The new Cold War? As climate change melts polar ice cap, militaries vie for Arctic advantage YOKOSUKA, Japan - To the world's military leaders, the debate over climate change is long over. They are preparing for a new kind of Cold War in the Arctic, anticipating that rising temperatures there will open up a treasure trove of resources, long-dreamed-of sea lanes and a slew of potential conflicts. [News Source]

Boulder schedules meetings, lectures on 'Energy Future,' climate change Boulder is hosting a series of lectures on climate change and energy, starting this week, as part of the city's Energy Future project, while a public meeting on the project has been rescheduled to next week. [News Source]

Canseco: Titanic could have been saved by global warming Global warming could have saved the Titanic. So says no less an authority on climatological and maritime disasters than Jose Canseco, erstwhile baseball slugger, steroid whistle blower and latter-day Twitter savant. [News Source]

Britain faces worst drought since 1976. More than half of Britain is now in drought, the Environment Agency has warned, as the UK faces its most severe water shortage since 1976. [News Source]

Hungry miners covet Yukon’s pristine Peel watershed wilderness. A mining boom that has turned Canada’s North into the country’s fastest growing economy is threatening a vast stretch of the Yukon that is one of the continent’s last unspoiled wildernesses. The hunger for resources are combining with a warming climate and new technology to draw mining, oil and natural gas companies farther north. [News Source]

As ice cap melts, militaries vie for Arctic edge. To the world's military leaders, the debate over climate change is long over. They are preparing for a new kind of Cold War in the Arctic, anticipating that rising temperatures there will open up a treasure trove of resources, long-dreamed-of sea lanes and a slew of potential conflicts. [News Source]

Green rating backflip. Mandatory energy ratings for new homes and renovations in Victoria could soon be scrapped under a contentious proposal before the Baillieu government. Documents obtained by The Age reveal the government wants to abandon 6-star thermal efficiency requirements for houses as part of its broader agenda for cutting government red tape. [News Source]

Feds warned not to ‘cheerlead’ for oilsands. Federal bureaucrats warned Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government not to become “cheerleaders” for the oilpatch as it launched a sophisticated lobbying and marketing campaign to promote the industry abroad and challenge foreign climate change policies. [News Source]

Ocean-borne microbes may help speed warming. One study of cyanobacteria predicted that rising sea temperatures could help the already widespread creatures expand their territory by more than 10 percent. Now researchers are asking whether mats of cyanobacteria might themselves affect local sea temperatures, thus creating a powerful feedback loop. [News Source]

Methane: A new ‘fracking’ fiasco. The U.S. is on a natural gas binge. In a mere half-dozen years, natural gas production and prices have been transformed. Thanks to a new unconventional natural gas technology—hydraulic fracturing—the nation has seen natural gas production go from a trickle to a flood. [News Source]

Green deal under fire from climate change sceptics. The green deal, the government's big policy initiative for fighting climate change, is supposed to plug one of Britain's biggest sources of carbon emissions - draughty, fuel-poor homes. Far from being a Liberal Democrat invention, it bore the imprimatur of David Cameron himself. [News Source]