Inter Press Service: Energy producers waste about 40 billion dollars every year by burning off gas released at oil fields, says a new study commissioned by the World Bank. The practice, known as flaring, also hastens climate change by spewing some 400 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, says the study, billed as the first global survey supported by photos taken from satellites in space. Scientists say carbon dioxide and other so-called greenhouse gases are mainly responsible for …

Reuters: Canada’s fledgling wind power industry, late off the global starting blocks, has stumbled on growing local resistance to the idea of massive turbines dotting the country’s relatively unmarked landscape. Although polls show widespread support for the renewable energy source, a growing number of companies say that support quickly fades among those who must live alongside wind farms, leading to project delays and extra costs. "There are many opportunities for small, anti-wind …

Associated Press: As the world warms, the USA will face more severe thunderstorms with deadly lightning, damaging hail and the potential for tornadoes, a trailblazing study by NASA scientists suggests. While other research has warned of broad weather changes on a large scale, like more extreme hurricanes and droughts, the new study predicts even smaller events like thunderstorms will be more dangerous because of global warming. The basic ingredients for whopper U.S. inland storms are likely to be …

Associated Press: German Chancellor Angela Merkel proposed making per capita emissions of greenhouse gases the basis for future climate change negotiations Friday, a suggestion aimed at persuading developing countries to join efforts to reduce global warming. Merkel made the proposal in a speech at the conference center in Kyoto where, as Germany’s environment minister, she took part in work on the 1997 Kyoto Protocol that requires developed countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 5 percent from …

Reuters: Industrial nations agreed on Friday to consider stiff 2020 goals for cutting greenhouse gases in a small step towards a new long-term pact to fight climate change. About 1,000 delegates at the Aug 27-31 U.N. talks set greenhouse gas emissions cuts of between 25 and 40 percent below 1990 levels as a non-binding starting point for rich nations’ work on a new pact to extend the U.N.’s Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012. "These conclusions…indicate what industrialized countries must …

BBC: This summer appears to have been the wettest since rainfall records began in 1914, according to provisional data from the UK Meteorological Office. Britain had 358.5mm of rain, just beating the 1956 record of 358.4mm. The main reason for the high rainfall has been the unusually southerly position of the jet stream, a band of strong winds high in the atmosphere. Following earlier floods in central and southern England, five areas of the country are still on flood …

Environment News Service: To meet the needs of a rapidly growing human population, more food must be produced over the coming 50 years than in the last 10,000 years combined, scientists say. But land degradation and desertification are undercutting the soil’s ability to produce more food, causing an environmental crisis that affects one-third of all people on Earth, say experts meeting in Iceland this week to explore solutions. Iceland has suffered acute land degradation problems of its own and has become …

ALERT UPDATE! The Tasmanian state parliament has, as expected, approved the proposed ancient forest fed pulp mill. However, in a positive development, the Australian federal Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull has announced that he is extending the time available to decide whether to grant federal environmental approval for the project for another six weeks. This comes as Australian and international protest is surging against the ill-conceived, fast-tracked doubling of logging in Tasmania’s ancient forests for throw away paper products.

This provides extra time to let federal politicians know that Australians and the World do not want or need this polluting forest-hungry pulp mill. The momentum is on our side! The alert has been updated and is now targeting the Environment Minister. Please send or resend in order to have your concerns registered within the federal public commenting process, which offically ends on Friday, August 31st (but this alert will remain live nonetheless). YOU MAY WANT TO NOTE WHETHER YOU ARE AN AUSTRALIAN OR GLOBAL CITIZEN BY EDITING THE SAMPLE LETTER.

China and the U.S. continue to compete for the dubious honor of being the world’s worst climate and environmental national villain [search]. As humanity careens towards self-immolation, both the Chinese totalitarian and American imperialist regimes use the international climate change and environmental negotiations to jockey for national advantage rather than uniting with the international community in common cause against the greatest planetary threat to humanity ever. Both fail to show international visionary leaderhip, continuing to obstruct and send conflicting signals regarding joining an international program of mandatory emission reductions — making the critical process of developing a post-Kyoto policy more difficult than necessary. This week China felt it necessary to state it is not ready to join a post-Kyoto pact, as the United States floated that it is ready to contribute to world carbon emission cuts. Check back next week. Certainly there is much at stake and no one expects either country to haphazardly damage their economies or development prospects, yet both are guilty of refusing to participate in solving a planetary ecological climate emergency for which they are most responsible.

Age: THE United Nations’ top climate official has criticised the Australian and United States governments over recent comments on the Kyoto Protocol and future climate agreements. Yvo de Boer, who is leading the UN’s effort to secure a long-term global climate treaty, contacted The Age to respond to an opinion piece written by Foreign Minister Alexander Downer. Last week Mr Downer wrote: "Climate change demands an effective and enduring global response. The Kyoto Protocol is …