I didn’t get much time to say anything, so I thought that most useful thing I could do for listeners was to let them know what is coming in terms of gasoline prices.

[flv http://images1.americanprogress.org/il80web20037/ClimateProgress/flv/2008/05/SaudiOil.320.240.flv]

CNN senior business correspondent Ali Velshi has been promoting coal-to-liquids technology and praising “clean coal, 99 percent clean” for an entire month. On Tuesday, CNN held a no-holds-barred coalfest, promoting coal-to-liquids and coal gasification technologies, calling coal “seductive,” and criticizing “blogs” who “go nuts” and “environmentalists” who “want to get rid of coal.”

What’s motivating CNN to closely mirror coal-industry talking points?

One hopes it has nothing to do with this:

The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity is a $45 million front group for over 40 companies in the coal industry.

[Warning to Parents -- This titillating post is rated PG-13, though it does come via the WSJ blog.]

Because I try to keep Climate Progress readers abreast of technology and fashion news, here is the latest from the gadget-crazed Japanese:

Triumph International Ltd., famous underwear maker, unveiled its environmentally friendly “Solar Power Bra” Wednesday in Tokyo.

The bra, designed to raise awareness of global warming and the need to conserve energy, features a solar panel worn around the stomach.

The solar panel is able to produce electricity from sunlight and room lighting that can generate enough power to charge a cell phone or an iPod.

Okay, now here is the dumb part [no seriously, this is the dumb part]. Reuters reports

The panel requires light to generate electricity and the concept bra will not be in stores anytime soon, said Triumph spokeswoman Yoshiko Masuda, as “people usually can not go outside without wearing clothes over it.”

I hear you cry ‘udder nonsense’! But surely Madonna at least will find some use for it. The bra does have another obvious flaw:

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In theory, anyway. Supposedly between about 11:05 and 11:15, delivering the great news that the public need to get used to four dollars a gallon gasoline, and then five dollars…. I should have a clip to put up at some point today. Unless, of course, I get bumped, or this turns out to be one of those dream sequences from Lost.

Nature has published the first article to “formally link observed global changes in physical and biological systems to human-induced climate change, predominantly from increasing greenhouse gases.” See news story here and the article, “Attributing physical and biological impacts to anthropogenic climate change” (subs. req’d, abstract below).

NASA’s discussion of the piece here explains, “human-caused climate change has made an impact on a wide range of Earth’s natural systems, including permafrost thawing, plants blooming earlier across Europe, and lakes declining in productivity in Africa.” The image at right: “Impacts from warming are evident in satellite images showing that lakes in Siberia disappearing as the permafrost thaws and lake water drains deeper into the ground.” The lead author explained:

“This is the first study to link global temperature data sets, climate model results, and observed changes in a broad range of physical and biological systems to show the link between humans, climate, and impacts.”

… Observed impacts included changes to physical systems, such as glaciers shrinking, permafrost melting, and lakes and rivers warming. Biological systems also were impacted in a variety of ways, such as leaves unfolding and flowers blooming earlier in the spring, birds arriving earlier during migration periods, and plant and animal species moving toward Earth’s poles and higher in elevation. In aquatic environments such as oceans, lakes, and rivers, plankton and fish are shifting from cold-adapted to warm-adapted communities.

Significantly, the changes are driven by “temperature increases at continental scales [that] cannot be explained by natural climate variations alone.” The full abstract of the article is below:

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