Climate Change Disappears from Keystone XL Pipeline Debate | InsideClimate News

Mining and using tar sands oil creates more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional oil. But that's rarely mentioned anymore.

Neighbors Win Court Round Over Wind Farm Noise - NYTimes.com

A legal petition aimed at reinstating a state rule for limiting noise at a controversial wind farm in Maine can proceed, a judge ruled on Friday, denying a motion from the farm’s developer, Fox Islands Wind, for dismissal.

Can polar bears put climate change back on the agenda? - The Insiders - The Washington Post

Polar bears are running out of places to live due to climate change, which is warming their habitat in the Arctic — as it is in the other cold region where they don't live: the Antarctic.  In fact, this warming is occurring even more dramatically than even some of the most dire projections, and now there is a discussion about whether we can even preserve the species.

Polar bears are potentially the kind of galvanizing symbol of man's environmental destruction that whales once were. (The world's outcry about the destruction of whales did not result in a significant effort to save our oceans, which continue to die, in large part due to increased CO2 emissions, but it did create protections). They capture our attention and imagination as dry climate science cannot. It isn't a coincidence that Coca-Cola, perhaps the world's greatest marketer, featured these magnificent creatures in one of its most famous campaigns.... Uh, if the North Pole ice disappears on schedule in 20 years, where will that be? Are they thinking of moving them to the South Pole and wiping out the other favorite symbol of our polar regions, the penguin?

But others understand that polar bears are — again, forgive me — the tip of the iceberg. Climate change is here, and it is going to take away things we love. The longer we wait, the more we lose.