A commentary in the Alaska Dispatch argues that contrary to obvious trends, Alaska lawmakers seem to believe oil is still the path forward. It's astonishing that multibillion-dollar tax breaks are part of the dialogue, considering gasline plans that would reduce the need to import gas while also generating revenue are essentially dormant. Meanwhile, efficiency measures were chopped in the capital budget, and renewable energy programs - although gaining some traction - remain a boutique concept rather than a serious priority (Alaska Dispatch, 7/6/11).

Legislation necessary to move forward with the Susitna Dam hydroelectric project was signed into law on July 14 by Gov. Sean Parnell, allowing the Alaska Energy Authority to proceed with plans for engineering and design. The project has the potential to satisfy half of Southcentral Alaska's electricity demand. Senate Bill 42, which passed the Legislature unanimously, was introduced by Parnell to jump start the project. "The Susitna Dam project will provide an important and much needed supply of renewable energy for our homes and businesses while creating jobs for Alaskans," Parnell said. "This project is key to achieving the state's target of 50 percent of electricity generation through renewable energy by 2025" (Alaska Dispatch, 7/15/11).

Oil companies and governments are looking north as prices rise and energy security fears grow. The Arctic accounts for an estimated 13% of the undiscovered oil, an estimated 30% of the undiscovered natural gas, and an estimated 20% of the undiscovered natural gas liquids in the world. The oil found in massive quantities just below the desert sands of Saudi Arabia or in the relatively calm waters of the North Sea has been used up or shut off by politics to Western oil companies. This leaves oil companies to push the physical boundaries out into deep water, or the technical boundaries out into "unconventionals" such as the carbon-intensive tar sands, and environmentally sensitive areas such as the Arctic (Guardian, 7/5/11).

The recession of the sea ice and the reduction in permafrost have allowed access to oil, mineral, and natural gas deposits that were previously trapped in the ice. The abundance of these valuable resources has created a gold rush-like scramble in the high north, with fierce competition to determine which countries have the right to access the riches of the Arctic. The United States, Canada, Russia, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, and Finland all stake a claim to a portion of the Arctic. Now, one of the coldest places on Earth is heating up as nuclear submarines, Aegis-class frigates, and strategic bombers are starting operations there (CNN, 7/15/11).

This year could be well on its way toward earning a dubious spot in the record books. Arctic sea ice has melted away with astonishing speed in the first half of July, at an average rate of about 46,000 square miles per day. That's equivalent to an area roughly the size of Pennsylvania melting into the sea every 24 hours. Already, sea ice extent - how far ice extends across the ocean - this year is below the extent for the same time in 2007, a year which, in September, saw the lowest sea ice coverage ever recorded. "Unless things change in the next few weeks, we might have a new record for July," said a National Snow and Ice Data Center research scientist (MSNBC.com, 7/20/11).

Climate change is boosting levels of banned pollutants such as PCBs and DDT in the atmosphere, scientists have found. A new study links higher summer air temperatures and lower sea ice cover to increasing levels of persistent organic pollutants (POPs). That suggests that POPs previously trapped in water, snow, and ice could be released back into the air as the ice melts, allowing them to travel long distances through the environment. The effects of climate change were unmasked in the data by subtracting the effect of declining production and use of POPs. The link between higher summer air temperatures, lower sea ice cover, and higher POP concentrations in the air became more evident in the past decade as the sea ice melted more quickly, the study said (CBC News, 7/25/11).

New research suggests that as oceans heat up they could erode away the ice sheets much faster than warmer air alone, and this interaction needs to be accounted for in climate change models.

"Ocean warming is very important compared to atmospheric warming, because water has a much larger heat capacity than air," said one of the study researchers. "If you put an ice cube in a warm room, it will melt in several hours. But if you put an ice cube in a cup of warm water, it will disappear in just minutes." The researchers studied 19 state-of-the-art climate models and saw that subsurface ocean warming could accelerate ice-sheet melting over the next century, resulting in greater sea level rise, which could exceed 3 feet (Live Science, 7/3/11 ).

Polar bear cubs forced to swim long distances with their mothers as their icy Arctic habitat melts appear to have a higher mortality rate than cubs that didn't have to swim as far, a new study reports. Polar bears hunt, feed, and give birth on ice or on land, and are not naturally aquatic creatures. Previous reports have noted the bears swimming hundreds of miles to reach ice platforms or land, but this is one of the first to show these swims pose a greater risk to polar bear young (Environmental News Network, 7/19/11 ).

Scientific American recently published a three-part series exploring the connection between climate change and extreme weather. The first story states that the extreme weather predicted by climate models is now being observed across the globe. The second explains how rising global temperatures fuel stronger storms. And the third discusses how the world can manage the risks and adapt to a changing climate. The series was funded by the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. (Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 ).

Federal regulators are considering an increase to fuel efficiency standards that would require cars and light trucks to average 56 miles per gallon (mpg) by 2025, the second round of rules aimed at curbing vehicles' greenhouse gas emissions. Today's cars must average 30 mpg and light trucks 24 mpg. The proposal by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration would apply to model years 2017 through 2025. Federal officials are emphasizing that the proposal would reduce oil use, consumers' fuel costs, and emissions of other pollutants (Washington Post, 7/3/11 ).

California will delay by one year the start of its cap and trade program, officials recently announced. The chair of the California Air Resources Board said the delay is needed for "all necessary elements to be in place and fully functional." The delay extends the program's compliance deadline to January 2013. It would apply to the 500 largest sources of carbon dioxide emissions in the state, such as power plants, factories, and other industrial facilities. Work on the program slowed as state regulators responded to legal challenges. A state appellate court is still weighing a lower court's ruling that state regulators did not adequately analyze alternative ways of reducing greenhouse gases (Los Angeles Times, 6/29/11 ).

Former Vice President Al Gore has launched a new campaign aimed at exposing the "full truth, scope, scale, and impact of the climate crisis." The campaign, the Climate Reality Project, is organizing a Sept. 14 event and presentation focused on extreme weather and climate change. For the event, Gore will unveil a new presentation modeled after the one he gave in his film "An Inconvenient Truth." Twenty-four different people will deliver the presentation in 24 time zones around the world (The Hill, 7/12/11 ). 

Climate change poses a major threat to future peace and security, a senior U.N. official has warned.

Achim Steiner from the U.N. Environment Program said climate change would also "exponentially" increase the scale of natural disasters. His comments followed a UN declaration of famine in parts of Somalia. Mr Steiner warned that an increase in the frequency of natural disasters across the globe could prove a major challenge in the coming decades. He said recent crises, such as in Somalia, illustrate that "our capacity to handle these kinds of events is proving a challenge, particularly if they occur simultaneously and start affecting, for instance, global food markets, regional food security issues, displacing people, and creating refugees across borders" (BBC News, 7/21/11).

Climate models suggest greenhouse gas emissions have virtually locked in a temperature increase of more than 3.7 F above pre-Industrial levels. Adjusting and adapting to an inevitably warmer world, more far-sighted private companies are moving forward even in the absence of strong government leadership globally and nationally. Not surprisingly, the most active firms are those expecting climate change to pose risks to their profits: energy and gas companies with long-lived infrastructure, insurance firms exposed to damages from natural disasters, and retailers reliant on complex supply chains. All stand on the front lines of a substantially changing climate and have to think far ahead (Yale Forum on Climate Change & the Media, 7/26/11).

Scientists are making progress in adapting a key food staple to the impacts of climate change. A U.S. Geological Survey-led research project successfully colonized two commercial varieties of rice with a type of fungi. The rice showed an increased tolerance to drought, which is important because scientists expect climate change to increase the duration and severity of drought in already water-scarce areas of the globe. Rice is a key staple of diets worldwide. It provides nearly half the daily calories for the world's population. The next step for the research team is to develop greater heat tolerance in rice (Science Daily, 7/13/11 ).

The decade of the 2000s was the hottest on record, but average global temperatures could have been hotter, a new study suggests. Pollution from China's growing appetite for coal actually helped ease the rate at which global temperatures were rising, but that dampening effect won't last. Burning coal emits large quantities of carbon dioxide (CO2), a greenhouse gas that causes climate change. But it also emits sulphate aerosol, a cause of acid rain. Researchers say sulphate aerosol helped constrain the increase in temperatures by reflecting solar energy back into space (BBC, 7/5/11 ).

Trees in urban environments play an important, but often underestimated, role in removing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere, a new study found. More CO2 could be removed from the atmosphere if private landowners and city officials planted more trees. "Large trees are an especially important carbon store," said the lead author. "If just 10 percent of cities were planted with trees, the existing carbon pool could be increased by 12%" (Science Daily, 7/12/11).

Warmer global temperatures are reducing the ability of the oceans to remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere, according to a new study. Because CO2 dissolves in water, the oceans act as an important sink for CO2, absorbing about one-third of all human-caused carbon emissions. But warmer water cannot hold as much CO2. Any decrease in the rate of uptake may point to the need for more urgent steps to reduce CO2 emissions (Science Daily, 7/11/11 ).