Obama must take a lead on climate change – and soon | Jeffrey Sachs | Environment | guardian.co.uk

All signs suggest that the planet is still hurtling headlong toward climatic disaster. ...Today's understanding of earth's climate and the human-induced component of climate change is the result of extremely difficult scientific work involving many thousands of scientists in all parts of the world. This scientific understanding is incomplete, and there remain significant uncertainties about the precise magnitudes, timing, and dangers of climate change.
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This has given rise to a third problem in addressing climate change, which stems from a combination of the economic implications of the issue and the uncertainty that surrounds it. This is reflected in the brutal, destructive campaign against climate science by powerful vested interests and ideologues, apparently aimed at creating an atmosphere of ignorance and confusion.
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[Obama]  could then present an estimated price tag for phasing in these changes over time, and demonstrate that the costs would be modest compared to the enormous benefits.
...And nature is telling us that our current economic model is dangerous and self-defeating.

Response to George Monbiot: Why 'Amazongate' matters | Environment | guardian.co.uk

George Monbiot should be calling the IPCC to account for its unreferenced rainforest claims, rather than attacking its critics

Lessons from Senate climate fail | Grist

The Obama administration got off to a rough start on climate policy when it put a revenue assumption from a carbon cap into its first budget based on Obama's campaign platform.
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Last November, thousands of emails stolen from the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit were posted online. A handful of these emails, out of context, were widely disseminated by the Merchants of Doubt. After the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change won the Nobel Prize, I had assumed that the debate about climate science was effectively over and, along with the rest of the environmental community, turned my attention to advancing solutions. A handful of emails couldn't possibly undermine confidence in a body of peer reviewed scientific literature built up over two decades, could it?

With the global climate pact dead, China gets hungry for U.S. factory pork | Grist

Now that we've figured out why the climate bill died, it's time to start thinking about the consequences. The failure doesn't just mean that U.S. greenhouse gas emissions will continue inching up. It also means that we probably won't see a global climate deal anytime soon. And that means untold years of ever-increasing emissions -- and likely dire consequences for human habitation on Earth.

Think about a global climate pact from China's perspective. Why should it take leadership, now that the U.S. has refused to act?  [Why wouldn't they take leadership, if they actually believed that CO2 might kill their grandchildren?]