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Cloud Ships on Course to Beat Climate Change

"They sound like ideas from a Jules Verne novel, but giant engineering schemes designed to alter the climate offer the cheapest way of avoiding catastrophic global warming, according to a growing number of scientists and green-minded entrepreneurs...One relatively cheap solution, however, is gaining favour among many different groups and is endorsed today by an independent study that compares the costs and benefits of all the main ideas. A wind-powered fleet of 1,900 ships would criss-cross the oceans, sucking up sea water and spraying it from the top of tall funnels to create vast white clouds."  [London Times Online]

More Wildfire, More Bad Air

"An expected rise in wildfire in coming decades is bad news for western lungs...Smoke from wildfires contains two main kinds of carbon particles: black soot, or elemental carbon, and lighter-colored particles, called organic carbon aerosols, which are a mix of chemicals." [Los Angeles Times]

Corn Syrup's Mercury Surprise

"When FDA researcher Renee Dufault found residual mercury in high fructose corn syrup in 2004, the FDA ordered her to stop investigating. Mercury is used to make lye -- and lye is used to make the corn syrup that constitutes one in every ten calories that Americans eat." [Mother Jones]

Battle Brewing Over Giant Desert Solar Farm

"Tessera Solar plans to plant 34,000 solar dishes — each one 40 feet high and 38 feet wide — on 8,230 acres of the Mojave Desert in Southern California. Although the lengthy licensing process for the Calico solar farm remains in the early stages, several environmental groups are already raising red flags about the massive project’s impact on such protected wildlife as the desert tortoise, the Mojave fringe-toed lizard and Nelson’s bighorn sheep." [Green, Inc. - New York Times]

Wind Power Industry Retreating From Wyoming, Citing Sage Grouse Concerns

"Wyoming's wind energy boom is stalling amid growing confusion over state regulations designed to protect environmentally sensitive sage grouse and how those rules should apply to wind power projects. Houston-based Horizon Wind Energy announced last week that it is indefinitely suspending plans to build a 300-megawatt-capacity wind farm that would have occupied one of dozens of state-designated "sage grouse core areas" deemed essential to protecting the imperiled bird." [Greenwire-New York Times]