Climate Change

"April 2010 was the hottest April ever recorded, with an average temperature of 14.5 degrees celsius (58.1 degrees  Fahrenheit), the UN weather agency said Tuesday."

"The United Nations appointed Christiana Figueres of Costa Rica on Monday to be its climate chief to head stalled international talks on how to contain the world's greenhouse gas emissions."

"Fifteen organizations, including Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, the Center for Biological Diversity, and the Friends Committee on National Legislation, which is a Quaker lobbying group, have formed the Climate Reality Check coalition to oppose the legislation, released last week by Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.)."

"U.S. EPA [Thursday] issued its final 'tailoring' rule for greenhouse gas emissions, a contentious policy aimed at shielding small polluters from rigid Clean Air Act permitting requirements."

Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) released their draft Senate climate and energy bill Wednesday. It pairs a cap-and-trade scheme with major concessions to the fossil-fuel and nuclear industries. Weighing in close to 1,000 pages, it covers a cross section of the nation's top environmental and energy issues. Both business groups and environmental groups have mixed reactions. The big question now is whether the bill can garner enough votes to succeed on the Senate floor.

"A U.S. Senate compromise bill aimed at battling global warming would cut emissions of greenhouse gases 17 percent by 2020, according to a summary given to senators and obtained by Reuters on Tuesday."

"Lawsuits attacking U.S. EPA's first greenhouse gas standard are expected to start rolling in after the Obama administration's suite of new automobile standards was published Friday in the Federal Register."

A team of scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric administration tries to sort out the various causes of hurricanes and heat waves -- to see whether the fingerprints of man-made climate change can be found.