, coordinator for the project at the Arc Engineering College based in Le Locle

While in the endless quest for zero energy, sustainable buildings and practical codes:

• 2009/09/17: ClimateBiz: California Green Building Standards to Serve as Model for New International Code
• 2009/09/18: NYT:GreenInc: ZETA [Communities] to Mass-Produce Efficient Homes
• 2009/09/19: TreeHugger: First Living Building Successfully 'Grown'
• 2009/09/17: PlanetArk: Cheap Solar? Texan House Aims Low To Win Contest
• 2009/09/17: TreeHugger: Green Net-Zero Energy Housing by Mithun Shows How It's Done
• 2009/09/13: Guardian(UK): Sustainable cities are the solution
  Despite our romantic ideas about nature, it will be well-run, energy-efficient cities that ultimately save us from ourselves

And on the carbon sequestration front:

On the carbon sequestration front, the fossil fuel companies have persuaded Australia to assume liability for CO2 leakage:
• 2009/09/20: PeakEnergy: Carbon Storage: Why the Gorgon Gas Play Might Be Really Important
• 2009/09/18: TMoS: Who Isn't Convinced on Carbon Capture? Exxon, Chevron and Shell, That's Who
• 2009/09/18: BBerg: Chevron Australia CO2 Liability Deal May Be Precedent
  Chevron Corp., Exxon Mobil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell Plc agreed to invest in the $37 billion Gorgon natural gas venture only after Australia's government assumed liability for potential damages hundreds of years from now. That may set a precedent in this resource-rich nation. The three oil companies said Sept. 14 they will proceed with the liquefied natural gas development, the continent's biggest single investment, at Barrow Island off the northwest coast. The national and Western Australia state governments removed a key obstacle last month when they accepted "any long term liability" should carbon dioxide captured from the project escape sequestration, or storage, two kilometers underground. "Letting taxpayers ultimately take responsibility for any problems with the CO2 sequestration is a calculated risk by the government," said Craig Wallace, a senior associate of Lavan Legal in Perth who has advised companies on Australia's draft climate-change legislation. "It sets a precedent. It's probably very likely other operations would get on the bandwagon."
• 2009/09/18: WSJ:EnvCap: Carbon Storage: Why the Gorgon Gas Play Might Be Really Important
• 2009/09/15: ABC(Au): Clean coal technology 'unproven'
  A conservation group has questioned developments in clean coal technology. Waratah Coal has announced plans for a clean coal power station next to its proposed mine near Alpha in central western Queensland. It would use waste coal from the mine. But the vice-president of the Capricorn Conservation Council, Ian Herbert, says workable clean coal technology is still many years off.
• 2009/09/15: PhysOrg: Storage of carbon dioxide a vexed question

  Large scale geo-engineering keeps popping up:

• 2009/09/14: SciNow: Forest a Desert, Cool the World
• 2009/09/15: KSJT: AAAS ScienceNOW: Finally, a geo(bio)engineering climate change idea that makes sense. Except maybe for the part about locusts
• 2009/09/15: DM:80B: To Save the Planet From Global Warming, Turn the Sahara Green
• 2009/09/14: EurActiv: EU climate scientist casts doubt on geo-engineering
  Scientists should not meddle with the Earth's complex climate by experimenting with futuristic geo-engineering options when softer approaches are available, Frank Raes, head of the climate change unit at the European Commission's Joint Research Centre, told EurActiv in an interview.

Meanwhile in the journals:

• 2009/09/18: AGWObserver: Papers on fossils revealed by melting glaciers
• 2009/09/16: NERC:NORA: Storage capacity and containment issues for carbon dioxide capture and geological storage on the UK continental shelf by S. Holloway
• 2009/09/18: ACP: An operational system for the assimilation of the satellite information on wild-land fires for the needs of air quality modelling and forecasting by M. Sofiev et al.
• 2009/09/18: ACP: What can we learn about ship emission inventories from measurements of air pollutants over the Mediterranean Sea? by E. Marmer et al.
• 2009/09/18: ACP: Evidence for ice particles in the tropical stratosphere from in-situ measurements by M. de Reus et al.
• 2009/09/18: ACPD: Particle number, particle mass and NOx emission factors at a highway and an urban street in Copenhagen by F. Wang et al.
• 2009/09/18: ACPD: Evaluation of aerosol distributions in the GISS-TOMAS global aerosol microphysics model with remote sensing observations by Y. H. Lee & P. J. Adams
• 2009/09/17: ACPD: Modeling of Saharan dust outbreaks over the Mediterranean by RegCM3: case studies by M. Santese et al.
• 2009/09/18: CP: Last nine-thousand years of temperature variability in Northern Europe by H. Seppä et al.
• 2009/09/17: TCD: A comparison of different methods of evaluating glacier response characteristics: application to glacier AX010, Nepal Himalaya by S. Adhikari et al.
• 2009/09/07: IOP:ERL: Gas hydrates: entrance to a methane age or climate threat? by Volker Krey et al.
• 2009/09/14: AGWObserver: Papers on atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration measurements
• 2009/09/16: ACPD: High-accuracy measurements of snow Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function at visible and NIR wavelengths -- comparison with modelling results by M. Dumont et al.
• 2009/09/16: ACPD: The genesis of Typhoon Nuri as observed during the Tropical Cyclone Structure 2008 (TCS-08) field experiment -- Part 1: The role of the easterly wave critical layer by M. T. Montgomery et al.
• 2009/09/14: ACPD: Potential climatic impacts and reliability of very large-scale wind farms by C. Wang & R. G. Prinn
• 2009/09/14: ACPD: Aerosol Single Scattering Albedo retrieval in the UV range: an application to OMI satellite validation by I. Ialongo et al.
• 2009/09/15: PNAS: Nonlinear temperature effects indicate severe damages to U.S. crop yields under climate change by Wolfram Schlenker & Michael J. Roberts
• 2009/09/15: PNAS: Higher trends but larger uncertainty and geographic variability in 21st century temperature and heat waves by Auroop R. Ganguly et al.
• 2009/09/13: Nature: [Letter$] Atmospheric carbon dioxide through the Eocene-Oligocene climate transition by Paul N. Pearson et al.

  And other significant documents:

• 2009/09/18: ELI: [link to 1.4 meg pdf] U.S. Tax Breaks Subsidize Foreign Oil Production
• BC:Env: Climate Change - British Columbia Provincial Greenhouse Gas Inventory Report 2007
• 2009/09/14: GreenPeace(Ca): [link to 2 meg pdf] Dirty Oil: How the tar sands are fueling the global climate crisis
• 2009/01/: Oxfam: [link to 272k pdf] A Billion Hungry People

  Before we get into politics, there was some science done:

• 2009/09/20: JEB: The worst system, apart from all the others [peer review]
• 2009/09/18: NatureCF: Heinz award to Chris Field
  One of this year's Heinz awards - a $100,000 prize for achievement in environmental science and leadership - is going to Chris Field, the Stanford ecologist and leading carbon-cycle expert who became co-chair of IPCC Working Group 2 in 2008.
• 2009/09/17: ScienceInsider: Panel Calls for $20 Billion "New Biology" Initiative
• 2009/09/15: CCP: K.L. Swanson, G. Sugihara, A.A. Tsonis, PNAS 2009, Long-term natural variability and 20th century climate change
• 2009/09/14: MGS: An Intro to Peer Review

  Lovelock profile:

• 2009/09/17: TerraDaily: Prophet of climate doom [Lovelock] a scientific black sheep

  Hansen again:

• 2009/09/17: BostonGlobe: Using the market to tackle the climate crisis by James Hansen and Aaron Sanger
• 2009/09/16: OBMB: Dr. Jim Hansen Talks to Canadians

  Borlaug homage:

• 2009/09/14: UN: UN food agency pays tribute to 'father' of Green Revolution

  Meanwhile at the UN:

• 2009/09/18: NYT: The Ice Is Melting by Ban Ki-Moon
• 2009/09/16: UN: Ban hails universal participation with ozone protection pacts
• 2009/09/15: Yahoo:AFP: UN chief urges leaders to 'get moving' on climate change talks
  UN chief Ban Ki-moon said Wednesday negotiations have stalled over a climate change deal, and urged world leaders to "get moving," ahead of a crucial meeting on the issue. Before a summit of almost 100 heads of government in New York next week to discuss climate change, the UN secretary general told the Guardian that leaders held in their hands "the future of this entire humanity".
• 2009/09/15: Guardian(UK): Frustrated UN chief Ban Ki-moon says world leaders must act on climate

  And on the carbon trading front:

• 2009/09/20: Times(UK): Chinese start carbon-trading scheme
• 2009/09/18: PlanetArk: Businesses Unharmed So Far By EU CO2 [ETS] Scheme: Survey
• 2009/09/18: BizGreen: EU firms insist carbon caps have not damaged competitiveness
  Survey of businesses impacted by cap-and-trade scheme reveals talk of job losses accounts for little more than scaremongering
• 2009/09/17: PlanetArk: Climate Exchange Swings To Profit As Volumes Leap
  British carbon emissions exchange operator Climate Exchange swung to a first-half profit as trading volumes almost doubled, but said it expected growth rates to moderate in the second half.
• 2009/09/13: Times(UK): Carbon-trading market hit as UN suspends clean-energy auditor
  The legitimacy of the $100 billion (£60 billion) carbon-trading market has been called into question after the world's largest auditor of clean-energy projects was suspended by United Nations inspectors. SGS UK had its accreditation suspended last week after it was unable to prove its staff had properly vetted projects that were then approved for the carbon-trading scheme, or even that they were qualified to do so.

The idea of a carbon tax is still bouncing around:

• 2009/09/19: CanWest: OECD urges nations to embrace carbon tax -- Western leaders must show courage and vision, think-tank says
  Political leaders in Canada and other major developed western countries need to show courage by uniting to support a carbon tax to prevent a climate-change crisis, the head of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said Friday.
• 2009/09/17: Economist: France's carbon tax -- Taming the carbonivores
• 2009/09/16: Stoat: France unveils carbon tax?
• 2009/09/17: JQuiggin: Access Economics and CEDA on carbon taxes
• 2009/09/14: NatureCF: Q&A: France unveils carbon tax

  The debate over the optimal strategy [carbon trading, carbon offsets, auction vs. allocation, and/or a carbon tax] to use in dealing with GHGs continues:

• 2009/09/18: IR^2: The API on Cap and Trade
• 2009/09/16: Grist: A private sector view of offsets under a cap-and-trade program
• 2009/09/14: EnvEcon: Cap'n Trade: 'Entrepreneurs run the system, not bureaucrats.'

  The issue of the law and activism is playing out around the world as nations scramble to deal with climate change:

• 2009/09/17: PRWatch: Direct Action Confronts the Climate Crisis
• 2009/09/18: AutoBG: Environmentalists treat Jeremy Clarkson's driveway to a steaming pile of manure
• 2009/09/16: EarthTimes: Greenpeace stops Indonesian palm kernel [animal feed] shipment at sea

  And on the American political front:

• 2009/09/14: REA: Getting to a National Renewable Energy Standard [in USA]
• 2009/09/16: Grist: Conservatives ditch CBO data when convenient to attack climate bill
• 2009/09/16: Time: Another Health-Care Casualty: Cap-and-Trade
• 2009/09/17: DM:CCM: The Right Wing is Smearing David Michaels [US pol]
• 2009/09/14: Grist: A big breakthrough on green jobs
• 2009/09/15: Grist: Everything you always wanted to know about EPA greenhouse gas regulations, but were afraid to ask
• 2009/09/14: OLJ: Van Jones: The latest in a long line of lily-livered leftists
• 2009/09/14: SolveClimate: GOP Lawmaker a Hero in Passage of $5B Green Building and Jobs Bill
• 2009/09/14: SolveClimate: Report: Energy Efficiency Could Deliver 1 Million Green Jobs by 2030
• 2009/09/13: TP:WR: Iraq Vet Condemns 'Despicable' Exploitation Of The 'Good Name Of Our Veterans' By Opponents Of Climate Action
• 2009/09/13: Reuters: Clean energy to create more jobs than coal: study

  California politics is as convoluted as ever:

• 2009/09/17: NRDC:SwitchBoard: Two steps forward. One step back.
• 2009/09/18: NRDC:SwitchBoard: RPS Flexibility and Cost Containment
• 2009/09/18: NRDC:SwitchBoard: Executive order or legislation?
• 2009/09/18: FuturePundit: California Regulations On TV Energy Efficiency
• 2009/09/16: LA Times: Schwarzenegger orders more renewable energy -- his way
  The governor says California electric utilities must get 33% of their power from renewable sources by 2020, but he plans to veto Democratic bills that push to produce it in state
• 2009/09/16: TreeHugger: Schwarzenegger Mandates Ambitious New Renewable Energy Target - the Same as Senate Just Passed
• 2009/09/16: TreeHugger: California to Get 33% of its Power from Renewables by 2020
• 2009/09/14: Reuters: California lawmakers pass tougher clean energy goals

  A Treasury memo got played up by the deny & delay crowd:

• 2009/09/19: TP: A $1,761 Postage Stamp: How The Glenn Beck Machine Constructed An Attack On Clean Energy Reform
• 2009/09/18: ClimateP: Obama Admin: The Twitternomics of CBS correspondent Declan McCullagh is "flat out wrong"
• 2009/09/18: TP:WR: Congressional Budget Office Debunks Glenn Beck's 'Lies': Clean Energy Economy Costs Only A Postage Stamp A Day
• 2009/09/17: TP:WR: Obama Admin: The Twitternomics Of CBS Correspondent Declan McCullagh Is 'Flat Out Wrong'
• 2009/09/17: WaPo: Cap-and-Trade Memos Fire Up the Skeptics
• 2009/09/16: ClimateP: CBS's Declan McCullagh promotes another fossil-fuel-funded, falsehood-filled CEI attack on clean energy reform
• 2009/09/16: NRDC:SwitchBoard: The Treasury Memo: Classic Spin-Job by Clean Energy Opponents
• 2009/09/16: TP:WR: CBS's Declan McCullagh Promotes Another False CEI Attack On Clean Energy Reform
• 2009/09/15: CBS: Obama Admin [Treasury]: Cap And Trade Could Cost Families $1,761 A Year

  The Obama chatter is nonstop:

• 2009/09/16: ScienceInsider: Those 76 Billion Tons of Greenhouse Emissions Cuts Obama Just Announced ...
• 2009/09/15: Guardian(UK): If Obama can't defeat the Republican headbangers, our planet is doomed
  One year on, the world still looks to the US and holds its breath. The fate of a global climate treaty rests in American hands

The actions of the Obama administration are being watched closely:

• 2009/09/19: TreeHugger: Interior Dept Sees Need for Global Warming Strategy
• 2009/09/17: NatureTGB: Czars are cropping up all over
• 2009/09/17: NYT:CW: Obama Administration Pushes Climate Talks Into 2010
• 2009/09/17: TreeHugger: Obama Pushes Global Climate Treaty Talks Into 2010
• 2009/09/17: SolveClimate: US Policy Breakthrough on Super Greenhouse Gases, But Obstacles Remain
• 2009/09/17: NYT:GW: White House Wants Fuel Subsidy Cuts on G-20 Agenda
• 2009/09/16: CSW: Interior Secretary Salazar on right track with new climate initiative but faces tough road ahead
• 2009/09/16: TreeHugger: Energy Secretary Chu Says Deep Emission Reductions Not Politically Achievable in US
• 2009/09/15: KSJT: NPR, NYTimes -- From DOE's Chu, and the batttery makers, a splash of energy optimism
• 2009/09/14: ClimateP: Department of Interior launches Climate Change Response Strategy
• 2009/09/15: ClimateP: EIA stunner: By year's end, we'll be 8.5% below 2005 levels of CO2 -- halfway to climate bill's 2020 target.
• 2009/09/15: WaPo: Interior Launches Climate Strategy -- New Council's Aim Is to Help Curb Warming
• 2009/09/14: DOI: Salazar Launches DOI Climate Change Response Strategy

  The Obama administration is ramping up fuel efficiency standards:

• 2009/09/16: MillerMcCune: Big Step Forward Lost in Shuffle -- the Obama administration's plan to raise fuel efficiency standards
• 2009/09/16: WaPo: White House Is Prepared to Set First National Limits on Greenhouse Gases
  The Obama administration on Tuesday formally proposed new fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks, a move that signals the first federal limits on greenhouse-gas pollution. In May, President Obama announced in a Rose Garden ceremony that cars would be held to a higher environmental standard. On Tuesday, officials filled in the details, linking fuel economy to emissions from vehicles. The net effect would be to require manufacturers to ratchet up fuel economy 5 percent per year. In 2016, new cars and trucks would have to achieve an average rating of 35.5 miles per gallon. Cars currently must average 27.5 miles per gallon; light trucks must average 23.1 miles per gallon.
• 2009/09/15: NatureN: Obama proposes greenhouse-gas standards for vehicles -- US move is the first national regulation on carbon emissions
• 2009/09/15: Guardian(UK): Obama administration rolls out plan to require fuel efficiency from automakers
• 2009/09/15: ClimateP: White House rolls out details of fuel economy, emissions standard -- The biggest step the U.S. government has ever taken to cut CO2

  As for what is going on in Congress:

• 2009/09/20: ClimateP: NYT: Senate Dem leaders "are pressing colleagues to vote with the party on procedural matters -- and against any filibuster -- even if they intend to oppose the measure in the end when simple majority rules."
• 2009/09/18: Grist: [Senator] Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn) loves the earth too much to support solar and wind
• 2009/09/18: WarmingLaw: [Senator] Lisa Murkowski (R-Ak) Wants to Bar EPA from Regulating CO2 Emissions from Power Plants
• 2009/09/18: WashingtonIndependent: [Senator Lisa] Murkowski (R-Alaska) Seeks to Thwart EPA Regulation of Greenhouse Gases
• 2009/09/17: GreenGrok: A Look at Where Feingold, Franken, Casey, and Johnson Stand
• 2009/09/16: PhysOrg: House passes funding for green vehicle research
• 2009/09/15: TP:WR: [Sen. Byron] Dorgan (D-ND) Supports Climate Legislation So Long As It Doesn't Address Climate Change
• 2009/09/15: ClimateP: Inhofe flip-flops, admits the climate bill is "Alive and Well" -- thanks to grassroots clean energy push
• 2009/09/15: ClimateP: Senate Energy Committee hearing aimed at overselling volatility threat from climate bill, which in fact will make Americans' energy bills MORE stable
• 2009/09/14: ClimateP: Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) joins key Dems in proposal to boost carbon capture and storage in climate bill

  So was this a trial balloon, discouragement, engendering creative ambiguity or what?

• 2009/09/18: ClimateP: Reid pledges to move cap-and-trade bill "as quickly as we can"
• 2009/09/16: NYT:CW: Senate Delay on Climate Bill Could Stymie Copenhagen Talks
  Climate change activists reacted sharply yesterday to indications from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) that cap-and-trade legislation may have to wait until 2010, warning that the delay could derail international negotiations in Copenhagen.
• 2009/09/16: ClimateP: Reid aide walks back Senate Majority Leader's comment on climate bill timing
• 2009/09/15: ClimateP: E&E: Reid says cap-and-trade bill MAY wait till 2010
• 2009/09/16: NYT:CW: 2010? Reid's Comments Add Uncertainty to Climate Vote's Timing
  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) added another layer of uncertainty to the prospects for passing a comprehensive climate bill this year by opening the door to punting the legislation into 2010, only to have a top aide walk back from his boss' comment a short while later.
• 2009/09/16: Guardian(UK): Climate change: Senate Democrats may delay legislation

  A bill aimed at removing the exemptions from liability caused by hydraulic fracturing has been introduced:

• 2009/09/17: NRDC:SwitchBoard: Widespread national support for the FRAC Act
• Thomas: HR 2766: Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act of 2009

  Wrangling over the Senate version of Waxman-Markey continues:

• 2009/09/19: TP: Romney pushes false claim that cap and trade would cost families $1,761 a year
• 2009/09/18: C411: Yet Another CBO Study Shows Small Costs of Clean Energy Legislation
• 2009/09/17: NYT:CW: Climate Bill Drifts Into a Potomac Fog
  A day after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) hinted that climate legislation might be postponed until 2010, some analysts wondered whether that actually could mean 2011. Or perhaps that it wouldn't be considered in the Senate at all.
• 2009/09/18: NRDC:SwitchBoard: Climate Bill Could Dramatically Increase US Energy Security
• 2009/09/18: NRDC:SwitchBoard: September Surprise: Clean Energy Bill could be (very) good for U.S. oil production
• 2009/09/18: EnvEcon: CBO estimates the cost of ACES (again)
• 2009/09/17: ClimateP: In a "a sharp departure from the House measure," Boxer climate bill to adopt a price collar for allowance auction -- as predicted
• 2009/09/17: NRDC:SwitchBoard: ACES - A Clean Energy Bargain
• 2009/09/14: ClimateP: Waxman-Markey clean air, clean water, clean energy jobs bill creates $1.5 trillion in benefits
• 2009/09/14: LA Times: Climate bill politics are heating up
  Supporters of Obama's clean-energy plan say the issue is not just jobs. National security is at stake as well.

What are the lobbyists pushing?

• 2009/09/16: C411: Clean Energy Works: Broad coalition for a climate bill
• 2009/09/16: Grist: Climate SOS campaign aims to defeat ACES for the right reason
• 2009/09/16: ClimateP: Bumble Bee, Dell, DuPont, FPL, Google, HP, Johnson & Johnson, Levi Strauss, Nike, PG&E and Xanterra urge the Senate to pass a bill this year that will cut GHG emissions and "jumpstart a clean energy economy": "A rapidly changing climate is reshaping the American landscape and poses a long-term threat to our nation's economy and to our children's future."
• 2009/09/15: TreeHugger: US Emissions Will Drop Halfway to 2020 Target by Year's End - Yet Another Reason to Strengthen the Climate Bill

  While in the UK:

• 2009/09/18: Guardian(UK): Green groups urge next government to make environment highest priority
  WWF, Friends of the Earth and RSPB among those launching manifesto ahead of next year's election
• 2009/09/18: Guardian(UK): The data behind Scotland's new carbon budget
• 2009/09/16: OpenDem: 10:10 and the politics of climate change
  A new climate-change project lacks the political focus that the scale of the problem now demands, says Andrew Dobson.
• 2009/09/18: BBC: Energy bills 'unlikely to fall'
  The big six energy suppliers have told the regulator Ofgem that there is little chance of any further cuts in their tariffs this coming year.
• 2009/09/18: BBC: Buyer found for UK nuclear assets
  The government has announced the sale of the commercial arm of the UK's Atomic Energy Agency, UKAEA Limited, for £50m to Babcock International. UKAEA Ltd provides services such as waste management and decommissioning of old nuclear power plants, as well as supporting the building of new plants. The government announced plans for the sale earlier this year. It had said it would consider retaining a stake in UKAEA but Babcock is to take 100% ownership of the firm.
• 2009/09/18: BBC: Manure dumped at Clarkson's home
  Climate change protesters have dumped a pile of horse manure at the home of Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson in a protest about vehicle emissions. Six women stood by the dung in the drive of his home in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, with a sign that read: "This is what you're landing us in." The protesters from direct action group Climate Rush said they were being as "blasé as him" about emissions. Clarkson made no comment and Thames Valley Police said no-one was arrested.
• 2009/09/15: Independent(UK): The Big Question: Should landowners be forced to give up space for allotments?
• 2009/09/17: IPPR: Public switched off by climate change, warns IPPR
• 2009/09/17: Guardian(UK): Public bored by climate change, says IPPR
• 2009/09/17: Guardian(UK): Economic case for Heathrow third runway flawed, figures show
• 2009/09/17: Guardian(UK): Scotland unveils world's first carbon budget
• 2009/09/17: Guardian(UK): Adonis defends aviation industry over emissions
• 2009/09/13: BBC: There is "no danger" of mass power cuts in the UK during the next decade, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband has said
• 2009/09/15: BBC: The government has saved £7m in the last year by making its departments greener, the Cabinet Office says
• 2009/09/15: Guardian(UK): Boris Johnson ups carbon footprint by courtesy flight to New York
• 2009/09/14: Guardian(UK): Thousands of Co-operative customers urged to join Wave climate rally

  And in Europe:

• 2009/09/18: EarthTimes: Merkel and Sarkozy in joint call for UN 'mandate' on climate change
• 2009/09/19: PeakEnergy: EU plans 30 cities to lead world on "smart" energy
• 2009/09/17: EnvFin: EU to press US on climate
• 2009/09/18: EurActiv: France, Germany to call for EU border tax on CO2
• 2009/09/18: EurActiv: EU achieves unity ahead of Pittsburgh
  The EU will go with a clear position to the G20 meeting next week in Pittsburgh, the Union's leaders announced yesterday evening (17 September) following an extraordinary summit held in Brussels.
• 2009/09/18: ScienceInsider: Proposed: Poobahs for European Science and Climate
• 2009/09/17: EurActiv: EU to promote clean energy with 'smart cities'
• 2009/09/17: EurActiv: Upfront climate funding high on EU leaders' agenda
• 2009/09/17: EUO: EU leaders take aim at Obama on banks and climate
• 2009/09/17: NatureN: Wanted: a chief scientist for Europe -- Commission president [Barroso] pledges to hire top adviser
• 2009/09/17: PlanetArk: Factbox: EU Seeks To Take Lead In Green Energy Research
• 2009/09/17: PlanetArk: EU Plans 30 Cities To Lead World On "Smart" Energy
• 2009/09/16: EurActiv: Commission says farmers need help to cut carbon
  European farmers must slash agricultural greenhouse gas emissions by at least 20% by 2020, primarily by producing biomass and storing carbon in the soil, but they risk ruin without outside help, EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel said yesterday (15 September)
• 2009/09/16: EarthTimes: German cabinet clears way for offshore wind farms
• 2009/09/16: EarthTimes: EU president Sweden wants momentum stepped up in climate talks
• 2009/09/16: DerSpiegel: Barroso Wins Second Term [as president of the European Commission] -- A Victory for the EU's Political Chameleon
• 2009/09/15: Guardian(UK): EC president outlines climate change, immigration and human rights plans
• 2009/09/15: EurActiv: EU cars & CO2 regulation proves successful, says NGO
• 2009/09/14: Grist: Conservative French Government again proposes higher solar PV tariffs

  Meanwhile in Australia:

• 2009/09/20: PeakEnergy: Carbon Storage: Why the Gorgon Gas Play Might Be Really Important
• 2009/09/19: ABC(Au): [Aussie PM Kevin] Rudd heads to US for economy, climate talks [at UN, Clinton Global Initiative & G20 summit in Pittsburgh]
• 2009/09/18: ABC(Au): The South Coast and Highlands Dairy Industry Group says it will be very hard for Australian dairy farmers to compete internationally if a carbon tax is imposed on their cattle
• 2009/09/18: ABC(Au): The collapse of a $420 million solar project near Mildura, in north-west Victoria, will be the focus of a protest rally in Melbourne today
• 2009/09/18: TreeHugger: Australian Youth Decide Climate Campaign
• 2009/09/02: OnlineOpinion(Au): Prime Minister, we have a water problem
• 2009/09/17: ABC(Au): Barnaby plays down Coalition climate rift
  Nationals Senate Leader Barnaby Joyce has played down discontent within his party over Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull's handling of emissions trading.
• 2009/09/17: ABC(Au): Outback solar scheme scrapped
  The federal Opposition has criticised Climate Change Minister Penny Wong for abandoning a solar incentive program for people in outback communities. Last night's 7.30 Report found that the Remote Solar Scheme - which subsidised half the cost of going solar - was scrapped in June amid high demand.
• 2009/09/16: ABC(Au): The group Climate Emergency Action Network wants the South Australian Government to shut the two coal-fired power stations in Port Augusta
• 2009/09/17: ABC(Au): Greens to spruik building cap and trade plan
  The Greens are calling for a mandatory cap and trade system to upgrade the energy efficiency of commercial buildings in Australia. Senator Christine Milne will introduce a private members bill today and expects the legislation to be referred to a Senate committee. Under the system all commercial buildings - like shopping centres, offices and schools - would be allocated energy efficiency permits. But the total number would be gradually reduced, forcing buildings to be upgraded.
• 2009/09/16: ABC(Au): Outspoken Liberal backbencher Wilson Tuckey says he thinks most of the Coalition wants to vote down the Government's emissions trading scheme and he believes the issue will eventually have to go to a conscience vote
• 2009/09/15: ABC(Au): Clean coal technology 'unproven'
  A conservation group has questioned developments in clean coal technology. Waratah Coal has announced plans for a clean coal power station next to its proposed mine near Alpha in central western Queensland. It would use waste coal from the mine. But the vice-president of the Capricorn Conservation Council, Ian Herbert, says workable clean coal technology is still many years off.
• 2009/09/15: ABC(Au): Heavy rain in the Perth metropolitan area has lifted Perth dams to their highest level in almost a decade
• 2009/09/15: ABC(Au): Adelaide City Council will offer to install recharging stations for drivers of electric cars who have reserved parking in the city
• 2009/09/15: ABC(Au): The Federal Government's former climate change adviser Ross Garnaut says Australia's credibility on the issue would be boosted if the Senate were to pass an emissions trading scheme
• 2009/09/14: ABC(Au): People in Bendigo will be able to access renewable energy by the end of the year with Bendigo's Solar Park on track to be completed by Christmas
• 2009/09/14: ABC(Au): Hazelwood expecting more climate change protests
  The CEO of International Power Hazelwood, Graham York, says he expects climate change activists to carry out more protests in Victoria's Latrobe Valley
• 2009/09/14: ABC(Au): One of Australia's leading union bosses says the use of the "green jobs" label is "dopey" and is "alienating" blue-collar workers
• 2009/09/14: ABC(Au): Australia 'bottom of pack' on green economy
  Australia is behind Mexico and Argentina in terms of its ability to meet greenhouse gas emissions targets, a report says. The Climate Institute and European think-tank E3G released the report in the lead-up to next week's G20 meeting in the US.
• 2009/09/14: EarthTimes: Australia gets bad carbon report card

  Brendan Nelson is happily skewering his own integrity:

• 2009/09/20: ABC(Au): The former federal opposition leader, Brendan Nelson, says he will continue to campaign against the Government's emissions trading scheme during the by-election in his Sydney seat
• 2009/09/17: ABC(Au): Nelson happy toeing ETS line in EU
  Former opposition leader Brendan Nelson says he is happy to promote the Government's stance on climate change despite railing against the introduction of an emissions trading scheme (ETS) in his final speech as a Liberal MP.

And in New Zealand:

• 2009/09/14: EarthTimes: New Zealand floats new climate change policy to cut consumer costs
• 2009/09/14: Reuters: New Zealand to revise emissions scheme
  New Zealand will revise its emissions trading scheme to lower the costs to businesses and households, although the scheme will still cover all sectors and greenhouse gases, the government said on Monday. The government said it had struck a deal with its support party, the Maori Party, and would introduce a bill revising the largely stalled trading scheme to parliament next week. At present, only forestry is operating under the existing scheme.
• 2009/09/14: HotTopic: National snubs Labour, buys Maori support for watered-down ETS
• 2009/09/14: HotTopic: National snub to Labour on ETS: part 2 -- the fallout

  While in India:

• 2009/09/17: EarthTimes: India ready to quantify non-binding emission cuts: report
• 2009/09/14: TreeHugger: $1.1 Trillion: The Cost to Halve India's Carbon Emissions Growth by 2030

  And China:

• 2009/09/20: Times(UK): Chinese start carbon-trading scheme
• 2009/09/17: EnvFin: China's green-tech market could reach $1 trillion by 2013 - report
• 2009/09/17: ScienceInsider: Which Way Is the Wind Blowing on Climate in China?
• 2009/09/17: Guardian(UK): China's top climatologist stays cool over 2C rise
• 2009/09/16: Guardian(UK): Chinese government adviser warns that 2C global warming target is unrealistic
• 2009/09/15: EarthTimes: Government: China to take further steps against climate change

  While in Japan:

• 2009/09/19: Reuters: Japan eyes mandatory cap-and-trade in 2011/12-Nikkei
• 2009/09/17: PlanetArk: Japan's Carbon Cuts May Include Offsets
• 2009/09/17: PlanetArk: Q+A: How Will Japan's New Govt Tackle Climate Change?

  And elsewhere in Asia:

• 2009/09/19: TreeHugger: Bangladesh Environment Network Delivers Plea to UN: Stop Climate Change! Save Bangladesh!

  In Africa:

• 2009/09/14: Ecologist:AR: Adapting to climate change in Morocco
• 2009/09/16: Yahoo:AFP: West Africa group [Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)] adopts common position on climate change
• 2009/09/16: PlanetArk: South Africa's Nedbank Warns On Carbon Emissions

  And South America:

• 2009/09/16: IR^2: Brazil Flexing Its Muscles
• 2009/09/18: BBC: Brazil eyes Amazon sugar cane ban
  The Brazilian government has unveiled plans to ban sugar cane plantations in environmentally sensitive areas. The proposal, which must be passed by Congress, comes amid concerns that Brazil's developing biofuels industry is increasing Amazon deforestation. Environment Minister Carlos Minc said the measures would mean ethanol made from sugar cane would be "100% green". The government agenda is becoming more environmentally friendly ahead of the 2010 presidential poll, analysts say.

In Canada, minority neocon PM Harper, continues his do-nothing policy:

• 2009/09/17: CanWest: Canada criticized as a leading industrial polluter
  Canada, used to facing international scorn over its climate-unfriendly oilsands industry, is now being criticized for having one of the world's least carbon-efficient manufacturing industries. The International Energy Agency's unflattering assessment of Canada's performance, particularly in the pulp and paper, iron and steel, and cement sectors, is part of a new IEA publication calling on governments and manufacturers to support a "low-carbon industrial revolution" to fight climate change.
• 2009/09/18: CleanBreak: Canada ranks low in industrial efficiency: IEA
• 2009/09/18: G&M: Twiddling our thumbs while waiting for a U.S. climate-change bill
  Having ceded important parts of Canada's climate-change policies to the United States -- or, to put matters more mildly, having decided to wait on the United States -- the Harper government can hardly take a lead in North America on reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. With climate-change talks resuming in Copenhagen in December, the U.S. remains a long way from developing a coherent position -- which means Canada is stalled, too. Today, as yesterday, the U.S., Canada and other key industrial countries are in Washington discussing their pre-Copenhagen thinking, knowing there's no consensus and huge differences between them and developing countries. For the U.S., as so often is the case, climate change is tied up in congressional politics. Until the dust settles, it will be difficult for U.S. negotiators to make commitments at Copenhagen.

Stevie went to DC; didn't seem to accomplish much, but who knows what they really talked about:

• 2009/09/16: NRDC:SwitchBoard: Growing international outrage and Carbon Big Foot welcome Canada to Washington
• 2009/09/17: TStar: Harper/Obama summit fizzles
• 2009/09/16: SolveClimate: Enviros Greet Canada's PM with Tar Sands Protests Ahead of White House Meeting
• 2009/09/15: RAN: Activists drop 70' banner off of NIAGARA FALLS to tell Canadian PM: NO TAR SANDS oil!
• 2009/09/16: CanWest: Our territory, our law, PM [Harper] says of Beaufort -- PM refuses to commit to discussing dispute with U.S. president
• 2009/09/15: Grist: Welcome to America, Stephen Harper! Activists drape Niagara Falls with banner to protest tar-sands oil
• 2009/09/15: NRDC:SwitchBoard: Obama Should Tell Canada's Prime Minister: No Thanks on Tar Sands Expansion
• 2009/09/15: CanWest: Oilsands foes ready hostile reception for Harper in D.C.
  A coalition of North American environmental groups plans to welcome Prime Minister Stephen Harper to Washington this week with an advertising blitz targeting Alberta's oilsands and Ottawa's climate change policy. "Our top line message is that Canada's tarsands are inconsistent with President Obama's clean energy vision," says Gillian McEachern, senior climate campaigner at ForestEthics.

In BC, post election adjustments are ongoing:

• 2009/09/16: BCLocalNews: City [of Nelson] eyes carbon reduction
  The City of Nelson is looking for ways to keep its rate of greenhouse gas emissions at 2007 levels to avoid buying carbon offsets in 2012. Nelson was one of 62 B.C. communities whose local government voluntarily pledged to become carbon neutral by 2012, two years after the provincial government makes the shift.

In Saskatchewan, a push back against Wall's pro-nuke stance is developing:

• 2009/09/16: ETP: Lingenfelter: No case for Sask nuclear power
• 2009/09/15: CBC: Most oppose nuclear power in Sask., report says
  The Future of Uranium public consultation report released Tuesday has thrown cold water on proposals to expand the nuclear industry in Saskatchewan. The report from consultation chair Dan Perrins says most Saskatchewan people who attended meetings and sent letters to him during the summer do not want a nuclear power plant, a nuclear waste disposal facility, or any expansion of the nuclear industry.

Meanwhile in that Mechanical Mordor known as the tar sands:

• 2009/09/16: NRDC:SwitchBoard: One more reason we don't need tar sands oil
• 2009/09/16: TStar: No special treatment for tar sands
  In 1988, when I addressed the U.S. Congress on the dangers of global warming, I warned leaders that it was time to stop waffling. Humans were changing the climate in new and dangerous ways and we needed to take action. At the time, I knew we could expect stiff resistance from the usual suspects, but if you had told me that 20 years later, one of the most stubborn holdouts would be a self-interested Canada, I wouldn't have believed you. That's because then, as now, Canadians are a compassionate people, concerned about the environment and the role their government plays on the international stage. And yet, there are few countries I can think of that have done more to undermine international efforts to fight climate change in recent years, than Canada.
• 2009/09/16: OBMB: Harper and Tar Sands Emissions Make Canada A Carbon Bully
• 2009/09/15: OilChange: Canada: The Climate Change Bully
• 2009/09/15: Reuters: Protesters target tarsands before Harper meets Obama
• 2009/09/15: CBC: Greenpeace blocks truck at Alberta oilsands site
  A group of Greenpeace activists chained themselves to a three-storey dump truck and surrounded it with pickup trucks at Shell's Albian Sands mine in northern Alberta Tuesday morning. The protest was launched by the environmental group in advance of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington D.C. Wednesday.
• 2009/09/14: GreenPeace(Ca): [backgrounder] Dirty Oil: How the tar sands are fueling the global climate crisis
• 2009/09/14: GreenPeace(Ca): Alberta tar sands a major climate and economic threat: Greenpeace report
• 2009/09/15: CanWest: Oilsands make us a 'carbon bully'
  A new report from Greenpeace says oil production in Alberta's tar sands has made Canada a "global carbon bully." Little has been done to tackle climate change in Canada, and the federal government has tried to block international agreements and laws targeting climate change, says the report, called Dirty Oil: How The Tar Sands Are Fuelling the Global Climate Crisis. Meanwhile, oilsands projects in northern Alberta are creating more greenhouse gas emissions per year than several small European countries, the report says. Continued growth in the oilsands will mean that by 2020, more carbon dioxide will be produced there than by all the volcanoes in the world put together, the report says. "Canada is now one of the world's leading emitters of GHGs, and a global defender of dirty fuels," writes author Andrew Nikiforuk, a Calgary-based science writer. Canada's emissions from greenhouse gases, which are linked to climate change, have increased by more than 26 per cent since 1990.
• 2009/09/14: G&M: Oil sands under attack on environment
  The industry is accustomed to defending its image in North America, but it now faces a multifront war, with opposition growing from Norway to Washington
• 2009/09/13: CBC: Oilsands emit more than entire countries: report
  Alberta's oilsands produce more greenhouse gas emissions than some European countries right now and will produce more than all of the world's volcanoes in just 11 years if the pace of development continues, a new report says. "Dirty: How the Tarsands Are Fuelling Global Climate Change" is set to be released Monday. Greenpeace commissioned award-winning author Andrew Nikiforuk, a business and environmental reporter, to write the report. "Nobody in Canada wants to talk about the scale issues," he said in an interview Saturday. "The emissions are bigger than Estonia and Lithuania right now and in 2020 will be larger than countries like Belgium, Austria, Ireland and Denmark."

As for miscellaneous Canadiana:

• 2009/09/19: CBC: Greens leader wins nomination in B.C. riding
  Green Party Leader Elizabeth May has won her party's nomination to run in the B.C. riding of Saanich-Gulf Islands in the next federal election.
• 2009/09/15: CBC: Fundy tidal power demonstration approved

  The movement toward a long term ecologically viable economics is glacial:

• 2009/09/18: TreeHugger: Turning The Tide - A New Vision Of Eco-Nomics
• 2009/09/15: DotEarth: A Nobelist [Joseph Stiglitz] Joins Those Pursuing Well-Being Over Growth
• 2009/09/14: EnergyBulletin: Fatal Divisions Part III: Vested interests
• 2009/09/14: OilDrum: The Zero Growth Mind

  IPAT [Impact = Population * Affluence * Technology] raised its head once again:

• 2009/09/19: AlterNet: Can Condoms Save Us From Climate Change?
• 2009/09/18: CBC: Fight climate change by giving condoms to poor: Lancet
• 2009/09/15: Ecologist: Copenhagen and population growth: the topic politicians won't discuss
• 2009/09/17: PortlandTrib: Emission goals prove elusive -- As population grows, caps on greenhouse gases look hard to reach
• 2009/09/16: UN: Climate change, population growth could lead to human catastrophe -- UN adviser [Jeffrey Sachs]
• 2009/09/15: DotEarth: Are Condoms the Ultimate Green Technology?

  Apocalypso anyone?

• 2009/09/20: OilDrum: Is There Any Silver Lining to a Collapse Scenario?
• 2009/09/17: AlterNet: Would You Know How Survive After the Oil Crash?

  As for how the media handles the science of climatology:

• 2009/09/18: GreenGrok: George Will Take Note: 1910 != 2050
• 2009/09/17: Guardian(UK): Jeremy Clarkson targeted in manure dump protest by climate campaigners
• 2009/09/17: ClimateP: Worst headline of the week -- "Vilsack: Climate change could help rural economies"
• 2009/09/16: MTobis: Keith's Lament

  And for your film & video enjoyment:

• 2009/09/19: TreeHugger: Eco-dystopia: Trendy Cinematic Vision for the Planet?
• 2009/09/19: WWW: Climate Change in a 10 Second Movie
• 2009/09/14: ClimateP: Must-see video: Time-lapse proof of extreme ice loss
• 2009/09/11: CSM: Movie review: 'No Impact Man'
  A Manhattan family try to shrink their carbon footprint to zero in this entertaining documentary
• 2009/09/11: CSM: Movie review: 'Earth Days'
  Far from doom and gloom, this documentary takes an engaging look at the history of the American environmental movement

Meanwhile among the 'Sue the Bastards!' contingent:

• 2009/09/15: WarmingLaw: CA Waiver: It's Baaaaaack!

  Among the non-members of Gamblers Anonymous:

• 2009/09/17: MGS: Sea Ice Bet Status

  Wrestling over a new energy infrastructure continues unabated:

• 2009/09/18: DerSpiegel: Alternative Energy at Sea -- German Cabinet Approves Massive Expansion of Offshore Wind Farms
  Germany's coastline may soon be bristling with wind turbines. A new plan involves 2,500 turbines, 30,000 new jobs and enough power for over 8 million households. Still, some worry that environmental regulations, financing difficulties and even security issues might hurt the ambitious plan.
• 2009/09/19: CBC:Q&Q: [mp3/ogg] Space Solar Power
• 2009/09/17: WSJ: Kill Oil -- A carbon strategy the world can afford
• 2009/09/18: CBC: [Natural] Gas industry profits predicted to drop by 60% -- Lowest profits forecast since 1999
  Natural gas profits this year will fall to less than half what they were last year, says a report released Friday by the Conference Board of Canada. Industry-wide, profits will fall by more than 60 per cent, according to the Conference Board's report Canadian Industrial Outlook: Canada's Gas Extraction Industry, Summer 2009. The report predicts profits will total $2.3 billion this year, the lowest for the gas industry since 1999. Profits should start growing again starting in 2010 as prices for natural gas improve.
• 2009/09/17: PhysOrg: Researchers make progress in optimizing solid oxide fuel cells
• 2009/09/17: Eureka: Impact of renewable energy [such as off-shore wind farms and wave and tidal energy conversion devices] on our oceans must be investigated, say scientists
• 2009/09/16: NewScientist: Geothermal power quakes find defenders
  Geothermal energy is in the dock in Germany, but some scientists are pleading for leniency. A government panel is investigating claims by the geological survey for the state of Rhineland-Palatinate that a geothermal plant triggered a magnitude-2.7 earthquake on 15 August in the town of Landau in the state. If the panel finds against the company that built the plant, Geo X of Landau, it could be shut down.
• 2009/09/16: OilDrum: Renewables Transition 3: The Precautionary Principle
• 2009/09/15: NewScientist: Better world: Generate a feed-in [tariff] frenzy
• 2009/09/15: PhysOrg: $21 Billion Orbiting Solar Array will Beam Electricity to Earth [SBS]

  The spectre of distributed power generation again challenges the utilities:

• 2009/09/18: PlanetArk: German Mini Power Stations Augur Change For Big Firms
• 2009/09/17: Reuters: German [LichtBlick-Volkswagen] mini power stations augur change for big firms

  The answer my friend...:

• 2009/09/17: Guardian(UK): World's biggest offshore windfarm launched [in Denmark]... eventually
• 2009/09/17: TreeHugger: Denmark Inaugurates World's Largest Offshore Wind Farm - 209 MW Horns Rev 2
• 2009/09/17: HotTopic: Big wind could wean China off coal
• 2009/09/16: NRDC:SwitchBoard: Another response to the "Danish" Wind Study
• 2009/09/15: AWEA: The Truth about Wind Power in Denmark
  On September 14, the Institute for Energy Research (IER), a fossil-fuel industry funded group, began distributing a collection of misleading and outright false claims about wind power in Denmark. These claims were presented in a study commissioned by IER and accompanying fact sheets which presented the study's conclusions in an even more misleading and false manner.
• 2009/09/15: PlanetArk: Europe Wind Power Body [EWEA] Sees Big Offshore Potential
• 2009/09/14: TreeHugger: Offshore Wind Farms to Power 1/5th of Europe by 2030
• 2009/09/14: EarthTimes: Germany approves nearly 1,800 wind turbines in offshore seas

  Meanwhile among the solar aficionados:

• 2009/09/20: PeakEnergy: UBS Report: Future Bright for Solar Thermal
• 2009/09/13: FuturePundit: New Silicon Solar Cell Design Cuts Costs [1366 Tech]
• 2009/09/14: FuturePundit: Nanosolar Steps Out With Lower Costs Solar Cells
• 2009/09/19: FuturePundit: Inkjet Boosts Silicon Solar Cells Efficiency
• 2009/09/18: TechRev: Nano Ink Boost for Silicon Solar -- Inkjet-printed silicon increases solar-cell efficiency
• 2009/09/18: SolveClimate: New York Offers 50% Solar Subsidy, as East Coast Pulls Ahead in PV Growth
• 2009/09/18: LA Times: Solar energy firm drops plan for project in Mojave Desert
  BrightSource Energy's decision ends a battle with environmentalists over a 5,130-acre site in a proposed national monument
• 2009/09/18: BBerg: India's Gujarat to Give Contracts for Solar Project
• 2009/09/17: ClimateP: "Invented here, sold there."
• 2009/09/17: PlanetArk: California To More Than Double Solar Power In '09
• 2009/09/17: PeakEnergy: Nanosolar Update
• 2009/09/17: WSJ:EnvCap: Enter Gigawatts: Solar Power Comes of Age
• 2009/09/16: PlanetArk: Solar Mirror Power Firms Cling To Spanish Subsidy
• 2009/09/15: PhysOrg: Will China's Planned Solar Field Lower the Cost of Alternative Energy?
  One of the biggest complaints that some have about solar power (and other forms of alternative energy) is that it is so much more expensive than the fossil fuels that are more commonly used today. However, this might change with China's ambitious plans to build a 2-gigawatt solar field in Inner Mogolia.
• 2009/09/14: TreeHugger: Good News! Nanosolar Reaches Solar Cell Efficiency of 16.4% and Starts Mass Production
• 2009/09/14: SciDaily: Looking Deeply Into Polymer Solar Cells
• 2009/09/14: WSJ:EnvCap: More Bang, Less Buck: 1366 Technologies and the Cost of Solar Power

  The arithmetic of coal carbon is striking home:

• 2009/09/18: PlanetArk: Southern Co Coal-To-Gas Technology [TRIG (Transport Integrated Gasification), an advanced IGCC (Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle) design] Heads To China
• 2009/09/18: PressEurop: German judges spurn coal
  German justice is going green. For the first time ever, German judges have stopped the construction of a coal-fired power plant in Datteln, in the Ruhr region.
• 2009/09/16: BBC: UK Coal in £100m fundraising plan
  The UK's biggest coal producer has announced plans to raise £100m from investors to reduce its debt levels. UK Coal runs Thoresby and Welbeck in Nottinghamshire, Kellingley in Yorkshire and Daw Mill in Warwickshire. But it has struggled in the past year from falling coal prices and the poor performance of its property assets.
• 2009/09/: BostonReview: Living With Coal -- Climate policy's most inconvenient truth

  Biofuel bickering abounds:

• 2009/09/18: OilDrum: Renewable Fuel Niches [3/3]
• 2009/09/17: NatureCF: Wonder weed plans fail to flourish
• 2009/09/17: KSJT: LA Times: Pond Scum, or a path toward energy independence?
• 2009/09/17: PhysOrg: Cars running on ethanol can pollute too: Brazil study
• 2009/09/16: PlanetArk: UK Technology Could Turn U.S. Ethanol Industry Green [compost bacteria plug-in]
• 2009/09/16: Eureka: Biofuel production could undercut efforts to shrink Gulf 'Dead Zone'
• 2009/09/15: SeattlePI: Company to make cutting-edge fuel from wood

  The nuclear energy controversy continues:

• 2009/09/19: BNC: Radiation -- facts, fallacies and phobias
• 2009/09/18: SolveClimate: Nuclear Power's Cost Competitiveness Remains a Critical Question
• 2009/09/16: WSJ:EnvCap: Meltdown: A Gloomy Look at the Economics of Nuclear Power

  Yes we have a peak oil sighting:

• 2009/09/17: NewsWithViews: $20 per Gallon of Gasoline by Frosty Wooldridge
• 2009/09/17: EnergyBulletin: The Peak Oil Crisis: The Next Price Spike
• 2009/09/16: CanWest:DF: Oil prices mean perpetual recession
• 2009/09/17: NakedCapitalism: Will Peak Oil Pricing = Perma Recession?
• 2009/09/14: EnergyBulletin: Peak Oil is not a theory; Peak Oil is the reality of past and future oil production. by Kjell Aleklett

  More people are talking about the electrical grid:

• 2009/09/17: TreeHugger: Cisco Stakes Out Bigger Presence in Smart Grid Scene
• 2009/09/17: SolveClimate: Four Months In, Cisco Moves to Dominate Smart Grid
• 2009/09/14: EurActiv: Offshore wind needs grid development
  Wind projects already being planned could cover 10% of Europe's electricity needs, but a lack of grid infrastructure and liquidity problems will prevent the development of some, according to the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA)

And then there is the matter of efficiency & conservation:

• 2009/09/16: AlterNet: Laundry Liberation: Fighting for the Right to Hang Your Clothes Out to Dry
• 2009/09/10: CNet: Panasonic: New LED bulbs shine for 19 years
• 2009/09/16: SlashDot: Panasonic's New LED Bulbs Shine For 19 Years
• 2009/09/14: TreeHugger: Jevons Paradox and Energy Efficiency

  Automakers & lawyers, engineers & activists argue over the future of the car:

• 2009/09/18: PlanetArk: Electric Bikes Start To Gain Traction
• 2009/09/17: BBC: Car firms disagree about electric future
• 2009/09/13: BizInsider: Government Says Three-Wheeled Electric Car Isn't A Car
  The Aptera 2e, one of the coolest-looking electric cars in the world, is not a car, says the U.S. government. General Motors, which wants to kill off any electric cars that aren't the Volt, heartily agrees. Meanwhile, 4,000 people have ponied up $500 apiece to get a 2e as soon as they roll off the production line. Why does the government say the 2e isn't a car? Because it doesn't have four wheels.
• 2009/09/16: DerSpiegel: Not Much Will to Power -- Will the Electric Car Ever Make It to the Mass Market?
  Germany's automakers are proudly showing off their concept electric cars at the Frankfurt motor show, which opens to the public Thursday. But the shiny new designs on display are just a pipe dream. It's still not clear when, or even if, viable electric cars will make it onto the mass market.
• 2009/09/15: CBC: [Canadian] Car sales increase in July
  New vehicle sales climbed 5.3 per cent, to 126,665 units, in July compared to the same month in 2008, Statistics Canada revealed Tuesday. Led by increases in Ontario, sales of both passenger cars and trucks were up. After hitting a low at the end of 2008, car sales have steadily increased through 2009. On a year-over-year basis, July's sales were still 8.5 per cent lower than July 2008.

How can these honking big, expensive batteries can be reused or recycled?

• 2009/09/17: SolveClimate: EVs Challenge to Entrepreneurs: Find New Use for Spent Batteries
• 2009/09/15: TreeHugger: REVA Announces 'Second Life' for its EV Batteries

  Cash-for-Clunkers, aka Scrappage, Plans are being legislated and argued around the world:

• 2009/09/16: BBC: Carmakers urge scrappage renewal -- Carmakers are calling for European governments to continue their popular car scrappage schemes
• 2009/09/16: CBC: GM offers $3,000 for Canadian clunkers
• 2009/09/15: PlanetArk: "Cash For Clunkers" Wins Over U.S. Drivers, Dealers
• 2009/09/15: BBC: Cash for clunkers boosts US sales
  US retail sales rose sharply in August, boosted by the "cash for clunkers" scheme that offered motorists incentives to buy new cars. Sales rose by 2.7% from the previous month, following the surprise fall in sales in July, the official figures from the Commerce Department showed. But compared with the same month last year, sales fell by 5.3%.
• 2009/09/14: PhysOrg: Fuel economy higher, thanks to Cash for Clunkers

  The reaction of business to climate change will be critical:

• 2009/09/17: EnvFin: $13 trillion backs investor call for climate action
• 2009/09/18: CSW: API, CEI, Heartland, listen up: Big money calls for big cuts in global carbon emissions
• 2009/09/18: SolveClimate: Top Investors: World Needs Strong Climate Policies to Ensure Economic Growth
• 2009/09/17: UN: Top global investors appeal for action on climate change - UN
• 2009/09/17: DotEarth: Who's Walking The Sustainability Walk?
• 2009/09/17: TreeHugger: $13 Trillion Says a Global Climate Treaty's a Good Bet
• 2009/09/17: TreeHugger: Hundred of World's Biggest Investors Call for Strong, Science-Based Global Climate Change Agreement
• 2009/09/16: Guardian(UK): Investors call for action on global warming
  More than 180 of world's biggest investors aim to overcome opposition in US and elsewhere to climate change legislation
• 2009/09/16: ClimateP: Bumble Bee, Dell, DuPont, FPL, Google, HP, Johnson & Johnson, Levi Strauss, Nike, PG&E and Xanterra urge the Senate to pass a bill this year that will cut GHG emissions and "jumpstart a clean energy economy": "A rapidly changing climate is reshaping the American landscape and poses a long-term threat to our nation's economy and to our children's future."
• 2009/09/14: TreeHugger: Trend Watch: More Corporate Execs Supporting Climate Action

  Meanwhile in the greenwashing chronicles:

• 2009/09/17: TP:WR: Supposedly 'Green' Printing Company Sponsoring Oil Front Group Conference

  Joe Romm posts a daily list of top energy and climate stories:

• 2009/09/18: ClimateP: Energy and Global Warming News for September 18th: UN Secretary General calls for immediate action
• 2009/09/17: ClimateP: Energy and Global Warming News for September 17: White House plays down talk of climate delay to 2010; India ready to issue non-binding emissions cut; Duke Energy CEO says "I actually can see a future where coal is not in the equation in 2050."
• 2009/09/16: ClimateP: Energy and Global Warming News for September 16: World Bank spends billions funding coal-fired power while warning of impending catastrophe; Australia beats out U.S. for lead in per capita CO2 emissions
• 2009/09/15: ClimateP: Energy and Global Warming News for September 15: China's new climate plans; House passes wind energy bill
• 2009/09/14: ClimateP: Energy and Global Warming News for September 14: Green jobs legislation passes in New York; China clean tech market could be worth $1 trillion a year

  The carbon lobby are up to the usual:

• 2009/09/19: GreenFyre: The Curious Incident of the Denier in the Night-time
• 2009/09/14: Tamino: MacGruber!
• 2009/09/13: Tamino: Summer '09
• 2009/09/14: QuarkSoup: Debate With Marc Morano
• 2009/09/18: GreenFyre: The insufferable immaturity of Ian Plimer
• 2009/09/18: GreenFyre: Spectator cancels Monbiot vs Plimer debate
• 2009/09/19: GreenFyre: An empty head for The Spectator
• 2009/09/19: Deltoid: Temper tantrums at the Spectator
• 2009/09/19: JKB: The Climate Foundation -- Roots of the Dutch Climate Scepticism series, part 7
• 2009/09/18: JKB: The Heidelberg Appeal -- Roots of Dutch Climate scepticism series, part 6
• 2009/09/17: ERabett: How much is that Morano in the window?
• 2009/09/17: TreeHugger: With Climate Science Deniers Quieting, What's Next?
• 2009/09/17: OSun: Like it or not, oilsands projects vital
• 2009/09/16: Guardian(UK): Sceptics seize on [Mojib Latif's] climate cooling model
  Research suggesting that global temperatures may fall is being used by deniers and sceptics to dismiss the entire canon of climate science
• 2009/09/15: DeSmogBlog: Clumsy Denier Ian Plimer Limps AWAY FROM the Finish Line
• 2009/09/15: GreenFyre: Climate Denial Revolt: World's Largest Blog Science Group 'Startled' By Clamor for Editor to Be Removed!
• 2009/09/15: TWTB: Darlings of the denialosphere reaffirm that, underlying natural variability, the man-made global warming signal is real -- and say it's accelerating
• 2009/09/15: ClimateP: O'Reilly's weatherman, befuddled Bastardi: "Global cooling is actually a cause of drought in California."
• 2009/09/15: NRDC:SwitchBoard: Are Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue's Ties to Union Pacific Railroading the Companies that Support Climate Policy?
• 2009/09/15: Deltoid: It must really suck to be one of Ian Plimer's students
• 2009/09/14: DeSmogBlog: Climate Denial Crock of the Week/Mars Attacks Remixed
• 2009/09/14: TP:WR: O'Reilly's Weatherman Joe Bastardi: 'The Globe Is Actually Cooling'
• 2009/09/14: Guardian(UK): This professor of denial can't even answer his own questions on climate change
  Ian Plimer is a purveyor of 24-carat bafflegab. So why are publications like the Spectator so keen to champion him?
• 2009/09/13: CSW: Citizen hotline for reporting fraudulent tactics by opponents of climate and clean energy bill
• 2009/09/13: DeSmogBlog: Lorne Gunter: Enlisting "science" to help me believe what I want

  Meanwhile in the 'clean coal' saga:

• 2009/09/13: NRDC:SwitchBoard: ACCCE member Peabody Energy's Illegal Wastes Tied to Severe Water Contaminations

  As for climate miscellanea:

• 2009/09/17: Grist: A walk through the week's climate news -- The Climate Post: Climate debates re-emerge after week-long obscurity
• 2009/09/17: CCurrents: Global Warming - Can Self-interest And Science Save Australia, US And The Planet?
• 2009/09/17: BSD: Quenching CO2 saturation but not CO2 litigation
• 2009/09/18: WWW: 21st Century Weather Forecasts On TV
• 2009/09/18: WSJ: Hate Calculus? Try Counting Cow Carbon
  Companies Are Measuring the Environmental Impact of Their Products, but the Math is Fraught With Complexity and Imprecision
• 2009/09/02: Independent(UK): Johann Hari: Lies, damned lies... and the double-speak I would expunge -- 'Climate change', 'infant mortality', 'fair trade'... the list goes on
  [...] "Climate change." This phrase was invented by the Republican pollster Frank Luntz, when he discovered that focus groups found the phrase "global warming" too scary. Climate change sounds nice and gentle, and evokes our latent awareness that the climate has changed naturally throughout history. Even "global warming" is problematic, since it makes us picture putting our feet up in the sun. The more accurate phrase would be "the unravelling of the ecosystem", "climate chaos", or "catastrophic man-made global warming." They're a mouthful, but they are honest.
• 2009/09/14: Nation: Factoring People Into Climate Change
• 2009/09/17: MongaBay: Climate Crisis Sparks Radical Response
• 2009/09/16: SolveClimate: World's Readiness for Low-Carbon Future Continues to Drag
• 2009/09/16: ClimateP: "The era of procrastination, of half measures, of soothing and baffling expedience of delays, is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences."
• 2009/09/16: RealClimate: Communicating Science: Not Just Talking the Talk
• 2009/09/16: TreeHugger: Our Children Will Curse Our Selfishness & Inaction on Climate Change
• 2009/09/15: CC: A survey of LGM-present oceanography and climate
• 2009/09/16: NYT: Some Bad Climate News and Some Good
• 2009/09/15: SolveClimate: Why Is National Geographic Still Advertising with Glenn Beck?
• 2009/09/07: G&E: Climate Policy Options and the World Trade Organization
• 2009/09/15: EurActiv: World forum calls for natural resource tax
  To combat soaring consumption of natural resources, the World Resources Forum (WRF) is calling for a global strategy to frame a new economic model that would directly tax raw materials instead of products and labour.
• 2009/09/15: PlanetArk: Clean Energy To Create More Jobs Than Coal
  A strong shift toward renewable energies could create 2.7 million more jobs in power generation worldwide by 2030 than staying with dependence on fossil fuels would, a report suggested Monday. The study, by environmental group Greenpeace and the European Renewable Energy Council (EREC), urged governments to agree a strong new United Nations pact to combat climate change in December in Copenhagen, partly to safeguard employment.
• 2009/09/14: Grist: Is the Dow Jones Sustainability Index worth a damn?
• 2009/09/13: SolveClimate: Five Big Surprises on the Global Cleantech 100 List
• 2009/09/15: BNC: Science Council for Global Initiatives
• 2009/09/14: Google:AFP: World celebrities sing to stop global warming
  British rock group Duran Duran and heavy metal band Scorpions are among 55 world celebrities who have joined in recording a song to draw attention to the global warming crisis, organisers said on Monday. The song is part of a mass media campaign on the threats of climate change organised by the Geneva-based Global Humanitarian Forum, headed by former UN secretary general Kofi Annan. The song entitled "Beds'r Burning", which was originally recorded by the Australian group Midnight Oil in the 1980s, can be downloaded from the Internet for free and will be presented to the public at a launch in Paris on October 1.
• 2009/09/15: MongaBay: Economists, scientists warn that world crises require new order of international cooperation and enforcement

  And here are a couple of sites you may find interesting and/or useful:

• ClimateBiz
• ACE: Alliance for Climate Education
• CO2 Now
• Wiki: Chikungunya
• Open Passage Expedition -- Sailing the NorthWest Passage - Summer 2009
• Wiki: Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI)
• Wiki: Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI)
• Futurity: Earth & Environment
• RAN: The Understory
• G&E: Globalisation and the Environment
• The Localizer
• Coastal and Waterfront Smart Growth
• NASA: Hurricane Links
• The Science Council for Global Initiatives

My first novel Water was published in Canada May, 2007. The American release was in October. An Introductionto the novel is available, along with the Unpublished Forewordand the Launch Talk. An overview of my writing is available here.

<regards>
-het

P.S. Recent postings can be found in the week archive and the ancient postings can be accessed here, which should open to this.

"As we go from this happy hydrocarbon bubble we have reached now to a renewable energy resource economy, which we do this century, will the 'civil' part of civilization survive? As we both know there is no way that alternative energy sources can supply the amount of per capita energy we enjoy now, much less for the 9 billion expected by 2050. And energy is what keeps this game going. We are involved in a Faustian bargain -- selling our economic souls for the luxurious life of the moment, but sooner or later the price has to be paid." -Walter Youngquist

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