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Climate the "Biggest Loser" at G20

The G20 meetings and agreement (written as a communique) have climate experts and activists up in arms, saying that the announced $1.1 trillion stimulous package "risks locking the world into a high-carbon economy in which greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise" and that these meetings were a huge "missed opportunity."  The communique spends only two paragraphs ("tacked on the end") commenting on a low-carbon economy and climate change neogiations, and the British government "lost the battle to include a commitment to spend a substantial share of the economic stimulus on low-carbon recovery projects." [Guardian]

Related:

• George Monbiot worries that "our leaders have learnt nothing from the financial crisis," and is outraged that "The environmental clauses - which contradict almost everything that goes before - have been tacked onto the end of the communique as an afterthought. No new money has been set aside. No new ideas are proposed; just the usual wishful thinking: let's call the whole package green and hope for the best."  [Guardian]
• The French "Spiderman" climbs as a G20 protest. [AP-Huffington Post]

RECOMMENDED READING

Massive Gulf Dead Zone

The USGS has found a "Dead Zone" the size of New Jersey in the Gulf of Mexico, the result of "excess fertilizers and animal manure [flowing] down the Mississippi River...When too much fertilizer and animal waste flow off of farm and ranch lands, it adds too much nitrogen and phosphorus to the water, which depletes oxygen, results in algae blooms, and drives off fish, shrimp and other aquatic life."  The report identifies the worst polluters (Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio and Mississippi), and discusses the impacts on Gulf state economics.  [GreenBiz]

Can China Be Green?

Ken Salazar, Interior Secretary, has released a report stating that "wind turbines off U.S. coastlines could potentially supply more than enough electricity to meet the nation's current demand," with the biggest potential off the Atlantic coast where turbines could produce 1,000 gigawatts of electricity, a quarter of our national demand.  [Los Angeles Times] 

DEPT. OF DEPRESSING POPULAR PERCEPTION

"Anti-global warming literature is faring exceedingly well in Google News searches, and indeed, has now reached parity with “alarmist” (read “accurate”) information."  [The Intersection]

QUOTATIOUS

"This is good for Republicans, since it helps them achieve their goal of destroying the planet. And it’s good for Democrats, since it helps them achieve their goal of pretending to try to avoid the destruction of the planet while ensuring that, in practice, the planet is destroyed." - Matt Yglesias on the Senate ruling out a straight majority vote for cap and trade legislation.  [ThinkProgress]