Climate Change

"COPENHAGEN -- Legislators from 16 of the world's major economies and most major political parties have agreed on key guiding principles to enact climate change legislation in their home countries that will drive the move to a global low carbon economy. Meeting this weekend, the lawmakers agreed to act right now in their own legislative bodies, even before the key UN climate deal in Copenhagen, now just six weeks away."

A popular theory, put forth by anti-regulatory groups and non-scientists, that the earth is cooling rather than warming is just bunk, the AP has found. Independent statisticians, given global temperature data without knowing what it was, said there was no such cooling.

"A Senate committee on Tuesday launches three long days of hearings on a Democratic climate bill in a bid to further convince an international summit in December that Washington is serious about tackling global warming."

Refugees from global warming are arriving at camps in Kenya.

"Taking aim at business interests that have lobbied against an energy and climate bill moving through Congress, President Obama urged lawmakers on Friday to rally around the push toward using more renewable energy."

"The Senate bill aimed at reducing global warming pollution will initially grant billions of dollars of free emissions permits to utilities and industry but will require the bulk of the money be returned to consumers and taxpayers, according to newly released details."
 

"Scientists writing in the current issue of Science magazine point out a huge error in existing biofuel laws that could actually make climate change worse. They say these rules inadvertently encourage deforestation, which in turn contributes to global warming."

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issues an Arctic report card Thursday that said global warming is changing wind patters and melting ice and glaciers -- with impacts on living things on both land and sea.

"India and China signed an agreement Wednesday to cooperate on ways to fight climate change and pledged to establish a group to exchange views concerning international negotiations on climate change."

"President Obama will try to push the Senate climate bill forward Friday with an energy-themed speech at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, just days before the start of a marathon series of hearings featuring testimony from top administration officials."