EU leaders have agreed on a new climate change deal, which pledges to cut carbon emissions by 20 percent by 2020, compared to 1990 levels. — BBC News The White House is considering using money allocated for the $700 billion Wall Street bailout to help the ailing Big Three auto companies. The attempt at offering relief comes after the Senate failed to pass the $14 billion package.— Wall Read more

Even some conservatives believe that the US President-elect should put the environmental crisis at the top of his presidential to-do list, because addressing that crisis has bipartisan approval. Yet despite an apparent citizen yearning for leadership on green issues, President Bush has neglected the topic during his eight years in the White House. Salon put together a list of Bush's seven Read more

Looks like we've been putting our purchases of "fresh air" and "clean water" on our credit cards lately, and a nasty bill just arrived. The WWF just released a Living Planet report showing that humans are using 30 percent more resources than the planet can sustain and replenish every year. The interest rate on living beyond our ecological means is huge. Huge. At the current rate of consumption, Read more

Two Held in Obama Plot: Two men, being described as Neo-Nazis and aged 18 and 20, are being held for plotting to kill Barack Obama. Obama said he's not worried about the news and that it's "not who America is." The plan was to shoot 88 African-Americans and decapitate 14, symbolic numbers to white supremacists. The plot appears to have been amateurish and unsophisticated. Syria Raid Kills Read more

I can almost feel the warm sand in this picture — though one criminal phenomenon is making the sand in the Caribbean "hot" as in stolen. On islands like Puerto Rico, Grenada, and St. Kitts among many others, thieves are actually stealing sand off the beaches for money. Why the sand swiping? The building surge requires sand and enterprising criminals are reselling it to constructions companies. Read more

Dubai is everywhere. Well, not everywhere, it's specifically on the southern coast of the Persian Gulf and one of the seven emirates in the United Arab Emirates and the most populous city of the UAE. On the plane to the RNC I read Ben Mezrich's new book, Rigged: The True Story of an Ivy League Kid Who Changed the World of Oil From Wall Street to Dubai. It's excellent and piqued my interest for Read more

Joe the Plumber Speaks: After being the star of last night's debate, mentioned conservatively a dozen times, "Joe the Plumber" has come forward. His name is Joe Wurzelbacher, an Ohio man who wants to buy a plumbing business. He had spoken with Obama in Toledo this week, and told him his tax plan would prevent him from buying the business. He said of being the example of the night, "It's pretty Read more

While the medals and finish lines from the Olympics are becoming a distant memory — so was the hard-fought clean air that Beijing enjoyed during the Games. Residents have been discussing just how to keep the measures in effect, and now they might have won. A partial victory at least. Traffic restrictions have been re-introduced to Beijing, hoping to bring back the easy-breathing peace and Read more

While the stock market's belly-dancer-gyrations (more of a limbo, "how low can you go?", really) seem significant — according to a study commissioned by the EU, the global economy actually loses more money through the disappearance of forests than through the financial ho-down. The study pegs the cost of the loss of forests between $2 and $5 trillion per year, while calculations put the Read more

With all the talk lately about who's "in the tank" for whom, this is one story where the imagery just might fit. The CEO of Al Gore's big We Campaign is accusing ABC of putting the concerns of big oil over their message of planetary goodwill by refusing to run the latest Al Gore ad, called, "Repower America." In a scathing email the CEO said: “Did you notice the ads after last night’s Read more