Clean Start: November 10, 2011

Welcome to Clean Start, ThinkProgress Green’s morning round-up of the latest in climate and clean energy. Here is what we’re reading. What are you?

Just in case you weren’t aware of how dangerous drilling in the Arctic might be, nature seems to have sent a reminder — what the National Weather Service is calling the “Bering Sea Superstorm” is bearing down on Alaska, bringing gusts of more than 90 mph and storm surges of 8 to 10 feet. [Time]

One of the strongest storms to hit western Alaska in nearly 40 years battered coastal communities Wednesday with snow and hurricane-force winds, knocking out power, ripping up roofs and forcing some residents to board up windows and seek higher ground. [Seattle Times]

The first winter storm of the season dumped record-breaking snow in central Wisconsin, leaving more than 100 crashes — and a few snowmen — in its wake. [Green Bay Press-Gazette]

Thai consumer confidence fell to a 10-year low in October because of flooding that has taken 533 lives and shut thousands of factories, with another industrial estate threatened on Thursday as water spread in the east of the capital, Bangkok. [Reuters]

The release of massive amounts of carbon from methane hydrate frozen under the seafloor 56 million years ago has been linked to the greatest change in global climate since a dinosaur-killing asteroid presumably hit Earth 9 million years earlier. [Science Daily]

American energy use went back up in 2010 compared to 2009, when consumption was at a 12-year low. [Science Daily]

An international team of researchers funded by NASA and the National Science Foundation (NSF) will travel next month to one of Antarctica’s most active, remote and harsh spots to determine how changes in the waters circulating under an active ice sheet are causing a glacier to accelerate and drain into the sea. [Science Daily]

Sleeping sickness could threaten tens of millions more people as the tsetse fly which transmits the disease spreads to southern Africa as a result of global warming, a study published on Wednesday says. [AFP]

Fracker Range Resources has deployed psy-op-inspired tactics in Pennsylvania, sending threatening letters to the citizens of Mt. Pleasant Township in hopes of dividing the community, and attempting to sway the township supervisors to do the natural gas industry’s bidding. [DeSmogBlog]

American Electric Power Co. Inc., United Mine Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers are lobbying for legislation introduced yesterday by Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV.) and Dan Coats (R-IN) that would allow additional years for implementation of EPA rules for ozone, particles and mercury from power plants. [E&E News]