Keeping weather records used to be fun, and then came climate change | Environment | guardian.co.uk

The Australian climate scientist Neville Nicholls has a haiku that neatly summarizes what we most need to remember about climate change. Even for a number-lover like me, this says it all:

The world is warming
Fossil fuels are causing this;
More warming will come.

New ban imposed on regulating global warming gases

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration is trying to make sure in its final days that federal air pollution regulations will not be used to control the gases blamed for global warming.

In a memorandum sent Thursday, outgoing Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen Johnson sets an agency-wide policy prohibiting controls on carbon dioxide emissions from being included in air pollution permits for coal-fired power plants and other facilities.

The decision could give the agency a legal basis for issuing permits that increase global warming pollution until the incoming Obama administration can change it, a process that would require a lengthy rulemaking process.

Local News | Washington state a mess from heavy snow, cold | Seattle Times Newspaper

Spokane was paralyzed with a record snowfall. The Weather Service recorded 19.4 inches of snow at Spokane International Airport in the 24 hours that ended at 10 a.m. Thursday, a whopping 6.3 inches more than the record of 13 inches set in 1950. Records have been kept since 1881. And snow continued to fall.
...
School was closed for more than 220,000 students just within the central Puget Sound counties of King, Pierce and Snohomish. Seattle school officials had been mocked by some for calling off school Wednesday for a threat of snow that had not yet materialized.