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Opponents of federal limits on greenhouse gases are launching ad campaigns in the districts of moderate Democrats negotiating a bill in the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The radio ads, sponsored by the American Energy Alliance, are running in the districts of nine committee Democrats and one Republican, Tim Murphy of Pennsylvania. The ads contend that the bill would hurt the economy and cost jobs. The lobbying and advocacy group, which was formed last year, is headed by Thomas J. Pyle, a former energy policy aide to onetime Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas (1985-2006). It is affiliated with the Institute for Energy Research, a public policy center advocating what it terms "freely functioning energy markets." The new campaign is the latest round in an ad war where labor and environmental groups have also jumped into the fray: MoveOn.org, the Alliance for Climate Protection, the Blue-Green Alliance and others are running ads supporting the bill.

The World Watch has released a report (PDF) looking at a roadmap towards a lower carbon economy based on a wide range of new energy systems. "We are on the verge of an energy revolution," says Flavin. "With strong political leadership, we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to use policy and technology innovation to stave off the greatest human-caused threat our planet has seen."

Yvo de Boer, the U.N.'s climate chief, called the meeting "very positive and constructive" and said it was "helped tremendously" by the support of Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. "There was a recognition around the table that this is a global crisis that cannot be solved without a global response," de Boer said. "There is a universal recognition that the whole world needs to act on this. .................. "China, he said, is now the largest investor worldwide in clean energy technology. "I think many people are not aware of that," he said. And according to a report by HSBC Global Research in February, almost 40 percent of the spending in China's economic stimulus package is supposed to go toward renewable energy, electric grid improvements, pollution control efforts, and other clean-energy-related projects.

To start with, the game is completely FREE (I love that word). Better than that, this is a perfect game simulation for middle school and high school teachers looking to provide a reflective learning experience for students interested in how the environment is affected by choices made by local or state government concerning energy production and use. It combines the addictiveness of Lemonade Stand with the deep control and management tools of SimCity. With only 150 turns to create a thriving economy and growing population based on realistic environmental practices, I thought I would be presented with simplistic choices, and be railroaded into some pre-scripted "save the Earth, reduce energy consumption", but I was happily wrong.

But basic science fails to shed light - at least directly - on daunting challenges confronting society such as how best to adapt and what stock to place in various solutions. Adapting will involve dealing with sea-level rise, upheaval in agriculture, stark changes in energy demand for heating and cooling, new water resource management regimes, and fundamental change in the world's transportation and energy infrastructure. It is a challenge of enormous scale, requiring that civilization overcome "technological, financial, cognitive and behavioral, and social and cultural constraints," as the chapter on adaptation in the IPCC's 2007 report put it. Adapting to global warming and stemming the greenhouse-gas tide will touch nearly every aspect of life, forcing climatologists, biologists and oceanographers to work with energy experts, social scientists and automotive engineers, even economists. Together, these strange bedfellows must produce recommendations useful to political leaders from presidents to planning commissioners. Those collaborations are not in place.

A leading energy body is calling for a $45 trillion (£23 trillion) green revolution to tackle global warming. The International Energy Agency (IEA) said nations must spend 1% of annual economic output on new technology to halve carbon dioxide emissions by 2050.

Energy/Environment: Of all the challenges we face as a nation and as a planet, none is as pressing as the three-pronged challenge of climate change, sustainable development and the need to foster new and cleaner sources of energy. The Obama administration and the Office of Science and Technology Policy are committed to addressing this looming issue aggressively, intelligently and in a way that will not only minimize the negative impacts of past policy failings but also strengthen our economy and enhance our national security.

"5) Nonetheless, if I had to choose one of two bumper stickers for our car - CLIMATE CRISIS or ENERGY QUEST - I'd choose the latter. "

Unlike America, Denmark, which was so badly hammered by the 1973 Arab oil embargo that it banned all Sunday driving for a while, responded to that crisis in such a sustained, focused and systematic way that today it is energy independent.

Fortunately, there is a better option: to make low-carbon alternatives like solar and wind energy competitive with old carbon sources. This requires much more spending on research and development of low-carbon energy technology. We might have assumed that investment in this research would have increased when the Kyoto Protocol made fossil fuel use more expensive, but it has not.

The scientific evidence for global warming and for humanity's role in the increase of greenhouse gasses becomes ever more unimpeachable, as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change findings are going to suggest; and such activity has a profound relevance, not just for the environment, but in ethical, economic, social and political terms as well. The consequences of climate change are being felt not only in the environment, but in the entire socioeconomic system and, as seen in the findings of numerous reports already available, they will impact first and foremost the poorest and weakest who, even if they are among the least responsible for global warming, are the most vulnerable because they have limited resources or live in areas at greater risk. We need only think of the small island developing states as one example among many. Many of the most vulnerable societies, already facing energy problems, rely upon agriculture -- the very sector most likely to suffer from climatic shifts. Thus, in order to address the double challenge of climate change and the need for ever greater energy resources, we will have to change our present model from one of the heedless pursuit of economic growth in the name of development, toward a model which heeds the consequences of its actions and is more respectful toward the creation we hold in common, coupled with an integral human development for present and future generations. The complexity of the promotion of sustainable development is evident to all; there are, however, certain underlying principles which can direct research toward adequate and lasting solutions. Humanity must become increasingly conscious of the links between natural ecology, or respect for nature, and human ecology. Experience shows that disregard for the environment harms human coexistence, while at the same time it becomes clearer that there is a positive link to be made between peace with creation and peace among nations.

Seventy-five nations including Germany, India, Kenya, and the United Arab Emirates launched last week the world's first multinational organization dedicated solely to promoting renewable energy worldwide.

"This is a major discovery with enormous implications for the future prosperity of humankind," said Barber, the Ernst Chain Professor of Biochemistry at Imperial College London. "The importance of their discovery cannot be overstated since it opens up the door for developing new technologies for energy production thus reducing our dependence for fossil fuels and addressing the global climate change problem."

From 1998 to 2006, Exxon Mobil, for example, contributed more than $600,000 to Heartland, according to annual reports of charitable contributions from the company and company foundations. Alan T. Jeffers, a spokesman for Exxon Mobil, said by e-mail that the company had ended support "to several public policy research groups whose position on climate change could divert attention from the important discussion about how the world will secure the energy required for economic growth in an environmentally responsible manner."

The report, which U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu co-chaired before his selection, outlines several bold, sweeping changes to reduce both countries' emissions.

The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) truly came into being on January 26, 2009 at the Founding Conference of IRENA in Bonn. More than 120 government delegations from across the world attended the conference and a total of 75 nations, a broad cross-section of developing and industrialized countries, signed the Agency's statute.

It seems the Post Carbon Institute is as excited to push toward meeting Al Gore's challenge as we are. Julian Darley, the Institute's Founder and author of High Noon for Natural Gas: The New Energy Crisis, posted an outline to their web site detailing the ten steps the country would need to take in order to meet the goal of producing 100% of our nation's electricity in 10 years.