"Smartphones, laptops, tablets, digital TV. You may not have considered it, but all those devices require a lot of energy to operate, and gobble it up even when they sit idle. In fact, the iPhone uses more electricity than a refrigerator. A medium-sized, energy star fridge uses 322 kilowatt hours (kWh) each year. The average iPhone? 361." See the full report at http://goo.gl/FstidW

"Uploaded on Aug 24, 2010 Visit http://nourishlife.org. What's the story of your food? With beautiful visuals and inspiring stories, Nourish: Food + Community traces our relationship to food from a global perspective to personal action steps. Narrated by actress Cameron Diaz, Nourish features interviews with author Michael Pollan, sustainable food advocate Anna Lappé, eco-chef Bryant Terry, pediatrician Dr. Nadine Burke, and organic farmer Nigel Walker. Stay tuned for new videos by connecting with Nourish:"

"As I write these words, 7.4 per cent of the electrons powering my laptop come from wind farms - travelling at the speed of light between hundreds of silently whirring generators and the complex electronics in my computer. The output of wind farms over the past nine days - the span of National Science Week - has been particularly excellent, and it's worth diving into some data to have a closer look."

"The monthly solar power generation record has been shattered in Germany, again. The country measured over 5.1 terawatt hours (TWh) of solar power in July, according to data gathered by the EEX (Energy) Transparency Platform. It's an impressive result, considering Germany gets less than half the sun available in some sunnier parts of the world."

"The planet is building up heat at the equivalent of four Hiroshima bombs worth of energy every second. And 90% of that heat is going into the oceans. Right, now I've got your attention."

"Can "direct action" cut Australia's carbon emissions for the price Tony Abbott says it can? Climate change minister Mark Butler says not. Last week he welcomed "new independent modelling", which he said showed the Coalition's policy would "cost billions of dollars more than Tony Abbott claims and has no chance of meeting Australia's emissions reduction target"."

"The world's largest home-furnishings chain, Ikea, is set to buy a wind farm in Ireland from Mainstream Renewable Power Ltd, Bloomberg has reported. This is part of a plan by Ikea Group to invest $2.5 billion in wind and solar assets by 2015. The 7.65 megawatt wind farm, being built by Mainstream, is expected to begin generating power by 2014. Ikea will take ownership at that point."

"Earlier this year, the 1 millionth Australian household - about one in nine across the country - installed solar photovoltaic panels. There are half a million with solar hot water services too. The process doesn't always go as expected, for reasons both practical and political: rebates and feed-in tariffs have been in flux in every state. But now there are so many systems on roofs, solar homeowners are gaining a stronger public voice."

"Australia is set to get more solar power into the grid with two new large scale PV farms. AGL Energy Limited recently announced that two large-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) projects have managed to secure funding thanks to agreements with the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) and the New South Wales (NSW) Government. The projects are expected to produce approximately 360,000 megawatt hours of electricity per year, which is enough to meet the needs of over 50,000 average homes in the Australian region of New South Wales."

"Based on guidance I put together to assist interested laymen, journalists and others trying to understand the knotty problem of wind energy and its health impacts, I've done a very rough application to most of the major pieces of evidence referenced in the discussions. This material will be updated periodically as I assess more material and as new evidence is presented."

"Climate change has reduced ice in the Arctic to record lows in the past year, forcing animals to range further in search of food"

"First, the bad news: because of climate change and worsening water pollution, algae, the world's fastest-growing photosynthetic organisms, are proliferating worldwide. A few of these are of the toxic blue-green variety. The good news is that some strains of algae can be converted into an alternative source of renewable energy that is commercially viable."

"Despite controversial funding of climate deniers and a management team with a fleet of jets, Google is leading the way on greening its energy supplies"

"There's currently a very big difference between what the major parties contesting the election are planning to do for our environment. And hopefully there are still plenty of big announcements to come over the course of the election campaign! But if you want to be spared all the somersaults and politicking and just get the facts when they matter, sign up to Envirotracker below for an election-eve update on what the major parties are promising for our environment."

"So we have a system of regulation that encourages the network service providers to over-egg their expenditure proposals, and should it ever be demonstrated that the regulator has given them too little in some part of their budget, they get to come back during the regulatory period and apply, successfully, for more. From the network service provider's point of view it's a case of heads I win, tails you lose."

"Warming oceans are affecting the breeding patterns and habitat of marine life, according to a three-year international study published today in Nature Climate Change. This is effectively re-arranging the broader marine landscape as species adjust to a changing climate. Scientific and public attention to the impacts of climate change has generally focused on how biodiversity and people are being affected on land."

"Green Cross Australia helps people adapt to our changing climate, in ways that embrace sustainability and community resilience. We are motivated by our understanding of a resource-constrained, warming planet and our belief that this challenge presents opportunities for a bright future. Our mantra, Think + Act + Share = Change, is key to every project we deliver. We believe the power of our projects is empowering Australians to take practical, informed action. So we don't just focus on awareness, we encourage people to take action, and then give them the tools via social and digital media to share their actions with their friends."

"In the American West, wildfires are essential for keeping forests healthy. But the same fires that help release nutrients and promote new plant growth can also wipe out thousands of acres of forest and cause millions of dollars in damage. Since the 1970s, wildfires have been on the rise and some of this is due to a warming planet. But increased wildfires because of hot climate is not the whole story. Here we look at the way climate can affect vegetation in the West, and what influence this has on wildfires. Drought and rainfall can have very different wildfire outcomes depending on where you look in the West."

From the Australian Climate Commission comes this page chock-full of infographics related to Solar Energy as it relates to the Australian context

"RATEPAYERS are finally set to get some relief from soaring power bills with the rollout of LED street lighting. The state-owned electricity distributor Ausgrid - which owns and maintains 250,000 streetlights on behalf of 41 councils - has been trialling power-saving LED technology in Australian conditions over the past 18 months. Now councils across Sydney, the Central Coast and Hunter will become the first in Australia to be part of a grid-wide rollout of the energy-saving technology."