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?
As the Arctic melts, a huge pool of fresh water in the Arctic Ocean is expanding and could lower the temperature of Europe by causing an ocean current to slow down, British scientists said Sunday. [Reuters]
Deforestation and climate change are having a profound effect on the Amazon basin, shifting it from a carbon sink to a carbon emitter. [TG Daily]
Two people have died in the Birmingham area as storms pounded the South and Midwest, prompting tornado warnings in a handful of states early Monday. [AP]
Rising human carbon dioxide emissions may be affecting the brains and central nervous system of sea fishes with serious consequences for their survival, an international scientific team has found. [Science Daily]
Leading climate scientists have given their support to a Freedom of Information request seeking to disclose who is funding the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a London-based climate sceptic thinktank chaired by the former Conservative chancellor Lord Lawson. [Guardian]
The head of pipeline company Enbridge Inc said on Wednesday that the Obama administration’s rejection of the Keystone XL line may be a threat to other new pipeline projects, including its planned $5.45 billion Northern Gateway line, because it “will embolden those opposed to Gateway and other new project developments.” [Reuters]
TransCanada today said it may build U.S.-only pipeline segments, which don’t require federal approval, and apply later for permission to connect the pipeline to Canadian oil sands and complete Keystone XL as originally proposed. [Bloomberg]
Gabrielle Giffords’ announcement Sunday that she would step down from Congress doesn’t just leave a hole in southern Arizona’s representation, but in the state’s solar community as well. [Phoenix Business Journal]
Oil rose as the European Union announced a phased-in embargo of Iranian crude in an effort to contain the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program. [Bloomberg]
The flooding of the Mississippi River in 2011 has caused long-lasting, if not permanent, agricultural damage to hundreds of acres of land. [Farm Journal]
Perth is expected to go through a seven-day heat wave, with temperatures set to rise to a maximum of 104 degrees on Australia Day and Friday. [Sydney Morning Herald]