Man causing climate change – poll – BBB News. On average, 79% of respondents to the BBC survey of 22,000 people in 21 countries agreed that “human activity, including industry and transportation, is a significant cause of climate change.” Some two-thirds said “it is necessary to take major steps starting very soon.” Full report here.

Improving the Environment to Benefit Latinos – Center for American Progress. “According to the American Lung Association, 80 percent of Latinos live in counties that do not meet at least one federal air quality standard as mandated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. This compares to only 57 percent of whites and 65 percent of African Americans.”

Banks Urging U.S. to Adopt the Trading of Emissions – New York Times. Some of the world’s leading banks — Citigroup, Lehman Brothers Holdings, Morgan Stanley, BNP Paribas, Barclays Capital and Deutsche Bank, “will urge the United States and other industrial nations this week to move quickly to introduce a lightly regulated system for trading carbon emissions permits.” As for the safety valve, “Price caps should play a very limited role in the system,” said Gia Schneider, a vice president for carbon markets at Credit Suisse, which is a member of the lobbying group. “Such policies could lead to market distortions and stymie efforts to raise enough capital to fund new energy technologies such as windmills and solar power.”

U.N. Chief Urges Immediate Climate Action – New York Times. ”The need to act is now,” Al Gore told delegates to the one-day UN summit. As for California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger:

”One responsibility we all have is action. Action, action, action,” the former Hollywood action star said as he helped open the summit, winning warm applause from the assembled presidents and premiers.

UN is best for climate talks, poor nations say – International Herald Tribune. On Bush’s summit, to start today: “The world has been asked to Washington to discuss this issue this week,” said Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA). “But it is a little bit like being invited to a prayer breakfast with a group of fellow believers, but the meeting is hosted by an atheist.”

Since President Clinton’s press conference today was not webcast, I thought I would blog on that.

There’s so many good talks that I am behind on my CGI blogging, yes, and I will catch up, but I hope that you have been tuning in to the webcast — Clinton said today that 400,000 people were (up from 50,000 last year).

Clinton remains a genuine polymath (unlike Greenspan) — without notes, he gave a 7-minute history of the human race and civilization — starting 150,000 years ago in the Olduvai Gorge through today (which takes us from 1 human to 6.5 billion) through 2050 (which adds another 2.5 billion in the blink of an eye) — to give some idea of the scale and speed of the transformation taking place on this planet.

He was asked about the Kyoto Protocol, and replied “we should all be personally impatient about climate change.” But we must remember “most ideas aren’t adopted when they are first proposed.” Then he said the quote that I used in the headline, adding that such failure “keeps people stumbling in the right direction.”

On sustainable development in the Third World, he repeated the point he tried to get Robert Zoellick to understand yesterday, “We are not asking you to change your economic growth rate, we’re asking you to change the way you grow.”

He had a lot to say on a carbon trading system versus a carbon tax:

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After Ron in the comments of this blog circulated a claim that our nation’s top climate scientist “once warned of Ice Age” — I (and no doubt many others) emailed Hansen and said he should reply to the rapidly morphing and spreading myth. He has here.

I will reprint what he has to say below (you can also go to that link for an interesting commentary “Please talk to your grandfather”):

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If you thought you could go untouched by global warming, think again.

Mic Check Radio, another project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, has compiled a list of 100 effects of global warming. Some are humorous, some are poignant, but it’s altogether serious and worth reading to the end.

To highlight a few of their favorites:

More Bear Attacks
Earlier this year, Moscow warned its citizens to beware of brown bear attacks. In Russia, it’s been too hot in the winter for bears to sleep. When bears can’t hibernate, they get very grouchy and become “unusually aggressive.” [Der Spiegel]

Say Hello to Bulgarian Hooker Shortages
“Brothel owners in Bulgaria are blaming global warming for staff shortages. They claim their best girls are working in ski resorts because a lack of snow has forced tourists to seek other pleasures.” [Metro UK]

Say Hello to Really Tacky Fake Ski Vacations
Weiner Air Force and former House Majority Leader Dick Armey are building a year-round ski resort in Texas, with “wet, white Astroturf with bristles” standing in for snow to make up for all the closed resorts around the country. [WSJ]

Death in the Time of Cholera
Cholera, which thrives in warmer water, appeared in the newly warmed waters of South America in 1991 for the first time in the 20th century. “It swept from Peru across the continent and into Mexico, killing more than 10,000 people.” [Washington Post]

Say Goodbye to Baseball
The future of the ash tree–from which all baseball bats are made–is in danger of disappearing, thanks to a combination of killer beetles and global warming. [NY Times]

The opening plenary was fascinating (video here). Clinton explained how CGI commitments had already avoided 20,000,000 tons of greenhouse gases. Then he tried to get Robert Zoellick, head of the World Bank, to realize that the “Bank can show people options for sustainable development.”

Zoellick, however, was full of little more than platitudes, saying we need to address “questions of adaptation and mitigation,” and noting that there is a sensitivity in the developing world that climate change funds will come at the expense of development — totally missing Clinton’s point that green development is the only winning path (and Gore’s point that global warming, left unchecked, will negate all other efforts aimed at development).

Clinton, however, persisted, especially after H. Lee Scott, CEO of Wal-Mart touted his various successes:

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