Global Warming

Relations between the United States and China are getting cozier as their battle against the global recession has drawn them closer together. But things aren't quite so warm when it comes to some hot-button topics, particularly climate change. U.S. and Chinese officials ended two days of high-level talks in Washington on Tuesday still at loggerheads on the issue, a top priority for President Obama. Global warming got little attention during the Bush administration.

What's on Congress' to-do list The Senate left town Friday for its August recess, a week after the House. Both chambers are scheduled to reconvene Sept. 8. When the lawmakers return, a proposed overhaul of the nation's healthcare system will be just one of the weighty matters on their agenda. Here is a look at the status of several measures before Congress. Healthcare reform President Obama's effort to expand and improve insurance coverage is likely to dominate Capitol Hill for most of the fall.

At a bend in the Ohio River, a bulky new device is being attached to a 30-year-old coal plant near the small town of New Haven, W.Va. The device is being housed in a building four stories tall and bigger than a football field. A 150-foot-tall exhaust stack -- so wide that it would take six adults with their arms fully stretched to reach around it -- will reach into the sky. And pipelines will run out of the building and into saline aquifers two miles underground. The entire contraption will start up as early as September.

A group of Midwestern Democrats is pushing for tariffs on products from countries that don't limit greenhouse gas emissions, a controversial step that the legislators say is needed to help American manufacturers survive expected emissions restrictions here. The Democrats say the measure would level the playing field for U.S. factories, which will probably face increased energy costs due to global warming legislation backed by the Obama administration. The legislation narrowly passed in the House in June and is pending in the Senate.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, seeking to make monkeys of the legions of scientists who have suggested that climate change is a significant problem, wants to put them on trial. Specifically, it wants the Environmental Protection Agency to stage a "Scopes monkey trial" for the 21st century, appointing a judge to hear evidence on the question of whether global warming endangers Americans' health. It's an intriguing idea. Congress is considering legislation aimed at fighting climate change that would force the country to reinvent its entire energy infrastructure.

At the State Capitol, boosting the use of solar power, wind generators and other renewable energy sources is seen as a boon for both the environment and the economy in electricity-hungry California. But with two weeks left in the legislative session, Democrats are hustling to fulfill a commitment they made to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to pass a law to require all utilities to get a third of their power from "green" sources by 2020. Meeting that pledge isn't easy, and a fight is brewing about just how fast the state can go green and how to accomplish it. The dispute centers on the utilities' slow pace in meeting the existing goal of 20% for 2010 -- spelled out by a law passed in 2006 -- and on how to craft a longer-range plan that hits Schwarzenegger's more ambitious target.

A federal lawsuit by two industry groups aims to halt the U.S. government and the state of California from moving ahead with new greenhouse gas emissions rules for cars and trucks -- an action that, if successful, could scuttle a key piece of the Obama administration's plans to set stricter nationwide standards for vehicles. The lawsuit may be the first of many legal challenges targeting President Obama's efforts to limit the heat-trapping emissions that scientists blame for global warming.

The world's two biggest producers of greenhouse gases sought to build momentum Tuesday for stalled efforts to craft a global agreement to limit emissions, with China pledging to make sweeping changes by 2020 and President Obama exhorting world leaders to act to avert catastrophe. Critics of the two countries, which together produce 40% of the gases that cause global warming, were cheered by the cooperative tone from Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao at a United Nations summit in New York.

Environmentally minded business professionals are increasingly finding one another -- and finding jobs -- at green-networking events. Tatjana Luethi landed a gig as an independent sales representative for a compostable-packaging company at such a meet-and-greet. Jodi Plaia found the first customer for her soon-to-be-launched business making organic dog treats. Drumming up business and capital is still a time-honored goal for business networking. But these networks purport to push the more noble agenda of saving the environment.

U.S. companies could save tens of billions of dollars by investing in efforts to combat deforestation in developing nations instead of cleaning up their own domestic carbon dioxide emissions, according to a report released Wednesday. The report, compiled by a high-powered bipartisan group, backs the use of "forest offsets" in the global effort to curb pollution that is heating up the atmosphere. It was released in advance of the upcoming Senate debate on climate legislation and an international meeting on the issue set for December in Copenhagen.