The study – "Windfall for All: How Connected, Convenient Neighborhoods Can Protect Our Climate and Safeguard California's Economy" – was conducted by Oakland-based TransForm, formerly the Transportation and Land Use Coalition. TransForm is a coalition that includes nonprofits, environmental advocates and labor unions.

...The recession has kept natural gas demand low most of the year. With manufacturers shuttering factories and closing offices, the country is using less electricity and power plants are burning less natural gas.

These are all climate-change issues, but they have something else in common: food. Copenhagen will be about climate, of course, but in a fundamental sense, it must also be about whether we will have enough to eat in the decades to come.

...Considering our current economy, what will happen when another extreme weather event like Hurricane Katrina hits a major US city? What will happen when storms, droughts and fires continue to spread with increasing intensity? How many have to die before even modest actions are taken to prevent environmental catastrophe?

Then there is the looming problem of Peak Oil - the stage when demand outstrips the world's capacity to produce it.

News of the imports prompted the environmental group Greenpeace to say Wednesday that this was further proof that France's policy of producing three quarters of its electricity from nuclear power was a big mistake.

Global warming skeptics are seizing on portions of the messages as evidence that scientists are colluding and warping data to fit the theory of global warming, but researchers say the e-mails are being taken out of context and just show scientists engaged in frank discussion.

According to the report by the environmental watchdog, up to 55 billion roubles (1.9 billion dollars) a year is spent on repairs to infrastructure and pipelines damaged by changes in the permafrost in western Siberia. "

The waters have been so altered by climate change and melting sea ice that plankton, shellfish and fish may have trouble building their protective shells and skeletons, an international team reports Friday in the journal Science. "

Valero Energy Corp., which shuttered a major refinery over the summer, said Friday it would permanently close its Delaware City oil refinery and layoff 550 workers."

Sporting a delicate windmill as a lapel pin, Simmons started off by reflecting on the concept of sustainability, a current buzzword among energy development experts. "More and more people around the world are beginning to wonder, "Does the globe have a sustainable strategy?'" Simmons said. "It's all about sustainability. Sustainability means protecting or improving our living standards. And without abundant water and energy, we are not sustainable," he said. "There's no question that our oceans are energy's last frontier."

But just as Cuba’s petroleum trade has soared, revenue is plummeting from other key exports like nickel, pharmaceuticals and tobacco products. Foreign trade is down 36 percent this year, as the global recession and $10 billion in damage from three 2008 hurricanes have drained Cuba’s finances.