A new report in the journal Science finds that the contraction of Greenland's ice sheet has accelerated over the past years. Using computer modeling and satellite data, the team concluded that the ice mass shrank by 273 billion tons a year during the warm summers from 2006 to 2008—a roughly a 70% increase over the average 166 billion tons a year from 2000 to 2008. "It is clear from these results that mass loss from Greenland has been accelerating since the late 1990s and the underlying causes suggest this trend is likely to continue in the near future," said researcher Jonathan Bamber, one of the authors of the study. The Greenland ice sheet is the second largest in the world after Antarctica, and could increase sea level by 7 meters were it to completely melt. (Planet Earth Online, AFP, Nov. 13)

There were initially positive signals that the Obama administration was correcting the atrocious legacy of the Bush administration's denial of global climate destabilization—which extended to falsifying science and censoring dissenters. Now it appears that Obama's EPA is itself silencing critics of the administration's favored policy of carbon-trading. From the New York Times, Nov. 9:

In our August-September issue, before we went on hiatus while editor Bill Weinberg was on assignment in South America, we asked our readers "Whither World War 4 Report?," requesting feedback on whether we should continue publication. Is there a place, despite our discouraging fund-raising efforts, for "a daily digest of the GWOT news from around the world, with exacting journalistic standards and a progressive neither/nor perspective equally unsparing on imperialism and the jihad"? Our Exit Poll was: "Will anybody notice if World War 4 Report ceases publication?" We received the following responses:

Although still blind to the related human rights violations, the scientific community finally acknowledges that "biofuels" fuel deforestation—and thereby result in a net increase in greenhouse gas emissions. Here's the abstract of the story that appears in the Oct. 22 edition of Science, "Fixing a Critical Climate Accounting Error":

A blogger on Daily Kos a few days ago promoted a petition to make July 11 "Peak Oil Day," a crusade apparently launched by peakster Richard Heinberg of the Post Carbon Institute. Why July 11? Heinberg, quoted at length in the post, explains:

On July 11, 2008, the price of a barrel of oil hit a record $147.27 in daily trading. That same month, world crude oil production achieved a record 74.8 million barrels per day.

Leaders of the world's most polluting nations at the Italy G8 summit agreed a common goal on curbing global warming—but not on what measures to take to get there. Summit leaders agreed in principle that global temperature rise should be no more than 2 degrees C. by 2050. But there were no interim targets and or timetables. This is true both of July 8 G8 declaration and the following day's resolution by the Major Economies Forum (MEF), the 17 countries that emit 80% of the world's greenhouse gases. Details on how to reach the 2-degree cap are expected to be hashed out at the December UN climate summit in Copenhagen, where a new treaty is expected to replace the Kyoto Protocol. (European Voice, July 10)

The global financial crisis has pushed the ranks of the hungry to a record 1 billion people, a milestone that poses a threat to peace and security, UN officials said June 19 in Rome. Due to war, drought, high food prices and poverty, hunger now affects one in six people, according to an estimate by the Food and Agriculture Organization. There are 100 million more hungry people now than last year, the agency said. It defines hunger as the consumption of fewer than 1,800 calories a day. (AP, June 19)

A WHO study finds (unsurprisingly) that non-motorists disproportionately bear the brunt of traffic fatalities. Car accidents are the 10th leading cause of death in the world, and are on track to become the fifth leading cause by 2030. And the Washington Post (June 17) headlines the story "Fewer Cars, More Traffic Fatalities"—as if the problem were too few cars!