Climate Change News Blog @newzblogz.com

Goodness, what part of "melting polar ice caps" don't you get?

Rising oceans will swamp coastal areas. Those of us who aren't cooked by the heat will die of thirst in a drought, if more frequent and intense hurricanes don't kill us first.

And humans almost certainly caused all this because we drive cars and air-condition our too-big homes and build factories that belch emissions and produce goods we almost certainly don't need.

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That's the message of the Rev. Jim Wallis, an author who presented the 2007 Alice Pope Shade Lecture at Susquehanna University on Monday night.

The Rev. Wallis is the author of seven books, including "God's Politics: Why the Right Gets it Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It." He also is the founder of Sojourners, a nationwide network of progressive Christians, and the co-founder of Red Letter Christians.

He has appeared on "Meet the Press," "The O'Reilly Factor" and "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," has spoken on National Public Radio and has been an adviser to President Bush.

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WASHINGTON - California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, assuming the mantle of potential kingmaker instead of mere political curiosity, scolded national leaders of both parties on Monday for "divide and conquer" politics.

On a trip east that included a Sunday news-show appearance and undisputed star status at a national governors conference, he used a sold-out speech to the National Press Club to urge the Bush administration and Congress to adopt his centrist, "post-partisan" approach to get things done on immigration, health care and global warming.

He quoted Edmund Burke and John F. Kennedy on the art of compromise, and with wife Maria Shriver and mother-in-law Eunice Shriver looking on, recalled long dinners with the Shrivers and Kennedys, prominent Democratic families, where people from both parties could hash over issues.

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WASHINGTON Five Western governors are taking aim at global warming.The governors of Arizona, California, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington state have agreed to develop a regional target to lower greenhouse gases and create a market-based program aimed at helping businesses reach the still-undecided goals.New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, a Democrat seeking his party's presidential nomination, says the five-state agreement should spur other states ahead. He says "You're going to see a domino e...

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WASHINGTON (AP) Fed up with federal inaction and convinced of the dangers from global warming, five governors from Western states agreed Monday to work together to reduce greenhouse gases.

Their promise to target global warming was the latest of a rush of new ideas shared this week as states push ahead on climate change and clean or alternative energy.

"Thankfully the country has reached a tipping point on this issue. I wish we had done it 20 years ago," said Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a Republican who last week signed into law a requirement that utilities generate a quarter of their power from renewable sources such as wind, water and the sun by 2025. "Governors, members of Congress and others are now scrambling to be bold."

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Former vice president Al Gore used the success of his documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth" to expand his efforts to educate people about global warming - and to tell a few jokes.

The film turned Gore's road show about climate change into a film that won Academy Awards for best documentary and best song.

The Oscars didn't actually go to Gore. Best documentary was won by "Inconvenient Truth" director Davis Guggenheim and producers Lawrence Bender, Laurie David, Lesley Chilcott and Scott Z. Burns.

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LONDON (AP) ? More than 50,000 scientists from 63 nations turned their attention to the world's poles Monday to measure the effects of climate change, using icebreakers, satellites and submarines to study everything from the effect of solar radiation on the polar atmosphere to the exotic marine life swimming beneath the Antarctic ice.

The International Polar Year unifies 228 research projects under a single umbrella with the aim of monitoring the health of the Earth's polar regions and gauging the impact of global warming. The largest international research program in 50 years, the project officially begins March 1 and ends in 2009 ? to allow each pole to run through a full summer and winter.

"Global warming is the most challenging problem that our civilization has faced," Britain's chief scientific adviser, Sir David King, said in a video played before the event's launch. He called the melting of polar ice "the canary in the coal mine for global warming."

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WASHINGTON -- Fed up with federal inaction and convinced of the dangers from global warming, five governors from Western states agreed Monday to work together to reduce greenhouse gases.

Their promise to target global warming was the latest of a rush of new ideas shared this week as states push ahead on climate change and clean or alternative energy.

"Thankfully the country has reached a tipping point on this issue. I wish we had done it 20 years ago," said Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a Republican who last week signed into law a requirement that utilities generate a quarter of their power from renewable sources such as wind, water and the sun by 2025. "Governors, members of Congress and others are now scrambling to be bold."

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WASHINGTON — Fed up with federal inaction and convinced of the dangers from global warming, five governors from Western states agreed Monday to work together to reduce greenhouse gases.

Their promise to target global warming was the latest of a rush of new ideas shared this week as states push ahead on climate change and clean or alternative energy.

“Thankfully the country has reached a tipping point on this issue. I wish we had done it 20 years ago,” said Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a Republican who last week signed into law a requirement that utilities generate a quarter of their power from renewable sources such as wind, water and the sun by 2025.

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WASHINGTON- The role environmentalists were asked to play in a $32 billion private-equity buyout of a large Texas coal burner could serve as a model for takeovers in other polluting industries, experts said Monday.

Dealing with the concerns of environmentalists "in a responsible way, up front, can save many years of litigation," said Stephen J. Humes, an energy and environmental lawyer with McCarter & English LLP in Hartford, Conn.

And such collaboration makes economic sense for mergers and acquisitions beyond the energy sector _ in particular, for potential deals involving chemicals and auto makers, said Paul Portney, dean of the University of Arizona's Eller College of Management.

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Tallahasseeans can still vote on Fallschase, albeit not via an official referendum. Instead, they will have the opportunity to vote with a tremendously more powerful weapon than the voting machine: their wallets. It is really quite simple. If you are morally and environmentally opposed to this development, then do not purchase a home there; do not patronize the big-box stores; do not spend your money on anything to do with this development.

Of course, this means that when the Democrat runs all of those ads with the great deals at Costco, you will have to ignore the urge to save and will need to shop elsewhere. So, what's the likelihood this development will fail due to a consumer boycott? Probably somewhere between slim and none. You can raise a stink, wave your arms and stomp your feet but, in the end, you can't fight City Hall and you can't fight the growth of commerce. I can't wait to see the grand-opening photos with big-box pa...

SCOTT MEHLE

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Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to President Bush: Get a smoking tent.

A lair like the one he has rigged in the courtyard outside his office in Sacramento - where lawmakers from both parties can go to "smoke a stogie" and "schmooze" - he said, could be the first step toward finally creating bipartisan cooperation in Washington.

"Dividing people does not work, but division is what Washington represents. For too long this town has been about divide and conquer," Schwarzenegger chided Monday in a speech at the National Press Club.

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WASHINGTON — Five Western governors agreed Monday on a plan to cut their states' emissions of gases linked to global warming and to establish a regional carbon trading system, though they stopped short of saying how drastically they will seek to reduce greenhouse gases.

The governors of Arizona, California, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington said that within six months they will set a regional target for lower emissions. A year after that, they pledged, they will devise a regional cap-and-trade system, which would let companies that can't meet their emission reduction targets buy credits from those that reduce emissions more than required.

"In the absence of meaningful federal action, it is up to the states to take action to address climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the country," said Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano. "Western states are being particularly hard hit by the effects of climate change."

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Their promise to target global warming was the latest of a rush of new ideas shared this week as states push ahead on climate change and clean or alternative energy.

"Thankfully the country has reached a tipping point on this issue. I wish we had done it 20 years ago," said Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a Republican who last week signed into law a requirement that utilities generate a quarter of their power from renewable sources such as wind, water and the sun by 2025. "Governors, members of Congress and others are now scrambling to be bold."

The twin challenges of global warming and energy were some of the dominant points of discussion over four days at the annual winter meeting of the National Governors Association.

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WASHINGTON - Governors from five Western states agreed Monday to work together to reduce greenhouse gases, saying their region has suffered some of the worst of global warming with recent droughts and bad fire seasons.

The governors of Arizona, California, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington state agreed that they would develop a regional target to lower greenhouse gases and create a program aimed at helping businesses reach the still-undecided goals.

"In the absence of meaningful federal action, it is up to the states to take action to address climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in this country," said Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, a Democrat. "Western states are being particularly hard-hit by the effects of climate change."

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To do so — and also harvest profits along the way — San Ramon-based Chevron Corp. has undertaken a potpourri of eco-friendly ventures.

Microbes munch on grease, a process that produces methane and then electricity. A fuel cell powers part of an East Bay jail. A solar array and other alternative-energy gear supply big postal complexes.

Sure, these bear the look and feel of pet causes that an environmental group might trumpet. Yet they are the work of a company unit, Chevron Energy Solutions.

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LOS ANGELES (AP) - Mexican directors Guillermo del Toro, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and Alfonso Cuaron shook up Oscar night with an incredible 16 nominations between them, leading some to compare the group to another trio of renowned filmmakers: Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas and John Ford.

Del Toro, for one, wasn't buying it.

"I was thinking more like Larry, Curly and Moe," joked the director, whose film "Pan's Labyrinth" garnered six nominations, including foreign-language film and screenplay.

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The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences didn't honor "the usual suspects" this awards season after all. Well, not all of them.

Sure, Helen Mirren won best actress for portraying "The Queen," Jennifer Hudson won best supporting actress for "Dreamgirls." "An Inconvenient Truth" triumphed, as expected. Forest Whitaker took another prize, and finally came up with an acceptance speech.

Martin Scorsese finally won an Oscar, on his eighth nomination.

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LOS ANGELES - Mexican directors Guillermo del Toro, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and Alfonso Cuaron shook up Oscar night with an incredible 16 nominations between them, leading some to compare the group to another trio of renowned filmmakers: Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas and John Ford.

Del Toro, for one, wasn't buying it.

"I was thinking more like Larry, Curly and Moe," joked the director, whose film "Pan's Labyrinth" garnered six nominations, including foreign-language film and screenplay.

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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Martin Scorsese, the creator of "Raging Bull" and "Taxi Driver," finally won Oscar recognition on Sunday but he had to share the spotlight with politician Al Gore, regal actress Helen Mirren and Cinderella story Jennifer Hudson.

Scorsese won a standing ovation from an Oscar audience that clearly thought it was time for the 64-year-old filmmaker, who was named best director and his gangster movie "The Departed" best film.

It was the first Academy Award for Scorsese after five previous best director nominations and he demanded a recount. "Could you double check the envelope?" Scorsese joked onstage.

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PASADENA - If the sun could fit in Caltech's Beckman Auditorium, in that relative universe, the nearest neighboring star would be in New York.

Venus has a temperature around 900 degrees Fahrenheit and smells like rotten eggs.

Parts of Mars resemble Death Valley.

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LOS ANGELES ? Former vice president Al Gore used the success of his documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth" to expand his efforts to educate people about global warming ? and to tell a few jokes.

The film turned Gore's road show about climate change into a film that won Academy Awards for best documentary and best song.

Gore also teased a bit Sunday night about his plans to possibly make another presidential run, although backstage, he said he was not a candidate.

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TXU, the largest energy provider in Texas, agreed Sunday night to a $45 billion buyout that would not only be the largest private-equity deal in history but would also feature an unusual twist:

The buyers have promised environmental groups they would cancel a slew of coal-fired power plants on the firm's drawing boards.

The buyout firms' deal with environmental groups, which could become a landmark in the battle over climate-change policy, would force an abrupt turnaround in the strategy of TXU, which has defied environmentalists' and congressional criticism to expand coal use and carbon-dioxide emissions.

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LOS ANGELES — Former vice president Al Gore used the success of his documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth" to expand his efforts to educate people about global warming — and to tell a few jokes.

The film turned Gore's road show about climate change into a film that won Academy Awards for best documentary and best song.

Gore also teased a bit Sunday night about his plans to possibly make another presidential run, although backstage, he said he was not a candidate.

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In the early 1970s when I helped found Greenpeace, I believed that nuclear energy was synonymous with nuclear holocaust, as did most of my compatriots. That's the conviction that inspired Greenpeace's first voyage up the spectacular rocky northwest coast to protest the testing of U.S. hydrogen bombs in Alaska's Aleutian Islands.

More than 30 years on, my views have changed, and the rest of the environmental movement needs to update its views, too, because nuclear energy may just be an energy source that can help save our planet from another potential disaster: the serious negative impacts of climate change.

Look at it this way: More than 600 coal-fired electric plants in the United States produce 36 percent of U.S. emissions -- or nearly 10 percent of global emissions -- of carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas responsible for climate change. Nuclear energy is the only large-scale, cost-effective energy source that can reduce these emissions while continuing to satisfy a growing demand for power. And these days it can do so safely.

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ASHEVILLE, N.C. - A federal data center in North Carolina's mountains expects to provide information as the debate over global warming and what to do about it moves forward.

"There's a lot of things we know. There's a lot we don't know, but we have to take the potential changes seriously," said Jay Lawrimore, chief of the Climate Monitoring Division of the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville.

Dealing with global warming "is not an argument for scientists," Lawrimore said. "Our job is to put out scientific conclusions."

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LOS ANGELES (AP) - Former vice president Al Gore used the success of his documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth" to expand his efforts to educate people about global warming - and to tell a few jokes.

The film turned Gore's road show about climate change into a film that won Academy Awards for best documentary and best song.

Gore also teased a bit Sunday night about his plans to possibly make another presidential run, although backstage, he said he was not a candidate.

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LOS ANGELES - Former vice president Al Gore used the success of his documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth" to expand his efforts to educate people about global warming - and to tell a few jokes.

The film turned Gore's road show about climate change into a film that won Academy Awards for best documentary and best song.

Gore also teased a bit Sunday night about his plans to possibly make another presidential run, although backstage, he said he was not a candidate.

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LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Former vice president Al Gore used the success of his documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," to expand his efforts to educate people about global warming - and to tell a few jokes. The film turned Gore's road show about climate change into a film that won Academy Awards for best documentary and best song. Gore also teased a bit Sunday night about his plans to possibly make another presidential run, although backstage, he said he was not a candidate. The win was a triumph f...

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A team of scientists ? including researchers from Penn State and two other universities ? hopes that $630,000 in grants from the National Science Foundation will help them to prove that a more detailed, watershed-wide study of the effect of development and climate change on the Susquehanna River Basin is needed.

The money will be used "to make a scientific case" for the need for a more in-depth look at the river basin, as well as to determine what kind of scientific data exists about the watershed and, just as importantly, where researchers should be gathering data, said Patrick Reed, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at Penn State.

The study focusing on the Susquehanna River Basin is one of 10 nationwide.

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Under a proposed $45 billion buyout by a team of private equity firms, the TXU Corporation, a Texas utility that has long been the bane of environmental groups, will abandon plans to build 8 of 11 coal plants and commit to a broad menu of environmental measures, according to people involved in the negotiations.

The roster of commitments came through an unusual process in which the equity firms asked two prominent environmental groups what measures could be taken to win their support. The result is an about-face from the company?s earlier approach to climate-change issues, and includes a goal of returning the carbon-dioxide emissions by TXU to 1990 levels by 2020.

Environmental groups said yesterday that they had never known of a financial deal with such an ambitious built-in environmental component.

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HAVANA (Reuters) - Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore doesn't know if his climate change documentary will win an Oscar on Sunday night -- but he has Cuba's vote.

Sunday's Union of Young Communist's newspaper reported acting Cuban President Raul Castro ``recognized the effort of the former vice president to denounce'' global warming during a two-hour meeting with youth leaders on Friday.

Cuba's official and only television media showed Gore's documentary ``An Inconvenient Truth'' on prime time this month and an update by Gore, giving the one-time presidential contender more positive publicity than any other U.S. leader in decades.

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Scientists from more than 60 countries are preparing to fan out around the North and South Poles in an ambitious two-year effort to understand the vital, shifting dynamics of ice, oceans and life at the ends of the earth.

With a budget of about $350 million spread over more than 120 projects, researchers will camp on drifting Arctic Ocean sea ice and trek to largely uncharted Antarctic mountains.

They will use gliding underwater robots, giant icebreaking ships, satellites and other technologies to explore polar climate, biology, geology and ocean chemistry, and they will undertake physics and astronomy studies that can be done only at the poles.

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LEWISBURG, Pa. ? For this planet to remain hospitable to humans, Americans have to start following the 80-50 rule.

That is, we must reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by the year 2050, according to Bill Nye, who spoke at Bucknell University on Tuesday.

Nye, who received a mechanical engineering degree from Cornell University, worked on flight systems for Boeing Corp. and is best known as ?Bill Nye the Science Guy? on the popular television series of the same name, recently began engaging audiences on the topic of climate change.

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WASHINGTON ? Sen. Amy Klobuchar is urging the Senate Agriculture Committee chairman to include a host of provisions in the next farm bill aimed at helping to reduce global warming, arguing that agriculture can play a constructive role in helping the environment.

In a letter Tuesday to Chairman Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, Klobuchar wrote, ?I respectfully request that agriculture?s role in fighting climate change be made a major new focus of the next farm bill.?

Klobuchar, a freshman Minnesota Democrat, said she will introduce a package of incentives in the coming months with an eye toward including them in the farm bill. Those include:

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Tonight, this is how I’d like to see the Academy Awards go.

And the winner is ... Leonardo DiCaprio for "Blood Diamond."

Thank you. Thank you. Whew! Well, how about this?

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Does hot air about climate change spewed in the U.S. Senate contribute to global warming?

No one really knows for sure, since Al Gore didn't address that question in "An Inconvenient Truth."

But we'll probably find out in January, when, thanks to the Democrats' capture of Congress, Sen. Barbara Boxer takes the wheel of the Environment and Public Works Committee from Republican Sen. James Inhofe and makes a liberal U-turn.

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Once the fourth largest inland body of water in the world, the sea has shrunk to one-fourth its original surface area and has lost 90 percent of its volume. In little more than 50 years, a massive water diversion effort to turn the Central Asian desert into an agricultural Mecca also destroyed one of the world's greatest inland seas.

As a result of his visit, Annin has a unique perspective on the upcoming debate in the state Legislature over passage of a massive plan to protect the water in the Great Lakes - the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact.

It is one of the most important pieces of environmental legislation to come before the Legislature in years, some say, and it is likely to be voted upon this session.

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SACRAMENTO — The new dynamic in Washington, with Californian Nancy Pelosi as House speaker, threatens to thwart an effort by state political leaders to overhaul the way voting districts are drawn.

Fresh from their victories in the November election, Democrats in Congress don't want to risk their fragile majority. Many Republicans don't want their relatively safe seats threatened either.

Their opposition promises to crimp an effort by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, state Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez (D-Los Angeles) and others to change how California draws political boundaries every 10 years to accommodate population shifts.

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In an all-mail vote, Seattleites are weighing in on a replacement for the Alaskan Way Viaduct. Advisory Measure 1 centers on the surface/tunnel hybrid design; Advisory Measure 2 on a new elevated structure. A third option, the surface-street/transit alternative, is not on the ballot but hovering in the wings. Here are two views on the March 13 ballot titles:

The ballots arriving in your mailbox for the March 13 special election are much more than a referendum on a highway project. They represent perhaps the most important decision this generation will make about the kind of city we leave for our children and grandchildren.

We have an opportunity to tear down the concrete wall that has separated our city from its waterfront and replace it with a public gathering place that celebrates the natural assets of Elliott Bay and the Olympic Mountains.

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Drury University President John Sellars has signed the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment, an agreement to implement advanced conservation efforts on and off campus.

Drury also has joined the Climate Commitment Leadership Circle, a group of 42 U.S. universities committed to addressing global-warming issues. Other schools include the University of Florida, Arizona State University, Ball State University and Pacific Lutheran University.

Under both commitments, Drury will work to reduce its net greenhouse gas emissions and will serve as an example to its students and the community in slowing or reversing the planets climate change.

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HAPPISBURGH, England - A 12-bedroom guest house, with beautiful views of the North Sea, a lighthouse and sandy beaches, sounds like prime real estate.

But Cliff House is nearly worthless.

The offshore wooden barrier that once protected the sand and clay cliffs of this stretch of eastern English coast has broken apart, and the government has decided that with the expected rise in sea levels and storm surges that experts attribute to global warming, some vulnerable coastal areas are no longer worth defending.

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After years of watching curiously as Al Gore seemed to shout tirelessly into the wind, trying to convince the world of the existence of global warming one wonkish slide show at a time, many people now believe he has been right all along."I take no joy in that part of it," the former vice president said Friday from Los Angeles. "I wish I hadn't been right, believe me. So on one level, if you work hard on an issue, you get some feeling of having worked hard to put the evidence together if it turn...

Gore's three-decade crusade is receiving international attention this weekend as An Inconvenient Truth, the documentary in which his global-warming slide show is the focus, is nominated for two Oscars, including best documentary feature."I think the Oscar nomination was great because for one thing, it helps bring more attention to the message contained in the movie. That is my principal focus, delivering this message to as many people as quickly as possible," said Gore, noting his pleasure in th...

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Since February is Black History month, I took it upon myself to ask my students to give me a quote ? any quote ? attributed to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Very few, regardless of race, were able to quote much of anything from the great American, other than one generalized idea: ?Something about a dream that everybody everywhere will some day live together in freedom as one.?

The brilliant astronomer Carl Sagan proposed that humanity may indeed some day find true world brotherhood. It would happen immediately ? on the very day we find out we?re not alone in the universe.

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The Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change makes this claim, and has the numbers to back it up. In fact, the panel says California serves as a model for other states seeking a similar path to energy reduction. Wow.

The panel concluded that since 1974, California has held its per capita energy consumption essentially constant while energy use per person across the United States has jumped 50 percent overall. While the average American burns 12,000 kilowatt-hours a year of electricity, the average Californian burns less than 7,000.

Believe it or not, California is cutting its contributions to global warming — carbon dioxide emissions per capita in California have fallen 30 percent since 1975 while the U.S. overall has remained flat. And with a push from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the state will further curb automobile pollution, increase the use of solar energy and cap greenhouse gases in the future.

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The Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change makes this claim, and has the numbers to back it up. In fact, the panel says California serves as a model for other states seeking a similar path to energy reduction. Wow.

The panel concluded that since 1974 California has held its per capita energy consumption essentially constant while energy use per person across the United States has jumped 50 percent overall. While the average American burns

12,000 kilowatt-hours a year of electricity, the average Californian burns less than 7,000.

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A new light is about to burn more brightly: the stubby, squiggly fluorescent bulb. Environmentalists love it, Wal-Mart is promoting it and Australia is eyeing it as an easy way to save energy and curb global warming.

Now, California lawmakers are giving it some wattage by considering a ban on the sale of old-fashioned incandescent bulbs beginning in 2012.

The proposed switch represents a revolution in a lampshade, because incandescents account for 95% of light bulb sales. Replacing each descendant of Thomas A. Edison's invention with a low-energy, long-lasting, compact fluorescent bulb would slash electricity consumption by 75%, proponents say.

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Feinstein, D-Calif., unveiled a wide-ranging package of bills aimed to do just that. One would limit emissions from power plants, another would raise fuel economy standards. Several are based on laws California already has in place.

"We've got to control and contain the warming," Feinstein told about 150 academic, government, industry and activist experts gathered for a two-day conference on climate change policy.

"Our planet is at stake. ... Whatever you do, don't shift — don't shift — the problem to the next generation."

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Aside from a few dead-enders on the political right, climate change skeptics seem to be making a seamless transition from denial to fatalism. In the past, they rejected the science. Now, with the scientific evidence pretty much irrefutable, they insist that it doesn't matter because any serious attempt to curb greenhouse gas emissions is politically and economically impossible.

Behind this claim lies the assumption, explicit or implicit, that any substantial cut in energy use would require a drastic change in the way we live. To be fair, some people in the conservation movement seem to share that assumption.

But the assumption is false. Let me tell you about a real-world counterexample: an advanced economy that has managed to combine rising living standards with a substantial decline in per capita energy consumption, and managed to keep total carbon dioxide emissions more or less flat for two decades, even as both its economy and its population grew rapidly. And it achieved all this without fundamentally changing a lifestyle centered on automobiles and single-family houses.

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WE see so many things wrong with California — health insurance, high cost of housing, deteriorating infrastructure, crime, silly legislation, the Raiders — now comes a report that says this state leads the nation in energy conservation. Could this be true? Have we really learned to conserve energy better than anyone in the country?

The Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change makes this claim, and has the numbers to back it up. In fact, the panel says California serves as a model for other states seeking a similar path to energy reduction. Wow.

The panel concluded that since 1974 California has held its per capita energy consumption essentially constant while energy use per person across the United States has jumped 50 percent overall. While the average American burns 12,000 kilowatt-hours a year of electricity, the average Californian burns less than 7,000.

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Feinstein, D-Calif., unveiled a wide-ranging package of

bills aimed to do just that. One would limit emissions from power plants, another would raise fuel economy standards. Several are based on laws California already has in place.

"We've got to control and contain the warming," Feinstein told about 150 academic, government, industry and activist experts gathered for a two-day conference on climate change policy.

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MUMBAI, India ? Until recently, it looked like the depleted ozone layer protecting the earth from harmful solar rays was on its way to being healed.

But thanks in part to an explosion of demand for air-conditioners in hot places like India and southern China ? mostly relying on refrigerants already banned in Europe and in the process of being phased out in the United States ? the ozone layer is proving very hard to repair.

Four months ago, scientists discovered that the ?hole? created by the world?s use of ozone-depleting gases ? in aerosol spray cans, aging refrigerators and old air-conditioners ? had expanded again, stretching once more to the record size of 2001.