Refiners target countries with lax environmental laws. Sprawling, polluting and less lucrative than oil and natural gas wells, refineries have been seen as necessary but unsavoury. As concerns over climate change grow, the industry is under fire for its high greenhouse gas emissions. [News Source]

T. Boone Pickens fueling clean-energy efforts. Last July, T. Boone Pickens, the oilman-turned-environmentalist, proposed a seemingly simple plan: Convert cars, especially big fleets operated by companies and municipalities, from gasoline to domestic natural gas. And start generating more electricity from wind. [News Source]

It was tough going green. Oregon, the state that invented the bottle bill, couldn’t get an ambitious expansion through the Legislature this year, and the governor’s grand plans for creating a Western carbon market to combat global warming flopped. [News Source]

Spanish vintners look to higher ground amid climate change. Climate change, which could transform the Iberian peninsula into a semi-desert, is forcing winemakers in Spain to consider moving their vines to higher ground to escape the blistering heat. [News Source]

Mirrors and wildebeest could save the planet. Covering the Sahara desert with mirrors and making livestock behave like herds of wildebeest were among the proposals put forward on Saturday as ways of helping to tackle climate change. [News Source]

Millions hungry as warming shifts seasons. In a new report, global aid agency Oxfam says impoverished communities like Nassapir, Uganda are already being hit hard by the effects of global warming, including increased drought. [News Source]

Asheville’s role in climate change grows. In part by using an archive of weather records stashed in Asheville's Grove Arcade, the National Climatic Data Center is shifting its mission beyond a storehouse in the federal building to a cutting-edge research center that can confidently predict climate change. [News Source]

Climate change shrinks sheep. Wild Soay sheep on the islands of the St. Kilda archipelago in the North Atlantic have been measured and monitored by scientists for decades. All this data now explains why females have been slowly getting smaller with generations. [News Source]

In Spain, the dead help fight climate change. In the Barcelona suburb of Santa Coloma de Gramenet, the deceased are fighting climate change. [News Source]

Green energy grows despite a cooling economy. Alternative energy may be forever linked with the granola, tie-dyed dresses and hippie culture of another time. But today’s advocates for solar and other types of clean energy are just as likely to be serious businesspeople. [News Source]

Measuring the carbon footprint of a charcoal grill. Researcher Eric Johnson recently revealed that charcoal grills leave a much larger carbon footprint than their gas-powered counterparts. [News Source]