This year, the ozone hole extended to approximately 27 million square kilometers. This compared to 2007’s 25 million square kilometers and 2006’s 29 million square kilometers.

Want a size comparison? That’s about the size of the North American continent!

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Governor of New Jersey since January 17, 2006, Corzine wants the Garden State to triple the total amount of wind generated power that it plans to use by 2020. This would bring its total up to 3,000 megawatts, measuring out to be 13% of New Jersey’s total energy, and enough energy to power anywhere between 800,000 and just under a million homes.

This comes just days after the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities announced that it had chosen Garden State Offshore Energy (GSOE) as the preferred developer for a 350-megawatt wind farm off the NJ coast.

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“As far as the Copenhagen process is concerned, my personal assessment is unfortunately fairly pessimistic … things have moved forward in an extremely difficult way and the progress achieved is extremely limited,” Yu says.

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With the beginning of spring in the Northern Hemisphere these days, comes the inexorable wait to see when the Arctic sea ice starts melting, and then waiting to see how far it’ll melt. If nothing else, it’s great for journalists looking for a story. For my money though, I’m a much bigger fan of this time of year, when the Arctic sea ice starts reclaiming ground.

And after reaching the second-lowest extent ever recorded last month, sea ice in the Arctic has begun to refreeze in the face of autumn temperatures. Subsequently, both the Northern Sea Route and the direct route through the Northwest Passage have been closed.

“This is the first time in our charting records that both historic passages opened up in the same year,” said NIC Chief Scientist Dr Pablo Clemente-Colón. “Both of the routes appeared as closed by 22 September.”

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The financial cost of this plan is not insignificant. Google put the cost at about $4.4 trillion in undiscounted 2008 dollars, but stress that the savings are even greater, sitting at about $5.4 trillion, resulting in a net savings of $1 trillion over the 22 year life of the plan.

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Peters’ main example was, rightfully so, China, and the mixed responsibilities in ensuring that their export and trade industry does not single-handedly doom the planet to a carbon ridden future.

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Environmentalists and anyone else attempting to derail wind farms have often turned to the fate of birds for scientific back up. In the case of the environmentalists, I’ll let it pass, but it’s when the senators and other politicians who have never shown an ounce of interest in the outdoors – let alone an animal in the outdoors – jump on the “PROTECT THE BIRDS” bandwagon that gets me riled up (among a host of other things).

Thankfully, new research out of England has lain to rest at least some of the claims saying that wind farms, and to a lesser extent singular wind turbines, represent a real threat to bird populations.

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The author wrote of Elisabeth, a 53 year old grandmother, who accompanied her daughter after she gave birth to her first child. She spoke of how, for her, if she had wanted to give birth with light, she would have to bring her own candles.

Now, in the small village of Antsahadinta, 20 kilometers to the west of Madagascar’s capital, Antananarivo, the medical clinic now has its own solar generator to produce its own electricity.

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The latest comes in a one-two punch. First of all experts are labeling the fight to save the Florida Everglades as a “losing battle,” while Brazil’s Environment Minister is blaming upcoming elections and increasing food prices for another rise in Amazon deforestation.

So no matter which way you look at it, the simple fact of the matter is, humans are irreversibly stupid.

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And now, thanks to Virgin Galactic, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will be getting a bit more data to continue their never ending quest to understand planet Earth.

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And now, thanks to researchers from the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands and the Center for Space Research (CSR) in America, a new and accurate picture of Greenland’s shrinking ice cap has been formulated.

Subsequently, the researchers have found that Greenland is currently responsible for an annual increase of sea levels of up to half a millimeter.

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“At first thought, capturing CO2 from the air where it’s at a concentration of 0.04 per cent seems absurd, when we are just starting to do cost-effective capture at power plants where CO2 produced is at a concentration of more than 10 per cent,” says Keith, Canada Research Chair in Energy and Environment.

“But the thermodynamics suggests that air capture might only be a bit harder than capturing CO2 from power plants. We are trying to turn that theory into engineering reality.”

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When Schwarzenegger took the stage Friday in San Francisco at a Commonwealth Club event, celebrating California’s success in its global warming fighting leadership, the once-action star did not pull his punches. "We know that Washington is asleep at the wheel. We cannot look for leadership there,” so "We are not waiting for the federal government."

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With predictions pointing to a global rise in sea levels over the next century, many countries are beginning the first stages of planning to deal with such increases. For Asia, a land where population density is the least of their problems, but a major problem nonetheless, this foresight could save millions of lives.

One of the countries that is proactively attempting to find solutions is Vietnam. No longer willing to rely on foreign non-governmental organizations, Vietnam is looking to find solutions for themselves.

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A new experiment, being conducted at Imperial College London’s Silwood Park campus in Berkshire, will attempt to determine how the British plant ecosystem will be affected by future changes to climate and biodiversity.

With this experiment, however, there will be no computer simulations. Instead, scientists and researchers will be conducting the experiment outside, with 168 plots of grassland ecosystem at their fingertips. This will give a clear insight into how the ecosystems will hold up under a variety of different situations.

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Similarly, I do not think it is a hard proposition to imagine that Africa’s actual solar generation is miniscule, compared to the rest of the planet.

But rather than trying to focus blame within Africa, I think the blame must, as it does with much of the anthropogenic global warming, be laid at the feet of western nations for not doing more for Africa. Because while Africa may see the Sun create an average of 5 to 7 kilowatts per hour for every square meter across its surface, the money is simply not there for governments to spend on solar technology.

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The plant will process a hundred million liters per day, the equivalent to 26-million US gallons.

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After two years, an oversized yellow buoy floating five miles off the southern tip of Long Beach Island has definitely proved its technology feasible. With the rise and fall of each wave, pistons slide up and down inside a cylinder within the buoy, generating electricity.

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“Very few restoration ecologists are taking advantage of large restoration sites by conducting large-scale experiments,” says Joy B. Zedler of the University of Wisconsin- Madison. “Most people wouldn’t buy a new shirt without trying on several different kinds to see which fits best and looks right. It’s similar with restoration; we want to find the best fit between the methods we use and the outcomes we want.”

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The government announced to spend ZAR 400 million, which equates to roughly $49 million USD.

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