Reuters

Most consumers want companies to do more to protect the environment and reckon that firms should play a leading role in fighting global warming, a worldwide survey showed Tuesday.

The poll, of 28,000 Internet users in 51 nations by The Nielsen Company, showed that corporate commitment to green ethics is playing “an increasingly influential role in consumers’ purchasing behavior,” Nielsen said.

AFP

Most Europeans are very concerned about climate change, but a sizeable minority feel they don’t know enough to help counter it, a major EU opinion poll released Thursday suggested.

A majority of the 30,000-plus interviewed throughout the European Union and candidate countries thought that neither industry nor national governments nor the EU itself was doing enough to tackle the problem.

The Globe and Mail

Arctic Ocean sea ice has melted to the second lowest minimum since satellite observations began, according to scientists at the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center.

Sea ice melt recorded on Monday exceeded the low recorded in 2005, which had held second place.

With several weeks left in the melting season, ice in summer 2008 has a chance to go below last year’s record low, the scientists at the University of Colorado said.

Dot Earth – The New York Times

I flew to Sicily on Monday for a week-long meeting on global risks ranging from Internet disruption to global warming and nuclear proliferation. The annual meetings on “planetary emergencies” are organized by the Ettore Marjorana Center for Scientific Culture, which occupies several converted ancient monasteries and other buildings in the pre-Medieval hilltop town of Erice, and the World Federation of Scientists, in Geneva.

National Geographic News

Grazing musk-oxen and caribou may help protect the fragile Arctic ecosystem from the effects of global warming, according to a new study.

Large grazers could help the region by feasting on woody shrubs and plants that would otherwise take over as temperatures rise and change the way the Arctic looks and functions.

If shrubs dominated, they would darken Arctic lands and absorb more heat from the sun, enhancing warming due to greenhouse gases.

Scientific American

As the globe continues to warm, the rainiest parts of the world are very likely to get wetter, according to a new study in Science. Desert dwellers, however, are likely to see what little rain they receive dry up, as the rain becomes even more concentrated in high-precipitation areas.

Mail Tribune

Lately ecologists, educators, politicians, environmentalists, and developers have been touting sustainability. Yet I doubt they would all agree how it is defined or measured. I recently attended a meeting on sustainability at Southern Oregon University. Participants from throughout the Rogue Valley attended, representing a variety of interests. Yet it wasn’t until the meeting was essentially over that someone asked whether anyone knew how sustainability is defined.

The Guardian

The UK is in denial about its real carbon emissions, suggests a report from the Stockholm Environment Institute. The academics conclude that if “outsourced” emissions produced in countries like China on goods which are imported into the UK are included in our total carbon footprint, this country’s total greenhouse gas emissions are 49% higher than currently reported. So we should think twice when blaming the Chinese for emitting the CO2 that is required in the manufacture of our fridges and televisions.

The New York Times

To set an example in the effort to curb energy use that contributes to global warming, the secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, has approved a one-month pilot project to raise the thermostat throughout much of the landmark building to 77 degrees from 72 degrees.

The Huffington Post

I hate to break it to you, but simple steps, like changing your light bulbs and driving a hybrid car, though they are good steps in the right direction, will not be enough to save our world from collapse. If we consider “Plan A” to be business as usual, which is currently consuming, depleting, and poisoning the natural systems that maintain life on Earth, then we might call a sustainable alternative “Plan B”