This winter has been unusually warm, crippling ski resorts, ruining holiday traditions, and dashing hopes of a white Christmas across the northern hemisphere. While the billions of tons of greenhouse pollution in our atmosphere sometimes encourage freak snowstorms, the primary effect of global warming on winter is, well, warmer temperatures — making white Christmases less likely. Temperature increases in some regions were off the charts in November, with northern Norway about 10°F warmer than average. In Finland, snow has been replaced by rain, killing World Cup and European Cup ski races, hurting retail sales, and adding to the gloom people feel from the long winter dark. This “black Christmas” shows the “footprint of global warming“:

Helsinki is experiencing uncharacteristically mild December temperatures, and only light dustings of snow have come and gone. “At the beginning of December it was on average six degrees warmer than is usual for this time of year,” meteorologist Pauli Jokinen told AFP. He said the snow’s no-show in the south of the country this year was partly due to natural variations, but also a footprint of global warming. “You can’t put a single season down to climate change, but we have seen that climate change has lifted the baseline temperatures,” he explained.

In Indiana, golf courses are still open while ski resorts remain shuttered. From the Pyrenees to the Balkans, ski resorts in the Alps have not only failed to receive natural snow, it’s been too warm to make any. “Virginia ski resorts are watching their assets melt away.” The December season has been a wash for the $1 billion New Hampshire ski resort industry. “Skiing is all right, if you consider the rain and everything,” one Massachusetts skier said of resorts’ efforts to make snow amid spring-like weather.

“Most Canadians will not wake up to a white Christmas on December 25 for the first time since Canada’s weather office began recording snowfalls in 1955,” AFP reports.

Environment Canada senior climatologist Dave Phillips told AFP “he has never seen so little snowpack in Canada’s cities.”

Because of global warming pollution from burning fossil fuels, winters are generally becoming milder, wetter, and starting later, making the promise of a white Christmas more of a dream.

U.N. Foundation President Tim Wirth told Climate Wire this week that President Obama has a “last window of opportunity” to avert catastrophic climate change — assuming he gets reelected:

“I don’t know who and where the climate leadership in the administration is. It doesn’t exist. There is no resolve in the Obama administration to do anything, and I think they look at Congress and say, ‘We can’t do anything, so why break our pick now?’” Wirth said.

Hey, if the White House waits long enough, all the ice will melt and they won’t need a pick!

He argued that the administration and environmental groups alike must “spend the year 2012 setting the table for the next four years.” Dismissing the possibility of a Republican win in November, Wirth called a second Obama administration term “the last window of opportunity” to enact policies that can avert a catastrophic rise in global temperatures.

“It’s the last chance we have to get anything approaching 2 degrees Centigrade,” he said. “If we don’t do it now, we are committing the world to a drastically different place.”

Obama’s reelection is only at 51.9% on Intrade, so  I wouldn’t dismiss the possibility of him losing at all, particularly given how poor the White House had been at messaging on most issues.

It’s also quite interesting that Wirth takes a similar view to Climate Progress on Durban (see “2C or not 2C: That Is the Question About the Durban Deal” and various responses in the comments).  The fault lies not in the negotiators, but in the instructions they had from those in charge:

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Monitoring hearings can be pretty dry. Unless, of course, you’re monitoring the House Committee on Natural Resources. The Public Lands Team at the Center for American Progress just released a video highlighting this year’s top oddest and dirtiest moments committee:

From the beginning of the 112th Congress it was suspected that Chairman Doc Hastings (R-WA) would lead the committee on an “oil above all” mission, and that proved to be the case—20 out of 65 oversight hearings were held on how to do more oil and gas drilling, while just four were held on spurring renewable energy development. Hearings weren’t the only way Republicans attempted to prioritize the bottom line of their corporate contributors over the public lands that belong to all Americans—indeed, they went so far as to push extreme measures to mine uranium next to the Grand Canyon and deny the existence of an entire industry of green jobs, both of which are shown in this video.

The House of Representatives in the 112th Congress as a whole has the dubious distinction of being “the most anti-environment House in the history of Congress,” averaging more than one anti-environmental vote for every day the House was in session in 2011. Much of that legislation started in the House Committee on Natural Resources, where CAPAF’s Public Lands Project spent the year highlighting mistruths about oil and gas subsidies, exposing nefarious motivations for mining and drilling our public lands, and standing up for policies that protect the lands that belong to all of us.

An oil spill near the coast of Nigeria is likely the worst to hit those waters in a decade, a government official said Thursday, as slicks from the Royal Dutch Shell PLC spill approached the country’s southern shoreline.

The slick from Shell’s Bonga field has affected 115 miles (185 kilometers) of ocean near Nigeria’s coast, Peter Idabor, who leads the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency, told The Associated Press. Idabor said the slick continued to move toward the shore Thursday night, putting at risk birds, fish and other wildlife in the area.

Shell, the major oil producer in Nigeria, said late Thursday the spill came from a “flexible export line” connecting the offshore field to a waiting tanker. The company published photographs of the spill, showing a telltale rainbow sheen in the ocean, but said it believes that about 50 percent of the leaked oil has already evaporated.

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A 5-kW solar system in Roxbury, VT. Photo: Solar Specialists

Vermont is known for its lush Green Mountains, idyllic farm landscapes, and progressive politics. What many people may not realize is that Vermont has a pretty active secessionist movement too.

Vermont isn’t likely to secede from the U.S. But it is undertaking an ambitious renewable energy program that could at least put it on a path toward “energy secession” — developing a road map for procuring 90% of its heat, electricity and fuels from renewables by 2050.

Under Vermont’s new governor, Peter Shumlin, regulators are developing the state’s first comprehensive energy plan in over a decade. And this one is certainly forward-looking.

Vermont currently gets about 25% of its electricity from renewables — mostly biomass and hydro. But officials want to diversify technologies, address under-served markets like heat and fuels, and dramatically improve efficiency in all sectors. The state released its final comprehensive plan for 2011 last week.

Vermont has already embraced a modest transition to renewables, implementing a feed-in tariff in 2009 and developing a renewable energy standard (heat and electricity) of 20% by 2017. This latest plan, which just went through an extensive public commenting period, takes these efforts to the next level.

After Vermont received a devastating surprise pummeling from Hurricane Irene in August, state planners have taken the experience to heart, using it as one of the central drivers in the state’s new energy plan.

In the wake of Tropical Storm Irene, the need to align local, regional, and state policies across agencies and departments to support thoughtful and resilient growth in our downtowns and villages has never been more acute. The Agency of Commerce and Community Development, with the support of the Climate Cabinet, will complete a review of the state’s designation programs in 2012.

Prior to Tropical Storm Irene, the state had already set a goal of 5% reduction in energy usage across state government. Now that the state faces significant infrastructure repair and rebuilding, energy usage in our state buildings is even more central to our planning. The CEP recommends that the state sharpen its focus on efficient buildings while strategically deploying renewable energy systems.

…We recommend the midcentury goal while recognizing that we must pursue our goals responsibly, ensuring overall energy costs for our businesses and residents remain regionally competitive. But we must also act boldly to protect our environment and our economic security.

Kudos to Vermont for considering such a bold vision for the future and taking a real step toward independence.