Kansas City Star: A warmer planet could find itself more often at war. The Earth`s fast-changing climate has a range of serious thinkers — from military brass to geographers to diplomats — predicting a spate of armed conflicts driven by the weather. Shifting temperatures lead to shifting populations, they say, and that throws together groups with longstanding rivalries and thrusts them into competition for food and water. ‘It`s not hard to imagine violent outbursts,’ said Julianne Smith …

Gazette-Mail: When Barack Obama becomes president, the coal industry isn’t likely to go bankrupt. But coal operators and coal-fired utilities should brace for tougher regulation of mine safety, strip mining and especially greenhouse gas emissions. Coal industry watchdogs are looking for Obama to reverse Bush administration rule changes, beef up enforcement, and put the nation’s first ever limits on carbon dioxide from power plants. "While coal mining is vitally important to the nation, it …

San Francisco Chronicle: Barack Obama’s election has members of the alternative energy world sounding positively giddy, an enthusiasm not shared by their competitors in the oil industry. Obama’s energy plans read like a wish list for the companies that make solar cells, wind turbines or alternative fuels. He wants to pump money into energy research and force all electric utilities to use renewable power. He has proposed creating a cap-and-trade system that would put a price on the greenhouse gas …

Seattle Times: In the next few weeks, the Bush administration is expected to relax environmental-protection rules on power plants near national parks, uranium mining near the Grand Canyon and more mountaintop-removal coal mining in Appalachia. The administration is widely expected to try to get some of the rules into final form by the week before Thanksgiving because, in some cases, there’s a 60-day delay before new regulations take effect. And once the rules are in place, undoing them generally …

Jackson Hole Star-Tribune: Last-minute jousts in the presidential campaign may have caused some coal miners in Wyoming and across the country to wonder if their jobs are in jeopardy now that Barack Obama is the nation’s president-elect. "No, I don’t think the coal industry in Wyoming, and the utilities that rely on it, are going to be shutting down coal-fired power plants," said Marion Loomis, executive director of the Wyoming Mining Association. Just days before the election, a battle over coal erupted …

Asian News International: Ecologists and oceanographers have predicted the future impacts of climate change by reconstructing the past behavior of Arctic climate and ocean circulation. The research team comprised of Charles Greene of Cornell University and colleagues, who reconstructed the patterns of climate change in the Arctic from the Paleocene epoch to the present. Over these 65 million years, the Earth has undergone several major warming and cooling episodes, which were largely mitigated by the …

Time of Malta: Malta has failed to prepare a plan on its climate change impact, vulnerability and adaptation - unlike other Mediterranean countries that "have prepared quite extensive climate change assessments", according to the European Environmental Agency. In a report entitled ‘Impacts of Europe’s changing climate’, the EEA states that the Mediterranean is one of the regions most vulnerable to climate change. The report is based on 40 key indicators and stresses the consequences of …

Scotsman: THE clue to its ambition is in the name. Barack Obama says his No 1 priority on getting into the Oval Office will be something he calls "the Apollo project". By giving his plans for a green energy revolution, the same name as Nasa’s programme to put a man on the moon, he has shown the importance he attaches to it, and signalled the amount of effort and vision it will require to work. American political analysts believe Obama sees this as one of his legacy projects, one of the …

Philippine Sun Star: THE operations of mini-hydros are not spared from the problems brought by climate change. Flashfloods and murky water during rains and too little water during the dry months are among the challenges that mini-hydro developers are facing these days. What’s your take on the Mindanao crisis? Discuss views with other readers "The change (in weather pattern) has a dramatic impact on our operations," Hedcor president and chief operating officer Rene Ronquillo said, explaining …

Washington Post: Transition advisers to President-elect Barack Obama have compiled a list of about 200 Bush administration actions and executive orders that could be swiftly undone to reverse White House policies on climate change, stem cell research, reproductive rights and other issues, according to congressional Democrats, campaign aides and experts working with the transition team. A team of four dozen advisers, working for months in virtual solitude, set out to identify regulatory and policy …