Concern raised over stability of O’Connell Bridge. An independent expert has been called in to examine one of Ireland’s foremost landmarks over fears it is falling apart because of global warming. [News Source]

Global warming heats up tourist spots. Global warming is already affecting some popular U.S. tourist destinations. [News Source]

Greenland icesheet could melt faster. Scientists yesterday said they could no longer rule out a fast-track melting of the Greenland icesheet — a prospect that would see much of the world's coastline drowned by rising seas. [News Source]

State scrambles to find buses for evacuation. The private contractor the state hired to provide buses for hurricane evacuations has not come through with enough vehicles, causing officials to look elsewhere to meet the state's timeline for moving people out of New Orleans. [News Source]

Flood-control teams get ready for Gustav. Flood-control personnel crisscrossed the region Friday, beginning to close floodgates, staging emergency supplies and equipment in strategic locations and stationing still more oversized bags and baskets of rock and sand to better protect from the approaching Hurricane Gustav. [News Source]

Officials make use of Katrina lessons. Even if Hurricane Gustav veers off course and spares the New Orleans area, federal, state and local officials made sure no one could say they were unprepared -- in contrast to the systemic failures of three years ago. [News Source]

A bitter wind. Yancey knows the towers are pumping clean electricity into the grid, knows they have been largely embraced by his community But Yancey hates them. [News Source]

Scientists fear impact of Asian pollutants on U.S. From 500 miles in space, satellites track brown clouds of dust, soot and other toxic pollutants from China and elsewhere in Asia as they stream across the Pacific and take dead aim at the western U.S. [News Source]

Canada pushing to exploit Alberta’s oil sand. Energy companies plan to strip an area in Alberta the size of New York that could yield up to 175 billion barrels of oil. But the enormous amount of energy and water needed has raised fears in an aboriginal town 170 miles downstream. [News Source]

Ghana’s grass-roots bid to save country’s last forests. For five years now the heat has been less intense and the rainfall more abundant in a small cocoa farming area in Ghana's Upper Volta region, thanks to villagers bent on affecting climate change. [News Source]

For the first time in human history, the North Pole can be circumnavigated. Melting ice has opened up the North-west and North-east passages simultaneously. Scientists warn that the Arctic icecap is entering a 'death spiral' [News Source]