International Herald Tribune: If two scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory are correct, people will still be driving gasoline-powered cars 50 years from now, churning out heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and yet that carbon dioxide will not contribute to global warming. The scientists, Jeffrey Martin and William Kubic Jr., are proposing a concept, which they have patriotically named Green Freedom, for removing carbon dioxide from the air and turning it back into gasoline. The idea is …

Straight: A Vancouver climate-change activist is pleased the provincial government has introduced a carbon tax but argues that the levy is too low to make much of a difference. Kevin Washbrook, director of Voters Taking Action on Climate Change, told the Georgia Straight that Finance Minister Carole Taylor’s budget announcement on February 19 of a revenue-neutral tax to be levied on virtually all fossil fuels–including gasoline, diesel, natural gas, coal, propane, and home-heating fuel–is "good …

Baltimore Sun: The Bush administration received a judicial rebuke long in the making this month when an exasperated panel of federal appeals judges held that the Environmental Protection Agency’s weak-kneed approach to mercury pollution failed to follow the law. The court killed the rules and sent them back to the EPA for revision. That will almost certainly buck the decision about mercury standards to the next president - a sad situation for a nation that should be leading the fight against global …

Associated Press: The European Commission, bowing to industry concerns, said Thursday it was ready to exempt Europe’s steel, chemical and power sectors from having to compensate for the environmental damage they cause – at least for a while. The EU was keen to see a global deal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and, until a deal was in place, the EU would hold back on plans to force more companies to pay to pollute from 2013, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso told European business …

SciDev.Net: Climate change could pose a new threat to food-insecure Sub-Saharan Africa, according to the USAID Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS NET). Christopher Funk, a geographer-climatologist from the University of California Santa Barbara and member of FEWS NET, presented their draft Climate Change Impact Report at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Boston, United States, last week (15 February). The warming of the Indian …

Sydney Morning Herald: SIGNIFICANTLY larger cuts in greenhouse gas emissions will need to be made almost immediately if the world is to avoid dangerous climate change, the Federal Government’s architect on greenhouse policy will say in a report to be released today. Ross Garnaut’s interim report will recommend to the Commonwealth and state governments a much tougher and speedier response to climate change, arguing that the cost of action is much less than the cost of inaction. "The world is …

Economist: MICHAEL VEENSTRA’S 60-berth marina at Goolwa has room for only 30 boats: half the moorings are now on dry land. Over the past 18 months, the water level has dropped and its salt content has risen. Goolwa faces the mouth of the Murray River. Yet drought, climate change and more than 100 years of irrigation have left the Murray in one of its worst crises. The Murray and its main tributary, the Darling, are Australia’s longest river-system and the lifeblood of its crop farms. It …

Seattle Times: These days the news is full of beautiful – and wrenching – images of polar bears, often swimming in unending open water, or standing on tiny ice floes. Although polar bears swim readily, ice is the habitat to which they are best suited – where they hunt the seals that are their prey. And the ice is shrinking. Even those only vaguely familiar with polar bears know they are heading into troubled times. Scientists now know enough about climate change to model future sea-ice conditions. …

Reuters: Three German biodiesel production plants were recently sold to the United States and Canada and more are up for sale after biodiesel sales collapsed, a German renewable fuels industry leader said on Wednesday. "I estimate that 30 percent of Germany’s biodiesel plants are now up for sale," said Peter Schrum, president of the German renewable fuels industry association BBK. "Three have recently been sold to the US and Canada and I believe that more will …

Agence France-Presse: Four nations and a clutch of cities and corporations unveiled a Web-based information hub on Thursday to help meet a pledge to radically cut carbon levels in their economies in coming decades. The Climate Neutral Network was unveiled at an international meeting of environment ministers, gathered in Monaco for a special session of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) focussing on global warming. Costa Rica, Iceland, Norway and New Zealand are the founding nations of …