Another week of GW News, April 4, 2010

Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck Years

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Another week of Climate Instability News

Information overload is pattern recognition

April 4, 2010

• Chuckles, COP15, COP16, Endangerment Comments, Weathermen, Lovelock
• Bottom Line, UN CFG, IPCC Support, CRU Inquiry, Stickiness of Myths, Mclean, Late Comments
• Melting Arctic, Geopolitics
• Food Crisis, Neoliberal Food Policies, Food Production
• Hurricanes, GHGs, Carbon Cycle, Temperatures, Ozone, Paleoclimate, ENSO, Tipping Points, Ocean Currents, Satellites
• Impacts, Forests, Climate Refugees, Desertification, Wacky Weather
• Wildfires, Corals, Acidification, Sea Levels, Floods & Droughts
• Mitigation, Transportation, Buildings, Geoengineering
• Journals, Other Docs , Misc. Science
• Kyoto, UN, Carbon Trade, Optimal Carbon Reduction Strategy
• International Politics: Misc., Security, Law & Activism, Activism, Religioso, Polls, Farming, Water Politics
• National Politics: America, Cap & Trade, Obama, USAdmin
• EPA Clean Water, EPA Clean Air, Offshore Drilling, Congress, Climate Bill
• Britain, Europe, Australia, India, China, Japan, Middle East, Africa
• Canada, EcoEnergy, Family Planning, Chelsea, Emission Standards, Muzzling, Tar Sands, North, Canadiana
• Ecological Economics, IPAT, Apocalypso, Media, Books, Video, Courts, Betting
• Energy, Fracking, Wind, Solar, Coal, Biofuel, Nukes, Peak Oil, Grid, Cars, Energy Storage
• Business, Insurance, Greenwashing, Joe's List, Carbon Lobby, Koch, Morano, Miscellaneous Climate, Useful Links
• Shameless Self Promotion, .sig

It's always nice to start with a laugh:

1. 2010/04/03: MRC: (cartoon - Roberts) Waiting to Exhale?
2. 2010/04/01: MRC: (cartoon - Roberts) Demolition Man
3. 2010/04/02: uComics: (cartoon - Toles) A Small Price To Pay...
4. 2010/04/02: uComics: (cartoon - Danziger) Drill Here! Drill Now!
5. 2010/04/02: ClimateP: (cartoons - Toles, Thompson & Chappatte) Cartoon roundup on drilling announcement
6. 2010/03/31: MRC: (cartoon - Roberts) Stupid is as Stupid Does
7. 2010/03/28: ClimateP: (cartoon - TomTom) Tom Tomorrow: You can't make this stuff up

   I think I winnowed all the April fools, but sometimes it's hard to tell...:

8. 2010/04/02: ClimateSight: The Best Satire Ever

   More COP15 post mortems:

9. 2010/03/31: UNEP: UNFCCC publishes reports summing up results of 2009 UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen
10. 2010/04/01: TreeHugger: COP15 Progress Report: Pledges Too Weak, But There's Hope
11. 2010/04/01: ClimateP: The Copenhagen Accord at three months
12. 2010/03/31: Reuters: Copenhagen Accord climate pledges too weak: U.N.
    More than 110 countries have signed up to the Copenhagen Accord on fighting global warming, but the United Nations said on Wednesday their pledges for cutting greenhouse gas emissions were insufficient.
13. 2010/03/29: C&C: After Copenhagen: How Can We Save the World?
14. 2010/03/31: EnergyBulletin: After Copenhagen: How Can We Save the World?
    The December fiasco in Copenhagen has posed a major challenge to the left, indeed to everyone who wants to defend our world and humanity. The world's rich countries went to Copenhagen not to fight global warming, but to block any action that might weaken the narrow national interests of their corporate rulers.
15. 2010/03/31: UN: More parties to UN climate change body commit to limit emissions
    The United Nations announced today that 75 nations have submitted their pledges to cut or limit emissions of greenhouse gases by 2020, following last year's climate change conference in Copenhagen.
16. 2010/03/31: Grist: 75 countries set carbon emission targets for 2020, says U.N.

    Looking ahead to COP16 and future international climate negotiations:

17. 2010/04/01: EurActiv: UK offers to extend Kyoto
    The UK yesterday (31 March) attempted to revive global climate talks by offering to extend the Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012. Presenting the UK government's action plan on international climate negotiations, Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband said the UK is willing to sign a new Kyoto Treaty in a unilateral move to breathe life into the UN negotiations, which have been marred with squabbles over the legal form of any final text. "We are determined to unblock the negotiations. We are willing to offer a second agreement under Kyoto, provided there is a separate legal treaty covering all other countries," Miliband is quoted by the Guardian newspaper as saying.
18. 2010/03/31: Google:AP: UN official [Yvo de Boer] expects no climate deal until 2011
19. 2010/03/31: Xinhua: U.N. Climate Chief Calls for Cooperation at Mexico Summit
    U.N.climate chief Yvo de Boer on Wednesday in Bonn called for countries to build cooperation at this year's Mexico climate conference as current global pledges on emission cuts were insufficent. "It is clear that the pledges on the table are an important step towards the objective of limiting growth of emissions, but they will not in themselves suffice to limit warming to below 2 degrees Celsius," said the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Executive Secretary.
20. 2010/03/31: Guardian(UK): Britain brandishes olive branch to restart global climate change talks
    Ed Miliband concedes ground and offers to sign new Kyoto treaty in unilateral attempt to heal rift between rich and poor countries
21. 2010/03/31: PlanetArk: Below 2C Opens New Rift In U.N. Climate Battle
22. 2010/03/30: Reuters: "Below" 2C opens new rift in U.N. climate battle
    A goal to limit global warming to "below" 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) is opening a new rift for 2010 talks on a U.N. climate treaty as developing nations say it means the rich must deepen cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. An alliance of 101 developing nations and island states says the temperature target, endorsed by major emitters since the Copenhagen summit in December, is tougher than a previous goal by industrialised nations of 2 degrees as a maximum rise.

Eli did a series detailing comments on the EPA endangerment finding:

23. 2010/04/03: ERabett: Eli can retire Part IV - Essex, Beenstock, Reingewertz and VS take it on the chin
24. 2010/04/01: ERabett: Eli can retire: Part III - Svensmark circles the drain
25. 2010/03/31: ERabett: Eli can retire: Part II - so much for Miskolczi
26. 2010/03/30: ERabett: Eli can retire 1

    Several articles pitting weathermen against climatologists showed up this week:

27. 2010/04/04: PhiladelphiaInquirer: Wrestling with the warm mongers
28. 2010/04/03: DWWSJ: TV Weather People and Climate Change
29. 2010/03/30: CJR: More on Weathermen as Climate Skeptics -- NYT weighs in with front-page treatment
30. 2010/04/02: TP:WR: CNN Weather Guy Chad Myers Accuses Climate Scientists Of Corruption
31. 2010/03/30: Grist: TV weathercasters moonlight as climate experts. It's a problem
32. 2010/03/30: Guardian(UK): Climate change sceptics on your TV
    A survey of America's television weather forecasters finds that one in four of them think 'global warming is a scam'
33. 2010/03/29: GMU: Weathercasters Take on Role of Science Educators; Feel Some Uncertainty on Issue of Climate Change
34. 2010/03/29: NYT: Among Weathercasters, Doubt on Warming [Bastardi]
35. 2010/03/29: ClimateP: In yet another front-page journalistic lapse, the NY Times once again equates non-scientists -- Bastardi, Coleman, and Watts (!) -- with climate scientists

    James Lovelock rared back and upset almost everybody this week:

36. 2010/04/03: CCurrents: We Can't Save The Planet: Lovelock
37. 2010/04/03: CCurrents: James Lovelock's Climate Change Pessimism Is Unhelpful
38. 2010/04/02: CCP: Lovelock irresponsibly promotes the Eat, Drink, and Be Merry Scenario
39. 2010/04/01: Guardian(UK): James Lovelock's climate change pessimism is unhelpful
40. 2010/04/01: PeakEnergy: Lovelock: Authoritarian System Needed to Deal with Global Warming
41. 2010/03/31: HotTopic: Lovelock, stock and barrel
42. 2010/03/31: Stoat: Lovelock goes emeritus
43. 2010/03/31: TCoE: James Lovelock and the killer PIG
44. 2010/03/29: CCurrents: James Lovelock: Humans Are Too Stupid To Prevent Climate Change
45. 2010/03/29: ClimateShifts: Humans are too stupid to prevent climate change
46. 2010/03/29: Guardian(UK): James Lovelock: Humans are too stupid to prevent climate change
    In his first in-depth interview since the theft of UEA emails, the scientist blames inertia and democracy for lack of action
47. 2010/03/29: Guardian(UK): James Lovelock: 'Fudging data is a sin against science'
    In his first major interview since the climate-change emails scandal, James Lovelock says he is disgusted by the actions of some scientists, applauds 'good' climate sceptics, and warns that global warming could even lead to war
48. 2010/03/29: Guardian(UK): James Lovelock on the value of sceptics and why Copenhagen was doomed

    And on the Bottom Line:

49. 2010/04/03: CCP: Climate Denial Machine should pay for the delay it is causing, costing $500 billion per year
50. 2010/04/03: Times: Putting a Price Tag on the Melting Ice Caps
    Reports about the melting ice caps are distressing, but for the most part climate change remains abstract. The poor polar bear has been trotted out as the tangible face of global warming so often that we're beginning to see "polar bear fatigue." How about bringing the effects of Arctic melt close to home, as in what it will cost? A new study does just that, and the results are alarming, not just for Arctic dwellers but for all of us. According to lead author Eban Goodstein, Ph.D., over the next 40 years Arctic ice melt will take an economic toll of between $2.4 trillion and $24 trillion. Unless we change course -- and fast.

More on the UN CFG:

51. 2010/03/31: Guardian(UK): Please, not another Copenhagen
    Gordon Brown is part of the UN advisory group that must agree to find the $150bn a year needed to combat climate change

Support for the IPCC from several directions:

52. 2010/04/03: ClimateSight: Open Letter from U.S. Scientists on the IPCC
53. 2010/04/01: SolveClimate: Attacks on IPCC's African Agriculture Numbers Ignore Reality -- Recent Studies Warn of Lower Crop Yields as Climate Changes
54. 2010/03/29: ClimateP: IPCC's Pachauri cleared of financial wrongdoing
55. 2010/03/29: PTI: Pachauri cleared of financial irregularities: report
56. 2010/03/30: BCLSB: Pachauri Cleared
57. 2010/03/30: TreeHugger: Put It To Rest: IPCC Chair Pachauri Cleared of Alleged Financial Misconduct

    The UK Parliamentary Inquiry into CRU reported this week. Much controversy ensued:

58. 2010/04/04: TPL: Of Inquiries, Wizards and What's Behind the Curtain
59. 2010/04/03: MoD: Climategate: the scandal that wasn't
60. 2010/04/01: ClimateWTF: Out of Breath after a Swift Hack? [cru]
61. 2010/04/01: ABC(Au):TDU: Climategate: The lion that squeaked
62. 2010/04/01: Crikey: Climategate exonerated. Pity no one's listening
63. 2010/04/02: CSW: House of Commons panel: Reputations of Phil Jones, CRU, climate science and data remain intact
64. 2010/04/02: AFTIC: Lots of smoke, no fire
65. 2010/04/01: ABC(Au): MPs clear Climategate university
    A British parliamentary inquiry has cleared the climate change scientists at the centre of last year's email hacking scandal of conspiring to hide evidence.
66. 2010/03/31: ClimateShifts: 'Climategate' enquiry clears CRU scientists
67. 2010/04/01: Deltoid: Phil Jones vindicated
68. 2010/03/31: TerraDaily: Inquiry backs British scientists in global warming row
69. 2010/03/31: OTI: Not That This Will Sway the Climategate Cranks
70. 2010/03/31: DeepClimate: Climategate investigations, round 1: CRU exonerated
71. 2010/03/31: CNN: UK lawmakers take heat off 'Climategate' scientist
72. 2010/03/30: TPL: CRU Vindicated
73. 2010/03/31: ClimateSight: What The Press Should Cover, and Won't
74. 2010/03/31: KSJT: BBC, Economist, AP, etc: Brit Parliament committee says the East Anglia climate scientists were ornery, but didn't fake data
75. 2010/03/31: NewScientist: Climategate inquiry points finger at university [Pearce]
76. 2010/03/31: NatureTGB: Parliament committee calls for more transparency in climate science
77. 2010/03/31: ScienceInsider: U.K. Parliament Committee Gently Chides Climate Scientists
78. 2010/03/31: JEB: Govt policy "reprehensible" says Science and Technology committee
    Oh, but they didn't say it in quite that way, instead preferring to portray it as a fault of the "climate science community"
    [...]
    Let me introduce you to the NERC policy on Intellectual Property.
79. 2010/03/31: Stoat: UEA circus, continued
80. 2010/03/30: UEA: Statement in response to the Science and Technology Committee Report
81. 2010/03/31: BCLSB: UEA Responds To Parliamentary Science and Technology Committee Report
82. 2010/03/30: Yahoo:AFP: Inquiry backs scientists in global warming row
83. 2010/03/31: TreeHugger: UK House of Commons Exonerates Phil Jones & Says Climate Science Solid - Blames University of East Anglia
84. 2010/03/31: DeSmogBlog: Phil Jones Exonerated by British House of Commons
85. 2010/03/31: STimes: 'Climategate' inquiry largely clears scientists
    The first of several British investigations into the e-mails leaked from one of the world's leading climate research centers has largely vindicated the scientists involved.
86. 2010/03/31: BBC: Climate science 'openness' urged
    MPs investigating the climate change row at the UK's University of East Anglia (UEA) have demanded greater transparency from climate scientists. The Commons Science and Technology Committee criticised UEA authorities for failing to respond to requests for data from climate change sceptics. But it found no evidence Professor Phil Jones, whose e-mails were hacked and published online, had manipulated data. It said his reputation, and that of his climate research unit, remained intact.
87. 2010/03/30: HotTopic: Jones and CRU exonerated by parliamentary inquiry
88. 2010/03/30: ClimateP: House of Commons exonerates Phil Jones
    Based on their inquiry and evidence, "the scientific reputation of Professor Jones and CRU remains intact. We have found no reason ... to challenge the scientific consensus ... that 'global warming is happening [and] that it is induced by human activity'."
89. 2010/03/30: RealClimate: First CRU inquiry report released
90. 2010/03/30: ERabett: CRU Inquiry Report
91. 2010/03/31: Parliament(UK): Climate science must become more transparent say MPs [Science and Technology Committee]
92. 2010/03/30: Parliament(UK): Science and Technology Committee -- Climatic Research Unit Inquiry
93. 2010/03/31: Guardian(UK): Climate researchers 'secrecy' criticised -- but MPs say science remains intact
    Leaked emails from UK's Climate Research Unit show scientists withheld information - but inquiry blames university
94. 2010/03/30: DeSmogBlog: Climategate: An Autopsy
95. 2010/03/30: BCLSB: UK Climategate Parliamentary Inquiry: Science Was Solid, Jones Was Scapegoated

    Why ClimateGate will stick:

96. 2007/09/04: WaPo: Persistence of Myths Could Alter Public Policy Approach
    The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently issued a flier to combat myths about the flu vaccine. It recited various commonly held views and labeled them either "true" or "false." Among those identified as false were statements such as "The side effects are worse than the flu" and "Only older people need flu vaccine." When University of Michigan social psychologist Norbert Schwarz had volunteers read the CDC flier, however, he found that within 30 minutes, older people misremembered 28 percent of the false statements as true. Three days later, they remembered 40 percent of the myths as factual. Younger people did better at first, but three days later they made as many errors as older people did after 30 minutes. Most troubling was that people of all ages now felt that the source of their false beliefs was the respected CDC. The psychological insights yielded by the research, which has been confirmed in a number of peer-reviewed laboratory experiments, have broad implications for public policy. The conventional response to myths and urban legends is to counter bad information with accurate information. But the new psychological studies show that denials and clarifications, for all their intuitive appeal, can paradoxically contribute to the resiliency of popular myths.

More on the Mclean debacle:

97. 2010/04/03: Deltoid: John McLean hides the declines
98. 2010/04/03: Tamino: How Low can you Go?
99. 2010/04/02: JEB: April Fool
100. 2010/03/31: ERabett: McLean whinges
101. 2010/03/31: ClimateShifts: John McLean and Bob Carter have no answer
102. 2010/03/29: Deltoid: ABC on Cartergate: Opinions on the shape of the Earth differ
103. 2010/03/28: ERabett: Too bad to be believed

     Late Coverage of the Antropocene:

104. 2010/03/28: CCurrents: Earth 'Entering New Age Of Geological Time'

     Late Comment on Earth Hour:

105. 2010/03/29: ABC(Au): Leave your light on: the anti-Earth Hour campaign
106. 2010/03/29: Grist: Earth Hour: Landmarks went dark in call for climate action

     The Arctic melt continues to garner a lot of attention:

107. 2010/04/02: QuarkSoup: The late Peak in Arctic Sea Ice Extent
108. 2010/04/01: CBC: Northern sea ice growth a fluke: researcher
     Arctic sea ice is nearly back to average global levels for the first time in at least a decade after years of spectacular declines. The surprise growth at a time of year when ice is normally melting has triggered a blizzard of I-told-you-sos among online climate change skeptics. But the man whose data is behind the furor says a few weeks of cold weather in one part of the Arctic -- not the end of climate change -- has skewed the numbers. "It is not the end of global warming," said Mark Serreze of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo., which publishes monthly sea-ice updates on its website.
109. 2010/04/01: NewScientist: Ice plumbing is protecting Greenland from warm summers
110. 2010/04/01: PhysOrg: Probing Question: How fast are the polar ice sheets melting?
111. 2010/03/30: CCentral: Accelerated Ice Loss from Greenland
112. 2010/03/31: Guardian(UK): Catlin Arctic survey: stormy winds, thin ice and polar bear prints
     The Catlin Arctic expedition team battles on against the elements and finds a surprising amount of thin and melting ice
113. 2010/03/28: MongaBay: 'Very dramatic' changes in Greenland: ice loss spreads north
114. 2010/03/30: SkeptiSci: Greenland's ice mass loss has spread to the northwest

     As for the geopolitics of Arctic resources:

115. 2010/03/29: DerSpiegel: Race for Resources -- Deciding the Arctic's Future Behind Closed Doors
     Diplomats from Finland, Iceland and Sweden are upset; indigenous groups are furious. Five countries bordering the Arctic Ocean are meeting behind closed doors on Monday to discuss the region's future. Many of those who have interests in the Arctic have not been invited.
116. 2010/03/31: CBC: Clinton's Arctic comments cheer Inuit
     Inuit groups are declaring victory and Arctic experts are warning that Canada's approach to the North will have to change after remarks by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. "I can only express my support for her comments and her views," said Duane Smith, head of the Canadian branch of the Inuit Circumpolar Council. Whitney Lackenbauer, a University of Waterloo historian and Arctic expert, agreed. "The clear message from Hillary Clinton is, 'You need to recognize that this Arctic is not just the private sea of the five coastal states.'"
117. 2010/03/29: CanWest: China is coming to the Arctic [Chelsea meeting]
     Foreign ministers from Russia, the United States, Canada, Denmark and Norway are meeting in Chelsea, Quebec, today -- with the Arctic on the agenda, and China on their minds. As the Arctic sea-ice melts, the world is looking northward. China has no Arctic territory, but it does have a voracious appetite for oil and natural gas. It is also the world's largest shipping nation, eager for shorter routes and greater efficiencies. Earlier this month, a Chinese rear-admiral asserted that the Arctic belongs to all peoples. He was correct -- if only with respect to the central Arctic Ocean where the water and sea-ice form part of the high seas and an area of ocean floor beyond the continental shelves of the five coastal states is part of the "common heritage of mankind." Still, the admiral's statement raised a question that has been on many minds but far too few lips: What are China's interests in the Arctic?

The food crisis is ongoing:

118. 2010/04/02: BBC: Is this the hungriest place on earth?
     Aid agencies are warning of an impending food emergency in South Sudan, where "unexpected and alarming" malnutrition rates in one region, devastated by drought and tribal conflict, have prompted an appeal for urgent extra funding.
119. 2010/03/29: UN: Mongolia: UN provides more funds as severe winter continues to bite
120. 2010/03/29: NYT:CW: The Struggle of Farming a Land Where 'Normal' Has Lost Its Meaning

     In a surprising turn, a flurry of articles pointed out problems with neoliberal food policies since the 90's:

121. 2010/04/01: DemNow: "We Made a Devil's Bargain": Fmr. President Clinton Apologizes for Trade Policies that Destroyed Haitian Rice Farming
     [...]
     "Since 1981, the United States has followed a policy, until the last year or so when we started rethinking it, that we rich countries that produce a lot of food should sell it to poor countries and relieve them of the burden of producing their own food, so, thank goodness, they can leap directly into the industrial era. It has not worked. It may have been good for some of my farmers in Arkansas, but it has not worked. It was a mistake. It was a mistake that I was a party to. I am not pointing the finger at anybody. I did that. I have to live every day with the consequences of the lost capacity to produce a rice crop in Haiti to feed those people, because of what I did. Nobody else."
     -Former President Bill Clinton to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
122. 2010/03/30: PNAS: (ab$) Neoliberal policy, rural livelihoods, and urban food security in West Africa: A comparative study of The Gambia, Côte d'Ivoire, and Mali by William G. Moseley et al.
123. 2010/03/29: Grist: How export-focused agriculture has failed everyone it was meant to help
124. 2010/03/20: WaPo: With cheap food imports, Haiti can't feed itself
     Port-au-Prince, Haiti -- The earthquake not only smashed markets, collapsed warehouses and left more than 2.5 million people without enough to eat. It may also have shaken up the way the developing world gets food. Decades of inexpensive imports - especially rice from the U.S. - punctuated with abundant aid in various crises have destroyed local agriculture and left impoverished countries such as Haiti unable to feed themselves. While those policies have been criticized for years in aid worker circles, world leaders focused on fixing Haiti are admitting for the first time that loosening trade barriers has only exacerbated hunger in Haiti and elsewhere.

And how are we going to feed 9 billion?

125. 2010/03/31: FAO: Seeds and tool kits delivered to 68 000 households in Haiti
126. 2010/04/03: CCurrents: A Call For America To Divest Its Heart And Stomach From Feedlot Beef
127. 2010/04/02: AllAfrica: ZimIndependent: Zimbabwe: 'Farming God's Way'
128. 2010/04/02: GreenGrok: High Fructose Corn Syrup: How Sweet It Is?
129. 2010/04/01: CSM: Michelle Obama expands the White House garden
130. 2010/03/31: ABC(Au): Forum focuses on soil carbon storage
     A forum is being held in Bendigo today to discuss ways farmers can put more carbon in their soil across northern Victoria
131. 2010/03/31: NatureN: Future funding for [CGIAR] agricultural research uncertain -- Financial donors wrangle over global research group's strategy
     [...]
     Under the proposed reforms, donor contributions would go into a common pot, which would then be distributed among eight broad research areas, or 'mega programmes'. These include 'climate change and agriculture' and 'mobilizing agricultural biodiversity for food security and resilience'. (By contrast, donors currently fund individual centres directly, either through specific projects or as a lump sum.) The idea is to cut out research overlap between centres, create a clear mission and refocus research on the questions and problems donors want tackled. Donors say that they want this reform process accelerated, and to see more flesh on the bones of the outlined research proposals. In particular, they want to see three fast-tracked research programmes launched by the end of the year, including one on the impact of climate change on agriculture, says Jonathan Wadsworth, senior agricultural research adviser to Britain's Department for International Development (DFID).
132. 2010/03/30: PlanetArk: Science Alone Not Enough To Boost World Farm Output
133. 2010/03/30: NYT:CW: A Race to Introduce GM Corn Before Africa's Climate Worsens
134. 2010/03/29: Reuters: Science alone not enough to boost world farm output
     Feeding a fast-growing global population in the face of climate change and stagnant funding for food aid and farm research will require a fundamental revamp of agriculture, agricultural experts said. But unlike the "Green Revolution" that dramatically hiked agricultural output in Latin America and Asia from the 1950s, a new agricultural restructuring will need to focus as much on new seed varieties as on good governance, women's empowerment and things like curbing commodities speculation, they added.
135. 2010/03/30: SeedDaily: Radical Change Needed For Global Agriculture [Transforming Agricultural Research for Development report]
136. 2010/03/30: Eureka: Innovative thinking on agriculture in the Greater Mekong Subregion
     Nations of the Greater Mekong Subregion need to 'rethink' their agricultural industries to meet future food needs, given the social shifts and climate changes that are forecast for the coming decades. With better farming practices, and by managing agriculture within the wider context of natural ecosystems, nations could boost production and increase the wealth and resilience of poor people in rural communities. Demand for food is forecast to double by 2050, as populations swell and people's dietary choices change. If governments act now, they will be better placed to meet this target and withstand the more severe climatic changes likely to affect the GMS beyond 2050. These are the main messages of the summary report Rethinking Agriculture in the Greater Mekong Subregion: How to Sustainably Meet Food Needs, Enhance Ecosystem Services and Cope with Climate Change, published by IWMI in cooperation with the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) and the WorldFish Center.

Tropical Storm Robyn is blowing around the South Indian, while Paul is bothering the Australian Northern Territory:

137. 2010/04/02: PhysOrg: Tropical Storm 23S born in Southern Indian Ocean
138. 2010/04/02: PhysOrg: NASA's TRMM satellite maps Cyclone Paul's extreme rainfall totals in Australia
139. 2010/04/01: Eureka: Warnings dropped for ex-cyclone Paul as NASA satellites see it fizzle
140. 2010/03/30: Eureka: TRMM measures Cyclone Paul's rainfall from space
141. 2010/03/31: NASA: TRMM Satellite Sees Paul's Low Headed Back to Gulf of Carpentaria

     As for GHGs:

142. 2010/04/02: EurActiv: EU CO2 emissions fell by 11% in 2009
143. 2010/04/01: SkeptiSci: A residential lifetime
144. 2010/04/01: BWeek: EU Cap-and-Trade Emissions Fall More Than Forecast
145. 2010/03/29: WWI: More Accurate Emissions Data Needed Worldwide, U.S. Researchers Say
146. 2010/03/30: TreeHugger: Report: Cloud Computing GHG Emissions To Triple by 2020, iPad and Similar Devices Are Big Culprits
147. 2010/03/30: SciDaily: Vital Role for Bacteria in Climate-Change Gas [Isoprene] Cycle
148. 2010/03/28: ADN: North Pole-South Pole flights to test greenhouse gases

     And the carbon cycle:

149. 2010/03/31: PhysOrg: Model predicts shifts in carbon absorption by forest canopies
     An Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientist participated in a project to fine-tune computer models that can indicate when forest "carbon sinks" become net carbon generators instead. The results will help pinpoint the effectiveness of trees in offsetting carbon releases that contribute to higher atmospheric temperatures and global climate change.

As for the temperature record:

150. 2010/04/03: ClimateWTF: March Madness
151. 2010/04/01: QuarkSoup: March 2010 Also a Record Warm Month
152. 2010/04/02: CBC: Eastern Canadians bask in record highs
153. 2010/04/03: HotTopic: Winter 2010: cold in places, exceptionally hot in others
154. 2010/04/02: CNN:TJI: More than 90 record-high temperatures broken
155. 2010/03/31: Eureka: The big melt -- New Climate Central projection map shows local and national retreat of freezing temperatures in March
156. 2010/03/30: RA: US Rural vs. Urban Temperature Stations
157. 2010/03/28: RA: The Average Temperature of Earth

     The ozone layer is still under threat:

158. 2010/03/31: SciDaily: Flights Over Arctic Provide Data for Investigating Ozone Hole Depletion

     While in the paleoclimate:

159. 2010/04/02: NewScientist:SSS:Did a comet swarm strike America 13,000 years ago?
160. 2010/04/01: KSJT: CanWest, Reuters, etc: Canada's boulders say Ice Age's last big blast triggered by meltwater surging into Arctic, not North Atlantic
161. 2010/04/01: PhysOrg: Was a giant comet responsible for a North American catastrophe in 11000 BC?
     13,000 years ago the Earth was struck by thousands of Tunguska-sized cometary fragments over the course of an hour, leading to a dramatic cooling of the planet, according to astronomer Professor Bill Napier of the Cardiff University Astrobiology Centre. He presents his new model in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
162. 2010/03/31: SciNow: Why Didn't Early Earth Freeze? The Mystery Deepens
163. 2010/04/01: TreeHugger: Route of 13,000 Year Old Mini Ice Age Inducing Mega-Flood Determined
164. 2010/04/01: CBC: Deep freeze caused by melting of ice sheet
165. 2010/03/31: PhysOrg: What, or who, killed the last mammoths?
     The last known population of woolly mammoths, roaming a remote Arctic island long after humans invented writing, were wiped out quickly, reports a study released Wednesday. The culprit might have been disease, humans or a catastrophic weather event, but was almost certainly not climate change, suggests the study, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
166. 2010/03/31: NatureN: River reveals chilling tracks of ancient flood -- Water from melting ice sheet took unexpected route to the ocean
167. 2010/03/31: TreeHugger: Ancient Climate Record Could Be Lost Within 10 Years [New Zealand peat bogs, kauri trees]
168. 2010/03/31: Eureka: Ice sheet melt identified as trigger of Big Freeze
     The main cause of a rapid global cooling period, known as the Big Freeze or Younger Dryas - which occurred nearly 13,000 years ago - has been identified thanks to the help of an academic at the University of Sheffield. A new paper, which is published in Nature today (1 April 2010), has identified a mega-flood path across North America which channelled melt-water from a giant ice sheet into the oceans and triggering the Younger Dryas cold snap.
169. 2010/03/31: Eureka: Researcher unravels one of science's great mysteries -- Professor Minik Rosing's theory of the faint early sun paradox
170. 2010/03/30: PhysOrg: UK scientists to unearth Ice Age secrets from preserved tree rings
     Oxford University is involved in a research project to unearth 30,000 year old climate records, before they are lost forever. The rings of preserved kauri trees, hidden in New Zealand's peat bogs, hold the secret to climate fluctuations spanning back to the end of the last Ice Age.
171. 2010/03/29: DM:NERS: Tree rings reveal two droughts that sealed the fate of Angkor
172. 2010/03/29: Eureka: Did climate influence Angkor's collapse? Evidence suggests changing environment can bring down a civilization

     On the ENSO front:

173. 2010/03/30: WMO: El Niño/La Niña Update
174. 2010/03/31: PlanetArk: El Nino To Influence Climate Patterns To Midyear: WMO
175. 2010/03/30: UN: El Niño to lose grip by mid-year, UN weather agency predicts
176. 2010/03/30: PhysOrg: El Nino phenomenon to die out by mid-year
     Weather experts said Tuesday that El Nino, the weather anomaly that wrecks havoc around the Pacific and east Africa, has peaked and would disappear by mid-year.

The cliff, aka tipping points, aka planetary boundaries, put in an appearance:

177. 2010/04/03: AFTIC: Is Earth past the tipping point?
178. 2010/03/30: OilDrum: The Dynamics of Complex Civilisations - Excerpt from "Tipping Point: Near-Term Systemic Implications of a Peak in Global Oil Production"

     As for ocean currents:

179. 2010/03/31: TWTB: Was an imminent collapse of the AMOC a mainstream climate prediction?
180. 2010/03/29: GreenGrok: Good News: No Sign of Slowing Ocean Conveyor Belt
181. 2010/03/29: KSJT: Science Now, BBC, Dot Earth: Scratch off one climate worry? Ocean conveyor belt of global currents is holding up just fine.
182. 2010/03/30: TreeHugger: No Day After Tomorrow Yet: Gulf Stream Doesn't Appear To Be Slowing Down
183. 2010/03/29: BBC: Gulf Stream 'is not slowing down'
     The Gulf Stream does not appear to be slowing down, say US scientists who have used satellites to monitor tell-tale changes in the height of the sea. Confirming work by other scientists using different methodologies, they found dramatic short-term variability but no longer-term trend.

Meanwhile in near earth orbit:

184. 2010/04/02: BobPark: What's New?
     3. NASA: Climate research is now a major focus.
     4. Climategate: Climate Research Unit is cleared sort of.
185. 2010/04/01: NOAANews: 50th Anniversary of the Satellite that "Forever Changed Weather Forecasting" - TIROS-1
186. 2010/04/01: ESA: CryoSat-2 installed in launch silo
187. 2010/03/30: Guardian(UK): Scientists hold breath over polar ice satellite launch after 2005 crash
     The launch of CryoSat-2 satellite, which will measure polar ice melt, is hoped to be a success after the 2005 probe crashed
188. 2010/03/30: PhysOrg: CryoSat-2 ice mission ready for launch
     A UK-led CryoSat-2 satellite designed to monitor changes in ice cover at the poles will launch at 13:57 UK time on 8 April 2010 from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
189. 2010/03/30: NatureN: Space probe set to size up polar ice [Cryosat2 on April 8th]

     More GW impacts are being seen:

190. 2010/03/29: ABC(Au): Researchers at the University of Tasmania are calling for volunteers to take part in a study into the effects of climate change on people suffering from chronic diseases
191. 2010/03/29: PhysOrg: Extreme Weather Impacts Migratory Birds

     And then there are the world's forests:

192. 2010/03/30: CPositive: Forest carbon emissions fall as deforestation slows
193. 2010/03/29: BR: The forests of the Basque Autonomous Community are progressing -- slowly -, according to research group

     Climate refugees are becoming an issue:

194. 2010/03/29: BDNews24: Joint approach stressed for climate refugees
     A regional approach was stressed on Monday to tackle the economic and social fallout from millions of people being displaced by climate change in South Asian countries including Bangladesh in coming years. Participants at a two-day seminar in the capital, on Security Implications of Climate Change in South Asia, stressed a regional approach to alleviate the worst impact of displacement. Bangladesh alone estimates more than 20 million people will become refugees in the coastal area in coming decades because of rising sea-levels. The country is reportedly one the most vulnerable to climate change in the world, according to a report released at last year's Copenhagen Climate Conference.

Desertification looms as a threat:

195. 2010/04/01: PhysOrg: Desert spreading like 'cancer,' Egypt conference told
     The desert is making a comeback in the Middle East, with fertile lands turning into barren wastes that could further destabilise the region, experts said at a water conference on Thursday.

Yes we have no wacky weather, except:

196. 2010/04/02: CBC: Southwest B.C. blasted by high winds
197. 2010/03/31: DWWSJ: Summer Time Blizzard Hits the UK
198. 2010/03/31: BBC: Thousands without power amid snow
     Heavy snow and blizzards have caused widespread disruption in some parts of the UK, with up to 30,000 homes without power in Northern Ireland. Blizzard warnings have been issued for most of Scotland and Scottish Power said electricity was cut to about 22,000 homes at one point on Tuesday. The Met Office has issued extreme weather warnings for both Scotland and Northern Ireland.
199. 2010/03/29: BBC: Struggling to survive Mongolia's freezing winter
     In Mongolia, what aid agencies are calling a slowly unfolding disaster is underway as extreme cold continues to devastate nomadic herder communities. As the BBC's Chris Hogg reports, about 10% of the country's livestock has perished and thousands of families have lost everything.

As for heatwaves and wild fires:

200. 2010/04/03: IrishTimes: Bigger bushfires loom with global warming

     Corals are dying:

201. 2010/04/04: BBC: A Chinese ship has run aground off north-eastern Australia, sparking an alert of an oil leak into the Great Barrier Reef
202. 2010/03/30: PhysOrg: New mathematical model helps biologists understand how coral dies in warming waters

     Acidification is changing the oceans:

203. 2010/03/31: SciDaily: Ecosystems Under Threat from Ocean Acidification
204. 2010/03/30: TCoE: Water and The Evil Twin

     Sea levels are rising:

205. 2010/03/31: EarthTimes: Rising sea levels 'threaten 6 million Egyptians' with homelessness

     As for hydrological cycle disruptions [floods & droughts]:

206. 2010/04/04: VietnamNet: Millions to be hit by drought
     The lives of tens of millions of Vietnamese people living in river basins will be affected by the increasing scarcity of water resources resulting from climate change.
207. 2010/04/03: ChinaDaily: Climate change to blame for Mekong drought
208. 2010/04/01: USGS: USGS Preliminary Information on High River Flows in Northeastern U.S.
209. 2010/04/03: EarthTimes: At least 28 dead, 25 missing in Peru landslides
210. 2010/04/01: CCurrents: Drought And The Women Of Mariakani In Mombasa, Kenya
211. 2010/04/02: BBC: Peru village mudslide 'kills 20'
     At least 20 people have been killed in north-eastern Peru after heavy rains sparked a mudslide that engulfed a small village, officials have said. The mudslide struck the village in the Huanuco region. At least another 25 people are reportedly missing. At least 120 homes had been damaged or destroyed, the officials added.
212. 2010/04/02: Wunderground: Comparing New England's floods to the floods of Hurricanes Connie and Diane (1955)
213. 2010/04/02: LA Times: California shortages not over, water resources agency says
     Despite normal levels of rain and snowpack over the winter, some key areas remain low and conservation should continue to be a way of life, state says.
214. 2010/03/31: MercedSunStar: Despite the rain, drought lingers -- We'd need much more to beat effect of three dry years
215. 2010/03/31: CBC: Drought fears weigh on prairie farms -- Some areas are driest in 25 years, and more than farming could be affected
216. 2010/04/01: CBC: Canadian spring forecast warm, dry
217. 2010/04/01: CNN: Rhode Island flooding: 'Nobody was prepared'
     Officials say long-term recovery could take months in Rhode Island - Floodwaters begin to recede as Rhode Islanders survey damage - Pawtuxet River in Cranston, Rhode Island, is not likely to fall below flood stage until Sunday - Residents in some areas warned not to drink unboiled water
218. 2010/03/31: ClimateP: Northeast hit by record global-warming-type deluge [again]
219. 2010/03/31: CBC: Rhode Island floods force evacuation
220. 2010/03/31: CCP: Homes and dreams drown as waters rise in Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts
221. 2010/03/31: Wunderground: Record rains and flooding swamp Rhode Island and Massachusetts
222. 2010/03/30: CCP: Records falls as rainstorm pounds U.S. East Coast flooding in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut
223. 2010/03/29: SeedDaily: Farmers' futures evaporate in China drought

     Elsewhere on the mitigation front:

224. 2010/03/30: BBC: Greenpeace is calling on technology giants like Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo and Facebook to power their data centres with renewable energy sources
225. 2010/04/01: SciDaily: Green Food Choice May Not Be So Green
     If everyone became vegan and so ate only fruit and vegetables, then the reduction in greenhouse emissions for the whole of food consumption would be a mere 7%. The widespread adoption of vegetarianism would have even less impact, while organic food production actually leads to a net increase in greenhouse gas emissions. Those are the conclusions of a research paper published in the journal Progress in Industrial Ecology. Helmi Risku-Norja and Sirpa Kurppa of MTT Agrifood Research Finland, working with Juha Helenius of the Department of Agricultural Sciences, University of Helsinki, have determined that the cultivation of soil for whatever purpose, whether growing crops or raising livestock is the primary source of greenhouse gas emissions in food production, not fertiliser production, animal husbandry, nor agricultural energy requirements.
226. 2010/03/29: CJR: Meat vs. Miles -- Coverage of livestock, transportation emissions hypes controversy [Mitloehner]

     Consider transportation & GHG production:

227. 2010/04/03: Independent(UK): Along the Silk Road at 220mph: China's high-speed rail revolution -- Plan would let passengers board train in London and reach Beijing two days later
228. 2010/04/01: GravityLoss: Streetcars / Trams / Light Rail
229. 2010/03/31: PKedrosky: The Trouble Turning Over the U.S. Auto Fleet
230. 2010/04/01: CalcRisk: General Motors: March sales increase 20.6% compared to March 2009
231. 2010/03/31: PhysOrg: Improving fuel economy of tractor-trailers, buses, work trucks
     A new congressionally mandated report from the National Research Council evaluates various technologies and methods that could improve the fuel economy of medium- and heavy-duty vehicles, such as tractor-trailers, transit buses, and work trucks. The report also recommends approaches that federal agencies could use to regulate these vehicles' fuel consumption. Currently there are no fuel consumption standards for such vehicles, which account for about 26 percent of the transportation fuel used in the U.S.
232. 2010/03/30: EurActiv: New UN expert group to study ship emissions
     The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) last week agreed to establish an expert group to prepare a feasibility study on market-based instruments to cut greenhouse gas emissions from ships. A meeting of the UN agency's Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) said the new group will study the feasibility of options like bunker fuels and emissions trading before preparing an impact assessment. In addition, the committee decided to postpone finalising mandatory fuel-efficiency standards for ships, concluding that more work remains to be done. It said it had drafted plans for an Energy Efficiency Design Index for new ships to ensure that new vessel designs are environmentally friendly, as well as for a Ship Energy Efficiency Management Plan for all ships in operation. But it referred further work on outstanding issues, including ship size, target dates and reduction rate, to a working group that will report back in September. The IMO has been trying to portray itself as a credible partner in international efforts to curb global warming amid criticism that it has been slow to act in controlling greenhouse gas emissions.
233. 2010/03/29: PlanetArk: U.N. Ship Agency [IMO] Adopts North America Pollution Cut Plan
234. 2010/03/29: CalcRisk: ATA Truck Tonnage Index declines in February

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

235. 2010/03/30: TreeHugger: Passivhaus Comes To California, Shattering Stereotypes

     Large scale geo-engineering keeps popping up:

236. 2010/04/03: EarthTimes: European Patent Office sets up first climate technology data bank
237. 2010/04/02: KSJT: Dearth of Ink, but some: Big geoengineering meeting dubbed Asilomar 2.0
238. 2010/04/02: CSM: Weird science: Consider geoengineering to fight global warming
239. 2010/04/01: Yale360: A Hard Look at the Perils and Potential of Geoengineering
     The Asilomar conference on geoengineering had been touted as a potentially historic event. What emerged, however, were some unexpected lessons about the possibilities and pitfalls of manipulating the Earth's climate to offset global warming.
240. 2010/04/01: TCoE: Jeff Goodell's take on the Asilomar geoengineering conference
241. 2010/03/30: TerraDaily: China attempts inducing rain for drought
242. 2010/03/30: NewScientist: Hacking the planet: who decides?
243. 2010/03/30: NatureN: Geoengineers get the fear -- Researchers fail to come up with clear guidelines for experiments that change the planet's climate.
     "Be very careful." The warning, from Robert Socolow, a climate researcher at Princeton University in New Jersey, came at the end of a meeting last week that aimed to thrash out guidelines for the nascent field of geoengineering. The discipline aims to use global-scale efforts to control the climate and mitigate the worst effects of anthropogenic warming -- but the techniques used could also have far-reaching, unintended consequences. Socolow presented more than 175 experts from a range of disciplines with a list of their own nightmares, collected over meals and cocktails during the course of an often contentious week. As he rattled through the scenarios, he highlighted the legal, moral and ethical quandaries of geoengineering.
244. 2010/03/29: TCoE: Geohacking: Who's in charge?

     Meanwhile in the journals:

245. 2010/03/29: NERC:NORA: Agricultural ammonia emissions inventory and spatial distribution in the North China Plain by Y. Zhang et al.
246. 2010/03/29: NERC:NORA: Carbon cost of plant nitrogen acquisition: A mechanistic, globally applicable model of plant nitrogen uptake, retranslocation, and fixation by J.B. Fisher et al.
247. 2010/03/31: NERC:NORA: Carbon dioxide storage options for the COACH Project in the Bohai Basin, China by Ceri Vincent et al.
248. 2010/03/31: NERC:NORA: Global assessment of nitrogen deposition effects on terrestrial plant diversity: a synthesis by R. Bobbink et al.
249. 2010/03/31: NERC:NORA: Atmospheric composition change: global and regional air quality by P.S. Monks et al.
250. 2010/04/01: NERC:NORA: Random Forest characterisation of upland vegetation and burning from aerial imagery by Daniel S. Chapman et al.
251. 2010/04/03: AGWObserver: Papers on the theory of CO2 absorption properties
252. 2010/04/01: TCD: The role of glaciers in stream flow from the Nepal Himalaya by D. Alford & R. Armstrong
253. 2010/04/01: TCD: A glacier inventory for the western Nyainqentanglha Range and Nam Co Basin, Tibet, and glacier changes 1976-2009 by T. Bolch et al.
254. 2010/03/30: CP: Holocene trends in the foraminifer record from the Norwegian Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean by C. Andersson et al.
255. 2010/03/30: CP: Simulated effects of a seasonal precipitation change on the vegetation in tropical Africa by E. S. Gritti et al.
256. 2010/03/31: CPD: Solar-forced shifts of the Southern Hemisphere Westerlies during the late Holocene by V. Varma et al.
257. 2010/03/31: CPD: Surface circulation patterns and the pathways of sea surface carbon dioxide (CO2) off northern Chile (~27.5° S) between 30 and 10 kyr BP: global and/or local forcing? by J. A. Placencia et al.
258. 2010/03/31: ACP: Solar cycle signals in sea level pressure and sea surface temperature by I. Roy & J. D. Haigh
259. 2010/03/31: ACP: What can we learn from European continuous atmospheric CO2 measurements to quantify regional fluxes - Part 2: Sensitivity of flux accuracy to inverse setup by C. Carouge et al.
260. 2010/03/31: ACP: What can we learn from European continuous atmospheric CO2 measurements to quantify regional fluxes - Part 1: Potential of the 2001 network by C. Carouge et al.
261. 2010/03/31: ACP: Using aircraft measurements to determine the refractive index of Saharan dust during the DODO Experiments by C. L. McConnell et al.
262. 2010/03/31: ACP: A comparison of dry and wet season aerosol number fluxes over the Amazon rain forest by L. Ahlm et al.
263. 2010/03/30: ACP: Cross-hemispheric transport of central African biomass burning pollutants: implications for downwind ozone production by E. Real et al.
264. 2010/03/29: ACP: Uptake of NO3 and N2O5 to Saharan dust, ambient urban aerosol and soot: a relative rate study by M. J. Tang et al.
265. 2010/03/29: ACP: AMALi -- the Airborne Mobile Aerosol Lidar for Arctic research by I. S. Stachlewska et al.
266. 2010/03/29: ACP: The role of sulphates and organic vapours in growth of newly formed particles in a eucalypt forest by Z. D. Ristovski et al.
267. 2010/04/01: ACPD: Aerosol dynamics in the Copenhagen urban plume during regional transport by F. Wang et al.
268. 2010/03/31: ACPD: Aerosol mass and black carbon concentrations, two year-round observations at NCO-P (5079 m, Southern Himalayas) by A. Marinoni et al.
269. 2010/03/31: ACPD: Effects of lightning and other meteorological factors on fire activity in the North American boreal forest: implications for fire weather forecasting by D. Peterson et al.
270. 2010/03/30: ACPD: A 6-year global cloud climatology from the Atmospheric InfraRed Sounder AIRS and a statistical analysis in synergy with CALIPSO and CloudSat by C. J. Stubenrauch et al.
271. 2010/03/29: ACPD: Vertical structure of Antarctic tropospheric ozone depletion events: characteristics and broader implications by A. E. Jones et al.
272. 2010/03/29: ACPD: Assessing the regional surface influence through Backward Lagrangian Dispersion Models for aircraft CO2 vertical profiles observations in NE Spain by A. Font et al.
273. 2010/03/16: GRL: (ab$) Effect of orbital-scale climate cycling and meltwater drainage on ice sheet grounding line migration by B. R. Parizek et al.
274. 2010/03/30: PNAS: (ab$) Iron enrichment stimulates toxic diatom production in high-nitrate, low-chlorophyll areas by Charles G. Trick et al.
275. 2010/03/30: PNAS: (ab$) The agroecological matrix as alternative to the land-sparing/agriculture intensification model by Ivette Perfecto & John Vandermeer
276. 2010/03/30: PNAS: (ab$) Differentiation and concordance in smallholder land use strategies in southern Mexico's conservation frontier by Rinku Roy Chowdhury
277. 2010/03/30: PNAS: (ab$) Neoliberal policy, rural livelihoods, and urban food security in West Africa: A comparative study of The Gambia, Côte d'Ivoire, and Mali by William G. Moseley et al.
278. 2010/03/30: PNAS: (ab$) Global patterns in leaf 13C discrimination and implications for studies of past and future climate by Aaron F. Diefendorf et al.
279. 2010/03/30: PNAS: [Letter$] Reducing hunger vulnerability through sustainable development by Thomas J. Bassett
280. 2010/03/25: GRL: (ab$) Can in situ floats and satellite altimeters detect long-term changes in Atlantic Ocean overturning? by Josh K. Willis

     And other significant documents:

281. 2010/03/30: EnergyBulletin: [link to 690k pdf] The Dynamics of Complex Civilisations - Excerpt from "Tipping Point"
282. 2010/03/30: GP USA: [link to 2 meg pdf] Koch Industries: Secretly Funding the Climate Denial Machine

     As for miscellaneous science:

283. 2010/04/01: JEB: Self-serving crap from Nature
284. 2010/03/31: BBC: Tech Know: Life hacking
     Hacking and making is no longer just about hardware and software, increasingly it is about wetware - that's biology to the uninitiated.
285. 2010/03/31: SkeptiSci: A database of peer-reviewed papers on climate change
286. 2010/03/31: NatureCF: Nature launching Climate Change journal
287. 2010/03/26: SEasterbrook: Academics always fight over the peer-review process
288. 2010/03/29: ClimateP: How scientists think -- and fight [Steve Easterbrook]

     Meanwhile on the Kyoto front:

289. 2010/04/01: PlanetArk: EU Says Its Kyoto Support Depends On [all other ratifiers including] Russia, Japan
290. 2010/03/30: Yahoo:Reuters: Suspended carbon firms want clarity on UN rules
291. 2010/03/30: BizGreen: UN suspends latest carbon credit verification firms -- Credibility of CDM receives yet another blow as major auditing firm is suspended
292. 2010/03/31: DeSmogBlog: There's No Accounting for Carbon-Credit Scammers
293. 2010/03/29: PlanetArk: U.N. Panel Suspends Two More Carbon Emissions Auditors
294. 2010/03/29: Reuters: Japan buys 41.5 mln tonnes Kyoto credits in 2009/10

     While at the UN:

295. 2010/03/30: UN: Draft biodiversity accord finalized at UN meeting in Colombia

     And on the carbon trading front:

296. 2010/04/01: Google:AFP: Tokyo launches Asia's first carbon trade scheme
297. 2010/04/01: Guardian(UK): Carbon edges up as EU confirms emissions fell 11% last year
298. 2010/04/01: PlanetArk: Trading Emissions Plagued By U.N. Delays
299. 2010/04/01: Grist: Tokyo launches Asia's first carbon emissions trade scheme
300. 2010/03/31: PlanetArk: Spain Police Arrest Nine In CO2 Tax Probe
     Spanish police on Tuesday said they had arrested nine people on charges of avoiding 50 million euros ($67.54 million) in tax linked to trading in carbon credits. The arrests came after Spanish prosecutors announced last week they were launching an investigation into alleged tax fraud. The investigation is part of a wider EU probe into an estimated 5 billion euros ($6.75 billion) fraud where companies bought carbon emissions permits in one country without paying value added tax, and then sold in another adding tax to the price but pocketing that difference for themselves.
301. 2010/03/29: PlanetArk: Firm Accused Of Carbon Scam May Face Legal Claims
302. 2010/03/29: Reuters: Carbon trade sector drops from HSBC climate index
     The carbon trading sector has dropped out of an HSBC index of 385 listed companies making money from tackling climate change, after lower expectation of global cap and trade expansion saw sharp share price falls.

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:

303. 2010/04/02: SciAm: What Is the Right Price for Carbon?
     Some economists charge that the U.S. government is lowballing the cost of greenhouse gases in new regulations
304. 2010/03/30: PlanetArk: European Carbon Scheme Is A Success, Research Says
     The European Union's Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) is a success and its flaws have not harmed its basic aim of reducing carbon dioxide emissions, multi-national research showed on Friday. Experts at French state bank Caisse des Depots, the Paris-Dauphine University, the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research in the United States and University College Dublin collaborated to evaluate the scheme's trial period, which has widely been viewed as a failure.
305. 2010/03/28: BBC: Peru hails Western carbon offsetting programmes
     Nestle Waters France wants to offset emissions from its factories in the west by buying trees in a rainforest thousands of miles away. It is not the first and it will not be the last time a multinational company publicly declares its green intentions. But the public has become used to greeting such announcements with indifference. There is widespread scepticism about the genuine green credentials of big firms trying to clean up their image in this way - critics say it is inefficient at best, corrupt at worst.

Meanwhile on the international political front:

306. 2010/04/03: EarthTimes: Taiwan to join effort to save Pacific islands from rising seas

     As for GW & security:

307. 2010/04/03: NZHerald: Strange case of the disappearing islands -- Global warming may have far-reaching consequences, but possible international conflicts are avoidable
308. 2010/04/04: HotTopic: Who will rule the waves?
309. 2010/04/01: PeakEnergy: Falkland oil explorers slump
310. 2010/03/30: OilChange: The Bust Before the Boom
     The corridors of power in Buenos Aires would have been chortling with laughter yesterday as the British oil boom in the Falklands looked like going bust, even before it began. Over the last month, as the oil-industry hype grew, the war of words between Argentina and Britain escalated, threatening to become a full blown diplomatic war. But yesterday, the main exploration company involved - Desire Petroleum - announced that the results of its first well, called Liz, were extremely disappointing.
311. 2010/03/29: BBC: Falklands oil search disappoints
     Shares in Desire Petroleum have almost halved after the oil explorer said a well being drilled off the Falkland Islands may not be economically viable. Shares in other companies operating off the Falklands also fell amid fears that the region's reserves may disappoint. The well is the first to be drilled in the area for a decade and has prompted Argentina to renew its claim to the Falklands, sparking a row with the UK. Shares in Desire ended Monday trading in London down 49.5%.

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

312. 2010/03/31: BBC: A Metropolitan Police officer accused of striking a woman with a metal baton at a G20 protest has been cleared

     What are the activists up to?

313. 2010/03/31: DemNow: "We Are Tearing Down Our Mountains": Photojournalist Antrim Caskey on West Virginia's Fight Against Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining
314. 2010/03/30: CBD: Campaign Launched to Gather 500,000 Signatures to Cap Greenhouse Gas Pollution at 350 Parts Per Million
315. 2010/03/31: TEC: Campaign Launched to Gather 500,000 Signatures to Cap Greenhouse Gas Pollution at 350 Parts Per Million
316. 2010/03/29: ABC(Au): Climate change protest targets coal ships
     Rising Tide, a group fighting the causes of climate change, says it plans to block Newcastle Harbour again next year after staging what it describes as a successful protest at the weekend. A convoy of 60 kayaks, rafts and boats formed a blockade across the entrance to the harbour yesterday to stop coal ships entering or leaving.
317. 2010/03/30: ABC(Au): [Federal Resources Minister Martin] Ferguson evades [Muckaty Station nuclear waste dump] protest through back-door escape

     Among the world's religions:

318. 2010/04/04: EagleTrib: Go green! Religious groups focus on the envorinment Churches, synagogues focus on the environment
319. 2010/04/01: BBC: Condoms 'can help tackle poverty'
     The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster has said he understands why contraception is seen as "attractive" in tackling Third World poverty. But Archbishop Vincent Nichols told BBC WM it was not the Church's role to add to calls for condom distribution. The Church opposes contraception, because it believes it interferes with the creation of life. Aid agencies say contraception is an important way for women in developing nations to take control of fertility. Any form of birth control that might interfere with conception, such as condoms or the Pill, is regarded as sinful by the Catholic Church. The Church also argues that, in any case, all children should be welcomed as a gift from God.

Polls! We have polls!

320. 2010/04/02: TheHill:e2W: Poll shows broad support for offshore drilling
321. 2010/03/29: Grist: Dems more trusted on energy than any other issue, continue pursuing polluter-friendly GOP ideas

     Regarding politics, farming practices & global warming:

322. 2010/03/31: EurActiv: EU urged to force its green policies on world's farmers
     The EU should force other world agricultural powers to adopt similar environmental rules if they wish to export to Europe, the chair of the European Parliament's agriculture committee, Paolo De Castro, told EurActiv in an interview. "Don't forget that Europe imports more food and agricultural products from all over the world than US, Canada and Australia put together, and 85% of African agricultural exports go to Europe," De Castro stressed. While Europe should continue to be an open market, "the standards and rules followed by EU farmers should be followed even by the people who want to export to Europe," the socialist MEP said, adding that EU farmers would otherwise face unfair competition from the rest of the world.

Regarding Water Politics and Business:

323. 2010/04/04: EarthTimes: Mekong River leaders gather to discuss drought
     Hua Hin, Thailand - Leaders of four South-East Asian countries gathered in Hua Hin Sunday for a summit on their shared resource, the Mekong River, which has hit its lowest level in five decades this year. Thailand is hosting the first Mekong River Summit, marking the 15th anniversary of the Mekong River Commission which consists of Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam. The prime ministers of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam arrived in Hua Hin Sunday for bilateral meetings amid tight security.
324. 2010/04/02: TreeHugger: China, Not Drought, Getting the Blame for Water Shortages
325. 2010/03/31: PhysOrg: American industry's thirst for water: First study of its kind in 30 years
     How many gallons of water does it take to produce $1 worth of sugar, dog and cat food, or milk? The answers appear in the first comprehensive study in 30 years documenting American industry's thirst for this precious resource. The study, which could lead to better ways to conserve water, is in ACS' Environmental Science & Technology.
326. 2010/03/30: JQuiggin: Water, water everywhere
327. 2010/03/30: TreeHugger: India and Pakistan Duke It Out Over Water At Annual Meeting

     And on the American political front:

328. 2010/04/03: TP:WR: Abandoning Congress Is Not A Winning Strategy For Climate Activists
329. 2010/04/03: AlterNet: Why Is Sarah Palin Getting a Nature Show? Her Environmental Record Is Atrocious
330. 2010/04/01: TheHill:e2W: Virginia governor [Bob McDonnell (R)] quits Wind Energy Coalition
331. 2010/04/01: WaPo:LBN: [Virginia Attorney General Ken] Cuccinelli challenges fuel standards [based on climategate doubt]
332. 2010/04/01: ClimateP: Xcel-erating natural gas in Colorado -- State's largest utility switches off coal
333. 2010/03/31: Grist: Democrats should stop trying to change politics with policy concessions
334. 2010/03/29: ProPublica: 'Black Liquor,' The Sequel
335. 2010/03/30: SolveClimate: Calls Increase to Tap Renewable Energy on American Indian Lands -- Efficiency is 'Simplest,' 'Most Cost-Effective' Short-Term Fix, Report Says
336. 2010/03/30: DM:SRK: The New Energy Policy
337. 2010/03/30: NRDC:SwitchBoard: Tennessee Legislature Buries Mountaintop Protection Bill
     Today the Tennessee Legislature faced a choice: to safeguard the state's beloved mountains or leave them unprotected from plundering by the coal industry. Unfortunately, the politicians volunteered to serve Big Coal rather than save the mountains.
338. 2010/03/29: NRDC:SwitchBoard: California Paves Way for National CO2 and Fuel Economy Standards
339. 2010/03/30: TreeHugger: The US May Finally Get a Bigger Gas Tax. But Would it Work?
340. 2010/03/29: Wunderground: Correcting the South Dakota legislature's remarkable ignorance of science

     Cap and Trade has been declared dead, but it's a lively corpse:

341. 2010/03/29: MoJo: Cap and Trade is Dead. Long Live Cap and Trade!
342. 2010/03/28: Belfer: Who Killed Cap-and-Trade?
343. 2010/03/28: EconView: Is Cap-and-Trade Really Dead?

     The Obama chatter is nonstop:

344. 2010/03/31: NRDC:SwitchBoard: Obama's "Something for Everyone" Approach to Energy Security Misses the Mark by Opening Major New Offshore Areas to Oil and Gas Exploration
345. 2010/03/24: TBAS: Advice for the Blue Ribbon Commission
     * After closing Yucca Mountain, President Barack Obama has set up a 15-member commission of industry, academic, and government experts to consider nuclear waste disposal options.
     * The major questions that the commission will consider are not new or unknown, nor are the answers to these problems.
     * Hopefully, the commission will motivate the country to finally deal with the toxic legacy of the nuclear age.
346. 2010/03/28: Cryptome: Executive Order 13535 -- Ensuring enforcement and implementation of abortion restrictions in the patient protection and affordable care act

     The actions of the Obama administration are being watched closely:

347. 2010/04/02: TreeHugger: US Department of Energy Announces Stricter Efficiency Standards for Water Heaters
348. 2010/03/31: DallasNews: EPA kills Texas program that eased environmental scrutiny on small firms
     The EPA on Wednesday struck down a Texas air-pollution program that has let thousands of companies bypass rigorous reviews under the Clean Air Act.
349. 2010/04/01: WaPo: NASA plans big boost to climate research budget
     NASA officials laid out plans Wednesday to boost spending on climate research substantially over the next five years, to make up for cutbacks during the Bush administration. Edward Weiler, the agency's associate administrator for science, said that NASA's Earth Science budget will get a $2.4 billion, or 62 percent, increase through 2015. By that point, the program will have launched as many as 10 new missions, collecting information about ocean temperatures, ice coverage, ozone depletion and the central question of how much carbon dioxide is being released through human activities.
350. 2010/04/01: NRDC:SwitchBoard: DOE On Target With New Water Heater Standard
351. 2010/03/29: CBD: Obama Administration Adopts Bush-era Roadblock to Reducing Greenhouse Pollution
352. 2010/03/30: Guardian(UK): EPA: No greenhouse gas regulations before 2011
353. 2010/03/29: SolveClimate: EPA: No Greenhouse Gas Regulations Before 2011 -- Despite the Official Delay, Dozens in Congress Push Back
354. 2010/03/30: ClimateP: Chu: "A price on carbon is essential"
355. 2010/03/29: Reuters: EPA phases in permits for greenhouse pollution
     U.S. power plants, industrial facilities and other stationary sources of greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming will not be required to have Clean Air Act permits until January 2011, giving industry more time to prepare for the regulations, the Environmental Protection Agency said on Monday.
356. 2010/03/30: Grist: The EPA weighs the hidden costs of carbon
357. 2010/03/29: Yahoo:Reuters: EPA phases in permits for greenhouse pollution
     U.S. power plants, industrial facilities and other stationary sources of greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming will not be required to have Clean Air Act permits until January 2011, giving industry more time to prepare for the regulations, the Environmental Protection Agency said on Monday.
358. 2010/03/29: Grist: U.S. proposes to veto mountaintop-removal coal mine [Spruce No. 1]
359. 2010/03/30: CSM: Nuclear power: Obama team touts mini-nukes to fight global warming

     The EPA issued some new Clean Water rules this week:

360. 2010/04/01: EPA: Surface Coal Mining Activities under Clean Water Act Section 404
361. 2010/04/02: DM:80B: New EPA Rules Clamp Down on Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining
362. 2010/04/01: SolveClimate: EPA Raises the Bar for Mountaintop Mining -- Few Valley Fills Likely to Meet Federal Standards Under New EPA Guidance
363. 2010/04/01: Grist: Obama's mountaintop-removal crackdown could mean more than offshore drilling
364. 2010/04/01: TEC: The Beginning of the End for Mountaintop Removal?
365. 2010/04/01: WVGazette:CT: Breaking news (NOT an April Fool's joke): EPA actually does take "unprecedented steps" to reduce damage from mountaintop removal coal mining
366. 2010/04/02: WVGazette:CT: Mountaintop removal 'clarity': OK, so now what?
367. 2010/04/02: NYT: E.P.A. to Limit Water Pollution From [MTR] Mining
368. 2010/04/01: NRDC:SwitchBoard: EPA Sets Scientific Standards to Safeguard Appalachian Streams from Mountaintop Removal
369. 2010/04/01: TreeHugger: EPA Announces New Water Quality Standards for Mountaintop Removal Permits

     The EPA issued some new Clean Air rules this week:

370. 2010/04/01: EPA: Final Rulemaking: Light-Duty Vehicle Greenhouse Gas Emissions Standards and Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standards
371. 2010/04/02: CSM: Impact of emission caps: costlier cars that will be cheaper to drive
372. 2010/04/01: SolveClimate: Electric Vehicles Losing Their 'Zero Emissions' Claim in U.S. -- New Federal Vehicle Standards Calculate in Power Plant Emissions
373. 2010/04/01: NRDC:SwitchBoard: EPA's New Clean Car Standards: The Right Kind of Energy Solution
374. 2010/04/02: AutoBG: Positive reactions to new CAFE rules abound
375. 2010/04/01: NYT: U.S. Issues Limits on Greenhouse Gas Emissions From Cars
376. 2010/04/01: Guardian(UK): Obama acts to cut car emissions
377. 2010/04/01: WarmingLaw: First, Motor Vehicles. Next, Power Plants
378. 2010/04/01: PhysOrg: US finalizes new auto fuel economy standards
379. 2010/04/01: NRDC:SwitchBoard: EPA Sets CO2 Accounting for Plug-in Electric Vehicles for Model Years 2012 to 2016
380. 2010/04/01: TreeHugger: Obama's New Tougher Fuel Efficiency Standards Made Official: 35.5 MPG By 2016
381. 2010/03/31: Reuters: Fuel rules spur hybrids, auto engine efficiency
382. 2010/04/01: AutoBG: New Federal CAFE standards officially released, 34.1 mpg by 2016

     Obama lifted the moratorium on offshore oil drilling this week to much comment:

383. 2010/04/01: BSD: Obama's offshore drilling not completely crazy, but....
384. 2010/04/01: DemNow: Environmental Groups Decry Obama Plan to Lift Moratorium on Offshore Drilling
385. 2010/04/01: KSJT: NYTimes, Wash. Post: Day 2 of Drill Baby Drill, Obama version
386. 2010/03/31: SolveClimate: Offshore Drilling Move Muddies Obama's Relationship to Oil and Gas
387. 2010/04/01: Grist: Me [Roberts], in the NYT, on Obama's drilling plan
388. 2010/03/31: NatureTGB: Obama stakes out oil, gas, middle
389. 2010/03/31: EarthTimes: Obama opens coastal oil drilling, angers environmentalists
390. 2010/04/01: OilChange: "Drill, Baby, Drill" Means "Kill, Baby, Kill"
391. 2010/03/31: LA Times: Obama's offshore drilling plan seen as a political olive branch
     The president announces the controversial proposal, which the administration sees as a way to garner support from conservatives for clean energy and climate change legislation.
392. 2010/03/31: TP: Drilling Is Not The Solution To Create Jobs And Reduce Reliance On Foreign Oil
393. 2010/03/31: NYT: Risk Is Clear in Drilling; Payoff Isn't
394. 2010/03/31: NYT: Obama Oil Drilling Plan Draws Critics
395. 2010/03/31: CBC: Obama expands offshore drilling sites -- Plans lift ban on oil and gas exploration off East Coast
396. 2010/03/31: HillHeat: Obama Announces New Offshore Drilling Policy
397. 2010/03/31: ClimateP: EIA: New offshore drilling will lower gas prices in 2030 a few pennies a gallon
398. 2010/03/31: KSJT: Rivers of black goo (ink, not crude): Obama to open Arctic, east coast offshore to oil and gas rigs
399. 2010/03/31: Grist: Obama will open large sections of Southeast and Alaskan coasts to offshore drilling
400. 2010/03/31: Grist: Understanding the allure of 'drill baby drill'
401. 2010/03/31: Grist: Is Obama's offshore drilling plan winning any GOP votes?
402. 2010/03/31: TreeHugger: WTF: Obama Expands Offshore Drilling Far Beyond Bush
403. 2010/03/31: CBD: Obama Offshore Oil Plan a Disaster for Wildlife and Climate
404. 2010/03/31: AutoBG: Drill Baby Drill? Obama says, "Yes we can"
405. 2010/03/31: WaPo: Obama clears way for offshore drilling for oil and gas, including off Va. coast
406. 2010/03/31: BBC: Obama to relax oil drilling ban
407. 2010/03/30: NYT: Obama to Open Offshore Areas to Oil Drilling for First Time
     The Obama administration is proposing to open vast expanses of water along the Atlantic coastline, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the north coast of Alaska to oil and natural gas drilling, much of it for the first time, officials said Tuesday. The proposal -- a compromise that will please oil companies and domestic drilling advocates but anger some residents of affected states and many environmental organizations -- would end a longstanding moratorium on oil exploration along the East Coast from the northern tip of Delaware to the central coast of Florida, covering 167 million acres of ocean. Under the plan, the coastline from New Jersey northward would remain closed to all oil and gas activity. So would the Pacific Coast, from Mexico to the Canadian border. The environmentally sensitive Bristol Bay in southwestern Alaska would be protected and no drilling would be allowed under the plan, officials said. But large tracts in the Chukchi Sea and Beaufort Sea in the Arctic Ocean north of Alaska -- nearly 130 million acres -- would be eligible for exploration and drilling after extensive studies.
408. 2010/03/31: EconView: "Obama to Open Offshore Areas to Oil Drilling"

     As for what is going on in Congress:

409. 2010/04/02: TP: Sen. Murkowski (R-Alaska) On Whether Obama's Drilling Plan Makes Her More Likely To Support Energy Bill: 'Absolutely Not'
410. 2010/04/01: TP: Sen. Bob Bennett (R-Ut): 'Greenhouse Gas Emissions Have Nothing Whatever To Do With Clean Air'
411. 2010/04/02: TP:WR: Northeast Hit With Devastating Floods, As Federal Flood Insurance Expires Due To GOP Obstruction
412. 2010/03/26: WWI:ReVolt: What is the real sense of the Senate?
413. 2010/03/28: Grist: More evidence that Sen. Byrd sees the writing on the wall for coal
414. 2010/03/30: TP:WR: Lindsey 'Green Economy' Graham Bashes The Clean Air Act

     Kerry-Boxer, Waxman-Markey, KGL, Cantwell-Collins or whatever -- the future climate bill -- defines a battleline:

415. 2010/03/30: CommonTragedies: What about that other climate bill? [Cantwell-Collins]
416. 2010/03/31: Grist: Senate climate bill to fund Utah tar sands development
417. 2010/03/31: ClimateP: Pollution limits essential for clean energy investments -- "Energy only" bills short-change new technologies
418. 2010/03/30: TheHill:e2W: Sen. Sanders sees 'bonanza' for coal in emerging [KGL] climate bill
419. 2010/03/30: TreeHugger: Senate Climate Bill Pre-Game Report: It's Getting Ugly Out There . . .
420. 2010/03/29: TP: Sanders: 'I Do Not Want To See A Global Warming Bill Become A Bonanza For The Coal Industry'
     Bernie SandersSen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has expressed "deep disappointment" with the direction Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) is heading with climate legislation being crafted with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT). In a letter to Kerry, the Vermont independent praised Kerry's "continued leadership" as a "tireless advocate for taking action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions." However, Sanders has "serious concerns about provisions that could harm our environment and provide new federal government support for polluters":
     
     • State Preemption: "In my view, preempting leading states would be a huge mistake: we should definitely set a floor, but not a ceiling."
     • Support for New Nuclear Power: "If the private sector will not finance new nuclear plants, the government should not risk taxpayer dollars by stepping in."
     • Offshore Drilling: "We should not, in a global warming bill, support increased offshore drilling."
     • Coal Plant Emissions: "Global warming legislation should move us forward by requiring coal plants to meet increasingly stringent pollution standards. It should not take us backwards by exempting coal plants from this kind of regulation by grandfathering in the dirtiest plants so they can continue to operate for years to come."

While in the UK:

421. 2010/04/02: TEC: UK Feed In Tariff Launched
422. 2010/04/01: Guardian(UK): Edinburgh airport's tree project is trampled by its carbon elephants
     Edinburgh airport funding children to plant 500 trees is vastly overshadowed by its expansion and huge carbon emissions
423. 2010/04/01: Guardian(UK): Britain has key vote on World Bank loan to Medupi power station
     Medupi coal station would be three times larger than UK's Drax - Dilemma between climate damage and South African industry
424. 2010/03/31: Guardian(UK): Q&A: the CRC energy efficiency scheme
425. 2010/03/30: Guardian(UK): UK infastructure 'must factor in effects of climate change'
     Report says hospitals and power station planners must pass 'climate adaptation test' akin to health and safety regulations
426. 2010/03/29: OilDrum: How Close will the U.K. Come to Running Out of Natural Gas in Storage this Spring?
427. 2010/03/30: BBC: Island chosen for nuclear plant -- The UK's next nuclear power plant could be built on the island of Anglesey by 2020
428. 2010/03/28: BBC: UK low carbon uptake 'too slow'
     The government must act faster if the UK is to fully benefit from low carbon technology, a report by MPs has warned. The Energy and Climate Change Committee said in 2008 there were 881,000 green sector jobs - but with extra funding that could rise by 44% by 2015. But it criticised slow uptake of carbon capture systems, electric cars and home insulation, calling on the government to invest more in the technologies

And in Europe:

429. 2010/04/02: ScienceInsider: French Researchers Ask Science Minister to Disavow Climate Skeptic
     More than 400 French climate scientists want science minister Valérie Pécresse to take a clear stand against the country's most vocal climate skeptic, geochemist Claude Allègre of the Institute of Geophysics of Paris (IPGP). On Wednesday, the group sent Pécresse a letter denouncing Allègre's latest book, L'imposture climatique (The Climate Fraud), and asking her to express confidence in the climate research community. Allègre was science minister from 1997 until 2000. The book - a series of interviews with journalist Dominique de Montvalon - includes a harsh attack on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which Allègre calls a "mafia-like system" that propagates a "baseless myth." Climate scientists and journalists at several newspapers have argued that the book is riddled with errors, distortions of the data, and outright lies.
430. 2010/04/01: EurActiv: EU readies G20 proposal on bank and carbon levies
     The European Commission is expected to release a paper in the coming weeks on the kinds of bank and carbon taxes it will be supporting at the June meeting of G20 leaders in Canada. The paper was approved by the Commission yesterday (31 March) and will first be discussed by EU finance ministers in April before the next G20 gathering in Toronto, Canada, in June. The paper is not intended to state the EU's position on the kinds of fiscal instrument that will be imposed on the financial sector, according to a Commission source, but will ensure that EU finance ministers meeting in Madrid in April can draw up a clear position for the June G20 talks in Toronto.
431. 2010/04/02: SolveClimate: EU Urged to Claw Back Surplus Carbon Trading Permits
432. 2010/04/01: Guardian(UK): EU emissions have dropped, but carbon credits can mean future pollution
     EU greenhouse emissions have fallen by 11%, but unless caps are tightened, stored carbon credits can later be used to pollute
433. 2010/04/01: PlanetArk: EU Says Its Kyoto Support Depends On [all other ratifiers including] Russia, Japan
434. 2010/03/31: NYT:GW: Slashed Subsidies Send Shivers Through European Solar Industry
435. 2010/03/29: PhysOrg: Europe's electricity could be all renewables by 2050

     Meanwhile in Australia:

436. 2010/03/30: JQuiggin: Water, water everywhere

     And in the Indian subcontinent:

437. 2010/03/30: SolveClimate: Kirit Parikh: India's Man with a Mission -- An Interview with the Head of India's Low-Carbon Strategy Group

     And China:

438. 2010/04/02: CSW: China is developing a national adaptive preparedness strategy for impacts of climate disruption
439. 2010/04/02: PeakEnergy: Michael Klare, Shopaholic China
440. 2010/04/01: EnergyBulletin: China's global shopping spree -- Is the World's Future Resource Map Tilting East?
441. 2010/04/01: CCP: China invests in warning systems and infrastructure to adapt to extreme weather events and climate change
442. 2010/04/01: MongaBay: What happened to China?: the nation's environmental woes and its future
443. 2010/03/31: Guardian(UK): China spends big to counter severe weather caused by climate change

     While in Japan:

444. 2010/04/01: Google:AFP: Tokyo launches Asia's first carbon trade scheme

     In the Middle East:

445. 2010/04/02: TreeHugger: Turkish Mayor Acquitted on Misconduct Charges... For Giving Citizens Free Water
446. 2010/04/02: EarthTimes: Turkish professors urge government to halt [Ilisu] dam project

     And Africa:

447. 2010/03/31: BBC: Ethiopia gets first electric car
     Ethiopia has launched an electric car, despite suffering from power shortages. It is only the second African country to do so, after South Africa.

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

448. 2010/04/01: OpenAlex: Canada: The Schizophrenic Approach to Environmental Policy
     Details of last month's budget bill and our new approach to auto emissions are now out, and it's clear that Canada's Conservatives are continuing their whishy-washy but effective attack on our environmental policies and programs.

The Tories killed the EcoEnergy program to much grumbling:

449. 2010/04/01: G&M: End of ecoENERGY riles home owners
     Without much notice, federal government pulls plug on program to retrofit homes to make them more energy efficient
450. 2010/04/01: CBC: Cancelling of home retrofit program draws fire -- Conservatives suspend energy rebates a year early because they're too popular
451. 2010/04/01: TEC: Conservatives cap energy retrofit program, let Canadians down once again
452. 2010/03/31: CBC: Tories suspend ecoEnergy Retrofit program
453. 2010/04/01: CBC: Restore ecoEnergy program, Ottawa urged
454. 2010/03/31: G&M: Home-energy retrofit program suddenly ends
     The popular ecoENERGY Retrofit program that provides grants of up to $5,000 to Canadians who make their homes more energy efficient has come to an abrupt end. Homeowners who had already booked an appointment for a pre-retrofit evaluation before the Natural Resources Department announced the program's demise Wednesday remain eligible to apply for a grant. But no further bookings will be considered.

The family planning issue blew up in the Tories' faces:

455. 2010/04/03: ChronicleHerald: In which Hillary Clinton speaks for Canada
     On Monday, Hillary Clinton ordered Canada to stay "in the desert and out of the Arctic." (The quote's from a friend.) On Tuesday, the U.S. secretary of state cashed in on a trifecta by lecturing the Harper government on the callowness of its effort to promote maternal health through the G8. On her short visit to Ottawa, then, Clinton attacked Canada on three issues -- its policy on Arctic sovereignty, its determination to get the military out of Afghanistan in 2011, and its approach to global Moms and orphans. In fact, by the time Hillary left the capital, Canada didn't have much earth left to scorch. At a press conference Tuesday afternoon, Clinton managed to belittle a silent Lawrence Cannon -- Canada's minister of foreign affairs -- in public and to his face. Here's what she said about family planning, on a global scale, while Cannon kept his own counsel as host of the same news conference. "You cannot have maternal health without reproductive health and reproductive health includes contraception and family planning and access to legal, safe abortions. This is an issue of great concern to me and to my government. "If you are concerned about abortion, then women should have access to family planning. It is perfectly legitimate for people to hold their own personal views based on conscience, religion or any other basis. But I've always believed that the government should not intervene in decisions of such intimacy."
456. 2010/04/01: CanWest: A needed rebuke
     Hillary Clinton flew into Ottawa like a March wind and, with a few blunt words, made Canada's plan to lead the G8 on a maternal mortality initiative look badly-led, ill-informed, even arrogant -- and she was right to do so. "You can't have maternal health without reproductive health," she said, in the kind of plain-spoken language that has been missing from the federal government's discussion about the initiative. "And reproductive health includes contraception and family planning and access to legal, safe abortion."
457. 2010/03/30: TGBeaver: Hillary drops the A bomb on Cannon
458. 2010/03/30: CBC: Clinton backs contraception for maternal health
     U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton waded into a global discussion about maternal health Tuesday, saying any discussion has to include contraception, family planning and access to abortion. Clinton's comments came in a news conference at the conclusion of a G8 foreign ministers meeting in Gatineau, Que.
459. 2010/03/30: Impolitical: Clinton says what our government won't
     In no uncertain terms today, at the G8 foreign ministers news conference, one of the big headlines coming out of it: "Clinton: Contraception must be part of maternal health plan."
460. 2010/03/29: BCLSB: Harper, Abortion, And The Tory Base
461. 2010/03/29: HillTimes: PM's decision on contraception aid could spark backlash from social conservatives
     Institute of Marriage and Family Canada plays down the danger PM Stephen Harper faces as he drifts further to the centre on economic and social measures.

The Arctic conference didn't go over well either:

462. 2010/03/29: TCoC: Arctic Ocean Foreign Ministers told leave it in the ground
463. 2010/03/30: SpaceDaily: Clinton rebukes Canada over Arctic meeting
464. 2010/03/29: DerSpiegel: Race for Resources -- Deciding the Arctic's Future Behind Closed Doors
     Diplomats from Finland, Iceland and Sweden are upset; indigenous groups are furious. Five countries bordering the Arctic Ocean are meeting behind closed doors on Monday to discuss the region's future. Many of those who have interests in the Arctic have not been invited.
465. 2010/03/31: CBC: Clinton's Arctic comments cheer Inuit
     Inuit groups are declaring victory and Arctic experts are warning that Canada's approach to the North will have to change after remarks by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. "I can only express my support for her comments and her views," said Duane Smith, head of the Canadian branch of the Inuit Circumpolar Council. Whitney Lackenbauer, a University of Waterloo historian and Arctic expert, agreed. "The clear message from Hillary Clinton is, 'You need to recognize that this Arctic is not just the private sea of the five coastal states.'"
466. 2010/03/29: TStar: Canada gets cold shoulder at Arctic meeting [Chelsea]
467. 2010/03/29: SpaceDaily: Arctic talks open amid protests [Chelsea]
468. 2010/03/30: Impolitical: Lawrence Cannon's very bad day [Chelsea]
469. 2010/03/30: BBC: Clinton in Canada Arctic rebuke
     Hillary Clinton has criticised Canada for failing to invite indigenous groups and Scandinavian countries to talks on the future of the Arctic. The US secretary of state said everybody affected by the changes brought about by climate change in the Arctic should have been included.
470. 2010/03/29: CBC: Canada will take Arctic lead: Cannon -- Foreign minister downplays 'snub' of other nations not invited to Arctic summit
     Canada will take a leadership role in the Arctic region but work closely with other coastal nations and not act unilaterally, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said Monday. Cannon was speaking after meeting in Chelsea, Que., north of Gatineau, with diplomats from the U.S., Russia, Denmark and Norway -- the five nations with Arctic coastlines. He reiterated the Harper government's oft-stated stance that Canada takes its Arctic presence very seriously.
471. 2010/03/30: CanWest: How to keep a cool head in the Arctic -- West told to reset Cold War image of Russia
     As former Canadian diplomat Robert Fowler noted in a weekend speech unencumbered by any hint of diplomacy, foreign policy in this country is increasingly an appendage of domestic politics. The Conservatives' Arctic sovereignty policy is an example where a reasonable argument could be made that an external threat has been exaggerated in order to bolster its image as the party that stands on guard for thee.
472. 2010/03/29: Canoe: Icy Clinton leaves Arctic summit -- Says 'legitimate interests' frozen out
473. 2010/03/29: CanWest: China is coming to the Arctic [Chelsea meeting]
     Foreign ministers from Russia, the United States, Canada, Denmark and Norway are meeting in Chelsea, Quebec, today -- with the Arctic on the agenda, and China on their minds. As the Arctic sea-ice melts, the world is looking northward. China has no Arctic territory, but it does have a voracious appetite for oil and natural gas. It is also the world's largest shipping nation, eager for shorter routes and greater efficiencies. Earlier this month, a Chinese rear-admiral asserted that the Arctic belongs to all peoples. He was correct -- if only with respect to the central Arctic Ocean where the water and sea-ice form part of the high seas and an area of ocean floor beyond the continental shelves of the five coastal states is part of the "common heritage of mankind." Still, the admiral's statement raised a question that has been on many minds but far too few lips: What are China's interests in the Arctic?

To top it off, the Tories demonstrated their Made in Canada policy this week:

474. 2010/04/02: CanWest: Automakers facing carbon tax in 2011 under tough new standards.
     Automobile manufacturers could face a carbon tax on new vehicles in the 2011 model year if they fail to meet new standards to reduce tailpipe emissions that were announced on Thursday by Environment Minister Jim Prentice. The declaration confirms that the government still plans to move ahead with a draft plan unveiled in December to impose tougher tailpipe standards on cars, matching new proposed regulations in the United States.
475. 2010/04/01: CBC: Canada, U.S. unite on car emission standards
476. 2010/04/01: CBC: Canada, U.S. merging car emission standards
477. 2010/04/01: G&M: Canada, U.S. team up to restrict auto emissions
     Aggressive new controls, to be announced on both sides of the border, will force fuel efficiency improvements of 40 per cent by 2016

File under muzzling politics as usual:

478. 2010/04/01: Tyee: Feds Fire Back at Tyee's 'Muzzled Scientists' Column -- And the column's author responds to Environment Canada's defence of its practices

     Meanwhile in that Mechanical Mordor known as the tar sands:

479. 2010/04/04: Guardian(UK): Shareholders at loggerheads over vote on BP's tar sands development -- Oil giant under pressure from investors after environmentalists win concessions from Shell
480. 2010/03/29: OilChange: BP's full steam ahead on tar sands; and the rest of us be damned!

     In the North, another reason to get out of NAFTA:

481. 2010/03/29: ChronicleHerald: Caribou limit goes to NAFTA
     An American hunting outfitter is trying to use the North American Free Trade Agreement to fight what he considers misguided northern wildlife management. A move by the Northwest Territories to revoke caribou tags for non-resident hunters is effectively the same as shutting down his business, says John Andre, who operates two hunting camps in the territory from his headquarters in Montana. His allotment of caribou tags would go from 420 a year at its peak to zero under a proposal before a northern regulatory board.

As for miscellaneous Canadiana:

482. 2010/04/02: WCI: The Value of the Canadian Dollar in 2009-2010, Oil Prices and Interest Rates
483. 2010/03/29: Maribo: An update to the provincial greenhouse gas targets

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

484. 2010/04/03: CCurrents: Post-Peak Oil Reality Trumps Right Wing Trend
485. 2010/04/03: CCurrents: Beyond The Monoculture: Strengthening Local Culture, Economy And Knowledge
486. 2010/04/02: CCurrents: There Really Is Only One Kind Of sustainability
487. 2010/04/03: AlterNet: "The Only Way to Survive is By Taking Care of One Another" -- Legendary Activist, Philosopher Grace Lee Boggs
488. 2010/03/29: EnergyBulletin: What Is a "Green Economy?" by Herman Daly

     And in the Transition movement:

489. 2010/03/12: MillerMcCune: Lexicon of Change: The Rise of Transition Culture
     A movement aimed at tackling the energy crisis with aplomb has been stepping on the gas since its formation.
     You may or may not have heard of the Transition movement -- described by its founder, Rob Hopkins, as "an exercise in engaged optimism" -- yet Transition's ideas are informing and even guiding the conversation of how communities confront the twin crises of peak oil and climate change.
490. 2010/03/22: Ekklesia: Churches partner with 'transition town' environmental movement

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

491. 2010/04/02: Grist: The GINK Chronicles -- Debunking the "you'd be a great green parent" argument
492. 2010/04/01: BBC: Condoms 'can help tackle poverty'

     Apocalypso anyone?

493. 2010/04/04: OilDrum: Should we be planning a new approach for producing clothing?
494. 2010/04/02: CCurrents: Progress In The Face Of Climate Catastrophe?
495. 2010/03/30: EnergyBulletin: That Which May Be Gained: A Return to Scale, Community, and Morality

     As for how the media handles the science:

496. 2010/04/03: ClimateP: On the media's climate science illiteracy
497. 2010/04/02: HuffPo: Media Drills Vapidity On Drilling Into Our Faces (video)
498. 2010/04/02: QuarkSoup: The Pathetic Media Coverage of the Off-Shore Drilling Decision
499. 2010/04/01: CJR: Dot Earth Moves to NYT Opinion Section -- [Andrew] Revkin: "I will say what I think, in ways I could not before"
500. 2010/04/01: ClimateWTF: It Might Be April 1st but This Is No Joke. Worst News Article In History?
501. 2010/03/29: ClimateP: Has CBS found dumbest idea yet for an online poll?
502. 2010/03/29: MTobis: More Fullerenes
503. 2010/03/30: TreeHugger: One Way To Improve Environmental Journalism: Confront The Obvious, Over & Over Again

     The joy of terminology wrangles:

504. 2010/04/03: Maribo: Global warming trumps climate change?
505. 2010/04/03: MTobis: Climate Disruption

     Fred Pearce is still running a number on Phil Jones:

506. 2010/04/01: HotTopic: Dogged Pearce still hounding Jones
507. 2010/03/31: Guardian(UK): Hacked climate email inquiry cleared Jones but serious questions remain

     Regarding the quality of blogosphere discussion:

508. 2010/04/02: Grist: Why climate realists and skeptics talk past each other

     Here is something for your library:

509. 2010/03/30: HotTopic: [Book Review] _Global Warring: How Environmental, Economic and Political Crises Will Redraw the World Map_ by Cleo Paskal
510. 2010/03/28: BNC: [Book Reviews] Globally warned -- review of Hamilton and Hansen
     _Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth About the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance To Save Humanity_ by James Hansen
     _Requiem for a Species: Why we Resist the Truth about Climate Change_ by Clive Hamilton

And for your film & video enjoyment:

511. 2010/04/01: PlanetArk: German Film [The Fourth Revolution - Energy Autonomy] Offers Answers To Gore Climate Concerns
     Al Gore raised some alarming questions about climate change in his Oscar-winning 2006 film "An Inconvenient Truth" that a German filmmaker has now tried to provide some answers for in a new documentary. Carl Fechner's "The Fourth Revolution - Energy Autonomy" is an attempt to show how the world could be getting all its energy from renewable sources in 30 years -- and help slow the climate change that Gore warned about in his blockbuster film. An unabashedly provocative look at renewable energy in countries from the United States, Germany, Denmark, China, Mali and Bangladesh, Fechner's new film has attracted rave reviews and fierce criticism in Germany since it opened last week. It has been lauded by some newspapers for spelling out a fossil fuel-free route the world could follow but denounced by others as political propaganda for suggesting powerful special interests are blocking wider use of renewable energy.

Meanwhile among the 'Sue the Bastards!' contingent:

512. 2010/04/02: Yahoo:AP: Arch Coal sues EPA over veto of W.Va. mine permit

     Among the non-members of Gamblers Anonymous:

513. 2010/03/30: Stoat: Hobbes again, and 400 ppm CO2
514. 2010/03/29: Atmoz: 400ppm -- I'm now taking bets on when will atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide will first reach 400ppm

     Wrestling over a new energy infrastructure continues unabated:

515. 2010/04/04: OilDrum: Tech Talk: Charcoal, Oil Shale, and the Ecoshale Process in Utah
516. 2010/04/01: BBerg: Supertanker Rates Jump Most in Five Weeks as Cargoes Increase
     The cost of delivering Middle East crude oil to Asia, the world's busiest route for supertankers, jumped the most in more than five weeks as the volume of shipments increased. Charter rates for very large crude carriers, or VLCCs, on the industry's benchmark Saudi Arabia-to-Japan route gained 8.7 percent to 83.24 Worldscale points, the biggest climb since Feb. 22, according to the London-based Baltic Exchange. Returns from the voyage surged 19 percent to $44,576 a day. A "flurry of pre-Easter chartering" means the supply of vessels is "tight" before April 21, London-based ICAP Shipping International Ltd. said in an e-mailed report today. It also said "poor" weather in China may further support charter rates. Crude shipments to Asia from the Middle East are likely to increase to 12.86 million barrels a day, up 390,000 barrels from a month ago, Oil Movements, a Halifax, England-based company that tracks tanker deals, said in a report today. VLCCs haul 2 million-barrel cargoes. "There is a lot of new refining capacity coming on stream in Asia, and refiners see this as a time to build stocks," Oil Movements founder Roy Mason said by phone. It's a "bullish signal" for oil prices, he said.
517. 2010/04/02: PeakEnergy: N.Z.'s Mighty River Plans to Open First Chilean [geothermal] Plant by 2013
518. 2010/04/02: PeakEnergy: Lean burn as Tokyo Gas signs 20-year Curtis deal
519. 2010/04/01: Guardian(UK): Feed-in tariff starts to generate cash
     Householders with small-scale green energy systems will receive up to £1,000 a year for electricity generated under the feed-in tariff scheme
520. 2010/03/31: EnergyBulletin: World facing oil pricing uncertainty - "triple digit" oil predicted
521. 2010/03/31: NewScientist: Tidal power? No thanks
522. 2010/03/31: PhysOrg: Project to make car fuel from [CO2] thin air
523. 2010/03/31: TreeHugger: Smart Cities Getting Big-Picture Treatment for Energy, Water in Ireland and Germany
524. 2010/03/30: BBerg: Saudi's Al-Naimi 'Hopes' Oil Stays in $70-$80 Per Barrel Range
     Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali al- Naimi said he "hopes" prices remain in the $70-a-barrel to $80-a-barrel range, signaling the world's largest producer may be willing to boost output if crude accelerates further. The country could boost production by as much as 4.5 million barrels a day and is "waiting" for demand to rise after increasing capacity to 12.5 million barrels, Al-Naimi told reporters yesterday in Cancun, Mexico. Prices in the $70-to $80- range are "as close to perfect as possible," he said, adding today that he "hopes" prices remain in that range.
525. 2010/03/30: SolveClimate: Athabasca South? Activity Hints at Tar Sands Development in Utah -- One Company Hopes to Produce 2,000 Barrels a Day by 2011
526. 2010/03/29: PhysOrg: Europe's electricity could be all renewables by 2050
527. 2010/03/29: OilDrum: How Close will the U.K. Come to Running Out of Natural Gas in Storage this Spring?
528. 2010/03/30: PeakEnergy: Bringing cheap [wave] power to our shores

     Hey! Let's contaminate the aquifer for thousands of years! It'll be a fracking gas!

529. 2010/04/01: NRDC:SwitchBoard: Natural gas pit fire and leaking pipes - more accidents in Pennsylvania
530. 2010/04/02: OilDrum: API, EPA, and Hydrofracking Gas Shale
531. 2010/04/01: PlanetArk: Fracking Not A Cleaner Alternative: Cornell Prof [Robert Howarth]
532. 2010/03/31: Reuters: Fracking not a cleaner alternative: Cornell prof
     Natural gas obtained by the controversial technique of hydraulic fracturing may contribute significantly to greenhouse gas emissions and so should not be considered as a cleaner alternative to coal or oil, according to a Cornell University researcher. [Ecology Professor Robert Howarth]
533. 2010/03/31: EnergyBulletin: Shale Gas Shenanigans

     The answer my friend...:

534. 2010/04/02: PeakEnergy: GE's Gigantic Offshore Wind Turbine is 25% More Efficient
535. 2010/03/31: NatureTGB: MoD stops tilting at windmills
536. 2010/03/30: TEC: Push for More Wind Power Where Most Needed
537. 2010/03/31: TreeHugger: Wind Power Soared Past 150,000 Megawatts in 2009
538. 2010/03/30: PlanetArk: Offshore Wind Turbines May Be 10 MW Giants: Veritas

     Meanwhile among the solar aficionados:

539. 2010/04/02: SciAm: Explosive Silicon Gas Casts Shadow on Solar Power Industry
     Silane gas has killed and injured workers at cell-making plants. Can the photovoltaic industry live without it?
540. 2010/04/03: PeakEnergy: Concentrating Photovoltaic Project Under Way at California College
541. 2010/04/02: TechRev: Black Silicon Makes Solar Cells Cheaper -- A one-step process creates a highly antireflective layer for photovoltaics
542. 2010/04/02: PVTech: Solar VC funding wanes in 1Q 2010
543. 2010/04/01: EurActiv: Solar PV sector reports record growth in 2009
     The global solar photovoltaic industry experienced strong growth in 2009, adding a record 6.4 gigawatts of new capacity despite the global downturn, the European Photovoltaic Industry Association (EPIA) said on Monday (30 March). The global industry exceeded 20 GW of total capacity, which EPIA described as "particularly impressive in light of the difficult financial and economical circumstances" of the past year. It expects global capacity to continue growing by at least 40% in 2010. The strong growth was driven by feed-in tariffs that guarantee a preferential rate for electricity produced from renewable energy (see EurActiv LinksDossier on 'Renewable energy support schemes').
544. 2010/04/01: Reuters: U.S. solar startup says sold out through 2010
     U.S. solar startup Suniva Inc, which makes high-efficiency solar cells and modules, said on Thursday it is sold out through 2010 and plans to triple exports over the next five years.
545. 2010/04/01: PhysOrg: Chemists Identify New [dendrimers] Way to Create Photovoltaic Devices
546. 2010/04/01: PlanetArk: Solar Power Lights Up Bangladesh Central Bank
547. 2010/03/31: NYT:GW: Slashed Subsidies Send Shivers Through European Solar Industry
548. 2010/04/01: TreeHugger: Solar Companies Inundated: Feed-In Tariff Prompts Massive Interest
549. 2010/03/31: AutoBG: California couple powers home - and Mini E - with sunshine
550. 2010/03/31: PlanetArk: Global Solar Power Capacity Grew 44 PCT In 2009
551. 2010/03/31: TreeHugger: 6.4 Gigawatts More Solar Power Installed Last Year - Germany Still Leads, US in Fourth
552. 2010/03/31: USAToday: California solar projects rush to beat deadline for subsidies
553. 2010/03/30: PhysOrg: New Path To Solar Energy Via Solid-State Photovoltaics
554. 2010/03/30: TreeHugger: A Lesson in Solar Energy With the 6-in-1 Solar Kit
555. 2010/03/30: TEC: BP closes solar plant in Maryland
556. 2010/03/30: TEC: Solar power's dirty secrets
557. 2010/03/30: SF Gate: Kaiser plans solar systems at 15 sites in state
     Sticking solar panels on office rooftops has become de rigueur for many companies in eco-conscious California. But not on this scale. Health care giant Kaiser Permanente plans to install solar systems at 15 of its facilities throughout the state, together generating a maximum of 15 megawatts of electricity. A megawatt is a snapshot figure, equal to the amount of electricity used by 750 typical homes at any given instant. Just a few years ago, no one built photovoltaic solar projects that large. The Kaiser project, which the Oakland company will announce today, represents a new kind of mid-size solar - smaller than solar-thermal power plants in the desert but larger than isolated rooftop arrays. "What we've demonstrated with our approach is that small-scale projects, together, can yield large volumes," said Arno Harris, chief executive officer of Recurrent Energy.

On the coal front:

558. 2010/04/03: AlterNet: Coal-Fired Plants Gulp 1.5 Trillion Gallons of Water and We're Left to Drink the Dirty Backwash
559. 2010/04/01: TCoE: It's STILL the coal, stupid
560. 2010/03/31: BBC: Australia's Macarthur Coal has rejected a 3.3bn Australian dollar ($3bn; £2bn) takeover bid from Peabody Energy
561. 2010/03/30: ABC(Au): Internet giants powered by coal, Greenpeace says

     Biofuel bickering abounds:

562. 2010/04/04: Eureka: Energy crops impact environmental quality -- What happens to the soil when you remove the plants?
563. 2010/03/29: SolveClimate: Developing World Sees Wealth in Biofuel Production -- Angola, Malaysia Pass Biofuel-Friendly Laws, Even As EU Backtracks
564. 2010/03/30: PhysOrg: Forage sorghum shows promise as energy crop

     The nuclear energy controversy continues:

565. 2010/04/03: TEC: If Nuclear Is As Superior As Its Supporters Claim, Why Won't "Wall Street" Provide All The Necessary Capital?
566. 2010/04/01: NewScientist: Laser 'punch' could bump up fusion power
567. 2010/03/31: Yahoo:AP: Second radioactive substance at Vermont Yankee
     Test results have confirmed the presence of another, more dangerous, radioactive substance in the soil at Vermont's only nuclear power plant, officials said Tuesday, five days after announcing they had found and stopped tritium leaks at Vermont Yankee. The state Health Department said Tuesday that cesium-137 was found at the site. The substance has a half-life of 30 years...
568. 2010/03/31: TEC: Nuclear century outlook -- crystal ball gazing by the WNA
569. 2010/03/30: EarthTimes: Jordan and South Korea ink 130-million-dollar reactor deal
570. 2010/03/30: EarthTimes: Vietnam, United States sign nuclear energy agreement
571. 2010/03/29: EarthTimes: US and India reach deal on nuclear reprocessing
572. 2010/03/29: EarthTimes: IAEA and Russia establish nuclear fuel bank

     Yes we have peak everything:

573. 2010/03/31: OilDrum: Copper Peak
574. 2010/03/30: CCurrents: Washington Considers A Decline Of World Oil Production As Of 2011
575. 2010/03/30: CCurrents: Quacks Like A Duck [Heinberg]
576. 2010/03/30: EnergyBulletin: World energy briefing hears of peak oil by 2020

     More people are talking about the electrical grid:

577. 2010/04/04: PeakEnergy: Transmission Stalls European Offshore Wind Power
578. 2010/04/04: PeakEnergy: California Considers Mandated Grid Storage
579. 2010/04/03: SolveClimate: Eye-Popping Electric Bills Spark Smart Meter Investigations in Texas, California -- Educated Consumers Can Save Money, But Public Training Is Slow to Reach Out
580. 2010/04/02: TEC: Texas PUC has plan to test smart meters
581. 2010/04/01: TEC: When will we have full Smart Grid deployments?
582. 2010/04/01: TEC: The vast electrical sponge provided by V2G technology
583. 2010/03/30: Eureka: Researcher modernizes US power grid -- Award-winning materials expert and UH grad returns with SuperPower, Inc
584. 2010/03/30: TEC: The Smart Grid Industry -- Connecting with Consumers
585. 2010/03/30: TEC: High bills lead couple to file smart meter lawsuit against Oncor

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

586. 2010/04/01: FuturePundit: Cost Of Nissan Leaf Battery
587. 2010/04/01: BBC: Toyota sees its US sales rebound
     Toyota's US sales bounced back in March as substantial discounts helped to win back customers who had been shaken by the firm's mass safety recalls. The Japanese carmaker saw its US sales jump 40.7% last month compared with a year earlier. The big rise came after its sales slumped by 8.7% in February. Ford and General Motors also saw their sales rise last month, up 39.8% and 20.6% respectively. Chrysler, the third of the "Big Three" US car firms, saw its sales fall 8.3%.
588. 2010/04/01: PhysOrg: Charting a course toward cleaner cars
     The emissions from cars and light trucks account for 16 percent of the total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the United States, and these vehicles use 47 percent of all the petroleum consumed in this country. Without strong action, those numbers are expected to keep rising, but reducing the nation?s impact on global climate change and dependence on oil imports has presented a daunting task. Now, a new MIT report outlines a set of policies that could accomplish that goal in the next few decades.
589. 2010/03/31: PlanetArk: Electric Cars Give Power Back To Grid

     The UK Cash-for-Clunkers plan is over:

590. 2010/03/30: BBC: Scrappage scheme comes to an end
     Some 330,000 cars have been sold under the UK government's car scrappage scheme, which has come to an end. Scrappage accounted for a fifth of cars sold after the scheme was introduced a year ago to help the recession-hit motor industry cope with falling sales. The government estimates that 4,000 jobs with manufacturers and suppliers were supported by the scheme.

As for Energy Storage:

591. 2010/04/02: MIT: MIT makes significant step toward lightweight [lithium-air] batteries -- Research shows metal catalysts play important role in improving efficiency
592. 2010/04/02: TEC: Energy Storage in the New York Electricity Markets

     The reaction of business to climate change will be critical:

593. 2010/04/02: NYT:GreenInc: Clean Technology Investments Bounce Back
594. 2010/03/30: MoJo: JPMorgan's War on Nature -- How the Wall Street darling underwrites environmental Armageddon
595. 2010/04/01: TreeHugger: Why Did Just 25% of Solar Power Corps Respond to Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition's Green Survey?
596. 2010/03/31: AutoBG: New York 2010: Ford CEO Mulally says eco factors will "set the agenda for all of us"
597. 2010/03/30: BizGreen: Report: Clean tech investment set to soar 35 per cent this year
     Analyst predicts failure to deliver international climate change deal will not derail clean tech investment recovery
     Global investment in clean technology will rise 35 per cent this year, despite ongoing uncertainty over climate change policy in the US and EU, according to a report published today by research firm Datamonitor. The report, entitled Challenges and opportunities for energy utility companies post-Copenhagen, predicts clean tech investment will bounce back strongly this year, led by the wind energy sector, which has received a major boost from government-backed economic stimulus packages.

Insurance and re-insurance companies are feeling the heat:

598. 2010/03/30: NYT:CW: Sudden Revolt by Insurance Regulators Scales Back Climate Rule on Industry
     A surprise rebellion by a majority of insurance regulators Sunday reversed key elements of a landmark regulation requiring the nation's largest industry to publicly disclose its efforts to address climate change. Companies can now submit their answers confidentially in most states. The upheaval rolls back the nation's maiden climate rule on corporations, casting environmentalists and investor advocates into confusion weeks before the 12-question survey was supposed to be enacted. The change, passed by a vote of 27-22 among state insurance commissioners, promises to make it more difficult for activists to pressure the sprawling industry to act more aggressively on global warming. It also underscores the depth of concern that commissioners around the country have with a survey that asks about insurers' actions to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and safeguard billions in investments from climatic impacts, and about efforts to spark activism among their customers. A survey with public answers could thrust companies into a public relations battle on climate change, said Scott Richardson, the insurance commissioner of South Carolina, who offered a motion at the final meeting of a five-day conference for regulators that led to the change. "It was becoming a litmus test of whether you're a green state or not a green state, or a green commissioner or not a green commissioner," he said. "To me, that was very dangerous. If somebody wants to know whether an individual insurance company has environmental issues that they're doing, then why don't you call them up and ask them? You don't need this survey to do it." The vote came one year after the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) unanimously adopted the "climate risk disclosure survey," following more than a year of open meetings and sometimes bitter clashes between industry representatives, advocates and regulators. Compromises were hatched and concessions were given in order to keep the responses public.

Meanwhile in the greenwashing chronicles:

599. 2010/04/01: ClimateP: Must-see video: Polluter-funded Smithsonian exhibit whitewashes danger of human-caused climate change

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

600. 2010/04/02: ClimateP: Energy and Global Warming News for April 2...
601. 2010/04/01: ClimateP: Energy and Global Warming News for April 1...
602. 2010/03/31: ClimateP: Energy and Global Warming News for March 31...
603. 2010/03/30: ClimateP: Energy and Global Warming News for March 30...
604. 2010/03/29: ClimateP: Energy and Global Warming News for March 29...

     Other (weekly) lists:

605. 2010/04/03: OilDrum: Dave Murphy on This Week in Energy
606. 2010/04/01: Grist: A walk through the week's climate news -- The Climate Post: Read this. Read now. Pay nothing.

     The carbon lobby are up to the usual:

607. 2010/04/03: ClimateWTF: March Madness
608. 2010/04/01: ERabett: Advanced Trolling 101
609. 2010/03/31: SciAm: Who Funds Contrariness on Climate Change?
     Greenpeace is accusing one of the U.S.'s largest conglomerates [Koch] of sowing confusion around scientific assertions behind climate change
610. 2010/04/01: TP: A 'Grateful' Smithsonian Denies Greenwashing 'Philanthropist' David H. Koch's Dirty Money
611. 2010/03/31: DeSmogBlog: Tim Ball: Your source for lies, slander and misleading climate "science"
612. 2010/03/28: CCurrents: A Confederacy Of (Climate) Dunces
613. 2010/03/30: DeSmogBlog: Mann Slandered by YAF (Yappy Americans for Fudging science)
614. 2010/03/21: MTobis: Denialism as an Anxiety Disorder
615. 2010/03/28: ClimateShifts: Debunking the climate change myths of Dr Andrew Burns

     The Koch brothers took a broadside from GreenPeace:

616. 2010/03/30: GP USA: [link to 2 meg pdf] Koch Industries: Secretly Funding the Climate Denial Machine
617. 2010/03/30: Grist: Koch Industries funds climate change deniers, Greenpeace reports
618. 2010/03/30: NYT:GreenInc: Greenpeace Takes Aim at Koch Industries
619. 2010/03/30: Guardian(UK): US oil company donated millions to climate sceptic groups, says Greenpeace
     Report identifies Koch Industries giving $73m to climate sceptic groups 'spreading inaccurate and misleading information'
620. 2010/03/30: CO2-Art: [Koch] Climate Denial Machine Financing Exposed
621. 2010/03/31: TP:WR: Koch Industries Thinks Calling People 'Hitler Youth' Is An 'Honest Debate'
622. 2010/03/30: TP:WR: Report: Koch Industries Outspends Exxon Mobil On Climate Denial
623. 2010/03/31: ClimateP: Report: Koch Industries outspends Exxon Mobil on climate and clean energy disinformation
624. 2010/03/30: TerraDaily: Koch Industries funds climate change deniers: Greenpeace
625. 2010/03/31: OilChange: The Climate Koch-spiracy
626. 2010/03/31: C&C: The Billionaires Who Finance Climate Science Denial [Koch]
627. 2010/04/02: TreeHugger: Billlionaire David Koch: 25 Years of Disinformation Campaigns and Polluter Front Groups?
628. 2010/04/01: TP: Timeline: From Promoting Acid Rain To Climate Denial, Over 20 Years Of David Koch's Polluter Front Groups
629. 2010/04/02: HotTopic: Buying denial: Koch caught in the act
630. 2010/03/30: GPUSA: Koch Industries: Secretly Funding the Climate Denial Machine
631. 2010/03/29: DeSmogBlog: Koch Industries' Extensive Funding of Climate Denial Industry Unmasked

     And Marc Morano got his as well:

632. 2010/03/30: Esquire: This Man Wants to Convince You Global Warming Is a Hoax
     Marc Morano broke the Swift Boat story and effectively stalled John Kerry's presidential run. Now he is working against an even bigger enemy: belief in climate change. Somehow, he seems to be winning.
633. 2010/03/30: QuarkSoup: Marc Morano's Admission of his True Goal
634. 2010/03/08: TheBenshi: #19) Analysis: Why Marc Morano is such a good communicator
635. 2010/03/30: BSD: Randy Olson on Marc Morano
636. 2010/04/01: HotTopic: Esquire on Morano: inside the denial machine
637. 2010/04/01: CCP: Koch Industries exposed! Spent $48 million funding the Climate Denial Machine disinformation campaign to confuse voters on clean energy
638. 2010/04/01: WAH: Greenpeace Report on Sponsors of Climate Change Deniers
639. 2010/04/01: CCP: Koch Industries funds Climate Denial Machine to the tune of $48.5 million since 1997
640. 2010/03/29: DeSmogBlog: Marc Morano: "He's the turd in the punch bowl ..." -- " ... that's all he is and all he can be."

     As for climate miscellanea:

641. 2010/04/04: ClimateP: Best. Headline. Ever.
642. 2010/03/29: SkeptiSci: The human fingerprint in global warming

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

643. WtD: Watching the Deniers
644. Dirty Business [video]
645. C&C: Climate and Capitalism -- Ecosocialism or Barbarism: There is no third way
646. WWI: Revolt - The Worldwatch Institute's Climate and Energy Blog
647. CBD: Center for Biological Diversity
648. Global Warming: Man or Myth?
649. Planet Extinction
650. ACitW: A Change in the Wind
651. One Planet Agriculture
652. ClimateSpin - A climate scientist looks at the media coverage of both climate change and the debate on what to do about it
653. 2007/05/11: NASA:EO: Global Warming Factsheets (updated)
654. CTB: Cleantech Blog
655. Rename Glacier National Park - Climate experts predict that Glacier National Park will lose its glaciers by 2030 if current trends continue
656. UNL: US Drought Monitor
657. Climate Feedback
658. Maribo

     ---

     Low Key Plug

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

     <regards>
     

     -het

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

     ---

     "Science is what we do to keep from lying to ourselves." -Richard Feynman

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