Amazon deforestation leads to development ‘boom-and-bust.’ Chopping down the Amazon rainforest to make way for crops or cattle has no economic or social benefit for local people in the long term, according to a major new study. [News Source]

US nuclear industry tries to hijack Obama’s climate change bill. Republicans seek federal financing for 100 new reactors despite huge capital costs and unsolved problems of storing waste. [News Source]

Amazon deforestation leads to development ‘boom-and-bust.’ Chopping down the Amazon rainforest to make way for crops or cattle has no economic or social benefit for local people in the long term, according to a major new study. [News Source]

Ag interests spark mutiny against climate bill. Democratic lawmakers on the House Agriculture Committee today threatened to derail controversial legislation to combat climate change unless it does more to support forestry and farming interests. [News Source]

As wind power grows, a push to tear down dams. The rise of wind farms in the Pacific Northwest is seen by some as an opportunity to help save the wild salmon, by removing dams that have impeded their spawning. Yet the shift of emphasis at the dam agencies is proving far from simple. [News Source]

With highway bill on the distant horizon, reformers eye climate measure to make a splash. Transportation advocates, environmentalists and like-minded lawmakers see the upcoming highway and transit reauthorization bill as a vehicle to deliver Washington's promise to overhaul the nation's transportation system. [News Source]

Climate change worsens disaster risks for poor: U.N. Climate change will aggravate natural disasters, and poor communities in developing nations such as Dominica, Vanuatu, Myanmar and Guatemala are most at risk, a U.N.-backed study showed Thursday. [News Source]

China aims to lead in renewable energy. Massive amounts of money are being thrown into wind, solar and other environmentally friendly forms of electricity to power this emerging economic giant into the future. [News Source]

U.S. climate bill, U.N. pact seen more likely in 2010. The U.S. energy bill may not pass until next year, which could also delay an agreement to extend the Kyoto Protocol on cutting global greenhouse gas emissions until 2010, experts said on Thursday. [News Source]

Climate pledges bound to breach key warming target: Scientists. Pledges currently on the table at the UN climate talks will doom Earth to a warming of more than two degrees Celsius, a figure that has been widely endorsed as a safe limit, scientists said on Thursday. [News Source]

Dispute on CO2 cuts forms roadblock to Copenhagen. A small reference on page 776 of a mammoth U.N. scientific report to cuts in greenhouse gases far deeper than those on offer by rich nations has become a main roadblock toward a new U.N. climate treaty. [News Source]