From The Guardian, Feb. 8:

Bushfires and global warming: is there a link?
Scientists are reluctant to link ­individual weather events to global warming, because natural variability will always throw up extreme events. However, they say that climate change loads the dice, and can make severe episodes more likely.

President Barack Obama Jan. 26 directed the Environmental Protection Agency to reconsider the Bush administration decision that prevented California and 17 other states from setting their own, stricter limits on auto emissions. Obama also directed his administration to move forward on tougher fuel-efficiency guidelines for the auto industry in time to cover 2011 model-year cars.

With a short memo on Inauguration Day, President Barack Obama blocked plans to loosen some air quality standards and to remove the gray wolf from the endangered species list. But he did not stop several other controversial, late-term environmental regulations issued by the Bush administration, including a weakening of the Endangered Species Act, a first step in opening Western lands to oil shale development, leases for oil and gas drilling near some national parks, and the start of a process to allow new oil rigs off the Atlantic, Gulf, Alaska and California coasts. (LAT, Jan. 22)

Researchers meeting at the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco said liquefied coal could ultimately have a greater impact on global climate than oil, as it starts to come on line in response to shrinking petrol reserves. "Oil and gas...don't have enough carbon to keep us in the dangerous zone for very long by themselves, but that's assuming we do something about coal," said Pushker Kharecha, a researcher for NASA and Columbia University. Coal is the most abundant fossil fuel, and liquefied coal releases 40% more carbon dioxide than oil when burned.

Former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack has been chosen by President-elect Barack Obama for agriculture secretary, the LA Times reports Dec. 17. The Organic Consumers Association warned a month ago against choosing Vilsack, calling him "Monsanto's buddy" and "a shill for agribusiness biotech giants." The OCA delineates six reasons why appointing Vilsack "would be a terrible idea":

At the Poznan climate summit, Mexico's Environment Secretary Juan Rafael Elvira announced his administration's plan to cut 2002 greenhouse gas emission levels by 50% by 2050. The Mexican plan includes a carbon trading system that would set emissions limits on certain sectors, such as electricity and oil refining. Companies that reduce their emissions below those limits could sell their unused allowances on the international carbon market. Mexico is the world's 13th largest emitter og greenhouse gases, and the announcement was intended as a challenge to other developing nations. South Korea has said it would announce an emissions cap next year, and South Africa has a detailed plan to peak emissions in 2025. (AP, The Guardian, Dec. 11)

This Dec. 10 account from the San Francisco Chronicle paints Steven Chu, President-elect Barack Obama's pick to lead the Energy Department, as an alternative-fuels visionary who will buck the oil cartel. But this year saw a protest campaign on campus at UC Berkeley against a program Chu championed to bring "biofuels" research to the university—under the auspices of oil giant BP.

Via the Global Justice Ecology Project, Dec. 9:

We, the undersigned representatives of indigenous peoples, local communities and non-governmental organizations monitoring the progress of negotiations in Poznan are outraged that the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand opposed the inclusion of recognition of the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities in a decision on REDD (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) drafted today by government delegates at the UN Climate Conference.