Bitter cold forces review of Kashmir winter school

Srinagar, Dec 25 (IANS) The bitter cold in the Kashmir Valley has forced authorities to mull closing the winter schooling that was started to make up for the classes lost during the months of unrest here earlier this year.

'It has almost been decided to close down the schools in the valley from January 1 as the extreme cold is making it difficult for the students to reach their schools on time,' a highly placed source in the government told IANS.

Environmentalists deplore Schwarzenegger's corporate turn - latimes.com

The Sierra Club warned that new regulations establishing a carbon trading regime include a giveaway to certain industries, pointing to allowances for emissions that were awarded at no cost rather than auctioned, as a state advisory committee had recommended. The plan also allows companies to purchase credits to avoid reducing pollution at their own facilities. Among the sellers of such credits will be timber companies that pledge to increase the carbon storage in forests, possibly by clear-cutting and planting new trees.

Sierra Club lobbyist Bill Magavern says oil companies would be the biggest beneficiary of the free allowance system. "The state will be giving oil companies valuable commodities for free, setting them up for windfall profits," he said.

Audubon Magazine

Meanwhile, climatologists will face an onslaught of their own. Darrell Issa, the incoming head of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, has already pledged to hold hearings on climate science. “I want to make sure the skeptics are heard,” Issa explained in September. While it’s extremely unlikely that Issa will debunk the evidence that humans are warming the planet, he could try to sway public opinion on the issue by depicting climate scientists as untrustworthy.