The people of the Arctic filed a landmark human rights complaint against the United States, blaming the world's No. 1 carbon polluter for stoking the global warming that is destroying their habitat.
The Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC), representing native people in the vast, sparsely-populated region girdling the Earth's far north, said they had petitioned an inter-American panel to seek relief for Canadian and US Inuit.
Tim Hirsch
BBC NewsThu, 08 Dec 2005 12:00 UTC
Canada's prime minister has urged the US to "listen to its conscience" and take further steps to reduce emissions linked to global warming.
Paul Martin was speaking at the UN climate change conference in Montreal, where talks on long-term strategies are reaching a critical stage.
It is not only the United States which has come under fire.
A British government minister has accused Saudi Arabia of using "outrageous" tactics to block progress.
Comment: Let's think for a minute. Who are the Saudis good buddies with? It's right there on the tip of my tongue (and typing with my tongue isn't easy).
The Bush Crime family! The US oil lobby!
Coincidence? We think not.
This year's hurricane season shattered records for frequency and ferocity. And it's going to get worse, some scientists say. But others aren't so sure.
It was the year of the hurricane. It was also the year when scientists said that global warming can increase the intensity of hurricanes. But it was not the year when everyone could agree that hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in August, was at least in part the result of global warming brought on by emissions of man-made greenhouse gases.
DENVER - Bitterly cold air poured southward across the nation's midsection Wednesday, dropping temperatures to record lows from Montana to Illinois.
The mercury dived to a record 45 below at West Yellowstone, Mont., the frequently cold spot at the west entrance to Yellowstone National Park, the National Weather Service said. The old record for Dec. 7 was 39 below, set in 1927.
LONDON - The United States and Caribbean, which are still trying to rebuild from this year's devastating storms, should brace themselves for another busy hurricane season in 2006, a leading windstorm forecaster has warned.
MIAMI - Epsilon clung to hurricane strength for a third straight day in the open Atlantic on Wednesday, but forecasters predicted the storm would weaken.
The 26th named storm of the record-breaking hurricane season poses no threat to land.
SAN FRANCISCO - Scientists studying the San Andreas fault in California will soon be able to monitor seismic activity from deep inside the Earth's crust so they can identify patterns that might foreshadow a major quake, scientists said on Tuesday.
Researchers from the World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF) may have spotted a new mammalian species in the dense central forests of Borneo island, the organisation said.
The carnivorous animal, slightly larger than a domestic cat with dark red fur and a long bushy tail, was caught by a camera trap at night twice in 2003, the WWF said in a press release.
Denver - Hurricane-force winds swept across Colorado on Monday, tipping over tractor-trailers ahead of a cold front expected to bring bone-chilling temperatures.
A wind gust in Golden, just west of Denver, reached 98 mph, while an 88-mph gust was reported outside Boulder. Temperatures plummeted across the northern Rockies. It was 1 degree in Havre, Montana.
Beijing -- A road crash in northwest China over the weekend has left five people injured -- or winterbeaten, in fact.
Two heavy-duty trucks bumped into each other at 10:00 a.m. Saturday on state highway No. 312 in the juncture area between Gansu Province and Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. The accident left at least 2,000 diesel trucks in a standstill and many drivers found them unable to restart their engines in the freezing weather.
By 5:00 p.m., the temperature had dropped to minus 22 degrees Celsius and five drivers were frostbitten. [...]
The town was just one of the areas to suffer the sudden temperature drops in northern China.
Comment: Let's think for a minute. Who are the Saudis good buddies with? It's right there on the tip of my tongue (and typing with my tongue isn't easy).
The Bush Crime family! The US oil lobby!
Coincidence? We think not.