Global warming’s toll: Glacier in Bolivia is gone (McClatchy Newspapers via Yahoo! News) CHACALTAYA, Bolivia — If anyone needs a reminder of the on-the-ground impacts of global climate change, come to the Andes mountains in Bolivia. At 17,388 feet above sea level, Chacaltaya, an 18,000 year-old glacier that delighted thousands of visitors for decades, is gone, completely melted away as of some sad, undetermined moment early this year. [News Source]

Obama won’t fight global warming with bear rules (AP via Yahoo! News) The Obama administration, which promised a sharp break from the Bush White House on global warming, declared Friday it would stick with a Bush-era policy against expanding protection for climate-threatened polar bears and ruled out a broad new attack on greenhouse gases. [News Source]

Obama will not fight global warming with bear rule (AP via Yahoo! Finance) The Obama administration, which promised a sharp break from the Bush White House on global warming, declared Friday it would stick with a Bush-era stand against expanding protection for polar bears, ruling out an approach that would have opened a broad new attack on climate change. [News Source]

US denies polar bears protection from climate change (u.tv) The Obama administration today declined to protect polar bears from the single greatest threat to their survival – the melting of sea ice by global warming. The decision brought immediate protests from wildlife and environmental groups. [News Source]

Obama keeps Bush-era polar bear rule

The Obama administration said Friday it will retain a Bush-era rule that limits what can be done to protect polar bears from global warming.

[News Source]

Obama keeps Bush-era polar bear rule

The Obama administration said Friday it will retain a Bush-era rule that limits what can be done to protect polar bears from global warming.

[News Source]

Warming – it’s a health hazard. "Climate change will affect, in profoundly adverse ways, some of the most fundamental determinants of health: food, air, water," the director-general of the World Health Organisation, Margaret Chan, says. [News Source]

The writing on the wall. The number of planned coal plants across America has plummeted from 150 to 60 in the past five years. Yet more than 600 coal-fired plants still produce about half of America’s power and will still produce 47% of it in 2030. But the government has pledged to slash greenhouse-gas emissions by 80% by 2050. [News Source]

U.S. drops research into fuel cells for cars. Cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells, hailed by President Bush as a pollution-free solution for reducing the nation’s dependence on foreign oil, will not be practical over the next 10 to 20 years--and the U.S. will cut off funds for the vehicles’ development. [News Source]

Big stakes, big challenge in Democrats’ cap-and-trade bill. Congressional Republicans have found hope in the fight over a cap-and-trade mechanism to reduce greenhouse gases which, if it fails to pass Congress, could topple the Democratic vision on both energy and the environment. [News Source]

Senior House Republican sees climate bill delay. Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives are likely to set aside a controversial climate change bill for a few months, giving them more time to build support and instead concentrate on a healthcare reform effort, a senior Republican said on Thursday. [News Source]