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"Community renewable energy has significant political and economic benefits, but is often hindered by five major barriers. Watch this vividly illustrated presentation to learn how communities can overcome the barriers and advance more local renewable energy. ILSR Senior Researcher John Farrell gave this presentation as part of a Sustainable Economies Law Center webinar on April 30, 2013."

"THE United Nation's latest investigation into climate change reportedly admits the world has been warming at only just over half the rate it had claimed in 2007. According to the UK's Daily Mail newspaper, a leaked draft of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) latest assessment of the state of the climate and global warming - AR5 - says the earth has been warming at a rate of 0.12C each decade since 1951. But it says the last major IPCC report, released in 2007 and called AR4, claimed the planet was warming at a rate of 0.2C every decade." See also http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2013/sep/16/climate-change-contrarians-5-stages-denial

Right now, the Napthine Government is charging forward with plans to develop a major new brown coal export industry from Victoria. We must act to protect Victoria from this disaster before it's too late. The first stage of the plans - the $90 million cash and free coal giveaway - is just around the corner. Please, sign this petition now and help us protect Victoria's future. Say no to brown coal exports.

"California's ambitious carbon cutting policies will start to pay off for residents of the state this month, as 'climate credits' of $29-40 are paid into their bank accounts. Customers of some of California's major energy firms will benefit from the payments, which will go to small businesses, schools, hospitals as well as individual customers."

"The Carbon Capture and Sequestration Technologies Program at MIT conducts research into technologies to capture, utilize, and store CO2 from large stationary sources. Initiated in 1989, our program is internationally recognized as a leader in this field. A major component of the program is the Carbon Sequestration Initiative, an industrial consortium launched in July 2000."

"The 'Pathways to Deep Decarbonisation in 2050: How Australia can prosper in a low carbon world' report, released 23 September 2014, presents an illustrative deep decarbonisation pathway for Australia - just one of many possible pathways - developed using a combination of well-established modelling tools to identify feasible and least-cost options.  This work finds that Australia can achieve net zero emissions by 2050 and live within its recommended carbon budget, using technologies that exist today, while maintaining economic prosperity. Major technological transitions are needed in some industries and many activities, but no fundamental change to Australia's economy is required. The technologies required for decarbonisation are currently available or under development. The analysis shows that deep decarbonisation requires neither substantial lifestyle changes nor large changes in Australia's economic structure."

"One third of articles in Australia's major newspapers rejected or cast doubt on the overwhelming findings of climate science, with climate sceptic Andrew Bolt monopolising coverage of the topic in several high-circulation News Corporation titles, according to a new analysis. A study of 602 articles in 10 newspapers by the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism found that 32% dismissed or questioned whether human activity was causing the climate to change. The articles were analysed between February and April in 2011 and again in the same period in 2012."

"Recently reported leaks of water containing high levels of radioactive uranium from a coal seam gas (CSG) wastewater pond operated by Santos in New South Wales put the spotlight on an industry already wracked by controversy. Most concerns over CSG have to date focused on "fracking" - fracturing deep rock strata to get at gas in coal seams - but as the incident shows, waste produced by CSG wells and brought to the surface is another major environmental issue."

"Commerce knits the modern world together in a way that nothing else quite does. Almost anything you own these days is the result of a complicated web of global interactions. And there's no better way to depict those interactions and the social and political circumstances that give rise to them than with a map or two. Or in our case, 38. These maps are our favorite way to illustrate the major economic themes facing the world today. Some of them focus on the big picture while others illustrate finer details. The overall portrait that emerges is of a world that's more closely linked than ever before, but still riven by enormous geography-driven differences."

"The Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The major feature of the Kyoto Protocol is that it sets binding targets for 37 industrialized countries and the European community for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions .These amount to an average of five per cent against 1990 levels over the five-year period 2008-2012. "