Another Week of GW News, May 31, 2009

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Another week of Climate Disruption News

May 31, 2009

• Chuckle, Top Stories:MEF, Nobel Laureates, AGU Joint Assembly, WBS, G8, Billionaires
• Melting Arctic, Geopolitics, Antarctica, GHF, Climate Gap, Methane, Sol, Late Comments
• Food Crisis, Food Production
• Hurricanes, GHGs, Carbon Cycle, Paleoclimate, ENSO, Sea Levels, Satellites
• Impacts, Forests, Corals, Climate Refugees, Wacky Weather, Tornadoes, Wildfires, Floods & Droughts
• Mitigation, Transportation, Buildings, Sequestration, Geoengineering, Adaptation
• Journals, Misc. Science
• Kyoto, Kyoto-2, Carbon Trade, Carbon Tax, Optimal Carbon Reduction Strategy
• Politics:International, Pelosi in China
• America, Obama, Britain, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, India, China, Japan, Asia, Africa, Canada
• Ecological Economics, Apocalypso, Media, Books, Video, Courts
• Energy, Wind, Solar, Coal, Biofuel, Nukes, Peak Oil, Grid, Cars, Business, Greenwashing, Joe's List
• Carbon Lobby, A Taxonomy of Delusion, Miscellaneous Climate, Useful Links
• Shameless Self Promotion, .sig

It's always nice to start with a larf:

• 2009/05/27: uComics: (cartoon - Toles) Ooops Too Late!
• 2009/05/26: ClimateP: (cartoon) Toles on GOP global warming denial
• 2009/05/22: SeattlePI: (cartoon - Horsey) Gaia Speaks

  We had meetings up the yin-yang this week; with no action. First, the Major Emitters:

• 2009/05/27: UNDispatch: How 17% can (kind of) equal 25%
• 2009/05/27: DotEarth: U.S. Climate Effort Is 'Seismic' Change, Says Obama Team
• 2009/05/27: PlanetArk: China Praised At Climate Talks For Planned Curbs
• 2009/05/26: TerraDaily: Climate change: Progress seen on funding problem
• 2009/05/25: Yahoo: Climate change: World's destiny at stake
  Ministers from economies accounting for 80 percent of the globe's greenhouse gases met Monday to warnings that "the world's destiny" may lie in the outcome of a mooted pact on climate change. The so-called Major Economies Forum (MEF) met in Paris ahead of a new round of UN talks aimed at culminating in a sweeping global treaty in Copenhagen in December.
• 2009/05/25: Redorbit: Climate Chief Says US Won't Speed Up Emission Cuts
  The world's top emitters of greenhouse gases met on Monday to discuss possible cuts in the months leading up to the new UN climate treaty in Copenhagen. Representatives of 17 nations met in Paris on Monday to kick off the first of two days of Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate (MEF) talks being led by the US in order to discuss the feasibility of proposed cuts in carbon dioxide emissions. "We are jumping as high as the political system will tolerate," said Todd Stern, the US Special Envoy for Climate Change. "The 40 percent the Chinese have talked about is not realistic," he told AFP on Sunday.
• 2009/05/25: DotEarth: Should Major Emitters Focus on the Sun?

  A Nobel Laureate Symposium went down this week:

• 2009/05/30: ENN: The Nobel Laureate Symposium Series on Global Sustainability Urges Action on Climate
• 2009/05/29: Guardian(UK): Nobel laureates compare climate crisis to threat from nuclear weapons
• 2009/05/28: Google:UKPA: Climate threat 'a great threat' [say scientists and Nobel laureates]
• 2009/05/29: DeSmogBlog: Nobel Panel: Six Years to Change Course or Face Ruin!
• 2009/05/29: SolveClimate: Nobel Laureates: CO2 Emissions Must Peak by 2015 to Avert Climate Ruin
• 2009/05/28: NatureN: Nobellists urge action on climate change -- But some question whether binding emmissions targets are needed
• 2009/05/28: Times(UK): Global warming must stay below 2C or world faces ruin, scientists declare

  The AGU 2009 Joint Assembly went down this week in Toronto:

• 2009/05/28: NatureCF: AGU 2009 Joint Assembly: Solutions, and sayonara
• 2009/05/27: NatureCF: AGU 2009 Joint Assembly: Climate risk research
• 2009/05/26: NatureCF: AGU 2009 Joint Assembly [in Toronto Tuesday]: From paving to pinot noir
• 2009/05/25: NatureCF: AGU 2009 Joint Assembly: Global change, local impacts

  The World Business Summit wrapped up this week with 'The Copenhagen Call':

• 2009/05/26: CCC: Text of The Copenhagen Call
• 2009/05/26: CCC: Business "Call" Outlines Six Steps for Ambitious Global Climate Treaty
  Global business leaders assembled in Copenhagen at the World Business Summit on Climate Change today issued "The Copenhagen Call," a powerful and concise statement that sets out the elements business believes are required to forge an effective new global climate treaty.
• 2009/05/27: Guardian(UK): Business leaders call for climate policies that are long, loud and legal
  More than 70 CEOs signed the Copenhagen Call, which asks governments to provide a framework to help business become part of the climate change solution
• 2009/05/26: Grist: In Copenhagen, it's the same old business
  If Al Gore and Ban Ki-moon weren't able to get the job done, you might have thought Cate Blanchett would saved the day. But even an impassioned and remarkably erudite speech by the Oscar-winning actress failed this week to persuade world business leaders to go beyond mere rhetoric in pushing for action on climate change.
• 2009/05/27: TreeHugger: Blanchett to Corporations: Time to Change Climate Change
• 2009/05/26: EurActiv: Industry calls for funding to cut CO2 emissions
• 2009/05/26: KSJT: Lots of Ink: To blunt climate change world biz CEOs say cap and trade is the way
• 2009/05/26: PhysOrg: Global CEOs back greenhouse gas cuts, carbon caps
• 2009/05/25: ENS: World Business Leaders Hear Catastrophic Climate Warnings
• 2009/05/26: TreeHugger: Business Leaders Make "The Copenhagen Call", List What Business Can Do to Prevent Climate Change
• 2009/05/26: EarthTimes: Business leaders call for emission reductions at climate meeting
• 2009/05/24: UN: Ban challenges business leaders to create 'cleaner, greener' global economy
• 2009/05/26: ABC(Au): Blanchett urges business to act on climate change
  Oscar-winning Australian actress and environmental campaigner Cate Blanchett has urged some of the world's biggest business leaders to act now on carbon emissions to save the planet.
• 2009/05/25: PhysOrg: Study says businesses can create clean energy jobs
• 2009/05/25: Grist: [text] Ban Ki-moon's speech at World Business Summit on Climate Change
• 2009/05/24: Yahoo: U.N.'s Ban urges business to back climate policies
• 2009/05/25: EarthTimes: [EU Commission President Jose Manuel] Barroso: Public and private sector needed to tackle climate change
• 2009/05/25: Eureka: Groundbreaking proposals unveiled for the inclusion of climate change data in annual reports -- Climate Disclosure Standards Board launches new framework at World Business Summit
• 2009/05/25: CBC: Businesses can create clean energy jobs, study says
  Hoping to create a global carbon market, the organizers of a world business summit on climate change said Monday that two million new jobs would be created in the U.S. alone if it increased its reliance on cleaner sources of energy. The Copenhagen Climate Council study said the U.S. would gain that many jobs if its electricity use grew by just half of one per cent a year and a quarter of its electricity came from wind energy and other renewable sources. EU Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso told the CEOs of major international corporations meeting in Copenhagen that similar investments could produce a million new jobs in European Union countries. "Change also brings big economic opportunities," he said. The predictions came at a global business summit where corporate leaders are focusing on how to help politicians negotiate a new global climate treaty to succeed the Kyoto treaty that expires in 2012.
• 2009/05/24: Guardian(UK): Climate change summit hijacked by biggest polluters, critics claim
  Shell could help shape post-Kyoto agenda -- Majority of attending firms want 'business as usual' A vital meeting in Copenhagen this weekend that will help shape the agenda for the most important climate change talks since the Kyoto protocol has been hijacked by some of the biggest polluters in the world, critics claimed today. Among those attending the World ÂBusiness Summit on Climate Change is Shell, which has just been named by environmentalists on the basis of new research as "the most carbon-intensive oil company in the world". There is concern that the big energy companies will be pushing carbon capture and storage (CCS) as a way of keeping the oil-based economy running.

G8 energy ministers had a meeting:

• 2009/05/25: TerraDaily: G8 energy ministers vow backing for UN climate summit
• 2009/05/25: Grist: G8 energy ministers vow backing for UN climate summit

  And then there was the billionaire's club:

• 2009/05/24: Times(UK): Billionaire club in bid to curb overpopulation
  America's richest people meet to discuss ways of tackling a 'disastrous' environmental, social and industrial threat

The Arctic melt continues to garner a lot of attention:

• 2009/05/29: MGS: Sea Ice Odds
• 2009/05/29: KSJT: Anchorage Daily News, Fairbanks D. Miner, etc: A new icebreaking stimulus RV ship, and (lots more ink) a reason why: natural gas reserves and the coming Arctic melee
• 2009/05/28: CCP: NOAA: 2008 Arctic Report Card
• 2009/05/26: PhysOrg: Spring agricultural fires have large impact on melting Arctic
  Scientists from around the world will convene at the University of New Hampshire June 2-5, 2009, to discuss key findings from the most ambitious effort ever undertaken to measure "short-lived" airborne pollutants in the Arctic and determine how they contribute in the near term to the dramatic changes underway in the vast, climate-sensitive region.
• 2009/05/26: Eureka: Spring agricultural fires have large impact on melting Arctic

  As for the geopolitics of Arctic resources:

• 2009/05/29: BBC: The Arctic's oil reserves mapped
  An estimated 30% of the world's undiscovered gas and 13% of its undiscovered oil may be in the Arctic, according to a map published on Friday. The map is the culmination of an assessment carried out by the US Geological Survey (USGS). Writing in the journal Science, its authors say the findings are "important to the interests of Arctic countries". But, they add, they are unlikely to substantially shift the geographic pattern of world oil production. According to the new map, the majority of oil is likely to be found underwater, on continental shelves.
• 2009/05/29: ENN: Arctic May Boost Oil and Gas Reserves
• 2009/05/29: Yahoo: Natural gas in the Arctic is mostly Russian
  Nearly one-third of the natural gas yet to be discovered in the world is north of the Arctic Circle and most of it is in Russian territory, according to a new analysis led by researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey.
• 2009/05/28: CBC: Energy reserves north of Arctic Circle mapped in detail for first time
  Roughly one-third of the world's gas reserves and 13 per cent of its oil reserves lie north of the Arctic Circle, estimate U.S. Geological Survey researchers who suggest most of the gas is in Russian territory. Russia could benefit from increasing its existing gas reserves, currently the biggest in the world. But the oil estimate is small, compared with known reserves in major petroleum-exporting countries, and is unlikely to shift trade patterns greatly, the researchers say. Discoveries of oil and gas in general could still have economic significance to Arctic nations, such as Canada, the U.S., Denmark/Greenland, Norway and Russia.
• 2009/05/29: Guardian(UK): New survey of Arctic's mineral riches could stoke international strife -- Region could contain 30% of the world's gas reserves
• 2009/05/28: CNN: Survey: Arctic may hold twice the oil previously found there
  The Arctic could hold almost double the amount of oil previously found in the region - U.S. Geological Survey did the first-ever broad assessment of the region's reserves - Arctic may be home to 30 percent of the planet's undiscovered natural gas reserves - Conservationists say oil and gas extraction could have dire effects on the ecosystem
• 2009/05/28: NatureN: Arctic's black gold mapped -- Geological survey quantifies undiscovered gas and oil.
• 2009/05/28: SciNow: Arctic May Boost Oil and Gas Reserves
• 2009/05/28: Eureka: Unstated assumptions color Arctic sovereignty claims -- Parties need to understand each other's assumptions if issues are to be resolved
• 2009/05/28: G&M: Arctic contains 13 per cent of remaining oil
• 2009/05/25: G&M: Canada pushes past North Pole in Arctic survey
  Mapping flights enter territory claimed by Russia as part of a high-stakes drive by several countries to establish clear title to the polar region and its seabed riches
• 2009/05/24: CBC: Canada's aerial mapping goes into Arctic areas claimed by Russia

  While in Antarctica:

• 2009/05/26: ENN: Is Antarctica Cooling After All?

  The Global Humanitarian Forum released a report this week that startled some:

• 2009/05/30: JEB: Annan: Climate change causes 300,000 deaths a year
• 2009/05/29: FTimes: Climate change study counts high human toll
• 2009/05/29: Guardian(UK): Global warming causes 300,000 deaths a year, says Kofi Annan thinktank
• 2009/05/29: Guardian(UK): Annan and humanitarians [GHF] have woken up to climate crisis - so let's stop talking about the polar bear
• 2009/05/29: CNN: Report: Climate change crisis 'catastrophic'
  Report says 300 million vulnerable to climate change, number set to double - Developing countries expected to suffer worst affects as temperatures rise - 300,000 lives are lost each year due to malnutrition, diarrhea and malaria - Kofi Annan: "Climate change is not something waiting to happen"
• 2009/05/29: EarthTimes: Climate change claims 300,000 lives a year, [GHF] report warns
• 2009/05/29: NewScientist: Climate change could kill 500,000 a year by 2030
• 2009/05/29: TreeHugger: 500,000 People Will Die Every Year Because of Climate Change by 2030: New Report Projects Human Cost of Inaction
• 2009/05/28: Forexyard: Climate change causes 315,000 deaths a year-report
  Climate change kills about 315,000 people a year through hunger, sickness and weather disasters, and the annual death toll is expected to rise to half a million by 2030, a report said on Friday. The study, commissioned by the Geneva-based Global Humanitarian Forum (GHF), estimates that climate change seriously affects 325 million people every year, a number that will more than double in 20 years to 10 percent of the world's population (now about 6.7 billion). Economic losses due to global warming amount to over $125 billion annually -- more than the flow of aid from rich to poor nations -- and are expected to rise to $340 billion each year by 2030, according to the report.

A Climate Gap report outlines the impacts of climate disruption on Americans:

• 2009/05/: PERE: [links to multiple pdfs] The Climate Gap: Inequalities in How Climate Change Hurts Americans & How to Close the Gap by Rachel Morello Frosch, Manuel Pastor, and Jim Sadd
• 2009/05/29: WorldChanging: Closing The "Climate Gap"
• 2009/05/29: SciAm: Climate Change Hits Poor Hardest in U.S. -- A new study finds that the poor will be disproportionally affected by global warming, even in the U.S
• 2009/05/29: TDC: Climate change hitting poor in U.S. hardest

  Damocles Sword is back in all its carboniferous glory:

• 2009/05/28: NatureCF: Greening vs. Gassing in the Arctic
• 2009/05/28: NatureCF: Perestroika and permafrost
• 2009/05/28: KSJT: Wires, Scientific American: Permafrost's warming won't likely emit much carbon - at first. And then, gangbusters.
• 2009/05/27: TerraDaily: Permafrost melt poses long-term threat, says study
• 2009/05/28: TreeHugger: Melting Permafrost Greenhouse Gas Emissions Held at Bay by New Plant Growth, For a Little While
• 2009/05/28: JI: Study cites 'slow-motion' threat from permafrost
• 2009/05/28: CCP: E.A.G. Schuur et al., Nature 459 (May 27, 2009):The effect of permafrost thaw on old carbon release and net carbon exchange from tundra
• 2009/05/28: CCP: Nature: Arctic thaw could prompt huge release of carbon dioxide
• 2009/05/28: CCP: Ted Schuur, NSF: Thawing permafrost will contribute significantly to atmospheric CO2, methane
• 2009/05/27: NatureN: Arctic thaw could prompt huge release of carbon dioxide
  Thawing Arctic soils could release a billion tonnes of carbon every year by the end of this century, new evidence from test plots in Alaska suggests.
• 2009/05/27: Eureka: Biologists: Greening Arctic not likely to offset permafrost carbon release
• 2009/05/25: PlanetArk: Arctic Methane Rise Spurs Worry On Permafrost Thaw

  The Solar cycle:

• 2009/05/29: NASA: New Solar Cycle Prediction
• 2009/05/27: PhysOrg: New Solar Cycle Prediction: Fewer Sunspots, But Not Necessarily Less Activity
• 2009/05/22: SciAm: Solar Forecasts and Climate Change -- What is the link between solar activity and global warming?

  Late comment on that 6 Americas poll:

• 2009/05/24: DeSmogBlog: A Question of Framing

  Late comment on that dire MIT study:

• 2009/05/29: CSW: MIT modeling study doubles earlier projected warming, poses challenge for impacts research
• 2009/05/25: DeSmogBlog: MIT Researchers Unveil Climate Roulette Wheel
• 2009/05/25: WaPo: MIT Model Predicts Accelerating Warming Trends
  If an unusually detailed computer simulation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has it right, global warming in this century is on track to be about twice as bad as predicted six years ago. The MIT model is said to be the only one that incorporates among its variables possible changes in economic growth and other human activities and draws on peer-reviewed science on the climatic effects of atmospheric, oceanic and biological systems. After running the model 400 times with slight variations in the inputs, the new predictions are for surface temperatures to warm by 6.3 to 13.3 degrees Fahrenheit. The prediction is for a 9.4-degree increase in the median temperature, more than double the 4.3 degrees predicted in a 2003 simulation.

The food crisis is ongoing:

• 2009/05/25: FAO: Land acquisitions in Africa pose risks for poor
• 2009/05/23: Yankton: Collateral Damage And Response To The Food Crisis: It Wasn't Supposed To Be This Way
• 2009/05/28: UN: Current global crises deepening hunger worldwide, warns UN agency
• 2009/05/28: Guardian(UK): Aid famine -- World Food Programme
  The World Food Programme, the leading agency in dealing with famine and humanitarian disasters, is facing a crisis of its own. It has only got one-fifth of the money it needs to fund this year's programme. But the demand for its food is higher than ever. The WFP expects to feed 105 million people this year alone.
• 2009/05/26: MongaBay: Rich countries buy up agricultural land in poor countries
• 2009/05/15: NatGeo: The Global Food Crisis -- The End of Plenty

  And how are we going to feed 9 billion?

• 2009/05/29: PlanetArk: Slow U.S. Planting Could Tighten Corn Stocks Forecast
• 2009/05/28: Guardian(UK): Digging for victory
  Climate change, claim 'transition town' activists, may leave us no choice but to return to growing our own food
• 2009/05/27: PhysOrg: New discovery could help feed millions [mouseopause chemical]
• 2009/05/27: MetroTimes: Food fighters -- Taking control of our food supply, from the kitchen garden to the community
• 2009/05/25: GristMill: What the financial collapse can teach us about the food system
• 2009/05/23: TN: The future of food: daunting, but doable -- Mountainfilm symposium speakers tackle tough issues around food

  That unnamed storm became Cyclone Aila and smashed into India and Bangladesh:

• 2009/05/29: CBC: Cyclone Aila death toll rises to 264 -- More than 500,000 left homeless by storm that battered India, Bangladesh
• 2009/05/28: EarthTimes: India cyclone [Aila] death toll reaches 100, situation grim
• 2009/05/27: UN: UN providing technical support following South Asian cyclone
• 2009/05/26: UN: UN relief chief saddened by deaths due to cyclone in Bangladesh, India
• 2009/05/27: Wunderground: Disturbance 91L spins towards Cape Hatteras; Cyclone Aila toll at 180
• 2009/05/27: EarthTimes: Death toll in cyclone [Aila] rises further to 113 in Bangladesh
• 2009/05/27: NYT: Cyclone Aila Kills 191 in South Asia
• 2009/05/27: WaPo: Millions displaced by cyclone in India, Bangladesh
• 2009/05/27: BBC: 'Over 200 killed' by Cyclone Aila
  More than 200 people have now been killed by Cyclone Aila which hit Bangladesh and the eastern Indian state of West Bengal, relief officials say. They say that at least 500,000 people have been made homeless by the storm. The situation is particularly grim in the Sundarbans, the mangrove forest and home of rare Bengal tigers, where thousands are stranded by flood waters. Soldiers and border guards have joined relief efforts, but they are yet to reach some of the devastated areas.
• 2009/05/27: CBC: Cyclone Aila death toll rises to 191 in India, Bangladesh
• 2009/05/26: CBC: Cyclone Aila death toll reaches 115 in eastern India, Bangladesh
• 2009/05/26: Wunderground: Cyclone Aila kills at least 120 in India, Bangaldesh; 91L forms [near North Carolina]
• 2009/05/26: EarthTimes: Death toll from cyclone [Aila] rises to 91 in Bangladesh
• 2009/05/26: EarthTimes: Toll from cyclone [Aila] rises to at least 63 in Bangladesh, India
• 2009/05/26: EarthTimes: Death toll from cyclone [Aila] rises to at least 58 in Bangladesh, India
• 2009/05/25: PlanetArk: Bangladesh Warns Of Storm In Bay of Bengal
• 2009/05/25: EarthTimes: Nineteen killed as cyclone [Aila] hits India's West Bengal state
• 2009/05/25: EarthTimes: Bangladesh sounds alert over cyclone 'Aila' in the Bay of Bengal
• 2009/05/25: EarthTimes: Two killed as cyclonic storm heads towards India's eastern coast
• 2009/05/25: CBC: Cyclone Aila lashes eastern India, Bangladesh

  While elsewhere in the hurricane wars:

• 2009/05/30: FAO: Helping Myanmar after Nargis
• 2009/05/28: CNN: Season's first tropical depression forms off Atlantic coast
  Tropical Depression One not expected to threaten land, forecasters say - Depression moving away from U.S. coast; officials think it'll become tropical storm - But storm is expected to weaken or dissipate over colder waters by Saturday - Atlantic hurricane season begins Monday; NOAA says 4 to 7 hurricanes likely
• 2009/05/28: UN: Myanmar cyclone victims to benefit from UN-Italian plan to boost livelihoods
• 2009/05/28: PhysOrg: Season's first tropical depression forms in Atlantic
• 2009/05/28: CSW: It's Hurricane Preparedness Week...Are we prepared?
• 2009/05/27: TerraDaily: Japan funds Philippines' typhoon alert upgrade
• 2009/05/28: Wunderground: Season's first tropical depression forms
• 2009/05/27: RigZone: NOAA Hurricane Forecast Consistent With CSU Projections
• 2009/05/26: ClimateP: Why future Katrinas and Gustavs will be MUCH worse at landfall, Part 2
• 2009/05/25: ClimateP: Why global warming means killer storms worse than Katrina and Gustav, Part 1
• 2009/05/27: CCDB: Names of three '08 hurricanes retired; new names selected -- Four retired from 2004
• 2009/05/26: Eureka: Fast and cheap forecasting system for Mediterranean cyclones

  As for GHGs:

• 2009/05/29: EUO: EU registers drop in CO2 emissions
• 2009/05/29: EarthTimes: EU emissions falling towards Kyoto target, [EU Environmental] agency says
• 2009/05/28: PlanetArk: World CO2 Up 39 Percent By 2030 Without New Policy: EIA
• 2009/05/27: TreeHugger: 39% Increase in CO2 by 2030: Latest Grim Business-as-Usual Emissions Projection
• 2009/05/27: EarthTimes: EIA: Global carbon emissions to jump 40 per cent by 2030
• 2009/05/27: EarthTimes: Global carbon emissions to jump 40 per cent by 2030 without action
• 2009/05/25: ENN: 2008 U.S. Fossil Fuel CO2 Emissions See Biggest Drop in Nearly 30 Years

  And the carbon cycle:

• 2009/05/28: PhysOrg: All the carbon counts
• 2009/05/28: Eureka: All the carbon counts -- Including land-based carbon in greenhouse gas control strategies lowers costs and preserves forests

  While in the paleoclimate:

• 2009/05/28: TerraDaily: Microfossils Challenge Prevailing Views Of The Effects Of Snowball Earth
• 2009/05/26: SciDaily: Climate History Of Arctic Illuminated By Study Of 3.6-Million-Year-Old Meteorite Impact Crater In Siberia

  While on the ENSO front:

• 2009/05/29: Wunderground: El Niño chances rising for hurricane season

  Sea levels are rising:

• 2009/05/28: ENN: Water from Melting Greenland Ice Sheath May Impact Northeast US Coast
• 2009/05/27: NSF: Sea-level Rise May Pose Greatest Threat to Northeast U.S., Canada
• 2009/05/27: Eureka: Sea-level rise may pose greatest threat to Northeast US, Canada -- Sea levels off northeast coast of North America may rise by 12-20 inches more than other coastal areas
• 2009/05/27: UCAR: Melting Greenland Ice Sheets May Threaten Northeast United States, Canada

  Meanwhile in near earth orbit:

• 2009/05/29: SciDaily: Satellites Observe Amazon Basin Water Storage And Runoff
• 2009/05/28: Eureka: NASA satellite detects red glow to map global ocean plant health
• 2009/05/28: NASA: Eerie Red Glow Traces Ocean Plant Health
• 2009/05/29: CBC: Satellite survey of phytoplankton fluorescence measures ocean health
  Scientists have figured out how to measure the red glow emitted by marine phytoplankton, giving them an important new tool for assessing the ocean's health. Weekly planet-wide satellite measurements of the organisms' fluorescence will be critical in evaluating the effect on marine life of global warming, climate change, desertification and other changes, the researchers say.
• 2009/05/28: NOAANews: NOAA Announces New Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites
• 2009/05/26: Eureka: NASA uses satellite to unearth innovation in crop forecasting
  Soil moisture is essential for seeds to germinate and for crops to grow. But record droughts and scorching temperatures in certain parts of the globe in recent years have caused soil to dry up, crippling crop production. The falling food supply in some regions has forced prices upward, pushing staple foods out of reach for millions of poor people. NASA researchers are using satellite data to deliver a kind of space-based humanitarian assistance. They are cultivating the most accurate estimates of soil moisture -- the main determinant of crop yield changes -- and improving global forecasts of how well food will grow at a time when the world is confronting shortages.
• 2009/05/26: PhysOrg: GOCE satellite achieves drag-free perfection
  GOCE orbit is so low that it experiences drag from the outer edges of Earth's atmosphere. [...] ESA's gravity mission GOCE has achieved a first in the history of satellite technology. The sophisticated electric propulsion system has shown that it is able to keep the satellite completely free from drag as it cuts through the remnants of Earth's atmosphere - paving the way for the best gravity data ever.

More GW impacts are being seen:

• 2009/05/30: NewScientist: Starfish defy climate change gloom
• 2009/05/29: DotEarth: Warming and Death
• 2009/05/28: ABC(Au): Rock lobster industry braces for decline
  Tasmania's rock lobster fishermen are bracing for major changes to their industry. Fishermen are meeting in Launceston to discuss ways of coping with the impact of climate change. With record low catches of lock lobster in Victoria and declining catches in South Australia, Tasmanian fishermen fear the problems will soon spread to their waters.
• 2009/05/28: PlanetArk: Climate Health Costs: Bug-Borne Ills, Killer Heat
• 2009/05/28: TreeHugger: Effects of Global Warming: What are They?
• 2009/05/27: PhysOrg: Shellfish face an uncertain future in a high CO2 world
• 2009/05/26: USGS: Jeepers Creepers! Climate Change Threatens Endangered Honeycreepers
• 2009/05/26: TerraDaily: Polar Bear-Climate Connection
• 2009/05/26: EarthTimes: Thick haze forces schools to shut on Indonesia's Sumatra
• 2009/05/25: HuffPo: Appa, Sherpa, Warns Mount Everest Glaciers Melting From Global Warming
• 2009/05/25: ClimateP: Memorial Day, 2029
• 2009/05/25: PhysOrg: Climate change amplifying animal disease
• 2009/05/24: Times(UK): Warming will make Scotland the bread basket of Europe
• 2009/05/25: Grist: Agency [World Animal Health Organization] says climate change amplifying animal disease
• 2009/05/25: BBC: Climate link to mockingbird songs
  Unpredictable weather seems to stimulate chatter among birds - as well as humans - according to researchers. A team of US scientists has found that mockingbirds living in variable climates sing more elaborate songs.

And then there are the world's forests:

• 2009/05/29: TreeHugger: All Unmanaged Forests Gone by 2100, Replaced by Biofuel Crops - If Forest Carbon Emissions Not Included in Climate Change Policy
• 2009/05/29: TreeHugger: Beyond Glaciers: Yosemite's Big Trees Disappear
• 2009/05/29: Reuters: Governor [Teras Narang] says REDD scheme could save Borneo forests
• 2009/05/27: TreeHugger: Ecuador Rainforest Conservation Plan Would Leave 20% of Oil Reserves Untapped
• 2009/05/26: WaPo: In Ecuador, an Unusual Carbon-Credit Plan to Leave Oil Untapped
• 2009/05/26: BBC: Deforestation 'faster in Africa'
  Africa's forests are disappearing faster than those in other parts of the world because of a lack of land ownership, a report says. Less than 2% of Africa's forests are under community control, compared to a third in Latin America and Asia, say the Rights and Resources Initiative. The deforestation rate in Africa is four times the world's average.

As for corals:

• 2009/05/28: PhysOrg: Studies shed light on collapse of coral reefs (w/Video)
• 2009/05/27: KSJT: Irish Times, Independent, Bloomberg: Discovered off Ireland - a huge string of coral reefs

  Climate refugees are becoming an issue:

• 2009/05/29: NYT: Refugees Join List of Climate-Change Issues

  Yes we have no wacky weather, except:

• 2009/05/27: EarthTimes: Storms in Europe kill two, cause damage and travel disruption
• 2009/05/25: Yahoo: Amazon hit by climate chaos of floods, drought

  Meanwhile in tornado alley:

• 2009/05/26: TerraDaily: Purdue Swept Up In Largest Tornado Field Study In History

  Yes, we have heatwaves and wild fires:

• 2009/05/29: CBC: Wildfire in 100 Mile House destroys homes, forces evacuations
• 2009/05/30: CBC: Cooler weather helps fire crews in battling 100 Mile House blaze
• 2009/05/28: WSWS: Australian bushfire royal commission: Survivors expose "stay or go" policy
• 2009/05/27: NatureN: Hot times ahead for the Wild West -- American west threatened by more heatwaves than past models have predicted

  As for disruptions of the hydrological cycle [floods & droughts]:

• 2009/05/30: G&M: Flood of anger
  Worried about drought, Washington State is planning to dam the Similkameen River. Opponents say the project would trigger destructive floods in B.C.
• 2009/05/29: SwissInfo: Climate data offer clues to Dust Bowl drought
  Research by Swiss scientists has moved climatologists closer to understanding the causes behind the Dust Bowl drought that struck the United States in the 1930s.
• 2009/05/28: TerraDaily: Five killed as storms batter northern Vietnam
• 2009/05/28: TerraDaily: Rains break Brazil dam killing four
• 2009/05/28: EarthTimes: Flash floods kill 6 in Vietnam
• 2009/05/26: TerraDaily: Heavy rains displace 10,000, kill 28 in Tajikistan
• 2009/05/26: UN: UN humanitarian wing [OCHA] assisting Tajik flood victims
• 2009/05/26: DM:80B: More Dust Storms = Faster Snowmelt in the Rockies, and Less Water This Summer
• 2009/05/26: AngryBear: Two stories about [California] water use
• 2009/05/26: BBC: Brazil floods displace thousands
  The Brazilian authorities say almost 408,000 people still cannot return home because of floods that began last month in the north of the country. The bad weather is forecast to persist for another fortnight.
• 2009/05/25: PlanetArk: Thousands Evacuate Australian Floods, One Dead
• 2009/05/24: TerraDaily: Australian flood waters create 'inland sea'
• 2009/05/25: TreeHugger: Violence Over Water Already Happening in India

  Elsewhere on the mitigation front:

• 2009/05/24: TreeHugger: Cement Makers, Worldwide, Volunteer 25% Cutback in CO2 Emissions

  Consider transportation & GHG production:

• 2009/05/30: EarthTimes: ADB warns of rising carbon emissions in Asia transport systems
• 2009/05/29: GEA: Rail Traffic Down; Truck Traffic Down; Air Cargo Hoping For A Bottom
• 2009/05/28: CalcRisk: ATA Truck Tonnage Index Declines 2.2 Percent in April
• 2009/05/28: Guardian(UK): Rail industry urges shorter trains off-peak to cut carbon emissions
• 2009/05/26: Telegraph(UK): Virgin Atlantic boss warns no airlines will make money this year

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

• 2009/05/29: AlterNet: Small Is Better: Big Houses Are Out and Downsizing Is In

  As for carbon sequestration:

• 2009/05/29: Reuters: Risk too high for non-state carbon capture -Statoil
  Industry refuses to invest in carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects without strong state support because of a lack of clarity on future emissions rules, Norway's StatoilHydro (STL.OL) said on Friday.
• 2009/05/29: Guardian(UK): Scottish Power tests carbon capture technology
• 2009/05/29: EurActiv: EU, Norway join forces on CO2 capture and storage
  Norway and the EU are stepping up cooperation to commercialise carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology, by handing out at least 140 million euros to European CCS projects and exploring the possibility of storing CO2 in the North Sea.
• 2009/05/29: PlanetArk: Norway Bets On CO2 Capture, Storage Despite Risks
• 2009/05/29: BBC: Carbon capture technology tested
  New carbon capture technology is being tested for the first time in the UK on a working coal-fired power station. A 30-tonne test unit will process 1,000 cubic metres of exhaust gas per hour from Longannet power station in Fife. Carbon dioxide will be removed using chemicals and turned into a liquid, ready for storage underground. Energy company ScottishPower wants to test technology which could lead to a full scale carbon capture plant becoming operational by 2014. The UK government recently gave the go-ahead for a new generation of coal-fired power stations provided they were able to limit their CO2 emissions.
• 2009/05/27: EUO: Norway offers EU 140million euros for carbon capture

  Large scale geo-engineering keeps popping up:

• 2009/05/31: TreeHugger: Global Warming: Technology vs. Choice
• 2009/05/: America's Climate Choices: Request for Written Input on Geoengineering
• 2009/05/26: TerraDaily: US wants to paint the world white to save energy
• 2009/05/26: TreeHugger: White Roofs to Sweep the World, Fight Climate Change

  While on the adaptation front:

• 2009/05/27: TreeHugger: Preparing for the Worst: Adaptation Becoming Crucial Part of Climate Change Plans
• 2009/05/27: Eureka: Lesson from the past for surviving climate change -- Research examines how past communities coped with climate change
• 2009/05/26: NewScientist: Rising sea levels: Survival tips from 5000 BC
• 2009/05/26: Yale360: Adaptation Emerges As Key Part Of Any Climate Change Plan
• 2009/05/25: CBC: Scientists propose helping wildlife relocate due to climate change
• 2009/05/25: PhysOrg: Racing the clock: Rapid climate change forces scientists to evaluate extreme conservation strategies

  Meanwhile in the journals:

• 2009/05/29: ACP: Exploring the differences in cloud properties observed by the Terra and Aqua MODIS Sensors by N. Meskhidze et al.
• 2009/05/29: ACPD: Influence of scintillation on GOMOS ozone retrievals by V. F. Sofieva et al.
• 2009/05/28: ACPD: Variability of residence time in the Tropical Tropopause Layer during Northern Hemisphere winter by K. Krüger et al.
• 2009/05/: PERE: [links to multiple pdfs] The Climate Gap: Inequalities in How Climate Change Hurts Americans & How to Close the Gap by Rachel Morello Frosch, Manuel Pastor, and Jim Sadd
• 2009/05/27: CPD: Last nine-thousand years of temperature variability in Northern Europe by H. Seppä et al.
• 2009/05/25: CPD: Synchronous variations of precipitation and temperature at Lake Qinghai, NE Tibetan Plateau during the past 800 years and their relations to solar activity: evidence from Li/Ca ratios and ?18O values of ostracod shells by Z. Zhu et al.
• 2009/05/29: GRL: Transient response of the MOC and climate to potential melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet in the 21st century by Aixue Hu et al.
• 2009/05/26: TC: Evaluation of the ground surface Enthalpy balance from bedrock temperatures (Livingston Island, Maritime Antarctic) by M. Ramos & Vieira
• 2009/05/26: ACP: An emission inventory of sulfur from anthropogenic sources in Antarctica by S. V. Shirsat & H. F. Graf
• 2009/05/26: PNAS: Selecting global climate models for regional climate change studies by David W. Pierce et al.

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

• 2009/05/31: SciDaily: Probing Clouds' Roles In Global Electric Circuit
• 2009/05/30: JEB: More on multiple constraints
• 2009/05/28: Stoat: Climatologists the next geologists?
• 2009/05/27: ENN: NASA Supercomputers Advance State of the Art of Ocean Circulation Modeling
• 2009/05/26: NewScientist: Space storm caught slamming into Earth's atmosphere
• 2009/05/26: SciDaily: NASA Supercomputing Goes Green: Modeling Earth's Ocean Climate

  Meanwhile on the Kyoto front:

• 2009/05/26: Hindu: Industrialised nations not committing enough at climate talks'
  Industrialised countries are not making greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction commitments "to match the scale of reductions being put on the table" by developing countries, a senior U.N. official has said, as the negotiating text for a crucial climate treaty is put on the table this week. John Ashe, who chairs the ad hoc working group on further commitments for industrialised countries under the Kyoto Protocol, said on Monday: "If you take the individual target proposals tabled by Annexe I countries so far, they don't match the scale of reductions being put on the table by the non-Annexe I Parties."
• 2009/05/25: ABC(Au): Carbon offset arithmetic doesn't add up
  The Clean Development Mechanism has been useful in the first phase of Kyoto but no longer sends the right message, writes Oliver Sartor from the Australian School of Business.

And on the Kyoto-2 front:

• 2009/05/31: ENN: U.S. says rich nations likely to miss carbon targets, but may come close
• 2009/05/31: Independent(UK): Leaders called to special climate talks [at New York in September]
  Unprecedented number of summits as world struggles to hammer out agreement before vital meeting in December
• 2009/05/30: CanWest: Racing beyond Kyoto [K2]
  Each new bit of scientific data makes it clearer that we're running out of time to take action on climate change. So the question is: Are we at the beginning of a global revolution or the beginning of the end?
  It begs a speedy answer. A deadline looms.
• 2009/05/30: EarthTimes: UN climate-change talks in Bonn prepare for post-Kyoto treaty
  Around 3,000 participants from around the world are converging in Bonn for UN climate change talks on Monday, the first in a series of meetings culminating in December to sign off on a replacement to the Kyoto Protocol. At the 12-day gathering in Germany, world governments are to consider an ambitious new draft UN treaty, containing a broad range of options to stem global warming. Three further climate-change meetings are scheduled this year, ahead of the December event in Copenhagen, where the successor to Kyoto is to be formally adopted.
• 2009/05/27: CFO: Deal unlikely to be reached in Copenhagen - survey
• 2009/05/29: Guardian(UK): Copenhagen must create more buyers for carbon markets
• 2009/05/29: PlanetArk: Forest Carbon Offers Cheaper Way To Curb Warming
• 2009/05/29: TreeHugger: All Unmanaged Forests Gone by 2100, Replaced by Biofuel Crops - If Forest Carbon Emissions Not Included in Climate Change Policy
• 2009/05/29: BBC: Climate negotiations are to begin in Bonn with pressure building for the US to deliver deeper emissions cuts
• 2009/05/28: Guardian(UK): The mood at Carbon Expo is upbeat as most expect a deal at Copenhagen
  Speakers urge market makers to be more involved with influencing policy, while law firms, banks and brokers are confident they will make money whatever the outcome
• 2009/05/28: Guardian(UK): A green deal needs everyone's input
  Civil society must work with big business and science to create a global climate change deal -- or risk losing its influence
• 2009/05/27: Guardian(UK): Gossip in the climate conference corridors is where all the action is - until we sign on the dotted line
  US cap and trade will be hot topic at carbon trading conference So much is going on in the climate world at the moment that it's proving hard to keep up. Which is why conferences like Carbon Expo in Barcelona can be so useful. [...] Then next week sees the start of two weeks of UNFCCC negotiations in Bonn. With only a few meetings between now and the Conference of Parties in December, these intercessional meetings have assumed more importance than in previous years.
• 2009/05/27: Guardian(UK): [Nicholas] Stern breaks the east-west deadlock on who's responsible for CO2
  China says it's unfair that the west 'outsources' emissions. Now that Lord Stern has said responsibility should be split between producers and consumers, other countries may follow suit
• 2009/05/27: PlanetArk: Maersk CEO Wants Climate Deal For Shippers
• 2009/05/26: Reuters: China flexible on rich nations' greenhouse gas cuts
• 2009/05/26: EarthTimes: German [Environment] minister [Sigmar Gabriel]: Copenhagen climate summit heading for disaster
• 2009/05/26: Reuters: China flexible on rich nations' greenhouse gas cuts
• 2009/05/24: TerraDaily: US won't speed up emissions cuts: top climate negotiator
  Domestic politics will not allow the United States to deepen it commitment for cutting carbon pollution over the next decade despite growing international pressure, Washington's top climate negotiator said Sunday "We are jumping as high as the political system will tolerate," Todd Stern said, rejecting China's call this week for rich nations to slash greenhouse gases by 40 percent before 2020, compared to 1990 levels. "The 40 percent the Chinese have talked about is not realistic," the US Special Envoy for Climate Change told AFP on the eve of a two-day climate meeting of ministers from the world's most powerful economies.
• 2009/05/25: Yahoo: France, Germany urge more flexible climate pact

  While at the UN:

• 2009/05/27: Reuters: U.N.'s Ban says climate change pace "alarming"

  And on the carbon trading front:

• 2009/05/27: CFO: Carbon market doubled in value in 2008 -- World Bank
• 2009/05/28: Reuters: Emissions traders expect U.S. carbon market soon
• 2009/05/28: EurActiv: World Bank: Global carbon market doubled in 2008
• 2009/05/28: PlanetArk: [Copenhagen] Climate Deal Uncertainty Clouds Carbon Market: Survey
• 2009/05/27: BBerg: Recession May Create CO2-Credit Oversupply, [World] Bank Says

  The idea of a carbon tax is still bouncing around:

• 2009/05/28: Economist: A green revolution -- Saving the world will not be cheap
  The best way to curb global warming would be a carbon tax. The money raised could be divided up among citizens or used to repay the national debt. A tax on carbon dioxide (CO2) would give everyone an incentive to emit less of it. It would be simple, direct and transparent. For these reasons, it will never happen in America.

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

• 2009/05/28: Guardian(UK): Carbon trading and cash values on forests cannot curb carbon emissions
  Climate change solutions cannot be created by unfettered markets, despite what business leaders think
• 2009/05/26: Grist: Cap & trade: Carbon tax or wealth transfer?

  Meanwhile on the international political front:

• 2009/05/29: PlanetArk: EU States Seen Backing Duties On [subsidized] U.S. Biodiesel
• 2009/05/25: PlanetArk: S.Korea To Tackle EU On Trade Pact, Climate Talks

  Nancy and friends went to China:

• 2009/05/29: NYT: Hope, but No Advances, in China-U.S. Climate Talks
  Five days of talks aimed at bringing China and the United States closer together on the issue of climate change did not yield substantial progress, according to a Congressional delegation that met with environmental officials and the country's top leaders this week. During a news conference on Thursday night, Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of House, said she was 'hopeful' after meeting with a number of officials, including President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao. But Representative F. James Sensenbrenner, a Wisconsin Republican who took part, said he was discouraged by the Chinese refusal to commit to greater cuts in greenhouse gases while insisting that developed nations do more to reduce their emissions.
• 2009/05/28: Guardian(UK): John Kerry hails progress of US-China climate talks
  Kerry's comments mark a further sweetening of the mood music between the US and China, which together account for almost half of the world's greenhouse gas emissions
• 2009/05/28: Grist: Nancy goes to China -- Congressional leaders head to China to make nice on climate
• 2009/05/28: NYT: In China, Pelosi Calls for Cooperation on Climate
• 2009/05/27: TerraDaily: China ready to cooperate with US on climate change: report
  China is ready to strengthen its cooperation with the United States to combat climate change, Premier Wen Jiabao told US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday, state media reported.
• 2009/05/27: Xinhuanet: U.S. Senator [John Kerry] vows closer cooperation with China for fruitful Copenhagen meeting
• 2009/05/26: WSJ:EnvCap: Pelosi: Climate Threat 'Game-Changing' For U.S.-China Relations
• 2009/05/25: TerraDaily: US Speaker Pelosi tours China's financial hub
• 2009/05/26: Yahoo: Pelosi says climate change could change U.S.-China game
• 2009/05/25: PlanetArk: US Speaker Pelosi Going To China For Climate Talks

  And on the American political front:

• 2009/05/30: FTimes:WB: The browning of America
• 2009/05/30: AlterNet: From Watchdog to Lapdog: An Insider's History of the EPA
• 2009/05/29: AutoBG: California still wants EPA waiver to set emissions standards until 2012
• 2009/05/28: GreenGrok: The Beach Boys Redux: Muscle Cars and National Security [US energy pol]
• 2009/05/27: AlaskaDispatch: Palin stands alone on a shrinking island
• 2009/05/27: SolveClimate: Florida Renewable Energy Plan a Job and Economy Juggernaut
• 2009/05/27: MiamiHerald: Florida's plan for renewables was a lot of wasted energy -- A renewable-energy bill passed the Senate but died in the House.
• 2009/05/27: SolveClimate: Subsidies Worth Billions at Stake in Battle Over Biofuel Rules
• 2009/05/26: SeattlePI: Govt announces money for green jobs and training
  Vice President Joe Biden and two Cabinet secretaries unveiled a national program Tuesday to train workers for "green jobs" that will make public housing more energy-efficient.

The Obama chatter is nonstop:

• 2009/05/30: EnergyBulletin: Obama tackles the liquid fuels problem
• 2009/05/30: ClimateP: Has Obama saved Detroit from itself -- or is that simply impossible?
• 2009/05/29: Guardian(UK): Greenpeace USA's Phil Radford: 'Obama could have been a hero'
  The new executive director of Greenpeace USA talks to Bibi van der Zee about his new role and why he sees little sign of change coming from the White House
• 2009/05/29: PeakEnergy: Obama touts solar power to break U.S. oil addiction
• 2009/05/27: TreeHugger: Is Obama Playing God With the American Electric Car?
• 2009/05/27: NEN: Can Obama hold together a new energy coalition?
• 2009/05/25: PlanetArk: Analysis - Obama Team Walks A Tightrope On Climate Change

  The actions of the Obama administration are being watched closely:

• 05/29: Times(UK): The man who could change the world
  America has been slow to respond to climate change, but its new Secretary of Energy, Nobel prizewinner Steven Chu, is determined to make up for lost time. He calls on fellow scientists to step up to the plate
• 2009/05/29: NatureTGB: End of the roads
  The US Forest Service (USFS) must halt road-building in 58 million acres of national forest for one year, according to a directive issued yesterday by the US agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack. The move is a reversal of a Bush-era environmental policy, which in turn undermined a rule Clinton instated late in his presidential term.
• 2009/05/28: STimes: EPA chief [Lisa Jackson]: US should take lead on clean energy
• 2009/05/27: WorldChanging: US Unveils $4bn Plan To Upgrade Public Housing As Part Of Green Jobs Project
• 2009/05/28: TreeHugger: $467 Million in Stimulus Money Released for Solar Power & Geothermal
• 2009/05/27: ClimateP: Energy Secretary Chu: Paint roofs white to fight global warming
• 2009/05/27: FTimes: Chu aims to seize climate initiative
  The US remains determined to lead the world to a new global deal on climate change, Steven Chu, the energy secretary, said yesterday. Even if China and other developing countries are reluctant to make commitments at December's UN climate change conference in Copenhagen, "President Obama has made it clear that the US should act first," Mr Chu said. "Using China as a reason not to act is no longer an option."
• 2009/05/27: WSJ:EnvCap: Steven Chu: White Roofs to Fight Global Warming
• 2009/05/26: Reuters: Too much emphasis on emission targets: Chu
• 2009/05/26: NOAANews: NOAA Opens Public Comment on Potential Arctic Fishing Plan
• 2009/05/25: HuffPo: DoE's Chu Wants to Gut Long-Term/Long-Range Fuel Cell Vehicles Program in Favor of Short-Term/Short-Range Plug-In Hybrids
• 2009/05/25: NEN: The political reality that slows the climate change fight
  Summary: Secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Steven Chu told the BBC News that U.S. efforts to establish a greenhouse gas emissions (GhGs) reductions program will be compromised by the Obama administration's political opponents. [...] To avoid what Secretary Chu told the BBC is a rapidly approaching climate change tipping point, at which it will become impossible to reverse the changes and become necessary to adapt to them, it is urgent for the U.S. to begin cutting its emissions. Because of an adamant political opposition, it has been necessary for the Obama administration to accept the need for compromise and environmentalists must accept this political reality as well.

As for what is going on in Congress:

• 2009/05/30: AmericaBlog: GOP: Let's ignore the environment and be very afraid
• 2009/05/27: TP:WonkRoom: Brown Dogs Poised To Block Green Economy Legislation
• 2009/05/28: AzStarNet: Key senator [Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn)] calls for 100 new reactors in 20 years
• 2009/05/28: WSJ:EnvCap: Going Nuclear: Senate Republicans Push for Huge Nuclear-Power Build
• 2009/05/26: GreenGrok: And Here's to You, Mrs. Mary Bono Mack [Rep. Mary Bono Mack (R-CA)] [W-M]

  The debate over Waxman-Markey is hot and heavy:

• 2009/05/29: NatureCF: US Congress and climate: sausage-making begins
• 2009/05/30: PhysOrg: GOP attacks Democrats for climate proposal
• 2009/05/30: StarTrib: Republicans dismiss Democrats' climate change plan as `classic example of unwise government'
• 2009/05/29: TP:WonkRoom: How To Make Waxman-Markey A Better Clean Energy Jobs Bill: Strengthen The Renewable Electricity Standard
• 2009/05/29: WSJ:EnvCap: HSBC: Down on Waxman-Markey Climate Bill
• 2009/05/28: TP:WonkRoom: Waxman-Markey Makes It Easier To Engage China On Climate Negotiations, Not Harder
• 2009/05/28: ClimateP: Robert Stavins: "The appropriate characterization of the Waxman-Markey allocation is that more than 80% of the value of allowances go to consumers and public purposes, and less than 20% to private industry."
• 2009/05/27: ClimateP: Do the 2 billion offsets allowed in Waxman-Markey gut the emissions targets? Part 1
• 2009/05/28: Grist: The wonderful politics of cap-and-trade: A closer look at Waxman-Markey
• 2009/05/28: SolveClimate: ACES Low for the Solar Industry?
• 2009/05/27: BelferCentre: The Wonderful Politics of Cap-and-Trade: A Closer Look at Waxman-Markey
• 2009/05/27: Guardian(UK): The climate change debate is not a simple battle of good and evil
  These issues are more complicated than some would have us believe, says Thomas Crowley
• 2009/05/27: ClimateP: Preventing windfalls for polluters but preserving prices -- Waxman-Markey gets it right with its allocations to regulated utilities
• 2009/05/26: ClimateP: Salt Lake Tribune: Jim Matheson (D-UT) "picked political expediency over science" voting against climate bill and thus "failed Utah and the country"
• 2009/05/27: HillHeat: The Carbon Nine Determine Waxman-Markey's Fate
• 2009/05/27: HillHeat: House Chatter about Waxman-Markey
• 2009/05/27: CSW: "Confidential" GOP memo on blocking cap-and-trade bill assumes lack of focus on cost of inaction
• 2009/05/27: TreeHugger: Could Cap and Trade Cause the US to Emit More Greenhouse Gases?
• 2009/05/27: NYT:CW: Energy and Commerce 'emissaries' a key to House floor success for climate plan
• 2009/05/26: Grist: Deforestation in Waxman-Markey
• 2009/05/26: WaPo: Caps, Trades and Offsets: Can Climate Plan Work? Lawmakers, Scientists and Industry Debate House Measure
• 2009/05/25: PlanetArk: Analysis - Agriculture Poses Rough Road For Climate Bill
• 2009/05/23: Grist: Trapped in a slamming Overton Window -- Mainstream environmentalists' enthusiasm for Waxman-Markey ensures it will get worse
• 2009/05/25: MTobis: Waxman-Markey Counterproductive?

  While in the UK:

• 2009/05/31: Guardian(UK): Why six Britons went to eco war
  When six activists, protesting against climate pollution, scaled a tower at a coal-fired power station in 2007 the resulting court case drew support from the world's leading scientists. Their subsequent acquittal proved historic and changed government policy. Here, the 'Kingsnorth Six' tell their story
• 2009/05/31: Guardian(UK): A triumph for legitimate protest
• 2009/05/28: TreeHugger: UK Wind Energy Controversy Continues
• 2009/05/26: Guardian(UK): NHS leads world on strategy to cut carbon emissions
  Carbon neutral hospitals, greener transportation of goods and services and meat-free menus praised in World Health Organisation report
• 2009/05/24: Guardian(UK): Ed Miliband goes in for climate masochism -- UK climate change minister continues his self flagellation strategy at the Hay Festival

  And in Europe:

• 2009/05/29: Reuters: Risk too high for non-state carbon capture -Statoil
  Industry refuses to invest in carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects without strong state support because of a lack of clarity on future emissions rules, Norway's StatoilHydro (STL.OL) said on Friday.
• 2009/05/28: EurActiv: EU reconsiders green laws to shore up industry
  Sectors affected by the ongoing recession -- including cars and the chemical industry -- will be offered specific treatment under a revised industrial policy to be agreed by EU ministers today (28 May).
• 2009/05/28: EUO: Energy policy is EU's 'big failure' of past 50 years
  Europe's energy policy in the past 50 years has been one of its biggest failures, but the bloc's increased dependency on Russia is pressuring member states to adopt a common strategy, the EU's ambassador to Washington, John Bruton, has said.
• 2009/05/28: NatureTGB: Claude Allègre back in French government?
• 2009/05/28: TreeHugger: Finally! Norwegians Take to the Streets for Electric Cars (and Get Electric Car Sharing!)
• 2009/05/27: FTimes: Sarkozy in climate row over reshuffle
  President Nicolas Sarkozy's desire to appoint an outspoken climate-change sceptic to a new French super-ministry of industry and innovation has drawn strong protests from party colleagues and environmentalists. Claude Allègre argues that global warming is not necessarily caused by human activity. Putting him in charge of scientific research would be tantamount to "giving the finger to scientists", said Nicolas Hulot, France's best-known environmental activist.
• 2009/05/27: PlanetArk: Wind Farm Opponents Want European Moratorium
• 2009/05/26: EurActiv: Commission faces revolt over 'carbon leakage' plans
  European big business and environmental NGOs have disputed the data used by the European Commission to assess whether polluting industries are likely to suffer from foreign competition as a result of Europe's climate change legislation.

Meanwhile in Australia:

• 2009/05/31: ABC(Au): Govt 'determined' to pass emissions trading laws
  Climate Change Minister Penny Wong says she is still hopeful of convincing crossbench senators to support the Government's emissions trading scheme. The Government wants to get the scheme through Parliament next month, but does not have the support of the Coalition or the Greens and independents. Ms Wong will not say how much she is willing to change the scheme to get it through.
• 2009/05/27: GWWatch: Turnbull hands Rudd ETS early election trigger -- Chk Chk Boom
• 2009/05/29: ABC(Au): Wong concedes climate target error
  The Federal Government has admitted that a crucial mistake was made in announcing its new carbon emission reduction targets. A press release stated the Government aimed to have the international community agree to a 25 per cent reduction target to stabilise carbon levels to 450 parts per million by mid-century. But Greens Senator Bob Brown says stabilising carbon levels at 450 parts per million may not be possible until the middle of next century. Climate Change Minister Penny Wong has told a Senate committee that including a timeline was a mistake.
• 2009/05/27: ABC(Au): Delaying the Government's carbon trading scheme will jeopardise billions of dollars of assistance to vulnerable industries, Climate Change Parliamentary Secretary Greg Combet has warned
• 2009/05/27: ABC(Au): Renewable energy projects 'at risk' without transmission line
  The Western Australia Opposition says the Mid West Development Commission has acknowledged several renewable energy projects planned for the region are at risk. The State Government has deferred plans to build a 330 volt transmission line from Pinjar, north of Perth, to Geraldton because of cost blow-outs.
• 2009/05/27: PlanetArk: Australia Faces Further Carbon-Scheme Delay
  Plans for the world's most comprehensive carbon-trading scheme face defeat or parliamentary delay after Australia's opposition said on Tuesday it will try to postpone a vote on the laws this year. The decision by the Liberal-National coalition during a party meeting adds uncertainty over the final shape and start date of the scheme. It also adds to the confusion on investment decisions for some big polluters trying to figure out future carbon costs.
• 2009/05/26: PlanetArk: Australia's Greens Want Quick Vote On Carbon Trade
  Australia's Greens called for a quick parliamentary vote to defeat government plans for carbon trading on Monday, a move that could make the issue a trigger for an early general election. The carbon-trade plan is one of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's key reforms and a central plank of Australia's efforts to fight global warming, but the government is struggling to find the seven extra votes it needs in parliament's upper house Senate.
• 2009/05/26: ABC(Au): Opposition delivers carbon trade ultimatum
  The Opposition will move to push back the Senate vote on the Government's already-delayed emissions trading scheme. If it does not succeed in getting a delay it will vote the scheme down when the vote comes before the Senate in June. The Government wants its legislation passed by June but Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull says the vote must wait until the outcome of climate change negotiations in Copenhagen in December.
• 2009/05/27: ABC(Au): Wong plays hardball on emissions trading vote
  The Federal Government is refusing to concede defeat on its carbon trading scheme, despite not having the numbers to get it through the Senate.
• 2009/05/26: ABC(Au): 'Delay is death': carbon scheme faces bleak future
  The Federal Government will almost certainly fail to pass its carbon trading legislation in the Senate by its June deadline, with crossbench senators and the Opposition all moving to delay a vote. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd wanted the legislation passed by the end of June in order to take the Government's negotiating position to the Copenhagen climate change talks in December. But today the Opposition announced it would not back the scheme if a vote was held in June, and would move to defer a vote on the bill until next year.
• 2009/05/26: ABC(Au): Badgingarra farmer to head climate change reference group
  A Badgingarra farmer has been selected to head up a new Western Australian reference group on climate change. The group was set up by the Agriculture Minister Terry Redman and includes representatives from the farming, government and private sectors. The WA Farmers Federation's Dale Park will head the reference group.
• 2009/05/26: ABC(Au): Family First Senator Steve Fielding has agreed to support any moves that would delay a vote on the Government's carbon trading scheme until after global talks in December
• 2009/05/26: ABC(Au): Criticised monitoring company hired by Xstrata
  A company performing emission tests for Xstrata mining in Mount Isa has been investigated by the New South Wales Government for reporting inaccurate results. NSW Department of Environment and Climate Change documents say in 2007 the monitoring company NewEQ was criticised for emission tests carried out at a cement factory that did not meet Australian Standards. The company was accused of altering reports, and calculations based on assumed values and poor methodology. Mining giant Xstrata has hired NewEQ to evaluate Mount Isa emissions.
• 2009/05/25: ABC(Au): The Climate Institute says Western Australia could quadruple its clean energy production and create new jobs over the next decade if climate change policies are implemented
• 2009/05/25: ABC(Au): Forest activists have staged protests in three states, calling on the Federal Government to recognise native forests in the carbon pollution reduction scheme [Aus-ETS]
• 2009/05/25: ABC(Au): Joyce draws battle lines over carbon trading
  Nationals Senate leader Barnaby Joyce has foreshadowed a possible split in Coalition ranks with a blunt rejection of the Government's planned carbon trading scheme.
• 2009/05/25: ABC(Au): Coalition stumbling on carbon trading stance: Rudd
  Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has accused the Coalition of being in disarray over the Government's carbon trading scheme legislation.
• 2009/05/25: ABC(Au): Emissions scheme would create 30,000 jobs: report
  The Climate Institute has released a report showing the Federal Government's emissions trading scheme and other environmental policies will create tens of thousands of jobs.
• 2009/05/25: PlanetArk: Australia Deflects Carbon Trading Scheme Job Fears
• 2009/05/25: PlanetArk: Analysis - Carbon Plan Promises Bonanza For Australia Forestry
• 2009/05/25: Deltoid: Sydney Writer's Festival forum on climate change

  And in New Zealand:

• 2009/05/28: NatureN: Getting science into policy -- New Zealand's first ever chief science adviser talks about how he will make an impact on government decision-making
• 2009/05/25: RadioNZ: Employment authority to hear sacked scientist's case
  The Employment Relations Authority is to determine whether the sacking of a NIWA scientist was justified
• 2009/05/25: NZHerald: Senior climate scientist Salinger takes NIWA [National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research] to ERA [Employment Relations Authority]
  Senior climate scientist Jim Salinger says mediation with a state-owned science company has failed and he will take his sacking to the Employment Relations Authority. Dr Salinger was sacked last month from the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (Niwa) last month, apparently for talking to the news media without permission. He told Radio New Zealand today that mediation talks started two weeks ago with Niwa in Auckland had failed to get his job back. "Unfortunately, common sense did not prevail," Dr Salinger said. "The next stage is that we go to the Employment Relations Authority". He expected the authority to hear his case around August.
• 2009/05/26: Nature: Mediation collapses in New Zealand scientist's dismissal case

  While in India:

• 2009/05/29: WorldChanging: Solar Plan Could Revolutionize India's Energy Sector
• 2009/05/25: Hindu: Mandatory use of solar heating system
  The government intends to make mandatory the use of solar heating systems in all functional buildings under the first phase of the proposed National Solar Mission.

And China:

• 2009/05/27: WorldChanging: China Puts Its Faith In Solar Power With Huge Renewable Energy Investment
• 2009/05/28: WSJ:EnvCap: Export Duties: Chinese Factories, Greenhouse-Gas Emissions, and the West
• 2009/05/27: BBerg: China Believes Climate Risk Tops Credit Crisis, Hu Aide Says
• 2009/05/26: Guardian(UK): China's new faith in solar energy projects is hailed by environmentalists as a milestone
  Huge investment plan aims to make country a world leader in renewables
• 2009/05/25: PlanetArk: China Energy Expert Sees Coal Power Slowing From 2011
• 2009/05/25: Google:AFP: China plans US$440 billion stimulus for green energy

  A major shift in Russia:

• 2009/05/26: NatureN: Russia makes major shift in climate policy -- Putin emphasizes the need for action on global warming.
  Russia's government has quietly made a drastic change to its policy on climate change, accepting that anthropogenic global warming poses severe risks and requires immediate action to limit carbon emissions. Policy analysts believe that the new climate 'doctrine', adopted in late April, marks a historic turning point. Principally a position statement, the doctrine also outlines a checklist of key climate actions, and could provide a useful starting point for negotiations at December's international climate talks in Copenhagen.

While in Japan:

• 2009/05/26: PlanetArk: Japan Says 15-25 Percent Emissions Cut Possible

  And elsewhere in Asia:

• 2009/05/25: CNN: Surmounting climate change in the Himalayas
  Eco Everest expeditions highlight affects of climate change on fragile region - Climber Apa Sherpa broke world record, reaching Everest summit for 19th time - Trash and human waste immediate impact of climbers; melting ice larger problem

While in Africa:

• 2009/05/30: Guardian(UK): 'We know what to do: why don't we do it?'
  Africans - and especially African women - will suffer most from climate change. Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai intends to help them
• 2009/05/29: DotEarth: On CH4, Poverty and CO2
• 2009/05/29: UN: African environment ministers reach significant climate change accord - UN
  The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) today announced a landmark agreement reached by over 30 African ministers to mainstream climate change adaptation measures into national and regional development plans, policies and strategies. The Nairobi Declaration adopted at the Special Session of the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN) aims to ensure adequate adaptation to climate change in the areas of water resources, agriculture, health, infrastructure, biodiversity and ecosystems, forest, urban management, tourism, food and energy security and management of coastal and marine resources.
• 2009/05/27: ASNS: Africa's Smallholder Farmers Risk Being Excluded From Future Climate Deal
• 2009/05/27: Guardian(UK): Policy must address property rights in Africa to make conservation progress
• 2009/05/27: NatureTGB: African forests at risk from slow land reform progress

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

• 2009/05/29: PlanetArk: Canada Hedges On 2010 Start For Emissions Rules -- may not come into effect until between 2012 and 2016
• 2009/05/28: CBC: Greenhouse gas enforcement could take 6 years: Prentice
  Canadian rules limiting industrial greenhouse gas emissions won't even be developed until next year and will not take legal effect for up to six years, to match a proposed U.S. timetable, Environment Minister Jim Prentice said Thursday. It's a far cry from the Conservative government's former "Made in Canada" climate change plan that was supposed to come into force just over six months from now. It further calls into question Prime Minister Stephen Harper's stated target for reducing Canada's greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent from 2006 levels by 2020.
• 2009/05/29: G&M: Emissions rules won't take effect for six years
  Emissions regulations, which will apply to industrial polluters such as those in Alberta's oil sands, will not go into effect until 2012, Environment Minister Jim Prentice says. Forced cuts to industrial greenhouse gas emissions that had been expected at the end of this year will be delayed until similar reductions are demanded in the United States, the federal Environment Minister said Thursday. Jim Prentice said in a telephone conference from London that greenhouse gas reduction targets will be co-ordinated with those south of the border, where they will be staggered over a period of four years, starting in 2012.

The mouse and elephant redux:

• 2009/05/26: G&M: Research funds to flow again from Ottawa, scientists told
  Science and Technology Minister Gary Goodyear brushed off attacks against specific funding cuts in the last budget and called on scientists yesterday to bring him their ideas for new investments next year.
• 2009/05/25: BBerg: Canada May Follow U.S. in Forming Carbon Caps, Market
• 2009/05/25: TreeHugger: Canada Could Join Forces with US for Multinational Cap and Trade
• 2009/05/26: Google:CP: Canada needs to pick its battles as U.S. climate legislation barrels ahead: Expert [NRTEE head, Robert Page]

  More business as usual:

• 2009/05/26: TSun: Greenhouse-gas estimates off by half: commissioner
  Canada's environment commissioner says the Conservative government's estimated cuts to greenhouse gases are off by at least half. A large portion of the government's anticipated cuts to greenhouse gases won't actually occur, Scott Vaughan told a parliamentary committee on Tuesday.

The inconvenient truth:

• 2009/05/24: SolveClimate: 65% of Canada's 'Clean Energy' Fund Goes to Tar Sands Greenwashing

  The saga of Canada and the Arctic plays on:

• 2009/05/27: TGBeaver: Poking a bear with a stick
• 2009/05/27: TSun: Our North Pole a Russian tourist trap
• 2009/05/25: G&M: Canada pushes past North Pole in Arctic survey
  Mapping flights enter territory claimed by Russia as part of a high-stakes drive by several countries to establish clear title to the polar region and its seabed riches
• 2009/05/24: CBC: Canada's aerial mapping goes into Arctic areas claimed by Russia
• 2009/05/24: CHolmstrom: An Interesting Proposal For The Arctic From The Governor General -- build a university for Canada's Inuit

  My nomination for the best [Canadian] line of the week:

• 2009/05/28: AD: Continued emissions
  Your Conservative government: proudly unveiling greenhouse gas emission regulations "next year" since 2006.

The Tories are going to privatize AECL?

• 2009/05/28: CBC: Canada eyes sale of stake in AECL reactor business
• 2009/05/29: TStar: AECL sale needs careful handling
  One of Canada's signature technological achievements has been the development of the CANDU nuclear reactor. With heavy government backing of crown corporation Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL), we developed a reactor that is both elegant and distinctive (using heavy water, as opposed to the light-water reactors elsewhere).
  Today, CANDU reactors supply about 50 per cent of Ontario's electricity and are operating in several other countries around the world.
  But yesterday's announcement that the federal government is putting AECL up for sale leaves CANDU at a crossroads. It is a pivotal moment -- some have compared it to the Avro Arrow decision in the late 1950s -- and it must be handled with care.
• 2009/05/28: CTV: Ottawa to sell stake in nuclear agency
  The federal government announced Thursday a major shakeup of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited. Ottawa plans to sell AECL's nuclear reactor business to the private sector, in a bid to boost worldwide sales of its CANDU reactors.

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

• 2009/05/27: CBC: Ontario to move on cap-and-trade emissions plan: McGuinty
• 2009/05/28: CanWest: Ontario Liberals table cap-and-trade legislation
• 2009/05/27: BCLSB: Toronto Getting Green Roofs
• 2009/05/27: CBC: Ontario to move on [WCI] cap-and-trade emissions plan: McGuinty
  Premier Dalton McGuinty said Wednesday that Ontario is moving ahead with a cap-and-trade system because it can no longer wait for Ottawa and Washington to put together a similar plan to help fight climate change.

Quebec is investing in hydropower:

• 2009/05/25: CanWest: Charest pours energy into 'blue gold' hydro plans -- Speeds up Petit Mécatina River project as U.S. demand for greener power grows

  As for Saskatchewan's proposed nuclear power plant:

• 2009/05/28: AD: The takeaway line
  [..] if citizens took energy conservation as seriously as society claims to at times, nuclear power wouldn't even be on the table.
• 2009/05/26: CBC: SaskPower keeps eye on growth of carbon-offset system

  Meanwhile in that Mechanical Mordor known as the tar sands:

• 2009/05/26: SolveClimate: Tar Sands Studies [by CERA & CFR] Ignore Significant Environmental Costs
• 2009/05/25: CanWest: Alberta forges ties with OPEC -- Province will get voice in energy discussions
  For the first time, Alberta and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries have established an official relationship. It's a new strategy with big implications, including potential investment by OPEC members in Canada's oil sands. The link was formalized by Ed Stelmach, Alberta's Premier, during a visit to OPEC's Vienna headquarters earlier this month and gives the province a seat at OPEC's 'dialogues' on matters of mutual interest. Other jurisdictions, such as the United States and the EU, take part in the events.
• 2009/05/25: CBC: Imperial Oil gives green light to Kearl tarsands project

  As for miscellaneous Canadiana:

• 2009/05/25: TStar: Meet Canada's climate point man -- Michael Martin must convince the world Ottawa is willing to cut emissions

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

• 2009/05/27: Guardian(UK): Cuba's lessons in survival
  Cuba has endured the decline of oil, extreme weather and an economic crisis. Could it teach us how to do the same? [...] regardless of what American administrations think, suddenly the world is finding Cuba interesting for reasons that are little to do with the cold war's long shadow. Like a nervous scout sent ahead of the main party to see what risks lurk in the valley beyond, Cuba has been hit by a triple crunch -- three separate shocks that are creeping up on the rest of the world. [...] the astonishing thing is not the threadbare state of the economy, but the fact that the country has not descended into complete chaos and become a failed state. [...] Cuba has seen it all and survived. It's not perfect, but after living through the decline of oil, climate change and an economic crisis, it still has an impressive health and education system and an ingenious population who cope with adversity.
• 2009/05/27: MTobis: Seeking Realistic Economic Scenarios
• 2009/05/23: DVoice: What China's Economic Growth Means for the Global Ecology

  Apocalypso anyone?

• 2009/05/27: TerraDaily: Earth Perhaps Not Such A Benevolent Mother After All

  As for how the media handles the science of climatology:

• 2009/05/28: TWTB: Fox News: "Energy Secretary's White-Paint Proposal Puzzles Climate-Change Experts"
• 2009/05/27: CJR: Climate Bill Cacophony -- With so much back-and-forth on news pages, papers need more editorials
• 2009/05/28: ClimateP: Yes, the House climate bill helps make a deal with China possible, and yes, the New York Times got the story wrong
• 2009/05/26: Grist: Washington Post columnist Steven Pearlstein gets climate bill wrong

  Here is something for your library:

• 2009/05/26: SeekingAlpha: Book Review: 'Game Over' by Stephen Leeb
• 2009/05/25: OilDrum: [Book Review] _Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller: Oil and the End of Globalization_ by Jeff Rubin

  And for your stage & video enjoyment:

• 2009/05/27: Guardian(UK): Ecologist Dr Pete Manning on [Stage Play] Resilience

  Meanwhile among the 'Sue the Bastards!' contingent:

• 2009/05/29: Tyee:TheHook: 'Climate justice' a hot new policy area
• 2009/05/29: Guardian(UK): Climate change toll is crucial evidence
  With the deadly effect of global warming quantified, international law can be invoked and the perpetrators punished
• 2009/05/27: Guardian(UK): 14 years after Ken Saro-Wiwa's death, family points finger at Shell in court
  Ogoni plaintiffs link oil giant to Nigerian atrocities -- New York case seen as test of corporate accountability
• 2009/05/26: DemNow: Shell on Trial: Landmark Trial Set to Begin Over Shell's Role in 1995 Execution of Nigerian Human Rights Activist Ken Saro-Wiwa

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

• 2009/05/29: USGS: Significant Gas Resource Discovered in U.S. Gulf of Mexico
• 2009/05/28: EnvFin: IEA confirms renewables recession woes
• 2009/05/27: PKedrosky: Electrical Consumption Sees First Outage Since WWII
• 2009/05/29: BBC: Oil prices continue rally to $66 -- Oil prices hit a six-month high...
• 2009/05/28: PlanetArk: Global Energy Demand Seen Up 44 Percent By 2030 [says EIA]
• 2009/05/28: SciDaily: Ancient Mudstones Could Provide Alternative Source Of [Carbon] Energy
• 2009/05/28: WSJ:EnvCap: Oil Prices: $65 and Rising
• 2009/05/27: TreeHugger: Jargon Watch: Fracking [energy]
• 2009/05/27: TreeHugger: Big Oil to Become Big Biofuels?
• 2009/05/26: Reuters: Looming oil shock means globalization's end: author [Jeff Rubin]
• 2009/05/27: BBC: Oil prices have risen to a six-month high, above $63 a barrel...
• 2009/05/25: KC: Renewable energy brings modern-day gold rush
• 2009/05/26: ClimateP: Duke Energy: We Can 'Decarbonize' Without Painful Electricity Price Hikes
• 2009/05/26: NEN: Geothermal's coming boom
• 2009/05/18: JVail: The Renewables Hump: Digging Out of a Hole
• 2009/05/25: PeakEnergy: The Renewables Hump: Digging Out of a Hole
• 2009/05/25: CBC: Ballard Power pulling plug on Japanese [residential cogeneration] joint venture

  The answer my friend...:

• 2009/05/24: FuturePundit: On The Dependability Of Wind Energy During Peak Demand
• 2009/05/29: FuturePundit: Wind Drives Wholesale Electricity Prices Negative In West Texas
• 2009/05/28: GLGroup: Wind Energy--Too Much of a Good Thing
  Implications: A surfeit of wind energy is pushing down the price of all electricity. The real time price of electricity in West Texas, where almost all generation is wind, was negative for 23% of April 2009. The negative prices spilled over to the rest of Texas for about 1% of the month. This may be the future of the electric industry, with negative prices for a substantial amount of time each month.
• 2009/05/28: NEN: Wind can do more if political leaders will let it
  Summary: Wind energy now provides just under 2% of U.S. power but has been doubling its installed capacity at a startling rate and has barely begun to fulfill its potential. The industry is aiming to provide 20% of U.S. power by 2030.
• 2009/05/26: TreeHugger: Shape-Shifting Wind Turbine Blades Increase Clean Energy Production
• 2009/05/24: TreeHugger: The Bosch Wind Energy Green Report

  Meanwhile among the solar aficionados:

• 2009/05/28: CTB: Top Utilities Grow Solar Power Despite Recession
• 2009/05/28: ClimateP: Concentrated solar power goes mainstream: Lockheed-Martin to build large [290 megawatt] CSP plant with thermal storage in Arizona
• 2009/05/28: TreeHugger: SolarMagic Boosts Performance For Shaded Solar Arrays
• 2009/05/28: PeakEnergy: Solar power should replace wind energy, says Jack Steinberger [to EU]
• 2009/05/27: NEN: GreenPeace likes sun in the desert
• 2009/05/27: CanWest: Solar-power firm adapts to shifting economy
  Burnaby-based Day4 Energy's post-recession strategy includes outsourcing production to Poland, near the company's key European markets
• 2009/05/26: Guardian(UK): Concentrated solar power could generate 'quarter of world's energy'
  Industry groups call for solar thermal technology to expand in 'sun belt' around world as Spain leads the field
• 2009/05/26: TreeHugger: Green Jobs Booming Along PV Supply Chain
• 2009/05/26: SolveClimate: Desert Solar Could Meet 25% of World's Power Needs by 2050
• 2009/05/25: NEN: Big solar power plant action under AZ sun
  Summary: The 290-megawatt, $1.5 billion Starwood Solar I power plant, a solar power plant that will occupy 3 square miles of farmland 75 miles west of the Phoenix, AZ, city limits, will be built and run by Lockheed Martin Corp., financed and owned by Starwood Energy Group of Connecticut, and secured by a power purchase agreement (PPA) from Arizona Public Service Co. (APS).

The arithmetic of coal carbon is striking home:

• 2009/05/26: Reuters: Duke Energy building "last two" coal plants: CEO [Jim Rogers]

  Biofuel bickering abounds:

• 2009/05/30: NewScientist: Alcohol makes autos more climate-friendly
• 2009/05/27: BioEnergyBiz: Brazil boosts biodiesel blending requirement to 4%
• 2009/05/28: PlanetArk: Colombian Ethanol Output To Surge In 2009
• 2009/05/27: LBL: The Coming of Biofuels: Study Shows Reducing Gasoline Emissions Will Benefit Human Health
• 2009/05/27: KSJT: NYTimes, Reuters: Big moves by big money into biofuels from sugar cane
• 2009/05/27: KhaleejTimes: Indonesia to double palm oil production by 2020
• 2009/05/27: NYT: Big Oil Warms to Ethanol and Biofuel Companies
• 2009/05/26: AngryBear: Corn ethanol

  The nuclear energy controversy continues:

• 2009/05/29: ClimateP: GOP wants 100 new nukes by 2030 while "Areva has acknowledged that the cost of a new reactor today would be as much as 6 billion euros, or $8 billion, double the price offered to the Finns."
• 2009/05/29: EarthTimes: Czech Republic and Slovakia sign deal to build Slovak reactor
• 2009/05/29: PeakEnergy: In Finland, Nuclear Renaissance Runs Into Trouble
• 2009/05/28: Guardian(UK): California fires up laser fusion machine
  Success at National Ignition Facility could pave the way for commercial laser fusion power stations and provide a solution to world energy crisis
• 2009/05/27: NatureN: Fusion dreams delayed -- International partners are likely to scale back the first version of the ITER reactor.
• 2009/05/26: WSJ:EnvCap: Duke Nuke 'Em: CEO Rogers 'Betting' on Nuclear Power
• 2009/05/26: NYT: In Hot Pursuit of Fusion (or Folly)

  Yes we have a peak oil sighting:

• 2009/05/24: FuturePundit: Peak Oil And Demand For Substitutes
• 2009/05/25: MObjectivist: Econ 101 and Resource Depletion
• 2009/05/28: Platts: IEA output forecasts are 'outside reality': peak oil proponent [Swedish physics professor Kjell Aleklett]
• 2009/05/28: CanWest: Energy supply crunch brewing
  Forget low oil prices. The worry of the moment is a spike in oil prices and how long it will take before a supply crunch sends prices soaring. And if one subscribes to the views of former CIBC World Markets economist Jeff Rubin and University of California, San Diego economics professor James Hamilton, a spike in prices could send the world tumbling back into recessionary territory, just as it is about to climb out of it. Both Rubin and Hamilton hold the view that the current recession is the result of a spike in oil prices and not the collapse in the U. S. housing market.

More people are talking about the electrical grid:

• 2009/05/27: PeakEnergy: Cisco chases billion-dollar smart grid dreams

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

• 2009/05/29: TreeHugger: Wall Street Journal Wants GM to Abandon the Volt
• 2009/05/29: AutoBG: Institute of Mechanical Engineers: Electric cars aren't enough
• 2009/05/29: AutoBG: General Motors will build new small car in idled U.S. factory
• 2009/05/28: PlanetArk: Mazda Extends Range With Hydrogen Hybrid
• 2009/05/28: FCNP: The Peak Oil Crisis: The Electric Car: Part II
• 2009/05/27: TreeHugger: GM Defends the Volt, Attacks Smaller Electric Car Start-Ups (Tesla, Fisker, etc)
• 2009/05/27: PeakEnergy: Revisiting Lithium-Sulfur Batteries
• 2009/05/27: AutoBG: Chrysler submits $448m plan to build electric vehicles [to DOE]
• 2009/05/26: TreeHugger: i MiEV Electric Car to Have Second Battery Factory Because of High Demand
• 2009/05/26: AutoBG: Money's not there for flex-fuel and other advanced technologies, automakers say
• 2009/05/26: AutoBG: Automotive News publisher says that after 34 years CAFE still doesn't work
• 2009/05/26: EnvEcon: Stavins on CAFE

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

• 2009/05/27: AutoBG: Hyundai reports 4,000 scrap car trades in UK, reveals some surprises

  The reaction of business to climate change will be critical:

• 2009/05/28: EnvFin: Standard to aid companies on climate reporting
  Corporations wanting to report data relevant to climate change now have a standard procedure to follow, with the launch of a draft framework by the Climate Disclosure Standards Board (CDSB) this week.
• 2009/05/29: TreeHugger: Responsible Soy Producers Agree to Pretty Basic Sustainable Production Standards
• 2009/05/22: TechRev: Alternative-Energy Markets Brighten -- Venture-capital investing remains slim, but some momentum is building.
• 2009/05/25: PeakEnergy: Alternative-Energy Markets Brighten

  Meanwhile in the greenwashing chronicles:

• 2009/05/27: PRWatch: Reputation Cleaning, After a Coal Disaster
• 2009/05/28: TreeHugger: Greenwashed Packaging Cartoon Says It All

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

• 2009/05/29: ClimateP: Energy and Global Warming News for May 29: Global warming causes 300,000 deaths a year. Global warming must stay below 2C or world faces ruin, scientists declare
• 2009/05/28: ClimateP: Energy and Global Warming News for May 28th: Exxon Mobil says transition from fossil fuel is century away, China plans tougher fuel standards than U.S.
• 2009/05/27: ClimateP: Energy and Global Warming News for May 27th -- GE plans $1.5 billion in cleantech R and D by 2010
• 2009/05/26: ClimateP: Energy and Global Warming News for May 26th -- By 2020, Japan to double cleantech employment to 2.8 million, increase solar power 20-fold

  The carbon lobby are up to the usual:

• 2009/05/30: BNC: Another hockey stick fabrication!
• 2009/05/29: ClimateP: Big oil made $600 billion under Bush, but invested bupkis in clean energy, Part 2: Details on BP, Chevron, Conoco Phillips, Shell and ExxonMobil
• 2009/05/29: JKB: The wiki list of scientists opposing mainstream views on climate change
• 2009/05/29: AlterNet: The Video Shell Oil Desperately Doesn't Want You to See
• 2009/05/27: BBerg: Exxon Mobil Says Transition From Oil Is Century Away
• 2009/05/25: Examiner: Exxon Mobil to develop solar, biofuel and coal gasification technologies
  Is oil giant Exxon Mobil preparing itself for the beginning of the end of oil? It indeed looks like it. In its 2008 Corporate Citizens Report released Friday the company promises to battle greenhouse gas emissions by increasing energy efficiency in the short term, advancing emission-reducing technologies in the medium term, and developing technologies such as solar, next generation biofuels and gasification for the long term.
• 2009/05/28: Scoop(NZ): Scientists proclaim climate change is natural
  As the Rudd government geared up its push for a CO2 cap-and-trade emissions trading scheme (ETS), which would annihilate what's left of Australia's collapsing physical economy, a public symposium last Sunday heard evidence from several leading Australian scientists that climate change is a natural phenomenon.
  The symposium, ignored by the lying mainstream media...
• 2009/05/27: ClimateP: Big oil made over $600 billion during Bush years, but invested bupkis in clean energy, Part 1
• 2009/05/24: PRWatch: The Cato Institute's Generous Funding of Patrick Michaels
• 2009/05/26: DeSmogBlog: The Cato Institute and Patrick Michaels - It's a Small World After All
• 2009/05/27: Rabble: Chevron, Shell and the true cost of oil
• 2009/05/26: DemNow: Antonia Juhasz on "The True Cost of Chevron: An Alternative Annual Report"
• 2009/05/25: CourierMail:GB: Do climate change deniers wear sunscreen?
• 2009/05/20: PRWatch: The Cato Institute's Love-In With Gas-Guzzlers

  John Quiggin wrote an article on deniers that deserves to be highlighted:

• 2009/05/27: JQuiggin: A taxonomy of delusion
• 2009/05/27: Deltoid: A Taxonomy of Delusion

  Then there was the miscellaneous news and commentary:

• 2009/05/29: C411: Opportunity: Reduce emissions of the overlooked accomplices of CO2
• 2009/05/29: Guardian(UK): This silent suffering by [IPCC head] Rajendra Pachauri
  Few doubt the science of climate change -- but its impact on the world's poor is largely ignored
• 2009/05/28: Grist: The Climate Post: Something wrought in the state of Denmark? [weekly roundup]
• 2009/05/27: GreenGrok: Two Bits of Good News on the Climate Front
• 2009/05/27: NatureCF: Development community must accept uncertainty
• 2009/05/27: Grist: Do the math -- Economic impacts of carbon pricing
• 2009/05/26: CCurrents: The Road To Two Degrees Celsius
• 2009/05/26: ClimateP: The United States of Waste
• 2009/05/26: Guardian(UK): What the future looks like -- As the planet faces the most dangerous century in its 4.5bn-year history, astronomer royal Martin Rees looks into his crystal ball

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

• China Dialogue - China and the world discuss the environment
• Guardian(UK): Copenhagen climate change summit 2009
• CCC: Copenhagen Climate Council
• Yale Environment 360
• Technology Review: Energy Channel
• CSW: Climate Science Watch
• ABC(US): GlobalWarming
• Fight Global Warming - Environmental Defense [GW ads]
• Exxpose Exxon
• Exxon Secrets
• UA:DGESL: Department of Geosciences Environmental Studies Laboratory
• NOAA:GFDL: Tom Knutson's Home Page
• 2006/01/: NOAA:GFDL: Global Warming and Hurricanes
• California Climate Change Portal
• GPM: Global Precipitation Measurement

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

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

"It is just mind-numbing the damage you see on west facing and south facing slopes . . . an overburden of dead and dying trees." -Washington State Lands Commissioner Peter Goldmark

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