Climate change ‘could tip states into failure’ (Financial Times) Global warming could endanger the political stability of entire nations, with a failing climate leading to more failed states, Margaret Beckett, the British foreign secretary, told the Financial Times yesterday. [News Source]

Global warming on the backburner this political season (Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune) Global warming brought Al Gore back from the political desert last summer, and it has been adopted as a mission by U.S. religious groups. Yet, Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., has called it "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people." You'd think it would be a topic for debate in an election year. But in Minnesota, at least, global warming is hardly mentioned on candidate websites, [News Source]

Gulf bay double whammy: rising seas, dammed rivers. New research finds that every U.S Gulf Coast bay in Texas and Louisiana is vulnerable to significant flooding and expansion within the coming century due to a combination of rising seas and reduced silt flowing from dammed up rivers. [News Source]

Rutgers’ newest power saver is an energy institute. Whether it's making fuel from horse manure or electricity from photons, researchers at Rutgers University have long looked for new ways to power up the world. [News Source]

Toyota, Nippon Oil, Petronas to make biodiesel. apan's largest refiner, Nippon Oil Corp., and auto giant Toyota Motor Corp. plan to develop biodiesel from palm oil with Malaysian state oil firm Petronas. [News Source]

Greening Middlebury College fuel. Middlebury College hopes to stimulate the local forest products economy when it begins buying woodchips instead of oil for a new $11 million, biomass-fueled power plant. [News Source]

BlackRock’s new energy fund lures investors on climate change . Clients come to Robin Batchelor's alternative energy fund mainly to make money. It doesn't hurt that some of them think that burning oil hurts the Earth's climate. [News Source]

Dam not responsible for drought. The severe drought which plagued Southwest China's Sichuan Province and Chongqing Municipality this summer was not caused by the Three Gorges Dam, a meteorological expert said Monday. [News Source]

2 men arrested on a ledge at NOAA building. A pair of environmentalists, protesting what they said were attempts to suppress evidence of global warming, were arrested yesterday after spending several hours perched on a ledge at a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration building in Silver Spring. [News Source]

More help for drought victims as PM links big dry to global warming. Rural contractors will be offered tax breaks as part of a second drought package to be considered by federal cabinet today. [News Source]

Fighting global warming no idle effort. Lynn Romanek has launched a grass-roots environmental campaign she hopes will be a real turnoff: less idling in automobiles. [News Source]