Climate

washington -- Mitt Romney twice emphasized his unique business background when he and eight other Republican presidential candidates faced off in a debate last week in Iowa. "I've spent the last, as I've told you, 25 years in the private sector," former Massachusetts Gov. Romney declared at one point. "I understand why jobs come and why jobs go. I've done business in 20 countries."

In 1966, Eyrie Vineyards founder David Lett planted Pinot Noir vines in Oregon's Willamette Valley, hoping he'd found a place that shared traits with his beloved Burgundy. Four years later, the man who would come to be known as "Papa Pinot" made his first commercial harvest. Within the decade, half a dozen families, every bit as intrepid, followed him to the land, an unlikely collection of former engineers and liberal arts majors with a perceptible countercultural streak. Their perseverance and collaboration resulted in one of the great success stories in modern American winemaking, a robust industry composed largely of small family wineries excelling in cool climate varieties.

You look fat in that. Of course I'll be late. Your baby reminds me of Gollum's uncle. This is what the 2013 Subaru BRZ might say if it could talk. The all-new, rear-wheel-drive sports car starts at $26,265, and boy is it honest - perhaps more so than any other car on the market today, save for its mechanical twin, the Scion FR-S. The two were jointly developed by Subaru and Scion's parent company, Toyota, with both assembled by Subaru in Japan. The question about the BRZ is, can you handle the honesty?

Forecast the Facts, the activist group that first confronted GM about its support of climate change doubters the Heartland Institute, now plans to muster a public campaign targeting the Discovery Channel. The purpose: to get Discovery to acknowledge the scientific consensus on man-made climate change in its programming. The flap follows the recent airing of the final episode of Discovery's lush exploration of the polar regions, “ Frozen Planet .” The last of the seven-hour series, “On Thin Ice,” was devoted specifically to presenting evidence of climate change - including discussion of the challenges facing polar bears, collapsing ice shelves, diminishing habitat, and naturalist David Attenborough (Alec Baldwin is the narrator and host of the series)

'Climate of Change' MPAA rating: Unrated Running time: 1 hour, 27 minutes Language: In English, French, Ewe, Tok Pisin and Hindi with English subtitles Playing: At Laemmle's Sunset 5, West Hollywood

In the early days of the global climate summit, Copenhagen was Christmas incarnate -- a place of white lights, rosy cheeks and cobbled streets, where sugared almonds roasted in great metal bowls and a classical sextet played carols in the cold. By the end, the city was Mordor, the soul-crushing provenance of evil in Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings." Dreary, gray, slushy. Daylight made timid cameos. In the stark Nordic hotel hosting U.S. negotiators, so newly built that some rooms lacked shower heads, the wind rattled the windows.

From the hillsides of extinct volcanoes in Arizona to the jagged peaks of Idaho, aspen trees are falling by the tens of thousands, the latest example of how climate change is dramatically altering the American West. Starting seven years ago, foresters noticed massive aspen die-offs caused by parasitical insects, one of them so rare it is hardly even written about in scientific literature. But with warming temperatures and the effects of a brutal drought still lingering, the parasites are flourishing at the expense of the tree, beloved for its slender branches and heart-shaped leaves that turn a brilliant yellow in autumn.

"Ordinary people are the only people that will save the world," says a London public relations executive in the gentle and artful documentary "Climate of Change." It's a quote that offers a logical and immediate key to our planet's preservation but also nicely encapsulates director Brian Hill's approach here to depicting grassroots ecology. Hill traveled the globe capturing a variety of average citizens leading regional efforts to defend their environments and, in turn, help to mitigate the potential effects of climate change.

The following statement was issued by the Norwegian Nobel Committee on the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama: The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 is to be awarded to President Barack Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. The Committee has attached special importance to Obama's vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons. Obama has as president created a new climate in international politics.

When I first read the news last spring that Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa had named S. David Freeman as his deputy mayor for environmental and energy programs, I was sure that H. David Nahai's tenure as general manager at the city utility, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, would be short. Fast-forward to now: Nahai has resigned, and the mayor has proposed -- and the commission that oversees the DWP has approved -- Freeman, 83, to be the interim chief for six months. Thus the political musical chairs in the DWP's executive suite continue.

This year's late winter heat wave over much of the United States, dubbed "March Madness," has been cited as evidence that human-induced global warming is causing the climate system to stray far outside its normal range of variability. The thousands of all-time high temperature records shattered during last month's climate rampage have been likened to home-run records shattered by a baseball player on steroids. It is true that the signature of human-induced global warming is clearly apparent in the increasing number of new high temperature records, which are currently outnumbering low temperature records by a factor of about 3 to 1. Just as a rising tide lifts all ships, a rise in global mean temperature is bound to raise the levels of the highest temperatures.

Tennessee enacted a law Tuesday that critics contend allows public school teachers to challenge climate change and evolution in their classrooms without fear of sanction. Republican Gov. Bill Haslam allowed the controversial measure to become law without his signature and, in a statement, expressed misgivings about it. Nevertheless, he ignored pleas from educators, parents and civil libertarians to veto the bill. The law does not require the teaching of alternatives to scientific theories of evolution, climate change and "the chemical origins of life.

WASHINGTON - Tennessee is poised to adopt a law that would allow public schoolteachers to challenge climate change and evolution in their classrooms without fear of sanction, according to educators and civil libertarians in the state. Passed by the state Legislature and awaiting Republican Gov. Bill Haslam's signature, the measure is likely to stoke growing concerns among science teachers around the country that teaching climate science is becoming the same kind of classroom and community flash point as evolution.

Easter is still a great day for worship, candy in baskets, pagan equinox rituals and running around the yard finding eggs, but every year it gets quite a bit worse for bunnies. And no, not because the kids like to pull their ears. The culprit is climate change, and the folks at Climate Nexus found that rising temperatures are having adverse effects on at least five species of rabbit in the U.S. Take the Lower Keys Marsh rabbit, for instance. An endangered species that lives in the Lower Florida Keys, this breed of cottontail is a great swimmer - it lives on the islands!

Bowing to the realities of a volatile stock market and a weak investment climate, the nation's largest public pension fund lowered its benchmark assumed rate of return. The board of the California Public Employees' Retirement System voted 9 to 1 to reduce its expected, average annual return on its investments to 7.5% from 7.75%. That was a quarter of a percentage point higher than what had been recommended by CalPERS' chief actuary, Alan Milligan. In addition to lowering the assumed rate of return, which had been previously approved by a CalPERS committee, the board also agreed to reduce its assumed average annual inflation rate to 2.75% from 3%. The changes, which kick in for the state government and school districts July 1, will cost the state general fund $167 million in higher pension costs in the next budget year.

Fat kids, dumb bill Re " A food truck stop? " March 4 The bill to limit food trucks from parking "within 1,500 feet of elementary, middle and high schools from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. on school days" is simple lunacy and demonstrates what is wrong with society's focus on human problems. If food trucks are pushed away, will someone else propose to close down the doughnut shop directly across the street from the high school in our neighborhood? How about the fast food taco place on the other corner?

I read that the U.S. Supreme Court is taking up the question of climate change (June 27). I can hardly wait; will the justices declare it unconstitutional? By a 5-4 margin, no doubt. PAUL COOLEY Culver City

In the 1970s it seemed like we had problems we could never fix - and I'm not talking about white polyester disco suits and the band Air Supply. The '70s presented America with the residue of a catastrophic war, soaring inner-city crime rates, runaway inflation and subjugation to Middle East oil. To punctuate the dismal vibe, everybody smoked, or so it seemed if you were sitting on an airplane at the edge of the DMZ between the smoking and nonsmoking sections,...

Now that he's surging in the polls, Rick Santorum is finding that his eccentric and often outrageous views are being subjected to new scrutiny - so much so that the former Pennsylvania senator is becoming accustomed to walking back some of his more extreme utterances. For example, confronted with a 2005 book in which he condemned feminists for a "misogynistic crusade to make working outside the home the only marker of social value and self-respect," Santorum insisted that he wasn't saying that a woman's place was in the home but only that he thought women's choices should be respected.