Clean Start: March 27, 2012

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?

Firefighters battling a wind-whipped wildfire west of Denver are waiting for sunrise to see if calmer winds will allow firefighting air tankers to battle a blaze that has scorched 4.5 square miles and left one person dead. [CBS]

Maple syrup producers across the North have had their season cut short by unusually warm weather. [Green Bay Press Gazette]

An exclusion zone stretching up to four miles has been set up around a North Sea oil platform because it is leaking gas and could explode. [Daily Mail]

Californians cleaned up Monday from a storm that hit many areas in frenzied bursts, flooding streets and freeways, zapping power and toppling trees and utility poles. [AP]

Oil traded near its highest closing level in three days as gains in equities tempered signs of faltering demand in the U.S. and China. [Businessweek]

Extensive and persistent rain is causing widespread flooding in the Philippines. [GMA News]

Enbridge Inc., the biggest Canadian pipeline company, and Enterprise Products Partners LP plan to expand add 450,000 barrels a day of capacity to the Seaway pipeline, linking the northern U.S. to the Gulf Coast as supplies increase from Canada’s oil sands and the Bakken shale in the Northern Plains. [Bloomberg]

Americans may protest loudly, but their economic behavior indicates a remarkable indifference to the price of oil. [NY Times]

The U.S. Department of the Interior released a set of voluntary guidelines meant to ensure wind developers take action to lessen the effects on wildlife and associated habitats. [UPI]

Denmark has announced a plan for 35 percent of its energy to come from renewables by 2020. [Business Insider]

The world’s cities face the brunt of climate change and some are starting to respond vigorously to the threat, experts say at a conference here staged ahead of the June Rio summit. [Dawn.com]

Scientists fear that if temperatures warm up too fast it will destabilize the permafrost and tropical swamps and unlock billions of tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. [Telegraph]

Mayor Lee Leffingwell has announced an initiative to make Austin, OR a magnet for international investment in clean energy and green jobs. [Sustainable Business Oregon]

A federal judge ruled Friday that EPA overstepped its bounds in vetoing permits for a West Virginia mountaintop removal mine, a decision the state’s governor cheered. [WTRF]

A U.S. House subcommittee will consider legislation this week that would force the Environmental Protection Agency to delay new regulations to make gasoline cleaner because of high gasoline prices. [Bloomberg

Shell is very close to its goal of drilling for oil in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas. [KTUU]