White House Refused to Open Pollutants E-Mail - NY Times

The White House in December refused to accept the Environmental Protection Agency’s conclusion that greenhouse gases are pollutants that must be controlled, telling agency officials that an e-mail message containing the document would not be opened, senior E.P.A. officials said last week.

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Five Myths About the New Wiretapping Law: Why it's a lot worse than you think. - Slate

Sometime today, the Senate is likely to approve the most comprehensive overhaul of American surveillance law since the Watergate era. Unless you're a government lawyer, a legal scholar, a masochist, or an insomniac, chances are you haven't read the 114-page bill. Don't beat yourself up: Neither have most of the 293 House members who voted for it last week. Ditto the mainstream press, who seem to have relied chiefly on summaries provided by the same lawmakers who hadn't read it.

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Be quiet: the surveillance cameras might hear you - Ars Techinica

Although crime statistics point to the fact that law-and-order issues are actually less of a problem now than in the past, the general public's perception remains one convinced that muggery and buggery hides behind every street corner. Politicans and the media stoke these fears, and we get hastily made laws and policies enacted as a result. Over in the UK, the trend over the past two decades has been to abrogate day-to-day policing of the streets to an army of CCTV cameras. Soon, if scientists have their way, the cameras will be able to train their focus on suspicious sounds automatically with new AI technology.

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Nice Guys Finish Last: Why do we expect presidential candidates to be kind? - Slate

Perhaps it's just a coincidence, but in the past few days I feel I've been overwhelmed by a tsunami of commentary, all of which purports to prove the fundamental nastiness of Barack Obama or, alternatively, the deep unlikability of John McCain. You thought our presidential candidates were nice guys, regular guys, guys who you'd like to sit down and have a beer with? Guess what, lots of people are now telling me: They aren't!

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Nation's Spies: Climate Change Could Spark War - Wired

Environmental groups have been warning for years that global climate change could make already-tense parts of the world even worse, and even spark whole new conflicts. Now, the nation's spies are saying pretty much the same thing.

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Six hours to hack the FBI (and other pen-testing adventures) - Computerworld

It takes a lot to shock Chris Goggans; he's been a pen (penetration) tester since 1991, getting paid to break into a wide variety of networks. But he says nothing was as egregious as security lapses in both infrastructure design and patch management at a civilian government agency -- holes that let him hack his way through to a major FBI crime database within a mere six hours.

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New Climate Report Foresees Big Changes - NYTimes

The rise in concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from human activities is influencing climate patterns and vegetation across the United States and will significantly disrupt water supplies, agriculture, forestry and ecosystems for decades, a new federal report says.

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Found an interesting article on Slate about whether to idle or shut off you car. It even goes into whether to warm up your car or just start driving.

Some excerpts:

Today's cars use electronic fuel injectors, which rigorously control the amount of gas delivered to the engine when you hit the ignition. As a result, virtually no fuel is wasted during startup, and only a thimbleful is burned as the car roars to life. So forget about the 30-minute axiom you were raised on - the threshold at which it makes more sense to shut off rather than to idle should be expressed in seconds, not minutes.

The researchers concluded that restarting a six-cylinder engine - with the air conditioner switched on - uses as much gas as idling the same car for just six seconds.

Idling is similarly wasteful in frigid temperatures. Contrary to popular belief, cold-weather drivers needn't warm up their cars for longer than 30 seconds. The best way to raise an engine's temperature to optimal levels is to drive it almost immediately after startup; according to a study by the Ontario Ministry of Transportation, a car driven for 12 minutes in 14-degree-Fahrenheit weather will achieve the same temperature as one that idles for 30 minutes. (However, it's best to avoid rapid acceleration during that 12-minute warm-up drive.)

But if we were able to eliminate idling in stop-and-go traffic, the effect could be more dramatic. Right now, it is imprudent (and often illegal) to cut your engine while on public streets. There are automated systems, such as in the vaunted Toyota Prius, that can rapidly turn engines off and on when the car is, say, stopped at a red light or involuntarily "parked" on a bumper-to-bumper freeway; just apply some pressure to the accelerator, and the engine springs back to life. According to the learned folks at Car Talk, the widespread adoption of such technology could reduce our national fuel consumption by as much 10 percent.

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Warming and Storms, Uncertainty and Ethics - NY Times

Over the weekend, a pair of very different climate studies - one physical, one social - illustrated two uncomfortable, and related, realities confronting society as it grapples with possible responses to human-driven global warming.

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Perilous Landings by Soyuz Worry NASA - Washington Post

Two consecutive chaotic and dangerous landings by Soyuz space capsules, including one with an American astronaut aboard, have NASA and space experts concerned about the spacecraft's reliability in ferrying astronauts to and from the international space station.

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The Old Titans All Collapsed. Is the U.S. Next? - Washington Post

Back in August, during the panic over mortgages, Alan Greenspan offered reassurance to an anxious public. The current turmoil, the former Federal Reserve Board chairman said, strongly resembled brief financial scares such as the Russian debt crisis of 1998 or the U.S. stock market crash of 1987... But in the background, one could hear the groans and feel the tremors as larger political and economic tectonic plates collided. Nine months later, Greenspan's soothing analogies no longer wash. The U.S. economy faces unprecedented debt levels, soaring commodity prices and sliding home prices, to say nothing of a weak dollar.

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In Colorado, an unlikely alliance against drilling - CSMonitor

Plans to open up a swath of wilderness are bringing hunters and environmentalists together – and reshaping state politics.

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Earth at 350
By Bill McKibben
The Nation

Even for Americans, constitutionally convinced that there will always be a second act, and a third, and a do-over after that, and, if necessary, a little public repentance and forgiveness and a Brand New Start--even for us, the world looks a little Terminal right now.

It's not just the economy. We've gone through swoons before. It's that gas at $4 a gallon means we're running out, at least of the cheap stuff that built our sprawling society. It's that when we try to turn corn into gas, it sends the price of a loaf of bread shooting upwards and starts food riots on three continents. It's that everything is so inextricably tied together. It's that, all of a sudden, those grim Club of Rome types who, way back in the 1970s, went on and on about the "limits to growth" suddenly seem... how best to put it, right.

All of a sudden it isn't morning in America, it's dusk on planet Earth.

There's a number--a new number--that makes this point most powerfully. It may now be the most important number on Earth: 350. As in parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

A few weeks ago, our foremost climatologist, NASA's Jim Hansen, submitted a paper to Science magazine with several co-authors. The abstract attached to it argued--and I have never read stronger language in a scientific paper--"if humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm." Hansen cites six irreversible tipping points--massive sea level rise and huge changes in rainfall patterns, among them--that we'll pass if we don't get back down to 350 soon; and the first of them, judging by last summer's insane melt of Arctic ice, may already be behind us.

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The computer security paradox - Raiden's Realm

One of the most prized rights of any American is the right to privacy and security. It's something people in some countries would kill for. Yet now there appears to be a very frightening trend growing. Your privacy and security are being thrown out the window wholesale in favor of easier access by law enforcement. A recent example of this can be seen with the announcement that Microsoft has been providing a tool to investigators that can effectively rip your Windows security to shreds in seconds, exposing all your private data to whoever wants to look at it.

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IBM, Microsoft Trounce Apple on Climate Friendliness Scorecard - Wired

Scorecard IBM earned top honors among electronics manufacturers on a recently-updated climate friendliness scorecard (.pdf), earning 77 out of a possible 100 points to beat runners-up Canon, Toshiba, Sony and HP in a ranking of the companies' responsiveness to climate change. IBM, which makes big, hulking servers and mainframe computers, even beat out Microsoft (38 points) and Google (55), whose products are composed entirely of electrons. Apple, which has taken heat from Greenpeace for the allegedly toxic chemicals in its iPhone, scored a pathetic 11 out of 100.

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Viacom, Google set for fight to bitter end over Safe Harbor - Ars Technica

It has been just over a year since Viacom launched its $1 billion lawsuit against Google for "brazen disregard of intellectual property laws" on YouTube. Although we haven't heard much news about the case as of late, some fightin' words have come out of both sides recently to indicate that the case is still going strong. There's no sign of an impending settlement, either, as Viacom is still beating the piracy drum and Google continues to stand its ground. Because of this, the eventual outcome of the Viacom suit may set a legal precedent that could send ripples throughout the entire Internet.

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Our New Energy Crisis - Mother Jones

Almost four years ago, when oil was trading at around $40 a barrel, Paul Roberts wrote a story for Mother Jones on a bleak scenario gaining currency among energy insiders, but not yet in the mainstream consciousness: peak oil, basically the notion that the world's petroleum resources are nearing exhaustion. If the theory held true, Roberts warned, oil prices could soon leap to "perhaps as high as $100 per barrel - a disaster if we don't have a cost-effective alternative fuel or technology in place."

Welcome to the disaster: $100-a-barrel oil is in the rearview mirror, and no cost-effective (or even cost-prohibitive) alternative has emerged. The most dire consequences of this failing - hurricanes, drought, extinction - are occurring far more rapidly than even Slideshow Al could have predicted four years ago. And then there's the war.

It's easy enough to blame Dick Cheney, Big Oil, Detroit - all of whom have done their part in obstructing progress. But their chicanery distracts us from the far greater problem, one that, unfortunately, comes down to Organic Chemistry 101. Every technological advance of the last 150 years has been powered by a unique, extremely energy-dense, but finite - and, as it turns out, planet-killing - source of fuel. Switching away from fossil energy requires an economic and social transformation at least as great as the Industrial Revolution. And we have to build this new economy on the fumes of the old, hoping that we don't run out of gas, or ice caps, before we get there. As Roberts points out in this special issue on energy, if we sit on our hands or let the process be hijacked by vested interests, "there may not be enough crude left in the ground to fuel a second try."

Read on ...

Ignoring the Supreme Court - Washington Post
The Bush administration punts on greenhouse emissions

The Bush administration never had any intention of doing what the Supreme Court commanded it to do a year ago today: regulate greenhouse gas emissions. We infer this because, even though President Bush ordered his agencies last May to work together to meet the court's directive, and even though the Environmental Protection Agency delivered to the White House last December its finding that those pollutants endanger public welfare, a prerequisite for regulation, EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson announced last week a plan to seek public input starting in the spring on how best to limit the emissions. Translation: punt to the next administration. This giant step backward is the starkest example yet of the chasm between the words and deeds of Mr. Bush on climate change.

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Bad Phorm? UK ISPs to sell clickstream data to advertisers - Ars Technica

Deep packet inspection gear has long had the ability to peer inside users' datastreams to pull out all sorts of interesting information, but a UK company called Phorm is taking DPI to the next level by using it to sell ads. The company's ambitious goal: segment users into small and highly-accurate "channels" by reading the URLs they visit, the search terms they use, and the content of the pages they visit. The resulting channels are then sold to advertisers who are salivating at the thought of better targeting. Actual users are predictably less thrilled, however, and a row over the issue has erupted in Britain.

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AP probe finds drugs in drinking water - Associated Press

A vast array of pharmaceuticals - including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones - have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, an Associated Press investigation shows.
To be sure, the concentrations of these pharmaceuticals are tiny, measured in quantities of parts per billion or trillion, far below the levels of a medical dose. Also, utilities insist their water is safe.

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How to Date the Grand Canyon: Go With the Flow - Wired

Geologists maintain that the Colorado River carved the Grand Canyon's walls very gradually over a long period of time, and they have found new evidence to nail down exactly how long.

... Its banded walls make up one of the most magnificent landscapes on Earth. And yet it seems the only time reporters bother to mention its geology is when they are writing about creationists and their bogus claims that the Grand Canyon formed a few thousand years ago. It's a shame, because the real story of the Grand Canyon is a riveting epic. Even its scientific history is fascinating: Figuring out just how old the Grand Canyon is has challenged geologists for 150 years. And just this week, the mystery may be solved.

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Torrent roars at Grand Canyon: Outcome of Glen Canyon release won't surface for several weeks - Rocky Mountain News

Martha Hahn is clutching the front of a motorized raft Wednesday afternoon as it strains against surging currents on the Colorado River.

Hahn is chief of science at Grand Canyon National Park, and she's onboard to observe how the river is responding to the mighty torrent of water being turned loose from the Glen Canyon Dam.

The release is an attempt to re-create the roaring springtime flows that shaped the river before the dam was built in the 1960s.

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A slide show from the Denver Post

A NBC Nightly News report on the 60 hour flow.

New supercomputer is a rack of PlayStations - The Sydney Morning Herald

When the PlayStation3 was released in November 2006, Gaurav Khanna's wife braved long queues so he could be one of the first people in the US to get his hands on the gaming console. But the astrophysicist was not itching to burn some rubber in Gran Turismo or shoot hoops in NBA 07. Instead he wanted to build his own supercomputer.

Record-High Ratio of Americans in Prison - Washington Post

More than one in 100 adults in the United States is in jail or prison, an all-time high that is costing state governments nearly $50 billion a year, in addition to more than $5 billion spent by the federal government, according to a report released today.

No impact from Energy Saving Day - BBC

The UK's first Energy Saving Day has ended with no noticeable reduction in the country's electricity usage. E-Day asked people to switch off electrical devices they did not need over a period of 24 hours, with the National Grid monitoring consumption.

In Norway, Global Seed Vault guards genetic resources - IHT

With plant species disappearing at an alarming rate, scientists and governments are creating a global network of plant banks to store seeds and sprouts - precious genetic resources that may be needed for man to adapt the world's food supply to climate change.

The Satellite Shootdown: Behind the Scenes - US News & World Report

Capt. R. M. Hendrickson stepped across the deck of the guided missile cruiser USS Lake Erie last Saturday afternoon to a bank of ballistic missile launch tubes, motioning to the particular 2-by-2-foot location from which a missile flew from the ship positioned at the time some 420 miles northwest of Hawaii.

F.C.C. to Act on Delaying of Broadband Traffic - NY Times

The head of the Federal Communications Commission and other senior officials said on Monday that they were considering taking steps to discourage cable and telephone companies from discriminating against content providers as the broadband companies go about managing heavy Internet traffic that they say is clogging their networks.

Survey: Many Americans Switch Faith Identity - Washington Post

Forty-four percent of Americans have either switched their religious affiliation since childhood or dropped out of any formal religious group, according to the largest recent survey on American religious identification.

US to set 'binding' climate goals - BBC

The US is ready to accept "binding international obligations" on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, officials say, if other nations do the same.

Putin's Iron Grip on Russia Suffocates His Opponents - NY Times

Shortly before parliamentary elections in December, foremen fanned out across the sprawling GAZ vehicle factory here, pulling aside assembly-line workers and giving them an order: vote for President Vladimir V. Putin's party or else. They were instructed to phone in after they left their polling places. Names would be tallied, defiance punished.

Move Over, Oil, There's Money in Texas Wind - NY Times

The wind turbines that recently went up on Louis Brooks's ranch are twice as high as the Statue of Liberty, with blades that span as wide as the wingspan of a jumbo jet. More important from his point of view, he is paid $500 a month apiece to permit 78 of them on his land, with 76 more on the way.

It's Time To Drink Toilet Water - Slate

Officials in Orange County, Calif., will attend opening ceremonies today for the world's largest water-purification project, among the first "toilet-to-tap" systems in America. The Groundwater Replenishment System is designed to take sewage water straight from bathrooms in places like Costa Mesa, Fullerton, and Newport Beach and—after an initial cleansing treatment—send it through $490 million worth of pipes, filters, and tanks for purification. The water then flows into lakes in nearby Anaheim, where it seeps through clay, sand, and rock into aquifers in the groundwater basin. Months later, it will travel back into the homes of half a million Orange County residents, through their kitchen taps and showerheads.

Crayons Down! - MotherJones

If there is a creature more fickle than your typical four-year-old, it's hard to think of one offhand. One day they're buttoning their own shirts and uttering words of ancient wisdom, and the next they're pooping on the living room floor because monsters have invaded the bathroom. They are immune to logic and can barely sit still long enough to nibble a chicken nugget. In a nutshell, "standardized" and "preschooler" are not words you'd normally use in the same sentence.

In Endorsing Obama, Kennedy Anoints a Prince and Tells Clintons To Cool It - MotherJones

Democrats don't come much more traditional than Teddy Kennedy, the grand man of the Democratic Party. So his endorsement of Barack Obama--implicitly an anti-endorsement of Hillary Clinton--has punch. Endorsements routinely don't matter much in presidential campaigns--with a few exceptions. A politician who controls a machine--say, a governor--can come in quite handy on Election Day. In this case, Kennedy brings two piping hot dishes to the Obama potluck.

Administration Forest Plan Assailed - Washington Post

Proposal Would Allow Logging, Roads in Alaska's Tongass - Millions of acres of the country's largest national forest would be open for logging and other development under a Bush administration forest management plan released yesterday, a move critics said will hurt wildlife and destroy pristine lands.

The Tao of ScreenIn search of the distraction-free desktop - Slate

If your computer desktop is anything like mine - and, brother, it is - you've paved over every spare pixel in an iconistan of clutter. Desktop design originated in a wistful visual metaphor, the clean, still work surface, encouraging users to productive ends. Leaps forward in computing horsepower and the rise of constant Internet use has transformed the tabletop terra firma into a cockpit, an antic terminal for the networked self. Our desktops are now a thick impasto of tabbed windows, pull-down menus, dashboard widgets, and application alerts. No possible distraction gets left behind, no link, feed, IM, twitter, or poke unheeded.

Senate Delays Eavesdropping Vote - AP/US News

The Senate granted at least a temporary victory to the White House on Thursday, turning back an attempt to increase court oversight of the government's surveillance of phone calls and e-mails that involve people inside the United States.

Rising Anti-Americanism in Russia - US News

Vladimir Dobrovinsky, 33, a teacher at a design school in Moscow, says he's not interested in politics. But bring up America and the well-traveled, university-educated Dobrovinsky holds forth. He criticizes Washington's "crude interference" in world affairs. He complains that Russia is not treated as an important partner by the Bush administration. "A lot of Russians," he says, "are angry that America deals with us like we're Thailand."

Big Brain Theory: Have Cosmologists Lost Theirs? - NY Times

It could be the weirdest and most embarrassing prediction in the history of cosmology, if not science. If true, it would mean that you yourself reading this article are more likely to be some momentary fluctuation in a field of matter and energy out in space than a person with a real past born through billions of years of evolution in an orderly star-spangled cosmos. Your memories and the world you think you see around you are illusions.

U.S. Given Poor Marks on the Environment - NY Times

A new international ranking of environmental performance puts the United States at the bottom of the Group of 8 industrialized nations and 39th among the 149 countries on the list.

Virgin Galactic unveils SpaceShipTwo model - Reuters

Entrepreneur Richard Branson on Wednesday unveiled a model of the spaceship he hopes will be the first to take paying passengers into space on a regular basis as soon as next year.

Geophysicists Urge Steep Cuts in Greenhouse Gas Emissions - Scientific American

The scientists of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) warn that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions must be slashed in half to keep temperatures from rising 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius)—or else. "Warming greater than 2 degrees Celsius above 19th-century levels is projected to be disruptive, reducing global agricultural productivity, causing widespread loss of biodiversity and - if sustained over centuries - melting much of the Greenland ice sheet with ensuing rise in sea levels of several meters," the AGU declares in its first statement in four years on "Human Impacts on Climate."

A sled, a cow, the future - Mountain Gazette

Few people may believe that at age 57, I recently T-boned, so to speak, a pregnant, 1,000-pound cow while riding my Flexible Flyer sled down the steepest county road in western Montana. To rural sledders, this is plausible, but perhaps not to adults of my generation. The mean age for the 55,000 sledders injured badly enough last winter to need an ER visit is 9.9, a dismal statistic that reveals a paucity of Baby Boomers still willing to have fun hurtling down mountains with a minimum of control. Sledding down icy back roads is a pure and noble calling that offers countless opportunities for high-speed rides on metal-runners that are only somewhat steerable. Obstacles to doing so abound, from so-called common sense, to cows, like the one I collided with.

Foolproof Online Dating Tips for Desperate Guys - Wired

There are a lot of guys out there on the internet who desperately want to find a woman to share their life with, and who don't want to have to go outside to do it. If you're one of them, you may find yourself wondering why the women you meet in chat rooms, discussion groups and online games have so far failed to love you.

California Sues EPA; Says State Law Greener, Cleaner Than Feds - Wired

California today sued the federal Environmental Protection Agency today for preventing the state from reducing greenhouse gas emissions in its cars.

Big Brother gets bigger, says global privacy study - C|Net

According to a new international privacy report, governments around the world are increasingly invading the privacy of citizens with surveillance, identification systems, and archiving of private data.

US Near Bottom of Global Privacy Index - AP/Wired

Individual privacy is under threat around the world as governments continue introducing surveillance and information-gathering measures, according to an international rights group.

House Sends President An Energy Bill to Sign - Washington Post

A year of rhetoric, lobbying, veto threats and negotiations ended yesterday as the House of Representatives voted 314 to 100 to pass an energy bill that President Bush is to sign this morning. The bill will raise fuel-efficiency standards for automobiles, order a massive increase in the use of biofuels and phase out sales of the ubiquitous incandescent light bulb popularized by Thomas Edison more than a century ago ...

For farmers and agribusiness, it is a windfall, providing more support than perhaps even the farm bill. It doubles the use of corn - based ethanol - despite criticism that corn-based ethanol is driving up food prices, draining aquifers and exacerbating fertilizer runoff that is creating dead zones in many of the nation's rivers.

UK hands control of Basra to Iraq forces - Reuters

Britain handed over security in Basra province to Iraqi forces on Sunday, effectively marking the end of nearly five years of British control of southern Iraq.

Bali Forum Backs Climate 'Road Map' - Washington Post

U.S. Accedes on Aid Pledges, Wins Fight to Drop Specific Targets for Emissions Cuts. Delegates from nearly 190 countries emerged from a final 24 hours of bruising negotiations Saturday with an agreement on a new framework for tackling global warming, one that for the first time calls on both the industrialized world and rapidly developing nations to commit to measurable, verifiable steps.

The world has continued, in the words of Italian astronomer Pierantonio Cinzano, to "envelop itself in a luminous fog." Cinzano’s 2001 atlas of artificial night sky brightness estimated that two-thirds of the U.S. population, and one-fifth of the world population, can no longer see the Milky Way with the naked eye.

from Michelle Nijhuis's story, "Quest for Darkness" in Hich Country News (subscription required)

U.N. climate talks under pressure to drop 2020 goals - Reuters

The United States has urged a tough 2020 target for rich nations to axe greenhouse gas emissions to be dropped from a draft text at climate change talks in Bali, delegates said on Monday.

Security concerns raised as China fills U.S. medicine chest - McClatchy Newspapers

The medicine cabinet in the average U.S. home is filling with drugs made in China, and some experts say that could be a prescription for trouble.

Linux is about to take over the low end of PCs - Desktop Linux

Sometimes, several unrelated changes come to a head at the same time, with a result no one could have predicted. The PC market is at such a tipping point right now and the result will be millions of Linux-powered PCs in users' hands.

Senate rejects far-reaching energy bill - CSM

There's still hope the nation may get a nice green-energy law for Christmas – not the big fat one environmentalists wanted, but a slimmed-down version that probably includes fuel economy and biofuel provisions. ...the Senate failed to approve a more far-reaching House energy bill that promised to cut US dependence on imported oil and global warming emissions.

Six places in the world where climate change could cause political turmoil - CSM

From Nepal to Nigeria, Indonesia to the Arctic Circle, a warmer world poses different problems.

Data-recovery firm reveals top client mishaps - C|Net

Ant infestations, oil saturation, and failed parachute jumps are some of the unusual fates that have befallen innocent data-storage devices recently, according to data-recovery company Kroll Ontrack's list of the most unusual recovery jobs it has faced in the last

Iran's Nukes: Now They Tell Us? - Time

The President looked awful. He stood puffy-eyed, stoop-shouldered, in front of the press corps discussing the stunning new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that Iran halted its nuclear-weapons program in 2003. He looked as if he'd spent the night throwing chairs around the Situation Room. ...

Google to dig up more personal records: Software to index more state files such as school test scores - AP

Googling something or someone? If the state of Florida has public records about your subject, they might show up in your search results.

Spinning the NIE Iran Report - Time

The Rashomon-like battle to interpret the new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran is well under way. All sides of the Iran nuclear dispute are working hard to make their own reading of the report the accepted one, and to emphasize the findings that best suit their agendas. Those agendas will remain unchanged by the NIE: Israel and Washington hawks want military action against a grave and gathering threat; the Bush Administration is pursuing coercive diplomacy; the Europeans want to avoid war. And it is those agendas that will shape each player's response to the NIE in what promises to be a furious battle over Iran policy in the months to come. A guide to the players and their likely plays ...

Scientists Beg for Climate Action - AP

For the first time, more than 200 of the world's leading climate scientists, losing their patience, urged government leaders to take radical action to slow global warming because "there is no time to lose."

Judge: Reconsider bird ruling: Agency decided to keep grouse off endangered list - Rocky Mountain News

A federal judge has ordered the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to reconsider a decision to keep the greater sage grouse off the endangered species list, a ruling that could have significant implications for Colorado's fast-growing oil and gas industry.

Australia steals show at Bali climate talks - Reuters

Australia won an ovation at the start of U.N.-led climate change talks in Bali on Monday by agreeing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, isolating the United States as the only developed nation outside the pact.

... A new treaty is meant to widen the Kyoto Protocol, which binds 36 industrial countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12. The United States and developing nations have no caps under Kyoto.

... The United States, as the world's top greenhouse gas emitter, has been feeling the heat from developing nations demanding the rich make stronger commitments to curb emissions.

Read on ...

Taser death in Canada sparks heated debate around the world - CSM

The death of a Polish man at Vancouver International Airport has sparked an intense debate in Canada over the increasing use of Tasers by law-enforcement officials. Concerns over the use of these electric shock guns has mounted in several other countries after a UN Committee on Human Rights recently labeled their impact "torture."

Heritage Foundation on Hunger: Let Them Eat Broccoli - MotherJones
Poor people aren't hungry; they're fat.

While most Americans were planning for the annual ritual of overconsumption known as Thanksgiving, the good folks at the Heritage Foundation, America’s leading architects of conservative thought for at least three decades, were doing their part to add to the holiday cheer. According to a November 13 Heritage article, well-off revelers could stuff their faces unhampered by guilt about the less fortunate, because there are no longer any hungry people in the United States.

Sen. Clinton proposes moratorium on foreclosures - Reuters

Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton proposed on Monday a 90-day moratorium on home foreclosures to give financially troubled borrowers time to work with lenders and avoid losing their homes.

U.S. report contradicts Bush on Iran nuclear program - Reuters

U.S. intelligence has determined that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 but believes it is continuing to develop technical capabilities that could be used to build a bomb, a government report said on Monday.

Bali climate summit: a test of the world's resolve - CSM

Next week is seen as crunch time in the fight against global warming. Representatives from some 130 nations will gather in Bali, Indonesia, beginning a two-year effort to agree on a new pact to cut greenhouse-gas emissions - one that goes well beyond the goals of the current Kyoto Protocol.

Microsoft FUDwatch II: Internet Explorer vs. Firefox security - C|Net

Microsoft is at it again. Or, rather, Jeff Jones is. Jones is Microsoft's security strategy direction and is the one who periodically remixes history and data to declare that Windows is more secure than Linux. Now he's declaring that Internet Explorer is much safer than Firefox.

Ad Targeting Improves on Web Sites - AP

Based on the weather reports and restaurant listings you check out online, Yahoo Inc. has a good idea where you live. Based on searches you've done, the Web portal might also know where you want to go. Don't be surprised then to suddenly see an advertisement on flight deals between those two places. It's what United Airlines did with an ad on Yahoo earlier this year as people browsed for something completely unrelated to travel.

Study Details How U.S. Could Cut 28% of Greenhouse Gases - NY Times

The United States could shave as much as 28 percent off the amount of greenhouse gases it emits at fairly modest cost and with only small technology innovations, according to a new report.

A large share of the reductions could come from steps that would more than pay for themselves in lower energy bills for industries and individual consumers, the report said, adding that people should take those steps out of good sense regardless of how worried they might be about climate change. But that is unlikely to happen under present circumstances, said the authors, who are energy experts at McKinsey & Company, the consulting firm.

Facebook's Beacon More Intrusive Than Previously Thought - PC World

A Computer Associates security researcher is sounding the alarm that Facebook's controversial Beacon online ad system goes much further than anyone has imagined in tracking people's Web activities outside the popular social networking site. Beacon will report back to Facebook on members' activities on third-party sites that participate in Beacon even if the users are logged off from Facebook and have declined having their activities broadcast to their Facebook friends.

Mothers Skimp as States Take Child Support - NY Times

The collection of child support from absent fathers is failing to help many of the poorest families, in part because the government uses fathers’ payments largely to recoup welfare costs rather than passing on the money to mothers and children.

Lawmakers Set Deal on Raising Fuel Efficiency - NY Times

Congressional negotiators reached a deal late Friday on energy legislation that would force American automakers to improve the fuel efficiency of their cars and light trucks by 40 percent by 2020.

Deep concern over Three Gorges Dam - BBC

There are fears that China's Three Gorges Dam is causing serious environmental problems, despite official claims to the contrary. Local farmers, environmental campaigners and even officials themselves have voiced concern about environmental damage.

Going Green? Easy Doesn't Do It
By Michael Maniates - Washington Post

Thanksgiving nicely focuses our attention on things of lasting importance: family, friends, community, a rich harvest. None of these blessings come without cost or sacrifice. Today, then, we might consider what we must give of ourselves to preserve such abundance in the face of increasing climatic instability.

One needn't ponder this question in a vacuum. Several best-sellers offer advice about what we must ask of ourselves and one another. Their titles suggest that we needn't break much of a sweat: "It's Easy Being Green," "The Lazy Environmentalist," or even "The Green Book: The Everyday Guide to Saving the Planet One Simple Step at a Time."

Although each offers familiar advice ("reuse scrap paper before recycling" or "take shorter showers"), it's what's left unsaid by these books that's intriguing. Three assertions permeate the pages: (1) We should look for easy, cost-effective things to do in our private lives as consumers, since that's where we have the most power and control; these are the best things to do because (2) if we all do them the cumulative effect of these individual choices will be a safe planet; which is fortunate indeed because (3) we, by nature, aren't terribly interested in doing anything that isn't private, individualistic, cost-effective and, above all, easy.

This glorification of easy isn't limited to the newest environmental self-help books. The Web sites of the big U.S. environmental groups, the Environmental Protection Agency and even the American Association for the Advancement of Science offer markedly similar lists of actions that tell us we can change the world through our consumer choices, choices that are economic, simple, even stylish. Al Gore himself isn't immune. His recent Live Earth concert featured a who's-who lineup of celebrities who said that if we all do our little bit to recycle and conserve -- the simple things, mind you, because that's all we'll need (translation: that's all they think we'll go for) -- we can together rescue the world for our children and grandchildren.

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Meanwhile, on the campaign trail ...

David Horsey - 21 November 2007

The following are some key findings in a report issued Saturday by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change:

• Global warming is "unequivocal." Temperatures have risen 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit in the last 100 years. Eleven of the last 12 years are among the warmest since 1850. Sea levels have gone up by an average seven-hundredths of an inch per year since 1961.
• About 20 percent to 30 percent of all plant and animal species face the risk of extinction if temperatures increase by 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit. If the thermometer rises by 6.3 degrees Fahrenheit, between 40 to 70 percent of species could disappear.
• Human activity is largely responsible for warming. Global emissions of greenhouse gases grew 70 percent from 1970 to 2004. The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is far higher than the natural range over the last 650,000 years.
• Climate change will affect poor countries most, but will be felt everywhere. By 2020, 75 million to 250 million people in Africa will suffer water shortages, residents of Asia's large cities will be at great risk of river and coastal flooding, Europeans can expect extensive species loss, and North Americans will experience longer and hotter heat waves and greater competition for water.
• Extreme weather conditions will be more common. Tropical storms will be more frequent and intense. Heat waves and heavy rains will affect some areas, raising the risk of wildfires and the spread of diseases. Elsewhere, drought will degrade cropland and spoil the quality of water sources. Rising sea levels will increase flooding and salination of fresh water and threaten coastal cities.
• Even if greenhouse gases are stabilized, the Earth will keep warming and sea levels rising. More pollution could bring "abrupt and irreversible" changes, such as the loss of ice sheets in the poles, and a corresponding rise in sea levels by several yards.
• A wide array of tools exist, or will soon be available, to adapt to climate change and reduce its potential effects. One is to put a price on carbon emissions.
• By 2050, stabilizing emissions would slow the average annual global economic growth by less than 0.12 percent. The longer action is delayed, the more it will cost.

The Associated Press

Nordic nations sound alarm over melting Arctic - Reuters

Nordic nations sounded the alarm on Wednesday about a quickening melt of Arctic ice and said the thaw might soon prove irreversible because of global warming.

Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway and Iceland also urged all governments to agree before the end of 2009 a broader U.N. plan to curb greenhouse gases in succession to the Kyoto Protocol.

"The Arctic and the world cannot wait any longer," environment ministers from the five nations said in a joint statement after talks in Oslo. The five all have Arctic territories.

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EPA's record settlement with utility could lead to other deals - CSM

A utility's dramatic agreement this week to trim smokestack pollution may do more than help clear the nation's skies. It may clear the legal logjam that has kept other large utilities from cutting similar deals that could trigger reductions in harmful power-plant emissions.

By one estimate, US power plants could cut their emissions of pollutants linked to acid rain and smog by 20 percent.

The agreement, announced Tuesday by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), sends a powerful, though not necessarily decisive, signal to other utilities, legal analysts say.

In settling an EPA lawsuit, the nation's largest utility, American Electric Power, agreed to spend $4.6 billion to reduce its emissions of sulfur dioxide (SO2) by 79 percent and nitrogen oxides (NOx) by 69 percent.The EPA called the settlement its largest pollution-enforcement victory ever.

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Gone: Mass Extinction and the Hazards of Earth's Vanishing Biodiversity - Julia Whitty MotherJones

It is a fact widely accepted by biologists but little known by the population at large. By the end of the century, half of all species on Earth may be extinct due to global warming and other causes. Who will survive the world's dwindling biodiversity, and why?

We awake in our tents in the moonlight to what sounds like a dance troupe in wooden clogs practicing on rock under stunted juniper trees. It's a half-dozen Carmen mountain white-tailed deer, scraping at the ground with bootlike hooves, bending gracile necks to chew on wet soil and lick it dry. They're harvesting the minerals and moisture from our urine soaked into the parched earth of the high desert, the herd toiling through the night and into the morning in a pursuit tenacious enough to enlighten us to the wastefulness of our own bodies. Clearly, the three of us have squandered most of what we drank hiking to 7,400 feet on the south rim of Texas' Chisos Mountains. From the deer's point of view, our arrival here is the next best thing to rain.

Come morning, we pack camp and loiter on the precipice, staring across wracked ranges and sunburnt country to the Rio Grande thousands of feet below, and to the even higher country of Mexico's Sierra Madre. Here, in Big Bend National Park, one of America's truly wild places, there's barely a sign of human impact, and not a sound of it—not planes, cars, or human voices. The silence is so thick that our ears feel congested, and we jump when the quiet is pierced by the whistle of a peregrine falcon on its glide path through thin air.

We spend a couple of hours here with binoculars, map, and compass, scanning 100-mile visibility, scrutinizing the area below the rim and trying to find a trail we might travel another day. Although we don't know it, we're peering down into the place where a lost hiker is desperately trying to find the same trail and a freshwater spring midway along it. At this point he has been without water for three days. We don't see him stumbling through cholla and nopales cactus and writing farewell notes to loved ones—though he is likely staring up at the mirage of us silhouetted against the sky.

Ironically, this corner of the Chihuahuan Desert is lush at the moment, watered by rains two months ago that are still working their way through soils and roots and cells, so that many plants are blooming and an explosion of butterflies jams the breezes. The cacti are swollen with hoarded water. The Chisos oaks are dropping so many acorns that park rangers have closed trails where black bears are fattening on them. Countless millions of walking-stick insects are coupled in such dense mating congregations in the canopies of mesquites that entire trees appear to be walking through the sky. Everything is haloed in the golds, yellows, and greens of desert grasses, some taller than us, all bowed under heavy seed heads destined to feed and water kangaroo rats.

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Practical Values: Hard to Break - MotherJones

As the scary studies about plastic's health effects pile up, should we kick the habit?

My moment of plastic panic came a few months ago. As a science writer, I've spent the past several years following the steady stream of research into the disturbing effects of the chemicals that leach into our bodies from everyday plastic objects. I'd managed to stay pretty calm about these unsettling discoveries, but then I went to yet another presentation where renowned scientists described new, peer-reviewed findings on how plastic's ingredients may cause reproductive abnormalities and obesity. Afterward, I huddled with the other journalists present, brimming with uneasy questions: Does this mean we should ditch our refillable plastic water bottles? Is it safe for our kids to chew on plastic toys? Should we try to go completely plastic free?

It's one thing to use cloth shopping bags in the name of ecofriendliness or to forswear plastic cutlery in the pursuit of style; it's another to eschew plastics because they might be a health risk. But are you about to give up your computer or cell phone? What about your bike helmet or your child's car seat? Your contact lenses? Your toothbrush? Probably not.

Then what to do about the alarming fact that plastic's chemical constituents are percolating throughout our bodies, apparently interfering with our metabolism, our sex organs, and our children's neurological and reproductive development? The Centers for Disease Control has found two compounds—phthalates, used in polyvinyl chloride (pvc) plastic, and bisphenol A, a building block of polycarbonate plastics—in the urine of a majority of Americans tested. Both chemicals are short-lived once they enter the environment, but they're being scrutinized for their potential to mimic and disrupt our hormones—even before we're born.

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Photo Essay: Sea Change - MotherJones

As climate change melts the permafrost, Arctic villages slip into the sea, taking a way of life with them.

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The Top Pundits In America - Forbes

What exactly is a pundit? According to the dictionary, it's "a person who makes comments or judgments, especially in an authoritative manner; critic or commentator."

There's certainly no shortage of that in the media these days.

Call the past decade the era of the talking head. Cable news networks trying to one-up each other in the ratings roll out programs hosted by people with pointed positions, most of them going one-on-one with guests who also bring strong views and--sometimes--expertise to the table.

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Fertilizers, deformities linked - Rocky Mountain News

Fertilizers from farms and lawns are responsible for frog deformities cropping up in ponds and lakes across North America, a new study shows.

The finding not only has implications for worldwide amphibian declines, but could shine light on such diseases as cholera, malaria, West Nile virus and diseases affecting coral reefs, said assistant professor Pieter Johnson of the University of Colorado's ecology and evolutionary biology department.

Andrew Blaustein, zoologist from Oregon State University, hailed the CU finding as one of the first to connect the "drastic" problem of fertilizers with the proliferation of parasites and several diseases that can deform amphibians and sicken humans.

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Ice withdrawal 'shatters record' - BBC

Arctic sea ice shrank to the smallest area on record this year, US scientists have confirmed.

The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) said the minimum extent of 4.13 million sq km (1.59 million sq miles) was reached on 16 September.

The figure shatters all previous satellite surveys, including the previous record low of 5.32 million sq km measured in 2005.

Earlier this month, it was reported that the Northwest Passage was open.

The fabled Arctic shipping route from the Atlantic to the Pacific is normally ice-bound at some location throughout the year; but this year, ships have been able to complete an unimpeded navigation.

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Gorillas head race to extinction - BBC

Gorillas, orangutans, and corals are among the plants and animals which are sliding closer to extinction.

The Red List of Threatened Species for 2007 names habitat loss, hunting and climate change among the causes.

The World Conservation Union (IUCN) has identified more than 16,000 species threatened with extinction, while prospects have brightened for only one.

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Is a Virus Behind the Bee Plague? - MIT Technology Review

Scientists have identified a likely culprit underlying the massive and mysterious plague that has killed off tens of millions of bees in the United States over the past year. By sequencing the DNA of every microbe inhabiting the bees, researchers have pinpointed a novel virus strongly linked to infected hives. The findings could help beekeepers protect their colonies. The research also suggests an effective new method for identifying infectious pathogens, be they from bees or humans.

"This is a very significant finding," says Dewey Caron, an entomologist at the University of Delaware, in Maryland, who was not involved in the study. "It's not yet a smoking gun, but it really helps narrow the search."

Over the past year, tens of millions of bees have mysteriously vanished from their hives, amounting to a loss of 50 to 90 percent of U.S. colonies. While honeybee populations have sustained several major hits to their numbers over the past century, this particular plague is unique in that adult bees seem to disappear from their hives without a trace. Because honeybees pollinate hundreds of species of fruits, vegetables, and nuts--commercial beekeepers truck their hives across the country during flowering season to pollinate crops--that loss is a major agricultural concern.

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Carmakers Defeated On Emissions Rules: States Can Set Standards, Judge Says - Washington Post

A federal judge in Vermont yesterday rejected an attempt by automakers to block individual states from adopting their own standards for limiting greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks.

Judge William Sessions III of U.S. District Court in Burlington ruled that state action to limit greenhouse gas emissions from new vehicles -- standards that originated in California in 2002 and have since been adopted by Vermont and at least 10 other states -- was not preempted by federal rules on vehicle fuel economy.

The decision follows a Supreme Court ruling in April that the Environmental Protection Agency violated the Clean Air Act by declining to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles. It also comes as automakers are confronted with growing public demand and governmental pressure to build more fuel-efficient vehicles. This fall, Congress is to take up vehicle fuel-efficiency legislation that could bring about the biggest change in fuel-economy laws since the 1970s.

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Katrina: A reality check for all towns - AP/Rocky Mountain News

Katrina is old news, right? New Orleans - who cares? It's just another big city with big problems, bad luck and bad weather. Get over it.

Actually, please don't.

Don't ever get over the tragedy of New Orleans. It's your tragedy, too.

What happened to this historic city two years ago is more than the obvious cautionary tale of what might befall your community after a natural disaster or a terrorist strike. It's also a sad reflection of what's happening now - today, in your hometown and across an anxious and ailing nation.

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Why the American West is out front on curbing greenhouse gases - Christian Science Monitor

The emissions cap under the Western Climate Initiative is equivalent to taking 75.6 million cars off the road.

Even without Baghdad-like summer temperatures in Phoenix and other desert environs, heat has always been a major issue across the American West. For one thing, it relates directly to three of the classical earthly elements: water, air, and, of course, fire. That is, air quality and pollution, water-loaded snowpacks and glaciers, and wildfires made worse by hot weather patterns.