NC Media Watch: Reality bites in Poznan and Brussels

This Cambridge Scientific Alliance newsletter for 12th December 2008 popped into my email and I thought is was worth sharing with readers.

Wind Watch: Wind turbine plan scrapped by University of Illinois

The University of Illinois has canceled its plans to build wind turbines on campus, citing the university’s “deteriorating fiscal condition.”
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“Basically (the turbine) was more symbolic than it was adding to the energy capacity of the campus,” said Jack Dempsey, executive director of Facilities and Services at the UI.

Interim Climate Pact Approved - washingtonpost.com

POZNAN, Poland, Dec. 13 -- The effort to come up with a global warming treaty to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol inched forward Saturday morning as delegates to United Nations-sponsored talks here agreed on a narrowly framed interim document that leaves all the difficult negotiating until next year.

The modest result leaves the three-year process far short of the goal of concluding a binding agreement by the end of 2009 to curb greenhouse gas emissions and slow the planet's warming, which under current conditions scientists predict will reach dangerous and irreversible levels by the end of the century, if not sooner.

Given the minimal progress made in negotiations this year, several key players said, it will almost certainly take direct involvement by President-elect Barack Obama and other world leaders to produce a meaningful agreement next year.