Thanks to Fred Stanback for this article.
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A man sunbathes on the beach at Melbourne yesterday as temperatures broke records, staying above 43C for the third day in succession. More than 20 people have died from the heat.

Leaves are falling off trees in the height of summer, railway tracks are buckling, and people are retiring to their beds with deep-frozen hot-water bottles, as much of Australia swelters in its worst-ever heatwave.

For full article, visit:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/parched

When conservative groups like the American Enterprise Institute recognize climate change as real, it is heartening. However, the solution discussed in this article, geoengineering, needs a lot of scrutiny for unintended environmental effects.
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‘Geoengineering’ may not be a panacea for global warming, but it deserves more attention from policymakers.

As Congress debates legislation to mandate reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, a more radical type of intervention to reduce global warming has gotten relatively little attention. Earlier this month, the American Enterprise Institute held the first in a series of conferences to examine the scientific and policy implications of “geoengineering.”

For full article, visit:
http://www.american.com/archive

Thanks to Vicky Markham for the 2008 publication entitled, “U.S. Population, Energy and Climate Change.” To download a copy, visit www.cepnet.org.

Could TV really save the world from global warming?

Maybe not, but network television writers gathered on Tuesday anyway to discuss how incorporating the growing threat of climate change into primetime storylines could inspire viewers to live green.

Citing evidence that shows like crime drama “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” inspired a wave of wannabe forensic scientists, Hollywood movers and shakers said they believe more Americans will pay attention to the environment if they learn about global warming through their favorite TV series.

For full article, visit:
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4AI0OI20081119

Thanks to Tyler LePard, Media Manager of Population Action International, for alerting me to the discussion on the RH Reality Check website, which just published PAI’s feature on population and climate change. There are four posts and places to comment on each one:

• “Taking on Population and Climate Change” by Carolyn Vogel, PAI’s VP of Programs
• “Combating Global Warming Brings Population Back to the Agenda” by Leiwen Jiang, PAI’s new Senior Demographer
• “Global Climate Change: What Does it Mean for the World’s Women?” by Malea Hoepf Young, Research Associate at PAI
• “Should We Be Talking About Population and Climate Change?” by Karen Hardee, PAI’s VP of Research

They are available at http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/tag/population-and-climate-change

See Leiwen Jiang’s paper below.

Two landmark conferences of the 1990s really seemed to get the links between human population and the environment. The 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development noted that “human beings are the centre of concern for sustainable development.” Building on this two years later, the Cairo Programme of Action included the objective “to reduce both unsustainable consumption and production patterns as well as negative impacts of demographic factors on the environment in order to meet the needs of current generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

For full article, visit:
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2008

The Environmental Protection Agency, under fire for apparently discounting the impact of climate change, on Thursday said global warming poses real risk to human health and the American way of life.

Risks include more heat-related deaths, more heart and lung diseases due to increased ozone, and health problems related to hurricanes, extreme precipitation and wildfires, the agency said in a new report.

For full article, visit:
http://www.businessinsurance.com/cgi-bin/printStory.pl?news_id=13471

Climate change, according to recent research, is leading to an increase in the spread of parasitic diseases.

On Monday, delegates at the 23rd International Congress of Entomology heard that viral and parasitic diseases have been shown to increase in case studies because of the effects of climate change.

“Today’s lifestyles are energy dependent and the increased demand is leading to an increased warming in the atmosphere,” said Dr John Githure of the African Insect Science for Food and Health based in Nairobi, Kenya.

For full article, visit:
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php

Plunging penguin populations are a signal that the world’s oceans are suffering the effects of climate change, fishing and oil and gas development, according to an analysis that could provide new ammunition for groups seeking federal and global protection for the birds.

The paper’s author, University of Washington conservation biologist P. Dee Boersma, has studied the birds for more than 30 years.

For full article, visit:
http://www.earthportal.org/news/?p=1347

Hollywood is turning the silver screen “green,” but cutting waste, energy and costs in an industry known for big budgets and over-the-top productions is not easy, even in the trend setting movie business.

Hollywood has long used its star power to help the environment. A-list stars such as Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert Redford are well-known environmentalists and Al Gore’s 2006 Oscar-winning “An Inconvenient Truth,” about global warming, is widely credited for making the issue more mainstream.

For full article, visit:
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews

This is National Refugee Week, an appropriate time for Australians to consider the plight of climate refugees — those people being displaced as a result of sea-level rise, drought and extreme weather events.

This crisis is set to eclipse all refugee crises to date in terms of the number of people affected — it is estimated that about 200 million people could be displaced by 2050 with a sea level rise of only 50 centimetres — yet there has been no co-ordinated international effort to tackle this problem.

For full article, visit:
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/climate-change-refugee