Another Week of GW News, July 5, 2009

Sipping from the internet firehose...

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Another week of Climate Disruption News

Sipping from the internet firehose...

July 5, 2009

• Chuckle, Top Stories:Carbon Tariffs, G8, G8 Rankings, Meetings Galore, IRENA
• Melting Arctic, Geopolitics, Antarctica, Methane, Education, Late Comments
• Food Crisis, Food Production
• Hurricanes, GHGs, Carbon Cycle, Paleoclimate, ENSO, Sea Levels, Satellites
• Impacts, Forests, Climate Refugees, Wacky Weather, Tornadoes, Wildfires, Floods & Droughts
• Mitigation, Transportation, Buildings, Sequestration, Geoengineering
• Journals, Misc. Science, Eddy, Hansen, Pielke
• Kyoto-2, Carbon Trade, Optimal Carbon Reduction Strategy
• Politics:International, America, Obama, Britain, Europe, Australia, China, Asia, Africa, Canada
• Ecological Economics, IPAT, Apocalypso, Media, Books, Video, Courts
• 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

Here's a wee chuckle for ya:

• 2009/07/04: TreeHugger: (cartoons - Leinonen) Cartoonist Shows Sardonic Eco-Humor is Alive and Well
• 2009/07/02: MTobis: (cartoon - Munroe) Bug Report
• 2009/07/03: MoD: (cartoon - xkcd) The folly of extrapolating from short term trends
• 2009/06/30: SeattlePI: (cartoon - Horsey) Examples of pre-scientific medieval thinking
• 2009/06/30: uComics: (cartoon - Auth) 212 Congressmen...

  Fan meet Feces. The issue of Carbon Tariffs in Waxman-Markey has the potential to get messy:

• 2009/06/29: IR^2: Tariffs in the Climate Bill
• 2009/07/04: EconView: Climate Change Legislation and Protectionism
• 2009/07/03: FTimes: China joins carbon tax protest
  Beijing on Friday joined a growing clamour of complaint about US plans for a carbon tax on imports from countries without their own emission caps, warning it could set off a global trade war. The warning follows the passage of a cap-and-trade bill in the US House of Representatives last weekend, which contained tough provisions to impose carbon tariffs to ensure that American companies would not lose competitive advantage. A recent report by the World Trade Organisation and the UN said such taxes could in theory be crafted to be compatible with WTO law, but it would be hard to prove they were not an illegal disguised restriction on international trade. "It has always been China's position that the international society should fight climate change together, but the proposal of some developed countries to slap a carbon tariff on some imported products violates the WTO's basic principles and is trade protectionism in the disguise of environmental protection," said Yao Jian, spokesman for China's ministry of commerce. Earlier this week, Jairam Ramesh, the Indian environment minister, described carbon tariffs as "pernicious" and flatly rejected the idea of negotiating climate change at the WTO.
• 2009/07/03: Reuters: China says "carbon tariffs" proposals breach WTO rules
• 2009/07/02: Grist: China blasts U.S. climate bill enabling penalties on trade partners
• 2009/07/02: Yahoo: China blasts US climate bill
• 2009/07/01: FTimes: India attacks US carbon tariff plan
  India's new environment minister hit out yesterday at US climate-change legislation that would allow import tariffs to be imposed on goods from countries not taking sufficient steps to control carbon emissions. Jairam Rameshsaid New Delhi would not agree to binding emissions targets as part of global climate-change negotiations. "India will not accept any emissions targets - period. It is the bottom line; a non-negotiable stand," he said.
• 2009/06/29: NYT:PK: Climate, trade, Obama -- I think the president has this wrong...
• 2009/06/30: ChinaDaily: Official unhappy with US climate bill
• 2009/06/29: FTimes: Border taxes linked to cap-and-trade laws
  Cap-and-trade legislation passed by the House of Representatives late on Friday will make it easier for the US to impose import tariffs against countries that do not control their own carbon emissions. Passage of the bill -- it is likely to face an even tougher fight in the Senate -- was welcomed by environmental groups and some sections of business, but others warned the so-called "border tax adjustment" provisions could aggravate tensions with the US's trading partners. Such border measures -- intended to level the playing field by equalising carbon emission charges between domestic production and imports -- might be permitted by World Trade Organisation rules, according to a report published last week by the WTO and the United Nations. But judicial rulings on similar disputes made in the past by WTO arbitration panels leave considerable doubt. Countries such as China complain the measures can act as a form of backdoor protectionism.
• 2009/06/29: Reuters: Obama opposes energy bill trade penalties: reports
• 2009/06/29: NYT: Obama Opposes Trade Sanctions in Climate Bill
• 2009/06/29: BaltimoreSun: Obama warns of climate-bill tariffs
  President Obama on Sunday called a House-passed energy bill "an extraordinary first step" toward halting global warming and reducing the use of fossil fuels, but he expressed reservations about a controversial provision that would slap tariffs on imports from countries that do not similarly crack down on greenhouse gas emissions.

The upcoming G8 meeting triggered some speculation:

• 2009/07/03: PlanetArk: Factbox: Themes And Scenarios For G8 Summit In Italy
• 2009/07/03: PlanetArk: Obama's Climate Leadership Faces Test At G8 Forum
• 2009/07/02: Reuters: Merkel sees G8 agreement on 2 degrees climate goal
• 2009/07/01: NatureN: African science drops down G8 agenda -- Researchers lament poor progress on commitments to developing nations
• 2009/07/01: Reuters: U.S. seen backing climate target at G8 [no more than 2 degrees Celsius]
• 2009/07/02: Reuters: Obama's climate leadership faces test at G8 forum [July 8-10 in L'Aquila, Italy]
• 2009/07/01: TerraDaily: G8 summit to seek 80 pct emissions cut by 2050: report
  The Group of Eight rich nations summit in Italy next week is likely to call on industrialised countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050, a report said Wednesday. The reduction target is in the draft of a declaration to be issued at the end of the July 8-10 summit in L'Aquila, Italy, the Nikkei economic daily said, without naming its source.
• 2009/07/02: WaPo: Obama's climate leadership faces test at G8 forum
• 2009/07/01: Yahoo: G8 summit to seek 80% emissions cut by 2050

  The WWF released emissions reduction/climate change action rankings of the G8 nations:

• 2009/07/02: ENN: US at Bottom of G8 Emissions Reduction/Climate Change Action Rankings
• 2009/07/02: BostonGlobe: US, Canada rank last in curbing warming, report on G-8 says
• 2009/07/01: CBC: Canada last among G8 on climate change action: report
• 2009/07/02: ABC(Au): Canada's emissions among world's highest: WWF
• 2009/07/02: CanWest: Oilsands earns Canada bottom ranking -- WWF releases climate change report card
  Canada is doing the least of any of the world's wealthiest countries to fight climate change--and Alberta's oilsands is largely to blame, says a report card released Wednesday by the World Wildlife Foundation. Of the G8 countries--Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the U. K. and the United States --Canada is one of the few whose emissions are still increasing, the 2009 Climate Scorecard said, blaming an "expanding exploitation of the tarsands" in Alberta.
• 2009/07/01: BBerg: Canada, Russia Considered Climate 'Bad Boys' Among G8 Nations
• 2009/07/01: TStar: Canada dead last on green list
  Canada is now the G8's classroom dud on climate change, sliding to last place among the world's industrial leaders in the annual climate scorecard released by the World Wildlife Fund and insurance giant Allianz today. While countries like Germany and England have substantially cut their greenhouse gas emissions over the past two decades, Canada's emissions are continuing to skyrocket, now 26 per cent above 1990 levels.

They're not doing anything about the climate, but they're having lots of meetings:

• 2009/07/04: ENN: Climate body [MEF] to try to bridge differences before G8
  Officials from a 17-member body which account for the lions share of the world's carbon emissions will hold urgent talks next Tuesday to iron out differences on the eve of a July 8-10 summit of the G8. Group of Eight diplomats and climate change officials told Reuters the meeting of the Major Economies Forum (MEF) was called to narrow the gap between rich countries and developing nations such as India over long-term targets on global warming and emissions. Leaders of MEF nations, which account for 80 percent of global emissions, are due to meet on July 9 on the sidelines of the G8 summit in the central Italian city of L'Aquila.
• 2009/06/29: Google:AFP: Environment ministers to meet in Greenland
  Around 30 environment ministers and delegates from the world's biggest polluters are set to meet in the Danish territory of Greenland on Tuesday ahead of the larger UN climate summit in Copenhagen at the end of 2009. The informal meeting is taking place in Ilulissat on Greenland's west coast and Danish Climate Minster Connie Hedegaard said it will aim to "change points of view and go further in its conclusions than those in other forums." The United States, Germany, Britain, France, Russia, Japan, India and Brasil, are all attending the four-day "Greenland dialogue", an annual meeting on a climate change first held by Denmark four years ago in the same town.
• 2009/06/30: IndianExpress: India to hold climate change meet, discuss clean technologies
  Ahead of the Copenhagen Climate Change summit, India is set to hold a high-level climate change meet to address crucial issues facing developing countries: development of clean technologies and technology transfer mechanisms to the developing world. India along with the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs is organising the meet which will be held in Delhi in October. One of the primary aims of the conference will be to try and evolve a technology transfer mechanism which can aid developing countries.

The USA joined IRENA:

• 2009/07/02: CleanBreak: U.S. officially joins IRENA; Canada still absent
• 2009/06/30: Yahoo: U.S. joins [IRENA] International Renewable Energy Agency

  And in other IRENA news:

• 2009/07/01: WorldChanging: Abu Dhabi Chosen to Host IRENA
• 2009/07/01: NEN: Nuclear is not a member -- Should renewable energy include nuclear?
• 2009/07/01: OilChange: A Nuclear-Tainted and Oil-Soaked [IRENA] Renewable Energy Agency?
• 2009/06/30: DerSpiegel: Bonn Loses Out -- Abu Dhabi to Host New Renewables Agency
  The new International Renewable Energy Agency will be headquatered in Abu Dhabi. Former German capital Bonn lost out once it became clear that Germany couldn't compete with the cash-rich oil producer.
• 2009/06/29: NatureTGB: UAE and Germany fight for IRENA
• 2009/06/29: PlanetArk: IRENA to Locate Headquarters in UAE
• 2009/06/29: EarthTimes: Abu Dhabi wins battle to host [IRENA] renewable energy global HQ

  The Arctic melt continues to garner a lot of attention:

• 2009/07/03: SolveClimate: Greenpeace Expedition Documents Disappearing Greenland Glacier
• 2009/07/01: NatureCF: Q&A: Observing the scars of the Arctic thaw
• 2009/06/30: Grist: With a melting Greenland as a backdrop, Danish minister urges climate action
• 2009/06/30: Stoat: Sea ice forecasts
• 2009/07/01: ENN: Sea Ice At Lowest Level In 800 Years Near Greenland
• 2009/07/01: Eureka: The least sea ice in 800 years
• 2009/07/01: CCP: Arctic Sunrise on Top of the World by Dave, greenpeace
• 2009/06/30: NatureN: Observing the scars of the Arctic thaw -- Ecologist Breck Bowdon talks about the consequences of thawing permafrost in Alaska
• 2009/06/28: CCP: [sat pic] Petermann Glacier, Greenland

  As for the geopolitics of Arctic resources:

• 2009/07/01: UNDispatch: Law of the Sea endorsed by maritime law professor, not Daily Show comedian
• 2009/07/01: G&M: Russia proposes Arctic détente
• 2009/06/29: WSWS: US war games signal intensifying tension over Arctic
• 2009/07/01: CanWest: Arctic sovereignty debate cooling off, Russia says
  Canada and Russia have cooled the rhetoric over Arctic sovereignty and are emphasizing co-operation over competition on a range of Arctic issues, a senior Russian official says. Sergey Petrov, a senior diplomat at the Russian Embassy in Ottawa, said Tuesday that a recent series of bilateral meetings, including one between the two countries' foreign ministers, had "absolutely" put Canada and Russia on a more co-operative footing on such things as cross-polar air and sea routes. "Competition is good, but in the situation in the Arctic, it would be much easier and cheaper for us to do things collectively," Petrov said.
• 2009/06/29: NYT:GreenInc: The Environmental Risks of Arctic Shipping
• 2009/07/01: G&M: On this day, grab a cold one and think pan-Arctic thoughts -- We still don't have a northern strategy
• 2009/06/29: CanWest: Minister touts arctic strength
  Downplaying Russia's recent "jockeying" for position in the emerging polar oil rush, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon has declared Canada an "Arctic superpower" that will be guided by science, international law and "world-leading Canadian technology" in securing its claim to resource riches in the North. Mr. Cannon, who made a global media splash earlier this year by saying Canada "will not be bullied" by Russia over contentious undersea territory near the North Pole, in an exclusive interview on federal Arctic strategy that the Conservative government is "quite confident" about obtaining-- under the terms of a UN treaty -- vast new stretches of polar seabed beyond the country's 370-km offshore economic zone.

While in Antarctica:

• 2009/07/02: EarthTimes: Antarctic ice sheet melt could raise sea level 5 metres: Scientist

  Oh Look! Damocles sword is back:

• 2009/07/04: CCP: Melting Arctic is releasing vast quantities of methane
• 2009/07/03: TerraDaily: Super-Size Deposits Of Frozen Carbon Threat To Climate Change
• 2009/07/02: SolveClimate: Thawing Permafrost Could Emit Massive Amounts of Greenhouse Gases
• 2009/07/01: PlanetArk: Permafrost Melting a Growing Climate Threat
• 2009/07/01: Reuters: Permafrost melting a growing climate threat -study
  The amount of carbon locked away in frozen soils in the far Northern Hemisphere is double previous estimates and rapid melting could accelerate global warming, a study released on Wednesday says.
• 2009/07/01: TreeHugger: Only 10% of Permafrost Melting Could Tip Planet Towards Catastrophic Warming
• 2009/07/01: BBerg: Arctic Permafrost CO2 'Underestimated,' Poses Threat
• 2009/06/30: PhysOrg: Super-size deposits of frozen carbon threat to climate change
  The vast amount of carbon stored in the arctic and boreal regions of the world is more than double that previously estimated, according to a study published this week.

The gentle education project:

• 2009/06/30: MGS: Statistical significance of 150 years of data over 4.5 billion years
• 2009/07/02: CC: Cycles, projections, and other lingo

  Late coverage of the Coal River MTR protest:

• 2009/07/01: HuffPo: Daryl Hannah - Why I Was Arrested in Coal River, West Virginia
• 2009/06/30: Rabble: Science without politics [Hansen]

  Late comment on the Copenhagen Synthesis Report:

• 2009/06/29: NEN: Newest science on climate change

  The food crisis is ongoing:

• 2009/06/29: WFP: Kenya: Hunger Mounts As Drought Hits Herders
• 2009/07/04: AlterNet: Michael Pollan: We Are Headed Toward a Breakdown in Our Food System
• 2009/07/04: AlterNet: Breadline USA: Why People Are Going Hungry in the Land of Plenty
• 2009/07/03: SeedDaily: Seasonal Hunger Devastating And Under-Recognized
• 2009/07/01: UN: Top UN officials urge donors to help Africa weather food crisis
• 2009/07/01: SciDaily: Seasonal Hunger Devastating And Under-recognized
  Most of the world's acute hunger and undernutrition occurs not in conflicts and natural disasters but in the annual "hunger season," according to a new article. The hunger season is the time of year when the previous year's harvest stocks have dwindled, food prices are high, and jobs are scarce, and is often under recognized.
• 2009/07/01: MR: Agriculture and Food in Crisis
• 2009/06/30: UN: Africa's food crisis must not be forgotten amid global economic woes -- UN trade body
• 2009/06/30: Reuters: Global food supply far from secure-farming expert
  Top agricultural economist says world food supply not safe - Says Africa farmers must access fertiliser, loans, markets - Calls for smarter loans, more investment in agriculture

I can't help wondering how the deniers will spin this:

• 2009/06/29: Reuters: Crops face toxic timebomb in warmer world: study
• 2009/06/29: ENN: Crops face toxic timebomb in warmer world: study

  And how are we going to feed 9 billion?

• 2009/07/05: CCP: India, China, Saudi Arabia buying up resources, arable land in poorer countries and Brazil, Russia, Ukraine
  Fears for the world's poor countries as the rich grab land to grow food
• 2009/07/03: Guardian(UK): Fears for the world's poor countries as the rich grab land to grow food
  UN sounds warning after 30m hectares bought up -- G8 leaders to discuss 'neo-colonialism'
• 2009/07/03: AlterNet: I Saw 'Food Inc.' -- Now What?
• 2009/07/01: UN: Stronger agriculture sector key to brighter future for Africa, Migiro tells leaders
• 2009/06/30: PhysOrg: GMO maize strain safe: EU food agency
• 2009/07/01: PlanetArk: Global Food Supply Far From Secure: Farming Expert
• 2009/06/29: SeedDaily: Chinese wheat bounces back from drought
• 2009/06/29: CCurrents: Peak Oil And World Food Supplies
• 2009/06/29: Eureka: New crops needed for new climate
• 2009/06/29: OilDrum: The Oil Intensity of Food

  It was a quiet week for cyclones, however there were some other developments:

• 2009/07/02: SciNews: New cyclone predictor -- Occasional sea-surface warming in central Pacific linked with more, stronger hurricanes in North Atlantic
• 2009/07/03: KSJT: Time, Science News, NY & LA Times(es): Newly id'd El Nino variant with a closer tie to Atlantic hurricanes
• 2009/07/02: CBC: Changing El Nino [Modoki] making hurricanes more frequent, research suggests
  Unconventional new structure could lead to increased warning of deadly storms [...] Conventional El Niño events involve warming in the eastern Pacific. But a new wrinkle might be emerging as a phenomenon dubbed El Niño Modoki (from the Japanese meaning "similar, but different") shows warming in the Central Pacific -- similar to that which is seen during La Nina years. "Normally, El Niño results in diminished hurricanes in the Atlantic," said Peter Webster, a professor at Georgia Tech's School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, who led a research team studying the issue. "But this new type is resulting in a greater number of hurricanes with greater frequency and more potential to make landfall."
• 2009/07/02: PhysOrg: In the eye of the storm [Katrina]: Why some people stayed behind
• 2009/07/02: Wunderground: July hurricane outlook
• 2009/07/02: Eureka: New type of El Nino could mean more hurricanes make landfall
• 2009/07/02: BBerg: Hurricanes May Increase in Gulf as El Nino Shifts in Pacific
• 2009/07/01: Wunderground: New $50 million hurricane research center: a bad idea

  As for GHGs:

• 2009/07/02: TreeHugger: US Says Greenhouse Gas Emissions Must Peak by 2020
• 2009/06/30: GreenGrok: HFCs: Stratosphere, No Problem. Climate, Another Story

  And in the carbon cycle:

• 2009/06/29: KSJT: Discovery News, then a bunch: Ozone hole surprise in Southern Ocean

  While in the paleoclimate:

• 2009/07/02: NatureCF: Plant power
• 2009/07/02: SciDaily: Mid-Pliocene Asian Monsoon Intensification And The Onset Of Northern Hemisphere Glaciation
• 2009/07/01: Eureka: Plants save the earth from an icy doom
• 2009/07/01: Eureka: Plants put limit on ice ages

  While on the el Niño/la Niña [ENSO] front:

• 2009/07/03: CCP: Modiki El Niño variant of El Niño linked to more frequent hurricanes [in Atlantic]
• 2009/07/04: TWTB: Modoki El Niño increasing frequency and North Atlantic tropical cyclones
• 2009/07/02: CBC: Changing El Nino making hurricanes more frequent, research suggests -- Unconventional new structure could lead to increased warning of deadly storms
• 2009/07/02: PlanetArk: El Nino Seems All But Certain: Australia

  Sea levels are rising:

• 2009/07/01: NewScientist: Sea level rise: It's worse than we thought
• 2009/06/29: SciNews: Losing Louisiana -- Sea-level rise, subsiding lands in the delta will claim 10 percent of state by 2100
• 2009/06/29: TreeHugger: 4,000 Square Miles of Mississippi Delta Inevitably Drowned Due to Sea Level Rise: New Estimate Shows
• 2009/06/29: Guardian(UK): Rising sea level to submerge Louisiana coastline by 2100, study warns
  Scientists say between 10,000 and 13,500 square kilometres of coastal land around New Orleans will go underwater due to rising sea levels and subsidence
• 2009/06/28: GDN: Researchers predict rise in sea level
  Almost 80 percent of Galveston County households could be displaced by 2109 if water levels in the Gulf of Mexico and Galveston Bay rise as quickly as they have during the past 100 years. Gauges at the Port of Galveston's Pier 21 show the water is 2.3 feet higher today than it was in 1909.

Meanwhile in near earth orbit:

• 2009/07/04: CanWest: Coastline surveillance to get a boost -- Radarsat-2 will be able to track day or night, rain or shine
  Canada's ability to watch over its coastlines and the Arctic will get a boost early next year when an orbiting satellite is upgraded, allowing it to better conduct surveillance of vessels. The Defence Department has long had plans to use Radarsat-2 for maritime surveillance and last week, the satellite's owner, MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates of Richmond, B.C., was awarded a $25-million contract to proceed with what is being called project Polar Epsilon.

More GW impacts are being seen:

• 2009/07/03: FuturePundit: Seagrass Meadows Shrink 29% In 127 Years
• 2009/07/03: NewScientist: Meadows of the sea in 'shocking' decline
• 2009/07/03: TerraDaily: Mangrove-Dependent Animals Globally Threatened
• 2009/07/02: SciNow: Secret of Scotland's Shrinking Sheep Solved
• 2009/07/02: CSW: Climate change impacts in our backyards: the Great Plains
• 2009/07/02: ENN: Intertropical Convergence Zone of Heavy Preciptiation Moving North
• 2009/07/02: Eureka: Climate change and the mystery of the shrinking sheep
• 2009/07/02: BBC: Climate change is shrinking sheep
• 2009/07/02: CBC: Shrinking sheep blamed on climate change
• 2009/06/30: SciNews: Dirty snow may bring green burst to mountain peaks -- Dust building up on mountain peaks may mean more early spring plants bloom together
• 2009/06/30: ClimateP: Study finds "mass biodiversity collapse" at 900 ppm, and possibly a "threshold response ... to relatively minor increases in CO2 concentration and/or global temperature."
• 2009/06/30: PhysOrg: Measuring the effects of temperature increases in the Antarctic fauna
• 2009/07/01: PlanetArk: Seagrass Losses Reveal Global Coastal Crisis
• 2009/06/30: Grist: Who knew? Screwing up environment not so great for economy, studies find
• 2009/06/30: DM:80B: Vanishing Seagrass: Important as Coral Reefs (But Way Less "Sexy")
• 2009/06/30: ENN: Increasing Dust Accelerates Mountain Snowmelt
• 2009/06/29: CSW: Climate change impacts in our backyards: the Midwest

  And then there are the world's forests:

• 2009/07/02: MongaBay: A Tasmanian tragedy? : How the forestry industry has torn an island apart
• 2009/07/01: TerraDaily: Brazil flora risk greater than thought: study
  Nearly 2,300 plant species are at risk of disappearing from flora-rich Brazil, many more than once thought, according to an academic study released on Wednesday. The research, carried out by 175 scientists, indicates the Brazilian government has dramatically underestimated the risk to the country's plant species caused by deforestation, fires and urbanization.
• 2009/07/02: Eureka: Pacific Northwest forests could store more carbon, help address greenhouse issues
• 2009/07/01: NYT: A House in the Woods, After the Woods Are Gone
• 2009/06/30: US State Dept: Largest TFCA [Tropical Forest Conservation Act] Debt-for-Nature Agreement Signed to Conserve Indonesia's Tropical Forests
• 2009/06/30: SI: 'Business as usual': Peru approves massive oil project just days after 'Amazon's Tiananmen'
• 2009/06/30: NewInt:TEB: The big clash - indigenous v multinationals
  [...] Alan Garcia's government has given the green light to the Anglo-French company Perenco to drill for oil...on land inhabited by two tribes of un-contacted Indians...
• 2009/06/30: BBC: North America faces beetle plague
  A plague of tree-killing beetles which swept across British Columbia is threatening to spread east, to the US. The mountain pine beetle has killed more than half of all lodge pole pine in the province and is now active in neighbouring Alberta. Cold winters usually kill off the beetle larvae, but the region has been warmer than usual in recent years.
• 2009/06/29: ClimateP: Tackling Climate Change by Saving Forests

  Climate refugees are becoming an issue:

• 2009/06/29: EarthTimes: Climate change could lead to 200 million refugees

  Yes we have no wacky weather, except:

• 2009/07/01: BBC: The UK is facing severe weather on two fronts, with storms and flash floods in some areas and a raised heatwave alert in other parts of the country

  On the tornado front:

• 2009/06/30: KSJT: Gainesville Times, Wash. Post: Does drought cause tornadoes to wither too?

  As for heatwaves and wild fires:

• 2009/07/01: SciDaily: In The Warming West, Climate Most Significant Factor In Fanning Wildfires' Flames
• 2009/07/01: BBC: Britain's heatwave will go on until the weekend, raising the possibility that the official "watch level" could be raised to protect vulnerable people
• 2009/06/29: BBC: Heatwave warning for parts of UK
  A heatwave warning has been issued for England and Wales, with temperatures in some areas potentially rising as high as 32C (90F) in the coming days.
• 2009/06/29: ABC(Au): Mercury, tensions rise in Delhi heatwave
  A blistering heatwave in the Indian capital of New Delhi has triggered record power and water shortages, leading to widespread demonstrations.
• 2009/06/28: CBC: Heat, power outages spark protests in Indian capital

  And speaking of floods & droughts:

• 2009/07/05: BBC: Deadly floods hit China, Vietnam [at least 31 dead]
• 2009/07/04: EarthTimes: 150,000 evacuated as storms batter southern China
• 2009/07/04: EarthTimes: German summer storms leave two dead, many injured
• 2009/07/04: CBC: Evacuations ordered after flooding in southern China
• 2009/07/02: G&M: Farmers start to write off year as drought parches Prairie land -- This may be start of more than a typical dry spell, researcher says
• 2009/07/03: EarthTimes: Czech Republic reports 14th death in floods
• 2009/07/03: EarthTimes: Monsoon floods displace 200,000 in north-east India
• 2009/07/03: CBC: Alberta crops in dire need of rain
  The next seven days are going to be crucial for Alberta farmers whose crops are in desperate need of rain, according to a provincial agricultural specialist. Half of the crops in the province are in poor condition due to a cold spring and the lack of moisture, said Merle Jacobson, agricultural risk management specialist with Alberta Agriculture.
• 2009/07/02: G&M: Farmers start to write off year as drought parches Prairie land -- This may be start of more than a typical dry spell, researcher says
• 2009/07/01: Eureka: Earth's most prominent rainfall feature creeping northward
• 2009/06/30: Guardian(UK): Droughts and floods threaten China's economic growth, forecaster warns
• 2009/06/30: PhysOrg: Water should be a human right

  Elsewhere on the mitigation front:

• 2009/07/03: SciDaily: Small Heat-Shielded Habitats Could Help Threatened Species Survive Climate Change

  Consider transportation & GHG production:

• 2009/07/03: BostonGlobe: Put transit where the people are
• 2009/07/02: TreeHugger: All Ocean-Going Ships Near California's Coast Must Now Use Cleaner Fuel
• 2009/06/30: WSJ:EnvCap: Roads Less Traveled: States Spending on Roads, not Public Transportation

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

• 2009/07/02: SolveClimate: LEED No Longer Stops at Construction: Version 3 Checks Up on Efficiency
• 2009/07/01: Grist: Radiant Cities: LEEDwashing -- Developers are making mis-LEED-ing claims
• 2009/06/30: SolveClimate: High-Tech Green Building Materials Are Transforming Construction

  This could be a major advance:

• 2009/07/03: EnvExp: World`s largest cement firms slash production emissions by a third

  As for carbon sequestration:

• 2009/07/01: NYT:GreenInc: Scrubbing CO2 With Synthetic [Lackner] Trees
• 2009/06/30: SciAm: New Material Could Vastly Improve Carbon Capture -- "Metal organic frameworks" look like rocks, act like sponges
• 2009/06/30: Asahi: Norway pushes ahead with CO2 capture-storage

  Large scale geo-engineering keeps popping up:

• 2009/07/03: PhysOrg: Global warming tactic cools climate but won't help corals, say researchers
  "Geoengineering" experiments proposed to reduce global warming by blocking sunlight with atmosphere-injected particles may cool the world but still leave carbon dioxide levels dangerously high, Stanford scientists say.
• 2009/06/30: Times(UK): Indian scientists seed clouds in quest to bring on the monsoon rains
• 2009/06/28: SolveClimate: Paint it White: One Way to Chill the Electric Bill

  Meanwhile in the journals:

• 2009/07/03: TC: The role of radiation penetration in the energy budget of the snowpack at Summit, Greenland by P. Kuipers Munneke et al.
• 2009/07/02: TC: Frost flower chemical signature in winter snow on Vestfonna ice cap, Nordaustlandet, Svalbard by E. Beaudon & J. Moore
• 2009/07/03: ACP: Stratospheric warming in Southern Hemisphere high latitudes since 1979 by Y. Hu & Q. Fu
• 2009/07/01: ACP: Effects of the 2006 El Niño on tropospheric ozone and carbon monoxide: implications for dynamics and biomass burning by S. Chandra et al.
• 2009/07/03: ACPD: On the relationship of polar mesospheric cloud ice water content, particle radius and mesospheric temperature and its use in multi-dimensional models by A. W. Merkel et al.
• 2009/07/03: ACPD: Effect of biomass burning on marine stratocumulus clouds off the California coast by J. Brioude et al.
• 2009/07/03: ACPD: The comprehensive model system COSMO-ART -- radiative impact of aerosol on the state of the atmosphere on the regional scale by B. Vogel et al.
• 2009/07/03: ACPD: Elevated large-scale dust veil originated in the Taklimakan Desert: intercontinental transport and 3-dimensional structure captured by CALIPSO and regional and global models by K. Yumimoto et al.
• 2009/04/11: GRL: (ab$) Global ocean heat content 1955-2008 in light of recently revealed instrumentation problems by S. Levitus et al.
• 2009/07/03: CP: Ecosystem effects of CO2 concentration: evidence from past climates by I. C. Prentice & S. P. Harrison
• 2009/07/01: CP: Late Glacial and Holocene changes in vegetation cover and climate in southern Siberia derived from a 15 kyr long pollen record from Lake Kotokel by P. E. Tarasov et al.
• 2009/06/30: CP: Mid-Pliocene shifts in ocean overturning circulation and the onset of Quaternary-style climates by M. Sarnthein et al.
• 2009/07/03: CPD: Limitations of red noise in analysing Dansgaard-Oeschger events by H. Braun et al.
• 2009/07/01: CPD: Stable isotope records for the last 10 000 years from Okshola cave (Fauske, northern Norway), and regional comparisons by H. Linge et al.
• 2009/07/01: CPD: Strong indications for nonlinear dynamics during Dansgaard-Oeschger events by H. Braun
• 2009/06/30: CPD: The response of Mediterranean thermohaline circulation to climate change: a minimal model by P. Th. Meijer & H. A. Dijkstra
• 2009/07/01: TCD: Quantifying changes and trends in glacier area and volume in the Austrian Ãtztal Alps (1969-1997-2006) by J. Abermann et al.
• 2009/07/01: TCD: Multi-temporal airborne LIDAR-DEMs for glacier and permafrost mapping and monitoring by J. Abermann et al.
• 2009/06/29: TCD: Mapping and morphometric analysis of glaciers in Jotunheimen, South Norway, during the "Little Ice Age" maximum by S. Baumann & S. Winkler
• 2009/07/01: ACP: Flux estimates of isoprene, methanol and acetone from airborne PTR-MS measurements over the tropical rainforest during the GABRIEL 2005 campaign by G. Eerdekens et al.
• 2009/07/01: ACPD: NOx production by lightning in Hector: first airborne measurements during SCOUT-O3/ACTIVE by H. Huntrieser et al.
• 2009/06/30: ACPD: Now you see it, now you don't: impact of temporary closures of a coal-fired power plant on air quality in the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area by D. A. Jaffe & D. R. Reidmiller
• 2009/06/30: ACPD: Atmospheric nitrogen budget in Sahelian dry savannas by C. Delon et al.
• 2009/07/01: GreenGrok: The Story That Wasn't: EPA 'Suppressed' Report Countering CO2 Endangerment Finding
• 2009/06/30: PNAS: (ab$) Multiple ecological pathways to extinction in mammals by Ana D. Davidson et al.
• 2009/06/30: PNAS: (ab$) Development and testing of a sustainable environmental restoration policy on eradicating the poverty trap in China's Changting County by Shixiong Cao et al.
• 2009/06/30: PNAS: (ab$) Protecting the Amazon with protected areas by Robert Walker et al.
• 2009/06/30: PNAS: (ab$) Nanogranular origin of concrete creep by Matthieu Vandamme & Franz-Josef Ulm
• 2009/06/30: PNAS: [Letter$] Reply to Sala: Temperature sensitivity in drought-induced tree mortality hastens the need to further resolve a physiological model of death by Henry D. Adams et al.
• 2009/06/30: PNAS: [Letter$] Lack of direct evidence for the carbon-starvation hypothesis to explain drought-induced mortality in trees by Anna Sala
• 2009/06/27: GBC: (ab$) Soil organic carbon pools in the northern circumpolar permafrost region by C. Tarnocai et al.
• 2009/06/30: PLoSMedicine: Editorial -- Clean Water Should Be Recognized as a Human Right

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

• 2009/06/29: Antimatter: 150th anniversary of Tyndall's greenhouse effect
• 2009/06/29: SciDaily: First Successful Use Of New Ocean Observation Technology -- Investigation Of Ocean Acidification In The Baltic Sea

  Eddy Obit:

• 2009/06/28: CSW: Remembering Jack Eddy, 1931-2009, R.I.P.

  More Hansen:

• 2009/06/29: ERabett: The Catastrophist

  Alas, the Pielke fan clubbe:

• 2009/07/02: ClimateP: Like father, like son: Roger Pielke Sr. also doesn't understand the science of global warming -- or just chooses to willfully misrepresents it.
• 2009/07/01: RealClimate: More bubkes
• 2009/07/01: Deltoid: Pielke Sr's new statistical technique

  Meanwhile on the road to Copenhagen:

• 2009/07/03: PlanetArk: [Brazil's top climate negotiator, Jose Miguez interview] Brazil Wants C02 Cuts Based On Historic Emissions
• 2009/07/03: PlanetArk: Brazil Wants CO2 Cuts Based On Historic Emissions
• 2009/07/02: Google:AP: EU: China, India must make emissions cuts
• 2009/07/03: StraitsTimes: India must take action: Japan
  Japan urged India to do more as part of global efforts to combat climate change when the foreign ministers from the two Asian powers met on Friday, a Japanese official said. Japanese Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone and his Indian counterpart, Mr SM Krishna, held talks in Tokyo during Mr Krishna's four-day visit.
• 2009/07/02: Reuters: Brazil wants CO2 cuts based on historic emissions
• 2009/07/02: TreeHugger: India Won't Commit to Binding Emissions Reductions - Which is Why Rich Countries Must Make Deeper Cuts
• 2009/07/01: ABC(Au): India will reject emissions targets
  India will not sign up to targets to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, but will instead focus on fighting poverty and boosting economic growth, the country's environment minister says.
• 2009/07/01: IndiaTimes: India won't accept emission reduction target period, says Jairam Ramesh
  The minister of state for environment Jairam Ramesh, on Tuesday, reasserted a central role for his ministry in the climate change negotiations process as well as in the implementation of the National Action Plan on Climate. Mr Ramesh said India would not "negotiate or renegotiate" the UN Framework on Climate Change but was open to "renegotiate" the emission reduction target of developed nations at the Copenhagen meet slated in December. Making the Indian position clear, the minister said, "India will not accept any emission-reduction target period. India will not accept any legally enforceable targets. This is a non-negotiable stand." Stressing that there was no way India would take any legally binding emission reduction target, the minister said that "by doing so we will be jeopardising our energy consumption target, transportation expansion and, most importantly, our agricultural and power production which is needed for poverty elimination."
• 2009/07/01: TNO: UN chief says climate pact must be finalized
• 2009/06/30: Reuters: India will reject greenhouse gas emission targets
• 2009/07/01: PlanetArk: India Will Reject Greenhouse Gas Emission Targets
• 2009/06/29: JFrankel: How to Set Greenhouse Gas Emission Targets for All Countries
• 2009/06/29: PlanetArk: India Seeks More Talks on Contentious Climate Draft
• 2009/06/29: EarthTimes: India vows cooperation on climate change but not at economic cost
• 2009/06/28: NEN: Copenhagen will decide if markets or gov'ts handle GHG cuts

  While at the UN:

• 2009/07/01: EarthTimes: UN chief urges Japan to help poor nations fight climate change
• 2009/06/30: Xinhuanet: UN chief welcomes new British climate change financing scheme

  And on the carbon trading front:

• 2009/07/01: Reuters: Rumors, takeover bids boost CO2 market stocks
• 2009/06/30: BBerg: CO2 Traders Hedging Against Climate Laws, RNK Says
  Carbon traders will buy more option contracts this year as a hedge against new climate laws and devaluation of credits for richer nations that help cut greenhouse gas in the developing world, RNK Capital LLC said.

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:

• 2009/07/02: EnvEcon: Carbon taxes vs cap-and-trade
• 2009/07/02: TreeHugger: Yahoo! Says Yes to Greener Data Center, Yes to Renewable Energy, No to Carbon Offsets
• 2009/06/29: KDenninger: Carbon Credits: A Scam
• 2009/06/30: OLJ: Cap and trade or distance tariffs?

  Meanwhile on the international political front:

• 2009/07/01: EurActiv: UN, WTO call for trade shift to halt climate change
  More open trade could lead to growing greenhouse gas emissions if nothing is done to shift "business as usual" trade practices and encourage the exchange of new low-carbon technologies, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) said in a joint report.
• 2009/07/02: Grist: U.S.-Russia climate and energy efficiency cooperation: A neglected challenge
• 2009/07/01: ClimateP: U.S.-Russia climate and energy efficiency cooperation: A neglected challenge

  And on the American political front:

• 2009/07/05: OilDrum: On Independence, Energy Subsidy, and Freedom
• 2009/07/05: EconView: "The Next Great Global Industry"
• 2009/07/04: ClimateP: The Declaration of Interdependence
• 2009/07/03: ClimateP: Palin for Prez? Alaska gov to step down, cash in, and misinform public on energy and climate
• 2009/07/04: TreeHugger: Quote Of The Day: Sarah Palin "should also lead the nation's mothers to oppose mandating replacement of incandescent light bulbs with the new mercury poison gas bulbs."
• 2009/07/02: Reuters: Los Angeles will end use of coal-fired power
  Los Angeles will eliminate the use of electricity made from coal by 2020, replacing it with power from cleaner renewable energy sources, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said.
• 2009/07/02: TreeHugger: All Ocean-Going Ships Near California's Coast Must Now Use Cleaner Fuel
• 2009/07/01: EarthTimes: US seeks to clamp down on pollution from major ships
• 2009/06/29: TPMCafe: The Global Warming Lie Detector
• 2009/06/29: ClimateP: Kunstler: Stop calling Americans "consumers"
• 2009/06/28: DotEarth: The Specter of the '93 Energy Tax
• 2009/06/29: DailyKos: First EIA report under President Obama predicts major American lifestyle change

  Paul Krugman raised a few eyebrows with an essay accusing anti-climate change/energy legislators of treason:

• 2009/06/29: EconView: Paul Krugman: Betraying the Planet
• 2009/07/01: HotTopic: "The irresponsibility and immorality of climate change denial"
• 2009/06/29: CCurrents: Betraying The Planet
• 2009/06/30: CSW: Paul Krugman on "treason against the planet"..."the immorality of climate-change denial"
• 2009/06/29: ClimateP: Nobelist Krugman calls climate science denial by House conservatives "a form of treason --- treason against the planet"

  There's a new wrinkle in the Kansas coal plant saga sans Sibelius:

• 2009/07/01: KC: EPA: Sunflower must start coal plant permitting process over
  The utility behind a controversial coal plant project in western Kansas must reapply for a state permit, the Environmental Protection Agency said Wednesday. The decision means another delay for Sunflower Electric Power Corp.' s efforts to build an 895-megawatt coal-fired generator near Holcomb, Kan. [...] The EPA determined that too much about the project had changed to allow Sunflower to move ahead with its initial permit application, according to David Bryan, a spokesman for EPA's regional office in Kansas City. Sunflower applied for a state permit in 2006. Since then, the project has been revised significantly, going from three generating units and 2100 total megawatts, to one 895-megawatt generator. Sunflower agreed to other technical changes in its agreement with Parkinson. "We believe the proposal by Sunflower is a new project," Bryan said. "That means we expect a public comment period, a technical analysis, all the things that need to be done."
• 2009/07/01: SolveClimate: Clean Air Act Trips Up Sunflower's Coal Plant Deal in Kansas
  The EPA issued a letter today stating that Sunflower Electric must restart the permit application process if it wants to build an 895 MW coal plant in Kansas, a plant the company thought it had secured in a back room deal with the governor. The move by the EPA's Region 7 administrator highlights the ability of the federal Clean Air Act to protect the public health and welfare, despite political horse trading.
• 2009/07/01: SolveClimate: EPA Likely to Send Kansas' Sunflower Coal Plant Back to the Drawing Board

  The Obama chatter is nonstop:

• 2009/06/28: FTimes: Obama is choosing to be weak
• 2009/07/03: Guardian(UK): Obama to seek climate deal in Moscow -- After success with China, US targets Russia in strategy to reach separate agreements with world's biggest polluters
• 2009/07/02: ClimateP: Tom Friedman: Obama "is going to have to mobilize the whole country to pressure the Senate ... by educating Americans, with speech after speech, about the opportunities and necessities of a serious climate/energy bill..."
• 2009/07/01: Grist: 47 groups urge Obama to endorse 2-degree C warming threshold
• 2009/06/30: MoJo: Should Obama Try to Reset the Planet's Thermostat?
• 2009/06/30: ClimateP: Obama confident Senate will pass climate bill, asserts "My strong belief is that innovation and technology are going to accelerate our process beyond these targets, and that we're going to look back and say we can do even more."

  The actions of the Obama administration are being watched closely:

• 2009/07/05: ClimateP: Interior Secretary Salazar, Senator Reid announce 'Fast-Track' initiatives for up to 100,000 MW of solar energy development on Western lands
• 2009/07/05: PeakEnergy: DOE: How Not to Waste Taxpayer Dollars
• 2009/07/05: PeakEnergy: US Interior Dept Designates Solar Energy Zones
• 2009/07/02: EnergyBulletin: BLM Opens Doors for SW Solar Grand Plan
• 2009/07/02: Yahoo: EPA allows TVA to dump spilled coal ash in Alabama
  The nation's largest utility can dump millions of tons of coal ash from a Tennessee spill into an Alabama landfill, federal regulators said Thursday, despite criticism that the plan is unfair to one of Alabama's poorest counties. The Environmental Protection Agency said it would let the Tennessee Valley Authority ship dredged material about 300 miles from the site of a huge retention pond failure in eastern Tennessee to the Arrowhead Landfill in central Alabama's Perry County. EPA said the commercial landfill that most often receives household garbage is well-suited for accepting the ash, which contains toxic materials including arsenic and lead. TVA said the shipments, which will go by rail, would begin immediately.
• 2009/07/02: NatureN: US nuclear recycling faces the axe -- Department of Energy cancels reprocessing project
• 2009/07/02: PlanetArk: EPA Specs To Bring Energy Efficiency To PCs
• 2009/07/02: PlanetArk: U.S. Gives Up To $408 Million To "Clean Coal" Projects
• 2009/07/01: ClimateP: Chu: U.S. needs to be the Wayne Gretzky of clean energy. Obama: "I hear that the Republicans were shouting 'BTU' on the floor...that tells me those guys are 16 years behind the times."
• 2009/07/01: Grist: Autos, smart grid and clean tech: DOE turns on the money
• 2009/06/30: UPI: $32M available for hydropower projects
• 2009/06/30: SolveClimate: EPA OKs California Tailpipe Emissions Rules, Nation to Follow
• 2009/07/01: SF Gate: EPA lets state get tougher on new vehicles
• 2009/07/01: WaPo: EPA to Let Calif. Set Own Auto Emissions Limits
• 2009/07/01: SacBee: EPA gives green light to California's pollution rules
  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday granted California the right to enforce a 2002 law that mandates deep cuts to automotive greenhouse-gas emissions through 2016, marking an official truce in a long struggle among automakers, the state and the federal government. The ruling follows a settlement on the issue brokered by the Obama administration in May. While to some degree a formality, Tuesday's decision sets what environmental groups and some in the auto industry say is an important precedent. It stands to give California regulators the power to drive national fuel-efficiency standards in the future.
• 2009/06/29: McClatchyDC: EPA list shows dangerous coal ash sites found in 10 states
• 2009/06/30: NatureTGB: US EPA grants California emissions waiver
• 2009/07/01: PlanetArk: EPA Approves California Auto Emissions Standard
• 2009/06/30: TreeHugger: California Finally Gets the OK to Set Its Own Auto Emissions Standard
• 2009/06/30: TreeHugger: US Forgives $30 Million in Indonesia's Debt to Help Preserve Sumatran Forests
• 2009/06/30: EarthTimes: US states get green light to improve fuel efficiency
• 2009/06/29: Yahoo: EPA relents, discloses list of high-risk coal ash sites
• 2009/06/30: AutoBG: EPA reverses decision, approves California's greenhouse gas emissions waiver
• 2009/06/30: LA Times: EPA gives California emissions waiver
  The state can develop its own standards on greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks, though it agrees not to toughen the standards before 2017. Automakers agree to drop lawsuits.
• 2009/06/29: WaPo: White House announces new lighting [efficiency] standards
• 2009/06/29: NatureTGB: Hot air and politics at the EPA
• 2009/06/29: NatureTGB: DOE: we're open, now go away
• 2009/06/29: PlanetArk: Obama Sets New Lighting Efficiency Standards
• 2009/06/29: PlanetArk: Three Mile Island Reactor Gets Environment OK
• 2009/06/29: Grist: Obama announces new efficiency initiatives as part of big clean-energy push
• 2009/06/29: ScienceInsider: Prez Nixes Power-Wasting Lights
• 2009/06/29: TreeHugger: Bureau of Land Management to Designate Solar Power Fast Track Areas in Six Western States
• 2009/06/29: TreeHugger: New Lighting Efficiency Standards Set by Obama Administration Good Enough Soon Enough?

  As for what is going on in Congress:

• 2009/07/01: AfterGutenberg: Denial of a Clear and Present Danger
• 2009/07/02: Grist: Cracking the Whip -- Counting Senate votes on climate and energy
• 2009/07/02: Grist: Notable quotable -- Et tu, Al? Franken gulps the ethanol-spiked Kool-Aid
• 2009/07/01: ClimateP: Honey, I shrunk the GOP, Part 1: Conservatives vow to purge all members who support clean energy or science-based policy
• 2009/07/01: Grist: Compromises, what compromises? The new Senate global warming deniers
• 2009/06/30: CSW: Video of Al Franken interview with climate change whistleblower Rick Piltz, 2005
• 2009/06/30: BBerg: [Senator George] Voinovich (R-Ohio) Says 'Crap' in Climate Bill Will Stall U.S. Passage
• 2009/06/30: NYT: Climate in the Senate
• 2009/07/01: NEN: Will the Senate do energy and climate?
  Summary: With Al Franken finally cleared to legally assume Minnesota's 2nd Senate seat, the Democrats have achieved Senatorial nirvana. 60 votes gives Democrats the chance to break the minority's tyranny-by-filibuster - if they can find a center to hold together their coalition's centrifugal forces.
• 2009/06/30: McClatchyDC: Franken wins, but don't get all excited about those 60 votes
• 2009/06/30: ClimateP: Court rules Al Franken good enough, smart enough and doggone it 312 more people from Minnesota liked him than Norm Coleman
• 2009/06/30: Grist: Franken win means another likely Senate vote for climate action
• 2009/06/30: TreeHugger: 'Cap and Tr8tor' Campaign Launched to Ruin Republicans Who Voted for Climate Bill
• 2009/06/29: ThinkP: After Campaigning For Climate Change Legislation, McCain Now Derides It As 'Cap-And-Tax'
• 2009/06/30: ThinkP: MN Supreme Court Declares Franken The Winner In U.S. Senate Race -- Will Pawlenty Certify Him?

  There was lots of chatter about HR2454, the Waxman-Markey climate bill:

• 2009/07/04: NBF: House and Senate Climate Bills and Stimulus Bill Energy Impact
• 2009/07/02: EnvFin: [US] Renewables industry pushes for tougher targets
• 2009/07/03: McClatchyDC: House climate bill wouldn't cut U.S. oil dependence much
• 2009/07/03: EnvEcon: Another economist in the Waxman-Markey camp
• 2009/07/02: FAIR: Climate Bill Damned but Military Budget Untouchable
• 2009/07/02: GreenGrok: Counting All the Carbon: A Waxman-Markey Wart [low ethanol EROEI & land-use change]
• 2009/07/02: Grist: Conservative activists wage war on Republicans who voted for climate bill
• 2009/07/01: QuarkSoup: Cost of Waxman/Markey
• 2009/07/02: TreeHugger: Could the US Senate Pass the Climate Bill, then Reject a Global Treaty?
• 2009/07/02: BBerg: Senate May Pass U.S. Climate Bill, Reject Treaty, Kerry Says
• 2009/07/01: ClimateP: In case you thought passing a climate bill was easy: "Chaos, arm-twisting gave Pelosi win"
• 2009/06/30: NYT: With Something for Everyone, Climate Bill Passed
• 2009/07/01: CSW: House climate bill gives White House science office lead role in guiding climate research & services
• 2009/07/01: WSJ:EnvCap: Green Buildings Get Boost in Cap-and-Trade Bill
• 2009/06/30: AfterGutenberg: The People Deserve to Know
• 2009/06/29: AfterGutenberg: ACES Equals IFR? [Integral Fast Reactor]
• 2009/06/29: WSWS: US House passes Obama administration's carbon trading legislation
• 2009/07/01: WaTi: Rep. [Marcy] Kaptur (D-Ohio) gets $3.5 billion sweetener in climate bill
  When House Democratic leaders were rounding up votes Friday for the massive climate-change bill, they paid special attention to their colleagues from Ohio who remained stubbornly undecided. They finally secured the vote of one Ohioan, veteran Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Toledo, the old-fashioned way. They gave her what she wanted - a new federal power authority, similar to Washington state's Bonneville Power Administration, stocked with up to $3.5 billion in taxpayer money available for lending to renewable energy and economic development projects in Ohio and other Midwestern states.
• 2009/06/30: HousingWire: Home Energy Audits Optional in Cap-and-Trade Bill
• 2009/07/01: PlanetArk: Factbox: Key Energy Elements in U.S. Climate Bill
• 2009/06/30: TreeHugger: Architect Alert: Waxman-Markey Has a Big Impact on Building
• 2009/06/30: TreeHugger: Waxman-Markey Targets For Buildings Are Exactly What Builders Say are Impossible
• 2009/06/30: TreeHugger: On the Climate Bill Green Groups Mustn't Surrender When the Battle is Just Starting
• 2009/06/29: ScienceInsider: Climate Bill Would Launch Energy Research Centers [W-M]
• 2009/06/29: PlanetArk: What Happens in the U.S. Senate on Climate Change
• 2009/06/29: PlanetArk: Climate Bill Would Tighten U.S. Derivatives Rules
• 2009/06/29: PlanetArk: Green States Line up Behind U.S. Climate Bill
  States that have set the U.S. agenda on addressing greenhouse gas emissions are lining up behind a federal climate bill, fearing signs of dissent would weaken a plan that still faces hurdles. Nearly half the U.S. states have moved toward curbing greenhouse gas emissions and want the federal government to learn from their experience in creating systems to cap emissions and trade pollution credits.
• 2009/06/29: Grist: Obama strategy on climate bill: get it passed, then let markets make the argument
• 2009/06/29: Grist: National climate change policy: A quick look back at Waxman-Markey and the road ahead
• 2009/06/29: Grist: Why we overestimate the costs of climate change legislation
• 2009/06/28: LA Times: Climate bill shaped by compromise
  Lawmakers talked with farm groups, coal producers and others for months. Concessions in the House legislation will face a less sympathetic Senate. Facing a mood unfriendly to sweeping changes in energy policy, House Democratic leaders and Obama had one thing that made interest groups more receptive: They were willing to negotiate.
• 2009/06/28: Guardian(UK): Saving the planet starts with unpicking Congress's knots
  Passing the climate bill was a victory for Obama, one that also showed up the institutional paralysis in the American system

What are the lobbyists pushing?

• 2009/07/01: CPI: Southern Company Dominates the Climate Lobbying Scene
• 2009/07/01: TP:WonkRoom: Swimming Upstream Against Public Opinion, NRCC Running Anti-Clean Energy Ads Laced With Misinformation
• 2009/07/01: Grist: Follow the money -- Southern Company dominates the climate lobbying scene
• 2009/06/30: CDreams: Dependence on Big Oil, Dirty Coal Could Cost U.S. $30 Trillion By 2030
  Groups Call on Congress to Repower America with Clean Energy for Consumers and Environment

While in the UK:

• 2009/07/05: PeakEnergy: UK 'Green revolution' could create 400,000 jobs, claim ministers
• 2009/07/05: Guardian(UK): Porritt blasts Treasury 'arrogance'
• 2009/07/01: CFO: UK's Brown calls for $100 billion a year climate fund
• 2009/07/02: EnvFin: UK government faces judicial review over sustainability at RBS
• 2009/07/02: EnvFin: UK could generate £70bn from wind, wave power -- Carbon Trust
• 2009/07/03: Guardian(UK): Manchester Report: Plans for renewable energy bonds among 20 climate ideas to save the world
  The idea is one of 20 radical solutions to the threat of global warming to be proposed during presentations at a conference in Manchester this weekend
• 2009/07/03: Guardian(UK): A year on, a test for police as protest returns to Kingsnorth
• 2009/07/03: AutoBG: UK funds Low-Carbon Buses with £30 million
• 2009/07/03: BBC: Mixed results for green IT goals
  A majority of public sector employees do not know about environmentally friendly IT targets set out in government's Greening ICT Strategy. The strategy calls for government IT to be carbon neutral by 2012, with office carbon emissions down 11.5% by 2011. One of the commissioners of the report says there are scattered trends toward compliance with the strategy. However, a survey of IT managers in the public sector showed 60% did not know there were any targets to aim for.
• 2009/07/02: Guardian(UK): [Letters] Finding the best ways to soak up CO2 [UK pol]
• 2009/07/02: PlanetArk: UK Wind Boom Spikes Prices, Threatens Plants: Study
• 2009/07/01: Guardian(UK): 89 months and counting
• 2009/07/01: Guardian(UK): Treasury faces legal action over 'dirty' banking investments
• 2009/07/01: Guardian(UK): Why did the government dump its green building regulations plan?
  Bang goes its promise of efficient homes; bang goes the green new deal. How will the government meet its obligations under the Climate Change Act?
• 2009/06/30: Telegraph(UK): Households face rise in bills because of Government failure on renewables
  Consumers will have to pay hundreds of pounds more on their electricity bills in future because the Government has failed to invest enough in cheap alternative sources like wind and solar power, the Royal Society has warned.
• 2009/06/30: BYMNews: UK. Shipping & global climate change goals report
• 2009/06/29: EurActiv: UK proposes $100bn global climate fund
  Prime Minster Gordon Brown outlined the UK's vision for a global climate deal on Friday (26 June), calling for $100 billion per year by 2020 to finance adaptation in developing countries.
• 2009/06/28: BBC: Scientists attack energy industry
  Britain's energy systems are no longer fit for purpose, according to leading members of the UK's best-known scientific academy, the Royal Society. A meeting of experts at the society said the government must invest hugely to create a new low-carbon economy. And it must take on the big generating companies who dominate energy policy, participants said. The government says the key issues on energy will be addressed in its forthcoming energy White Paper. The experts say ministers must make up lost time by investing massively in research and deployment of renewables; creating a more wide-ranging electricity 'supergrid'; and ensuring that coal-fired power stations capture 90% of their carbon emissions by 2020.
• 2009/06/29: Guardian(UK): Energy bills 'too low' to combat climate change -- Royal Society report says current government policy is not enough to pay for green technology

  The Drax protestors trial went down this week:

• 2009/07/05: Guardian(UK): Drax protest: They found us guilty but could not contest climate change facts
  The coal train protest judge said "climate change is of no relevance to this court" -- but that was why we were there
• 2009/07/04: Independent(UK): Protesters who stopped coal train found guilty
• 2009/07/03: Guardian(UK): Drax protester trial: Lessons from the Great Train Ambush
• 2009/07/03: Guardian(UK): Activists like the Drax protesters are the conscience of the nation
• 2009/07/03: Guardian(UK): Drax protesters found guilty of obstructing coal train
  Climate change protesters face community service after judge rejects justification defence
• 2009/07/03: Guardian(UK): Drax trial held in a climate of injustice
  The outcome of the trial of the Drax protesters was determined the minute the judge banned the consideration of climate change
• 2009/07/03: OilChange: Coal's Judgement Day
• 2009/07/02: Guardian(UK): Drax protester trial: Closing statement from the defence
• 2009/07/02: Guardian(UK): Jury retires to consider verdict in Drax hijack trial
• 2009/07/02: Guardian(UK): Burning coal means pollution and death, Drax hijack defendant tells court
• 2009/07/01: Guardian(UK): Drax protesters plead climate change cause to jury
• 2009/07/01: Guardian(UK): Drax protest trial judge relaxes warning on talk of climate change -- Lecturer tells jury Drax power station threat is 'deadly and urgent'
• 2009/06/30: Guardian(UK): Drax train hijackers 'planning to turn trial into second protest'

  And in Europe:

• 2009/07/04: EarthTimes: Ministers agree to upper limit [+2C] for allowable global warming
• 2009/07/04: WaPo: Preparing for a Sea Change
• 2009/07/03: EurActiv: 'Clean Sky' gets off the ground despite initial delay
  The 1.6 billion euros European programme to drive the aviation sector towards more environmentally-friendly development is now on track, according to Allan Cook, president of the Aerospace and Defense industries association of Europe (ASD). [...] The ASD president announced that industry's carbon reduction target, as set by the Advisory Council for Aeronautics Research in Europe (ACARE), aims to reduce CO2 emissions and noise by 50% on 2000 levels for new aircraft entering into service in the year 2020.
• 2009/07/01: Guardian(UK): Sweden kicks off EU presidency with focus on climate change
• 2009/07/01: EurActiv: Sweden 'ready' to drive global climate talks
• 2009/07/01: EurActiv: EU issues template for national renewables plans
• 2009/06/30: RG&B: Europe Fails to Recognize Carbon Dioxide As a Pollutant
• 2009/07/01: BBC: Sweden has called on the European Union to take the lead in fighting climate change despite facing the worst economic downturn since the 1930s
• 2009/06/30: EurActiv: EU mulls 7 billion euros subsidy for carbon capture
  The European Commission yesterday (29 June) estimated that up to 7 billion euros could be made available to fund carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology from the EU's emissions trading scheme (EU ETS). Meanwhile, renewables projects would get around 5 billion euros. The assessment is based on projects that have been presented to the Commission so far.
• 2009/07/01: ABC(Au): Sweden has taken over the presidency of the European Union and is expected to put climate change at the top of its agenda

  I just love these contradictory headlines:

• 2009/06/29: EurActiv: Europe hails passage of climate bill by US House
• 2009/06/29: TreeHugger: Disappointed Europe "Demands More" from US on Climate Action

  Meanwhile in Australia:

• 2009/07/03: ABC(Au): Climate change expert Tim Flannery say agriculture will not benefit from the Federal Government's carbon legislation unless more carbon offsets are permitted
• 2009/07/03: ABC(Au): The New South Wales Government has given planning approval for a wind farm at Gullen Range, near Goulburn in the state's south, despite an ongoing case in the Land and Environment Court
• 2009/07/03: ABC(Au): COAG flags US-style fuel efficiency regulations
  The State and Federal Governments are looking at imposing US-style fuel efficiency standards on Australia's automotive industry. The Council of Australian Governments (COAG) has agreed to do a study on the costs and benefits of both mandatory and voluntary emissions standards for cars. Earlier this year the US announced a plan for fuel economy standards for cars and trucks that would cut emissions by 30 per cent by 2016.
• 2009/07/02: ABC(Au): ACT defends solar tariff scheme
• 2009/07/02: Reuters: U.S. vote boosts hopes for Australia carbon laws
• 2009/06/30: NatureN: Australian carbon trading scheme delayed -- Senators push back passage of greenhouse gas bill [until at least August]
• 2009/06/30: ABC(Au): CPRS will impact on Broken Hill: Nationals Senator
  The Nationals Senator John Williams will be in Broken Hill today to discuss issues affecting rural and regional communities.
• 2009/06/30: ABC(Au): Police union calls for 'climate cops'
  The federal police union says it wants more information from the Government about what role the Australian Federal Police (AFP) would have in enforcing the proposed Emissions Trading Scheme.
• 2009/06/29: ABC(Au): Organisers surprised by interest in climate change forum
  Organisers say they are surprised at the level of interest in a carbon and climate change forum on the Monaro next week. More than 100 people have booked to attend the meeting at Nimmitabel next monday that will bring together three prominent global warming speakers.
• 2009/06/29: ABC(Au): The ACT Government says it has had an encouraging response to its proposal to build a solar power plant
• 2009/06/29: ABC(Au): There is to be a State Parliamentary inquiry into wind farms in rural and regional parts of New South Wales
• 2009/06/29: ABC(Au): We're firm on emissions scheme: Robb -- Coalition frontbencher Andrew Robb says the Federal Opposition's position on emissions trading has not changed
• 2009/06/29: PeakEnergy: Dithering Australia leaves promising solar future in the dark
• 2009/06/29: CanberraTimes: Turnbull backs off on emissions scheme

  And in New Zealand:

• 2009/07/03: HotTopic: Time to worry: NBR [NZ National Business Review] editor lacks insight on climate change

  While in China:

• 2009/07/02: NBF: China's Nuclear Energy Target for 2020 is 86 Gigawatts and Wind Energy Targt of 150 GW
• 2009/07/03: Reuters: China wind companies poised for green policy boost
• 2009/07/03: ChinaIIC: China hikes 2011 solar power target
• 2009/07/03: NYT: Green Power Takes Root in the Chinese Desert
  As the United States takes its first steps toward mandating that power companies generate more electricity from renewable sources, China already has a similar requirement and is investing billions to remake itself into a green energy superpower. Through a combination of carrots and sticks, Beijing is starting to change how this country generates energy. Although coal remains the biggest energy source and is almost certain to stay that way, the rise of renewable energy, especially wind power, is helping to slow China's steep growth in emissions of global warming gases.
• 2009/07/02: SolveClimate: China Launches 1,000 Youth Ambassadors for the Environment
• 2009/06/30: G&M: China thirsty for foreign oil -- Country's percentage dependency on imported oil surpassed that of the U.S. in May

  Elsewhere in Asia:

• 2009/07/01: ABC(Au): PNG's climate change head 'suspended'
  The head of Papua New Guinea's Office of Climate Change has reportedly been suspended amid allegations of improper deals involving carbon credits. The national newspaper is reporting PNG's cabinet has decided to suspend Dr Theo Yasause while dealings at the Office of Climate Change are investigated. The investigation was launched after media reports said the office had been making million-dollar carbon trading deals with foreign companies before a policy and legislation were in place.
• 2009/06/29: EarthTimes: Central Asian countries agree to solve uranium waste problem
  Four Central Asian countries adopted Monday a joint declaration professing their desire to solve once and for all the enduring problem of uranium waste left over from the era of the Soviet Union, at a meeting in Geneva. Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, along with United Nations agencies and other international actors agreed that the waste was hazardous and dangerous to the populations. They would work together to gather and store the waste and clean up the affecting areas.
• 2009/06/28: NEN: Asian nations in powerful new energy alliance

  And in Africa:

• 2009/07/01: UN: Stronger agriculture sector key to brighter future for Africa, Migiro tells leaders
• 2009/07/01: UN: Top UN officials urge donors to help Africa weather food crisis

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

• 2009/07/02: Times(UK): Canada and Japan blocking climate-change deal, Sir David King warns
• 2009/06/30: G&M: Obama's willing to spend political capital on climate change. Why isn't Harper? Greenhouse-gas vision is missing in Canada

  Canada had a lousy ranking in the G8 list:

• 2009/07/02: ABC(Au): Canada's emissions among world's highest: WWF
• 2009/07/02: BostonGlobe: US, Canada rank last in curbing warming, report on G-8 says
• 2009/07/01: CBC: Canada last among G8 on climate change action: report
• 2009/07/01: TStar: Canada dead last on green list
  Canada is now the G8's classroom dud on climate change, sliding to last place among the world's industrial leaders in the annual climate scorecard released by the World Wildlife Fund and insurance giant Allianz today. While countries like Germany and England have substantially cut their greenhouse gas emissions over the past two decades, Canada's emissions are continuing to skyrocket, now 26 per cent above 1990 levels.

Ottawa is waiting to see what climate an energy legislation finally comes out the USA:

• 2009/07/05: CanWest: U.S. climate-change bill could make Canada act
• 2009/07/05: CanWest: U.S. greenhouse-gas bill should raise red flags in Canada -- Protectionist measures look like thinly disguised tariffs
• 2009/07/01: EmbassyMag: Congress Gives Big Pass on Canadian Hydro Power
  The U.S. House of Representatives passed climate change legislation on June 26 that could change the face of energy production and use in the U.S. -- a revolution that the sub-committee chairman responsible for the bill, Ed Markey of Massachusetts, likened to the advent of broadband Internet. The American Clean Energy and Security Act, known to its supporters by the acronym ACES -- but dubbed C.R.A.P. (Continue Ruining America's Prosperity) by some Republican opponents -- passed by the small margin of 219 to 212. The measure may still be modified by the Senate. Unfortunately for Canada, in a bill that rewards almost every type of green energy -- wind, solar, geothermal, biofuels -- hydroelectric power is not even considered a renewable energy resource and will not count toward new mandates requiring that American utilities start transitioning from carbon-based fuels to renewables.
• 2009/07/01: G&M: Canada to match U.S. climate change rules
  Canada will adopt climate-change regulations comparable to those of the United States -- including new rules for oil sands producers and refiners -- to avoid punitive "green" tariffs, Environment Minister Jim Prentice says. In an interview Tuesday, Mr. Prentice said it is too early to predict whether the bill that narrowly passed the U.S. House of Representatives last Friday will be adopted in its current form by the Senate, where it faces a rougher ride. But he said Canada will bring in regulations to match new U.S. laws governing greenhouse-gas emissions -- and vowed to be as tough on Canadian industry as the U.S. government is on its big emitters.

In case you thought the Liberals had any solutions:

• 2009/07/01: EdSun: Iggy eyes piping Alberta oil east

  In BC, post election adjustments are ongoing:

• 2009/06/30: MetroNews: B.C. looks to carbon capture to balance clean-air targets with energy revenues
  Economic realities and environmental promises are creating an explosive mixture for the recession-fighting B.C. government as it juggles expansion in its oil and gas industry with the need to cut greenhouse gases.
• 2009/07/01: CanWest: Metro Vancouver coalition pushes for $450 million for public transit
  An unlikely group of environmentalists, business and labour leaders joined Metro Vancouver's mayors Tuesday to push Victoria and Ottawa to direct an annual $450 million into funding public transit. [...] In spring, the Mayors' Council agreed they wouldn't support any more increases in property taxes to make up the expected shortfall in TransLink revenue, and are calling for the Provincial Carbon Tax and Gas Tax transfers to be dedicated on a permanent basis to the TransLink operations budget.

Ontario has it's Green Energy Act, now comes the implementation:

• 2009/07/03: CBC: Backyard wind turbine rejected by Ontario Municipal Board

  Gone Fission! Fissile Fizzle! The puns were abominable when Ontario put its two AECL reactors on hold:

• 2009/07/04: LFPress: Delay on reactors draws mixed reaction
• 2009/07/03: TSun: Time for caution on nuke plans -- About 50% of our electricity is nuclear. The existing plants are old. They need refurbishing.
• 2009/07/01: CanWest: Feds can save nuclear project: McGuinty
  Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty on Tuesday said his government is prepared to revisit its decision to mothball plans to buy two new nuclear reactors, but only if the asking price drops and Ottawa shows a commitment to the future of Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.
• 2009/06/30: TreeHugger: Ontario Drops Plans for 2 New Nuclear Reactors Because of High Costs
• 2009/06/30: CanWest: Project halt 'severe blow' to AECL -- Ontario shelves plans for new nuclear plant
• 2009/06/30: TStar: High price for reactors gives Ontario cold feet -- Smitherman urges AECL to sharpen pencil, return with a better bid
• 2009/06/29: Grist: Costs kill Ontario's new nukes
• 2009/06/29: DymaxionWorld: Smitherman balks
  The rumour is that when Ontario's minister of Energy and Infrastructure was confronted with the cost estimates for the new nuclear build, he suffered a severe case of sticker shock.
• 2009/06/29: CBC: Ontario drops plans for 2 new nuclear reactors
• 2009/06/29: G&M: Ontario suspends nuclear power plans
  Announcement marks a huge shift in policy for the McGuinty government, which had planned to spend $26-billion expanding and refurbishing its fleet of reactors

Meanwhile in that Mechanical Mordor known as the tar sands:

• 2009/07/03: CBC: Carbon technology [CCS] to play a 'critical role' in Alberta's emissions fight
• 2009/07/03: CBC: Carbon capture no 'silver bullet' for climate change -- Supporters say the technology is a practical way to fight global warming
• 2009/07/01: CanWest: Province reveals carbon contenders
  Alberta Energy forwarded its $2-billioncarbon capture and sequestration plans Monday, naming three projects as potential winners in the bid to secure provincial funding for emission reduction schemes. The projects include an ambitious plan to trap carbon from industry and transport it via a new pipeline to storage facilities, a $2-billion power plant fuelled by gasified coal, and a multinational project that would capture carbon from oilsands upgrading, transport and store it. Edmonton-owned utility Epcor and partner Enbridge, a project by Enhance Energy Inc. and Northwest Upgrading, and a joint project by Shell Canada Energy-Chevron Canada Ltd. and Marathon Oil Sands LP were chosen out of nine proposals vying for the provincial funds. They will be involved in discussions with the government until the end of July to formalize letters of intent, after which details on project funding will be released.
• 2009/07/02: CanWest: Tarsands earns Canada bottom ranking -- WWF releases climate change report card
  Canada is doing the least of any of the world's wealthiest countries to fight climate change--and Alberta's oilsands is largely to blame, says a report card released Wednesday by the World Wildlife Foundation. Of the G8 countries--Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the U. K. and the United States --Canada is one of the few whose emissions are still increasing, the 2009 Climate Scorecard said, blaming an "expanding exploitation of the tarsands" in Alberta.
• 2009/06/30: G&M: Tar sands to take hit from U.S. bill
  Alberta's oil sands producers and their U.S. refiners face sharply higher costs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions under legislation approved by the U.S. House of Representatives and championed by U.S. President Barack Obama. The American Clean Energy and Security Act, if passed by the U.S. Senate, could also result in new tariffs on Canadian exporters of energy-intensive goods from cement to chemicals if Washington deems Ottawa's climate-change regulations to be lacking. Under the cap-and-trade plan, U.S. refiners will have to buy permits for each tonne of carbon dioxide that they send into the air. While utilities will be provided free allocation of those permits to reduce the impact on power users, the oil industry will have to purchase virtually all of its permits.
• 2009/06/29: CanWest: IEA still sees major role for Canadian oil sands

  As for miscellaneous Canadiana:

• 2009/07/05: TSun: Facelift for Arctic facilities -- Science stations built in '50s
• 2009/07/02: CleanBreak: Making sense of green incentive overload...
• 2009/07/02: CleanBreak: U.S. officially joins IRENA; Canada still absent
• 2009/06/29: BCLSB: Global Warming Comes To Toronto Island?

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

• 2009/07/03: OilDrum: Olduvai Theory: Toward Re-Equalizing the World Standard of Living - Richard Duncan
• 2009/07/03: DemNow: Noam Chomsky on "Crisis and Hope: Theirs and Ours" [Food, Finance & Climate]
• 2009/07/01: LBF: Get Ready for the Greenish Revolution
• 2009/07/02: Guardian(UK): Low carbon economy will transform world like the first industrial revolution
• 2009/06/30: EnergyBulletin: Investing in durability
• 2009/06/29: MTobis: Manzi's Folly and Economics in General
• 2009/06/30: EnergyBulletin: Is the United States drifting toward "war socialism"?

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

• 2009/07/04: CanWest: Refusing to multiply

  Apocalypso anyone?

• 2009/07/01: ABC(Au): Angkor's temples and climate change doom
  The ancient civilisation based at Angkor in Cambodia collapsed in the late 16th century because of problems with a very modern ring to them, research by an international team indicates. The Greater Angkor Project, based in Sydney, is preparing a paper arguing that extreme climate change and the failure of Angkor's complicated water systems were to blame. The temple complex was the heart of the mighty Khmer empire...
• 2009/06/29: Guardian(UK): Climate war could kill nearly all of us, leaving survivors in the Stone Age [Lovelock]
• 2009/06/29: ClimateP: Lovelock still makes me look like Paula Abdul, warns climate war could kill nearly all of us, leaving survivors in the Stone Age

  As for how the media handles the science of climatology:

• 2009/07/03: JEB: Times in nonsense hype shocker
• 2009/07/01: CJR: NSF "Underwriting" Coverage...And other controversies from the World Conference of Science Journalists
• 2009/07/02: CJR: Some Optimism for the Future of Science Journalism -- And especially for international collaboration
• 2009/07/03: ClimateP: Media outlet refuses to run GOP's TV ad filled with falsehoods on clean energy bill
• 2009/07/02: Grist: Dept. of Misinformation -- No, Jeff, there's not a debate about the science of climate change
• 2009/07/02: ThinkP: Media Outlet Refuses To Run Republican TV Ad Filled With Misrepresentations Of Clean Energy Bill
• 2009/07/02: KSJT: Popular Mechanics: Debunking of climate studies that "Don't Live Up to Their Hype."
• 2009/07/01: ClimateP: Signs of global warming are everywhere, but if the New York Times can't tell the story (twice!), how will the public hear it?
• 2009/06/30: ClimateP: Memo to media: When the EPA ignores internal non-expert comments filled with falsehoods cut-and-paste from anti-science deniers, that isn't "suppressing a report." And why have you completely ignored a major scientific report revealing what a sham that "EPA report" is?
• 2009/06/29: MillerMcCune: Media Cool to Linking Wildfires, Climate Change
  In the wake of some devastating blazes, Sam Kornell asks why few major media properties have explored the connection between the changing complexion of wildfires and climate change.

I'm not sure why (maybe the conference), but this story was all over the web:

• 2009/07/03: KSJT: Lots of Ink: Shrinking sheep on a warming island - and they get a star turn at science journalists confab in London

  Here is something for your library:

• 2009/07/03: DF: [Book Review] _Blackout: Coal, Climate and the Last Energy Crisis_ by Richard Heinberg
• 2009/06/29: EnergyBulletin: [Book Review] _Future Scenarios: How Communities Can Adapt to Peak Oil and Climate Change_ by David Holmgren

  And for your film & video enjoyment:

• 2009/07/03: HuffPo: _Coal Country_ Premiere: Big Coal Lobby Does Not Want You to See This Powerful New Film

  Meanwhile among the 'Sue the Bastards!' contingent:

• 2009/07/02: E2T: Lessons from the Cello Energy Biofuel Fraud Case: Do Your Homework
  As far as speed bumps for cellulosic ethanol ventures go, this one's a doozy: Jurors in a federal court have ordered Cello Energy, a biofuel startup run by Alabama's former ethics chairman, Jack Boykin, and backed by both Silicon Valley cleantech investors Khosla Ventures and pulp maker Parsons & Whittemore Enterprises, to pay more than $10.4 million in a fraud case.
• 2009/07/01: Yahoo: Federal court upholds Calif. ship regulations
• 2009/06/29: HC: Supreme Court rules against Chevron
  The U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal by Chevron Corp., the second-largest U.S. energy company, in a fight with the Ecuadorean government over potentially tens of billions of dollars in liability for environmental damage. The justices, without comment, today let stand a lower court ruling that blocked Chevron's effort to force arbitration with state-owned PetroEcuador.

Developing a new energy infrastructure is a fundamental challenge of the current generation:

• 2009/07/03: WorldChanging: Pioneer City 2030: What the Energy System of the Future Looks Like
• 2009/07/03: AlterNet: Thanks to Our Fossil Fuel Addiction, We May Be Setting Ourselves Up for a Catastrophic Natural Event
• 2009/07/02: PhysOrg: Who wants to pay more for green electricity?
• 2009/06/29: EnergyBulletin: Interview with Charles T. Maxwell (Part 2 of 2)
• 2009/07/01: Grist: How fast can the US electric sector reform?
• 2009/07/01: SolveClimate: Report: 8 Clean Energy Technologies Can Reach 'Gigaton Scale' in 10 Years
• 2009/06/30: PhysOrg: Wind + water = untapped energy: An abundance of power exists above Earth's oceans, study finds
• 2009/06/30: PeakEnergy: The Net Hubbert Curve: What Does It Mean?
• 2009/06/29: FTimes: Oil watchdog cuts demand forecasts
  The worst recession in decades will curtail oil demand for years to come, the International Energy Agency predicted on Monday as it cut sharply its forecasts for world consumption and declared that the threat of a supply crunch had receded. Oil figuresThe consuming countries' oil watchdog said it expected global demand to grow at an average annual rate of just 0.6 per cent or 540,000 barrels a day from 2008-14, raising consumption from 85.8m b/d to 89m b/d. This latest forecast is 3.3m b/d lower than the previous forecast for 2013 volumes. If the agency's most pessimistic economic scenario proves correct, oil demand could contract, with consumption falling to 84.9m b/d by 2014, it said in a report.
• 2009/06/29: PlanetArk: U.S. May Become Largest Green [Energy] Market: E.ON Exec
• 2009/06/29: EarthTimes: Energy agency [IEA] sees oil demand and prices rising through 2014
• 2009/06/28: OilDrum: The Trouble With Energy - Part 4
• 2009/06/29: CBC: Global oil demand to be lower than earlier forecast, IEA says

  The answer my friend...:

• 2009/07/01: BostonGlobe: State draws zones for coast wind farms -- Aims to protect sensitive areas of sea
  Dozens of wind turbines could sprout within sight of the Massachusetts shoreline under a first-of-its-kind state blueprint with the promise of generating both electricity and controversy. The draft plan, scheduled to be released today, would allow a series of small wind farms of up to 10 turbines each in coastal waters that stretch 3 miles from shore. Substantially larger farms - similar to what's proposed in Nantucket Sound - could be built off Cape Cod near Cuttyhunk Island and adjacent to another tiny island several miles off Martha's Vineyard.
• 2009/07/01: BBC: Wind has the power to revolutionise the UK's electricity industry, according to a study published on Wednesday
• 2009/06/30: NEN: More [US] states want wind

  Meanwhile among the solar aficionados:

• 2009/07/02: NEN: California shows building sun can be done
• 2009/07/01: NewScientist: Record-breaking solar cells are tailored to their location
• 2009/06/30: RG&B: Feds Hope To Have 13 New Solar Power Plants On Public Lands By 2010
• 2009/07/01: PlanetArk: Interior Dept Designates Solar Energy Zones
• 2009/06/30: TreeHugger: 676,000 Acres of US Public Land Surveyed for Solar Power Potential
• 2009/06/30: ENN: New Measures to Aid Solar on Public Lands
• 2009/06/30: LA Times: U.S. works to speed solar energy development in the West
  Interior Secretary Ken Salazar signs an order that sets aside some 676,000 acres of federal land -- more than half in California -- for study and environmental reviews.
• 2009/06/29: PhysOrg: First step to converting solar energy using 'artificial leaf'
• 2009/06/29: Eureka: First step to converting solar energy using 'artificial leaf' -- Structure of artificial light harvesting antenna determined

  The arithmetic of coal carbon is striking home:

• 2009/06/29: NewInt:TEB: Climate campaigners target coal power construction firm

  While in the clean coal saga:

• 2009/06/29: McClatchyDC: EPA list shows dangerous coal ash sites found in 10 states
• 2009/06/30: NEN: A scientific look at "clean" coal
• 2009/06/29: EPA: Fact Sheet: Coal Combustion Residues (CCR) - Surface Impoundments with High Hazard Potential Ratings
• 2009/06/29: SolveClimate: EPA Releases Secret List of 44 High-Risk Coal Ash Ponds

  Biofuel bickering abounds:

• 2009/07/05: SciDaily: Castor-oil Plants Genetically Altered To Produce New Bio-lubricants
• 2009/07/05: HotTopic: Go with the flow: NZ algae pioneers spark US interest
• 2009/07/02: E2T: Lessons from the Cello Energy Biofuel Fraud Case: Do Your Homework
  As far as speed bumps for cellulosic ethanol ventures go, this one's a doozy: Jurors in a federal court have ordered Cello Energy, a biofuel startup run by Alabama's former ethics chairman, Jack Boykin, and backed by both Silicon Valley cleantech investors Khosla Ventures and pulp maker Parsons & Whittemore Enterprises, to pay more than $10.4 million in a fraud case.
• 2009/07/02: KSJT: Lots of Ink: Algae suddenly the glamour gunk of the sustainable fuel and energy biz
• 2009/06/29: PlanetArk: New Generation Biofuels Seen in 2010 at Earliest
• 2009/06/29: NYT: Algae Farm Aims to Turn Carbon Dioxide Into Fuel
• 2009/06/28: Guardian(UK): China recruits algae to combat climate change -- Chinese firm behind ambitious plan to breed microalgae in greenhouse with the potential to absorb carbon emissions

  The nuclear energy controversy continues:

• 2009/07/02: NatureN: US nuclear recycling faces the axe -- Department of Energy cancels reprocessing project
• 2009/07/02: KSJT: NYTimes, Fairbanks News Miner: More stirrings for non-fossil energy in Alaska. Small nukes are in play (still)
• 2009/07/02: EarthTimes: Spain will not close oldest nuclear plant - reports
• 2009/06/27: ThoughtLeader(SA): Nuclear power is well-disguised fossil fuel
• 2009/06/30: WSJ:EnvCap: No Nukes: Of Exelon and Rising Government Influence -- Exelon Corp. has called off plans to build two new nuclear reactors in Victoria, Texas
• 2009/06/29: EarthTimes: Central Asian countries agree to solve uranium waste problem
  Four Central Asian countries adopted Monday a joint declaration professing their desire to solve once and for all the enduring problem of uranium waste left over from the era of the Soviet Union, at a meeting in Geneva. Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, along with United Nations agencies and other international actors agreed that the waste was hazardous and dangerous to the populations. They would work together to gather and store the waste and clean up the affecting areas.

Yes we have a peak oil sighting:

• 2009/07/02: FuturePundit: Charlie Maxwell On Peak Oil By 2015

  More people are talking about the electrical grid:

• 2009/06/30: WBJ: Energy Department will award $3.3B for smart power grids

  And then there is the matter of efficiency & conservation:

• 2009/07/03: ClimateP: Plug In and Save
• 2009/07/03: PhysOrg: Energy-Efficient Intelligent House that Can Learn our Routines
• 2009/07/03: SolveClimate: New Business Model Cuts Up-Front Costs to Spur Energy Efficiency
• 2009/07/02: CBC: Ottawa firm developing energy-efficient solid-state light
• 2009/06/30: GreenBiz: Yahoo! Abandons Carbon Offsets in Favor of Efficiency
• 2009/06/29: TreeHugger: U Illinois Urbana Saves $5 Million From Energy Efficiency

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

• 2009/07/03: PhysOrg: Volkswagen plans electric car in 2013: head
• 2009/07/03: BBC: Japan rethinks silent hybrid cars
  Japan is considering the introduction of noise-making devices for near-silent hybrid cars following safety fears from vision-impaired pedestrians. "Vision-impaired people feel that hybrid vehicles are dangerous", a transport ministry official told AFP. The top-selling hybrid vehicles run almost without any sound when they change from fuel to battery mode.
• 2009/07/02: BBC: Hitachi to sell batteries to GM
  Hitachi has announced that it will be providing lithium-ion batteries that power hybrid cars to General Motors from next year. The electronics company also said it planned to increase its production of the batteries from 40,000 cells a month to three million a month.
• 2009/07/02: CBC: Ford Canada sales up 25% in June
• 2009/07/01: BRitholtz: Auto Sales Remain Ugly Are Fantastic!
• 2009/07/01: CalcRisk: Ford June U.S. light vehicle sales down 11% YOY
• 2009/07/01: CalcRisk: General Motors June sales fell 33.6% YoY
• 2009/07/01: CalcRisk: Graphs: Auto Sales in June
• 2009/07/02: BBC: New sales falls for US car makers
  [...] Ford ... had the smallest drop, with sales down 10.7% from a year earlier. General Motors said sales fell 33.6%, while Chrysler sales fell by 42%.
• 2009/07/01: AutoBG: Ford could electrify 10-25 percent of its fleet by 2020
• 2009/07/01: TreeHugger: 1-Year Electric Mini Lease Exploits CARB Loophole, Says Plug In America
• 2009/06/29: USAToday: Ford boosts production 16% as June car sales show strength
• 2009/07/01: Yahoo: Ford US sales drop 10.7 percent in June
• 2009/07/01: AutoBG: Financial crisis delays Iceland's hydrogen transportation project
• 2009/07/01: AutoBG: Columnist: Plug-in cars are the new ethanol-style boondoggle
• 2009/06/30: Grist: Big Blue's electric green dreams -- IBM places big bet on lithium-air batteries
• 2009/06/30: AutoBG: "New energy car" classifications revised by Chinese government

  The reaction of business to climate change will be critical:

• 2009/07/02: EnvFin: VC investment in clean-tech rebounds to $1.2 billion
• 2009/07/02: NewScientist: Money flows into green transport despite recession
• 2009/07/02: TreeHugger: Yahoo! Says Yes to Greener Data Center, Yes to Renewable Energy, No to Carbon Offsets
• 2009/07/02: WSJ:EnvCap: Renewable Energy Financing Rebounds, in Europe, if not U.S.
• 2009/06/30: GTM: Q2 VC in Greentech Comes Back Strong -- More Than $1.2B in 85 Deals Signals a Quiet Recovery in the Greentech Sector

  Meanwhile in the greenwashing chronicles:

• 2009/07/03: TreeHugger: Has the 'Organic' Label Become the Biggest Greenwashing Campaign in the US?

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

• 2009/07/02: ClimateP: Energy and Global Warming News for July 2nd: Dump the "Saudi Arabia of solar" meme; Environmental toll of plastics
• 2009/06/30: ClimateP: Energy and Global Warming News for June 30: Surprise success in Amazon conservation; solar to be studied for 670,000 acres of US public land
• 2009/06/29: ClimateP: Energy and Global Warming News for June 29: China likely to reject bid for GM's Hummer; Projected food demands seen to outpace production

  The carbon lobby are up to the usual:

• 2009/07/02: MTobis: Inexcusable Austin/Singer/Lindzen Letter
• 2009/07/02: JKB: Climate Change is a Religion, not Science
• 2009/07/02: Deltoid: Christopher Booker's misinformation about the Polar Bear Specialist Group
• 2009/07/01: Guardian(UK): Why climate change deniers love to hear they are committing treason
• 2009/07/01: RealityCheck: Chilingar is Back
• 2009/06/30: Guardian(UK): Amnesty attacks oil industry for decades of damage in Niger Delta
  An Amnesty report says that at least 9m barrels have leaked into the land and rivers in the past 50 years
• 2009/07/01: MediaMatters: Fox News runs with global temperature decline falsehood
• 2009/06/30: ClimateP: BP stand for "back to petroleum" -- oil giant shuts clean energy HQ, slashes renewables budget up to $900 million this year, dives into tar sands
• 2009/06/30: BCLSB: Climate Change Denier [Plimer] Denies Natural Sciences
• 2009/06/29: Guardian(UK): Have the climate change deniers abandoned us during the heatwave?
  If a UK cold snap persuades climate sceptics that global warming isn't happening, then a heatwave must convince them that it is
• 2009/06/30: SWBiz(UK): Shell defends CO2 emissions record
• 2009/06/30: BBC: Shell should end Nigeria 'abuse'
  Lobby group Amnesty International has urged the new head of oil firm Royal Dutch Shell to end years of pollution and environmental damage in Nigeria. Peter Voser takes over on Wednesday, a day after Amnesty released a report saying there was a "human rights tragedy" in Nigeria's main oil region. Shell Petroleum Development Company, a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell, is the main operator in the Niger Delta.
• 2009/06/28: ClimateP: George Will and WattsUpWithThat embrace a proud former shill for a man convicted on fraud and conspiracy charges
• 2009/06/28: BSD: Volokh Correction #25: there already is a national energy efficiency standard
• 2009/06/29: NASDAQ: Shell Is On Track To Become Most CO2-Intensive Oil Co -Study
• 2009/06/29: OilChange: Peter's Second Problem: Shell Climate Crimes Exposed
• 2009/06/28: Guardian(UK): BP shuts alternative energy HQ -- 'Beyond Petroleum' become 'Back to Petroleum'
• 2009/01/19: Wired: Clive Thompson on How More Info Leads to Less Knowledge
  Is global warming caused by humans? Is Barack Obama a Christian? Is evolution a well-supported theory?
  You might think these questions have been incontrovertibly answered in the affirmative, proven by settled facts. But for a lot of Americans, they haven't. Among Republicans, belief in anthropogenic global warming declined from 52 percent to 42 percent between 2003 and 2008. Just days before the election, nearly a quarter of respondents in one Texas poll were convinced that Obama is a Muslim. And the proportion of Americans who believe God did not guide evolution? It's 14 percent today, a two-point decline since the '90s, according to Gallup.
  What's going on? Normally, we expect society to progress, amassing deeper scientific understanding and basic facts every year. Knowledge only increases, right?
  Robert Proctor doesn't think so. A historian of science at Stanford, Proctor points out that when it comes to many contentious subjects, our usual relationship to information is reversed: Ignorance increases.
  He has developed a word inspired by this trend: agnotology. Derived from the Greek root agnosis, it is "the study of culturally constructed ignorance."

Exxon's up to its old tricks:

• 2009/07/02: TP:WonkRoom: ExxonMobil Continues Funding Global Warming Denial Groups Despite Repeated Pledges to Stop
• 2009/07/02: ClimateP: Another ExxonMobil deceit: They are still funding climate science deniers despite public pledge
• 2009/07/03: ABC(Au): Exxon Mobil 'funding climate sceptics'
• 2009/07/02: DeSmogBlog: The XX in Exxon = "Fingers Crossed"
• 2009/07/02: OilChange: Exxon Still Funding Sceptics
• 2009/07/01: TreeHugger: ExxonMobil Found to Still Fund Climate Skeptic Groups, After Pledges to Stop
• 2009/07/01: Guardian(UK): Why ExxonMobil must be taken to task over climate denial funding
  ExxonMobil should keep its promise by ending its financial support for lobby groups that mislead the public about climate change, writes Bob Ward
• 2009/07/01: Guardian(UK): ExxonMobil continuing to fund climate sceptic groups, records show
  Records show ExxonMobil gave hundreds of thousands of pounds to lobby groups that have published 'misleading and inaccurate information' about climate change

The mad spinning of that EPA document story continues:

• 2009/07/03: DeSmogBlog: "Supressed" Climate Report Cribbed From Patrick Michaels?
• 2009/06/30: ClimateP: Memo to media: When the EPA ignores internal non-expert comments filled with falsehoods cut-and-paste from anti-science deniers, that isn't "suppressing a report." And why have you completely ignored a major scientific report revealing what a sham that "EPA report" is?
• 2009/07/01: ScienceP: Dude, Where's My War on Science? An Attack on EPA's Policy Process Fails Peer Review
• 2009/07/01: TWM: The EPA's far-right cause celebre...
• 2009/06/29: MediaMatters: Reporting on possibly "suppressed" EPA document, CBS suppressed actual climate science
• 2009/06/30: Guardian(UK): A devastating critique of EPA science? More like cherry picking and astrology
  A draft of the 'suppressed' document that has been making waves on the blogosphere has been released. Let's take a look.
• 2009/06/30: DeepClimate: "Suppressed" Carlin report based on Pat Michaels attack on EPA
• 2009/06/29: Grist: Still spinning -- EPA 'suppression' story grows, despite shoddy science in report
• 2009/06/29: TP:WonkRoom: Inhofe Calls For Criminal Investigation Into Why EPA 'Suppressed' A Global Warming Denier

  As for climate miscellanea:

• 2009/07/05: ABC(Au): Calls for carbon audit on US-Aust war games
  Two medical organisations are calling for a carbon audit on a joint US-Australian military exercise, that starts tomorrow. Exercise Talisman-Sabre will involve around 30,000 troops, simulating land, sea and air combat at several locations across Australia. The Medical Association for Prevention of War and Doctors for the Environment say the environmental impact of the exercises has not been assessed.
• 2009/07/05: JQuiggin: Carbon action gathers global pace [denail, world & Aus pol]
• 2009/07/05: BNC: El Niño and sunspots return, sea ice doesn't
• 2009/07/03: ClimateP: How I learned to stop worrying and love the blogosphere
• 2009/07/02: Grist: A walk through the week's climate news -- The Climate Post: Has the political climate changed?
• 2009/07/03: TerraDaily: Linking Climate And Habitability
• 2009/07/02: EnergyBulletin: It's not black or white
• 2009/07/02: Guardian(UK): Time for action on climate change -- Our children will denounce us in years to come if bold and ambitious action isn't taken to protect the planet
• 2009/07/02: Nature: [Editor's Summary] A limit on CO2 drawdown
• 2009/06/29: Reuters: We Can Solve the Climate Crisis
• 2009/07/01: CCurrents: Who's A Low Level Terrorist? Are You?
• 2009/06/30: SolveClimate: Carbon Emissions Can No Longer Be Out of Sight, Out of Mind
• 2009/06/29: BSD: For your edits: new wiki article, "History of climate change science"
• 2009/06/27: DailyKos: The Information Age is over...
  [...] When historians look back at the beginning of the 21st century, they'll draw a line and say: "Here lies the beginning of the Climate Age."

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

• Environment cartoons and comments by Seppo Leinonen
• RealityCheck
• Climate Indymedia!
• Wiki: History of climate change science
• UNL: Drought Monitor
• BOM: The South Pacific Sea Level & Climate Monitoring Project
• Climate Progress
• Logical Science - Defending the scientific consensus from vested interests
• Climate Choices - Global Warming and Climate Change in California
• LE: Lomborg Errors
• CDP: Carbon Disclosure Project

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.

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

"For some reason, job loss and economic pain associated with the military are just not worth mentioning. These items only become newsworthy when the issue is saving the environment." -Dean Baker,

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