Lame it on Rio: Youth stage Earth Summit walkout | Grist

[McKibben] The Rio+20 conference is remarkably listless; the energy of 1992 has bled into a formulaic bureaucracy-fest. The text negotiators have agreed to punts on virtually every major issue (one analysis showed that governments agreed to “encourage” and “support” actions 148 times, but only on three issues summoned the courage to say “we will” actually do something).

Farmers go green under carbon tax scheme - Yahoo!7

That is one of the difficulties of the program - once the trees go in, the land cannot be used for something else.

Thick snow cover posing new risk to Amarnath pilgrims - India News - IBNLive

Jammu: Thick snow cover at Kashmir's Amarnath cave shrine and on the route leading to it is posing multiple risks to pilgrims and has increased challenges before the organisers of the annual pilgrimage, due to start here June 25.

Although the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board(SASB) has doubled its efforts to clear the track for the over 350,000 registered pilgrims for the Amarnath Yatra 2012, the inclement weather that persisted until two days ago has made some stretches dangerous for trekking, an official said.

Garth Paltridge: Science Held Hostage In Climate Debate

Climate science has transformed itself from a research backwater a few decades ago into one of the greatest public-good scientific cash cows ever devised. The livelihood of most climate scientists is now dependent on government grants. It is not a situation conducive to sceptical outlook and balanced advice.