Guardian: I was waiting with bated breath. Last week the Cato Institute — one of the scores of wildly rightwing lobby groups that masquerade as thinktanks in the US — circulated an ad that it intended to place in American newspapers. It was the same old rubbish, debunked a thousand times: We, the undersigned scientists, maintain that the case for alarm regarding climate change is grossly overstated … no net global warming for over a decade .. computer models failing to explain recent climate …

Guardian: London is less vulnerable to rising sea levels caused by global warming than experts realised, according to a new analysis. Experts at the Environment Agency said the Thames Barrier will protect the city for decades longer than engineers thought, with a six-year study revealing that the barrier’s original designs overestimated the threat from climate change. Rather than becoming obsolete by 2030, as its designers thought, the barrier will not need to be replaced until 2070, the …

Herald: Africa is facing difficult times. The effects of the global economic recession and climate change have already begun to reverse the progress the continent has made over the last decade. Many countries are experiencing reduced trade and economic activity, withdrawal of investors and an acute scarcity of credit. Projects are being postponed or cancelled altogether. Financial inflows are dropping, including levels of international assistance and remittances. The result is that the …

ScienceDaily: Global warming could have chilling consequences for European livestock, warned Professor Peter Mertens from the Institute for Animal Health, at the meeting of the Society for General Microbiology in Harrogate on March 30. Since 1998, rising temperatures have led to outbreaks of bluetongue (BT) across most of Europe, which have killed over 2 million ruminants (mainly sheep). The outbreak (the largest on record) caused by Bluetongue virus serotype 8 (BTV-8), which started in the …

ScienceDaily: Researchers at the universities of Leicester and Oxford have made a discovery about plant growth which could potentially have an enormous impact on crop production as global warming increases. Dr Kerry Franklin, from the University of Leicester Department of Biology led the study which has identified a single gene responsible for controlling plant growth responses to elevated temperature. Dr Franklin said: "Exposure of plants to high temperature results in the rapid elongation …

IRIN: Countries staring into a gloomy future of low food production, less water, higher storm surges, longer dry periods and other expensive consequences of climate change have been told they can adapt at a cost ranging from several hundred billion dollars to over a trillion dollars. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has stepped in to help overwhelmed developing countries calculate the cost of implementing measures not only to mitigate their greenhouse gas emissions but …

Telegraph:

New Vision: The districts of Mbale, Bududa and Manafwa have received $1m (about sh2.8b) from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to fund environmental programmes. Christopher Nuttall, the UNDP director for innovative partners, said the programme that starts in July would focus on providing renewable sources of energy like solar and biogas. Speaking to district leaders on Wednesday at Mt. Elgon Hotel in Mbale, Nuttall added that the programme would also promote proper water …

Indo-Asian News Service: US President Barack Obama has invited the leaders of 16 major economies including India to Washington for a forum on energy and climate next month to prepare ground for a new global climate change regime. The forum, scheduled for April 27-28, seeks to "generate the political leadership necessary" for a successful outcome at the UN climate change negotiation to be held in Copenhagen in December, the White House said in a statement Saturday. Obama, who recently turned his …

Fuel from food and already overstressed terrestrial ecosystems is immoral and unsustainable. The Obama administration must start by rejecting the proposal to increase the corn ethanol fuel blend limit from 10-15%.

TAKE ACTION! Please support US environmental and social justice groups calling upon the new Obama administration to halt financial and policy support for large scale biofuel production [search]. In particular, the Obama government’s potential support for agrofuel [search] expansion — making of transportation fuels from food — runs counter to their aim to urgently address climate change and threatens to cause more hunger, human rights abuses, and degradation of soil and water.

The Obama administration promised to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to boost renewable energy. Unfortunately, a large part of their solution involves further boosting agrofuel production, both in the US and abroad. The new administration must heed the overwhelming evidence that agrofuels worsen climate change through further deforestation and the destruction of other ecosystems; drive food prices up, forcing more and more people worldwide into hunger and malnutrition; and decimate biodiversity and ecosystems.

Rainforest Rescue and Ecological Internet are concerned with America’s growing ethanol industry, and the implications it has in setting a precedent for massive agricultural industrialisation of the world’s remaining rainforests and other natural wildlands. We concur with the growing ecological consensus that large-scale industrial production of transport fuels and other energy from plants such as corn, sugar cane, oil palm, soya, trees, grasses, or so-called agricultural and woodland waste threatens forests, biodiversity, food sovereignty, community-based land rights and will worsen climate change. TAKE ACTION!