Environmentalists have lost a legal challenge to force the Canadian government to abide by the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, which Canada signed but has refused to implement.

The Federal Court on Monday dismissed a lawsuit filed by Friends of the Earth Canada that alleged the government broke the law by missing deadlines for implementing the treaty to cut emissions of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.

It is not up to the court to decide if the government acted reasonably in failing to meet its international commitments, and even if it had the power to do so, there was no practical way to enforce a court order, a federal judge ruled.

"Such an order would be so devoid of meaningful content and the nature of any response to it so legally intangible that the exercise would be meaningless in practical terms," Justice Robert Barnes wrote.

Cows affect climate change more than cars, according to new research which demonstrates that methane produced by cows is increasing at a faster rate than gases produced by man-made emissions.

Dr Andy Thorpe, an economist at the University of Portsmouth, reveals that a herd of 200 cows can produce annual emissions of methane equal in greenhouse gas terms to a car burning 21,400 litres of petrol.

Dr Thorpe also says that, while carbon dioxide emissions have increased by 31 per cent over the past 250 years, methane has increased by 149 per cent.

On a U.S. trip, the Czech president steps into the role of crusader and fund-raiser for the climate change deniers.

Global warming skeptics have been longing for a figurehead to lead their charge since before Al Gore came out with his inconvenient documentary. Last month, several conservative groups in the United States hosted one of the few promising candidates – Vaclav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic.

Klaus not only gives these groups a lot of legitimacy, he also helps them raise the substantial sums that they miss now that Big Oil has left them on their own.

After working East Coast audiences in the spring, Klaus hit the road out west in late September. Klaus stopped at medium-size regional think tanks with not much federal leverage, as they openly admit, and did not meet with any government officials.

The high costs of the EU plan to fight global warming may force Italian businesses to relocate, Environment Minister Stefania Prestigiacomo warned in an interview published on Tuesday.

"The main risk is relocation, and even countries like Germany have mentioned this problem," she told the financial daily Il Sole 24 Ore. "All manufacturing sectors are threatened," she added.

Italy estimates its industry would have to spend between 18 billion and 25 billion euros (24 billion to 33 billion dollars) a year to reach the targets, though the European Commission contests the figures.

A month ago, Planet Gore reported that NASA climatologist James Hansen, a leading voice in proclaiming man’s role in climate change and a close advisor of Al Gore, had sided with the radical environmental group Greenpeace in advocating eco-vandalism to save the planet.

Hansen’s controversial testimony at a London trial in support of activists accused of causing $60,000 in property damage to an English coal facility brought immediate condemnation from some in the science community. “The ramifications are huge,” wrote Iain Murray, an environmental-science expert with the Competitive Enterprise Institute. “Operators of coal-fired power stations in the U. K. have just been stripped of legal protection from the criminal actions of the environmental lobby.”

Meteorologist Anthony Watts called for Hansen’s resignation, writing that “siding with vandalism is an inappropriate abuse of (his) position. Dr. Hansen has violated the code of (NASA) ethics.”

Stéphane Dion, the leader of the Liberal Party, announced Monday that he would step down, a moment that was a new low for a party that has dominated this country’s politics for much of its history and that is sometimes called “Canada’s national governing party” by supporters.

When Canadian voters last week returned to power the Conservative Party, led by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, they dealt a severe rebuke to Mr. Dion and his campaign platform, which had focused on climate change. The Liberal Party will hold 76 seats in the next Parliament, compared with 95 it now holds. The party received 26 percent of the popular vote, its poorest showing ever.

The resignation of Mr. Dion, who was elected the party’s leader less than two years ago, will begin a campaign for his successor in which the two most likely contenders, Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae, have personal ties to the United States.

methane capture well

America's garbage dumps are reaping a windfall from the fight against global warming. But their payday might not be doing much to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

For more than a decade, the landfill here has made extra profit simply by collecting methane given off by rotting trash, and selling it as fuel. Last year, the landfill learned that doing this also qualified it to earn hundreds of thousands of dollars via a new program that pays companies to cut their greenhouse-gas emissions.

Eliminating methane lets dumps sell "carbon credits" to environmentally conscious people and companies. The long-term goal of trading credits -- basically, vouchers representing reductions in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases -- is to reduce global pollution by encouraging others to cut emissions when the buyers of the credits can't or won't cut their own.

How do you know when a Green—hardcore environmentalist—is lying to you? When his lips are moving. Okay, it’s a cliché used in other cases as well, but it is especially true when the latest absurd claim comes flying at you courtesy of the mainstream media.

Take nuclear energy as an example. A new survey by Bisconti Research, taken since one conducted in April, revealed “a record-high 74% of Americans favor nuclear energy, with only 24% opposed.” That’s a big change in just five months and no doubt has a lot to do with the growing public realization that America will have an energy crisis on its hands if it does not permit new plants to be built.

“The unprecedented levels of support for nuclear energy found in this survey,” said Ann Bisconti, “can be attributed to growing concerns about energy and focus on energy alternatives.” There are few real alternatives. At present, coal-fired plants generate just over 50% of electricity and nuclear represents about 20%. The rest is made up by hydroelectric, and some natural gas. The much touted “clean” energy sources, solar and wind, only 1%.

In a recent letter to its members, Friends of the Earth, one of the larger environmental organizations, claimed that “warming means war.”

Like all the diehard Greens that have sought to foist a bogus “global warming” hoax on the nation and the world, FOE is growing more desperate to use this great lie to impose restrictions on the nation’s economic growth that are aimed at the development of our national energy reserves.

Claiming that “more oil drilling” and other energy sources, including coal, are an “addiction to dirty energy”, the FOE assert that their worldwide use, combined with “global warming” will “weaken failed states, cause famine and poverty, population shifts, water shortages, flooding and other unpredictable consequences.”

[H/T to Marc]   Excerpts: If the End of Days were going to be portrayed in a museum exhibition, it might look like the array of natural disasters, both real and imagined, that can be found at “Climate Change,” which opens Saturday at the American Museum of Natural History.

There is something almost biblical about these worst-case scenarios, apocalyptically suggested even in the subtitle: “The Threat to Life and a New Energy Future.” And if the plagues promised with global warming don’t include an onslaught of frogs, there is more than enough to worry about: the exhibition predicts proliferation of malaria and desperate foraging of wildlife. […] 

Emerging from this ambitious and, at times, overwrought show, you almost expect to see a new set of dioramas and fossilized skeletons showing how Homo sapiens once dwelt on this planet in arrogant mastery before the species burned its way to oblivion. […]

James Hansen

Eleven climate change activists are due in court today on criminal charges after they blockaded a planned $1.8bn coal-fired power plant, providing an American echo of the Kingsnorth Six trial.

The activists were arrested last month in rural Wise County, Virginia, at the gates of a power plant being built by Dominion, the No 2 utility in the US. The 11 chained themselves to steel barrels that held aloft a banner, lit by solar panels, challenging the utility to provide cleaner energy for a region ravaged by abusive coal mining.

Charged with unlawful assembly and obstruction of justice, the group has been dubbed the Dominion 11 in homage to Kingsnorth. Dr James Hansen, the leading US climate change scientist, has followed his testimony on behalf of the Kingsnorth protesters with an offer of help to the Virginia activists.

It might seem like a non-issue. With the stock market way off its 2007 record highs and banking institutions failing in the midst of a presidential election, global warming alarmists have toned down their pleas for economy-killing greenhouse gas emission regulations.

But ABC’s “World News with Charles Gibson” is attempting to keep the issue in focus. Gibson’s Oct. 16 broadcast raised “new concerns” about climate change.

“New concerns today about climate change,” Gibson said. “In its annual arctic report card, the government says the ice in Greenland is melting at a record pace. Twenty-four cubic miles of ice disappeared in 2007.”