ANALYSIS: Tug-of-war begins over EU climate change plans
Brussels – With the ink barely dry on the European Commission’s plans for fighting climate change, the European Union’s member states have already begun a tug-of-war to pull the legal proposals in their favour.

Climate skeptics roast Al Gore on global warming
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Al Gore, who won the Nobel Peace Prize and an Oscar for his environmental advocacy, was the main target on Monday at a conference of dissident scientists skeptical of his views on global warming. Several speakers at the conference on climate change whose theme was “Global warming is not a crisis,” took pot-shots at the ex-vice president and his film, “An Inconvenient Truth,” which won last year’s Academy Award for best documentary.
It was brave of him to address their meeting.

Water Utilities Partner to Study Climate Change Effects
DENVER, March 4, 2008 — Eight utilities across the country formed the Water Utility Climate Alliance (WUCA) to research the ways in which global warming will impact their operations.

Lights out in Bangkok for ‘Earth Hour’
Bangkok – Bangkok will join 23 other metropolises around the world in turning off its lights from 8 to 9 pm on March 29th as part of the World Wildlife Fund’s Earth Hour campaign to reduce global warming, the WWF announced Tuesday.
I wish we had satellite photos of some of these lights out efforts.  Wouldn’t it be fun to see a wave of lights going out?

Fuel cells make power for homes in Japan
HIRATSUKA, Japan – Masanori Naruse jogs every day, collects miniature cars and feeds birds in his backyard, but he’s proudest of the way his home and 2,200 others in Japan get electricity and heat water — with power generated by a hydrogen fuel cell.

N.M. Attracts Solar Manufacturing Plant
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) – An international manufacturer of solar energy equipment plans to turn a plot of desert real estate into its North American hub for production, giving New Mexico officials hope that the state can become a player in the renewable energy industry.

Key For Converting Waste To Electricity Discovered
ScienceDaily (Mar. 4, 2008) — Researchers at the University of Minnesota studying bacteria capable of generating electricity have discovered that riboflavin (commonly known as vitamin B-2) is responsible for much of the energy produced by these organisms. The bacteria, Shewanella, are commonly found in water and soil and are of interest because they can convert simple organic compounds (such as lactic acid) into electricity.

U.S. coal power boom suddenly wanes
Concerns about global warming and rising building costs are blocking construction of new coal-fired power plants in the United States and pushing utilities to turn to natural gas and renewable power instead.

Ecoterror resurfaces with Seattle arsons
Ashland, Oregon – In recent years, it seemed as though law-enforcement agencies had finally been able to achieve major breakthroughs against “ecoterrorism” carried out by environmental and animal-rights radicals, much of it in the Pacific Northwest.

New Material Shows Great Promise For Nuclear Waste Clean-Up
A team of Northwestern University chemists is the first to focus on metal sulfide materials as a possible source for nuclear waste remediation methods. Their new material is extremely successful in removing strontium from a sodium-heavy solution, which has concentrations similar to those in real liquid nuclear waste. Strontium-90, a major waste component, is one of the more dangerous radioactive fission materials created within a nuclear reactor.

Manitoba bans new hog barns in half of province
WINNIPEG, Manitoba (Reuters) – Manitoba will permanently ban new hog barns and expansions in the eastern half of the province, where the industry is most concentrated, its conservation minister said on Monday.

Australian company claims tuna breeding breakthrough
SYDNEY (AFP) – An Australian aquaculture company claimed a world first Tuesday in artificially breeding endangered southern bluefin tuna.

Study: Pronghorn Thrive in Wolves’ Shadow
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) – More gray wolves mean more pronghorn antelope in the Yellowstone area, according to researchers who say the region’s rebounding wolf population is killing and scaring off coyotes that otherwise prey on pronghorn.

What happens if China’s “one child” is left behind?
Based on a senior official’s remarks, it looks like China may soon relax its one-child policy. That has raised fears among some demographers that the country will experience a massive baby boom once the reproductive shackles come off, and hence “could overturn predictions of an imminent end to global population growth,” in the words of New York Times reporter Andrew Revkin. Almost one in five human beings is Chinese (1.3 billion out of a global total of 6.7 billion), so the country matters immensely to human numbers.

Mexico City sinking by the day – Feature
Mexico City – Mexico City is sinking by the day. Whole buildings have descended 10 metres from a century ago, in large part due to the excessive extraction of water to supply some 20 million inhabitants.