This isn’t an entry about linking the three (although you can) but to highlight 3 news stories worthy of attention:

Ice Mass Snaps Free From Canada’s Arctic
Scientists are pointing at climate change and are alarmed at its unexpected speed.

Making Carbon Trading a Fair Trade
How does carbon trading/offsetting work, and is it really sustainable? It’s a piece discussing monoculture tree plantations (and it sounds like they’re using species which are genetically modified and/or non-native to the area).

More Dangerous than Smoking? Death by Soda
OK, ignore the over-scary title, although the article has some surprising facts (I had had no idea that half of US woman between the ages of 20-39 were overweight or obese). It’s been said before that a can of soda contains sweeteners the equivalent of at least 10 teaspoons of sugar in the form of high fructose corn syrup. (If you make your own coffee in the mornings, think of putting that in your cup everyday!) Running to artificial sweeteners isn’t the answer either, as those bring another area of health concern.

The Independent published a story on July 23, 2006 revealing that the Amazon rainforest is in its second year of drought. The most alarming piece of news is that research ­ carried out by the Massachusetts-based Woods Hole Research Centre on the Amazon river has concluded that the forest cannot withstand more than two consecutive years of drought without breaking down.

The original story can be found here, while the story has been archived here in full.

The study results reveal that the dying of the Amazon rainforest will spell a massive acceleration in global warming. (Trees help fix carbon dioxide from the air. When they die, they release it.) The Amazon rainforest faces the very real possibility of dying next year.The forest contains 90 billion tons of carbon, enough to increase the rate of global warming by 50 per cent.

ThinkProgress bring this to our attention: Report: Global Warming Pollution Has Doubled in 28 States Since 1960

In the US, the increased dependance on cars and trucks accounts for 40% of the rise, and it doesn’t help either that fuel efficiency for vehicles in the US stagnated over that period, leaving thefuel efficiency of American vehicles way behind foreign counterparts.

The original report is here:The Carbon Boom: National and State Trends in Carbon Dioxide Emissions Since 1960

Now, another reason to love the smell of pine forests:

Fragrance of pine forests helps to slow climate change

Be worried. Be very worried.

Time Magazine tackles the topic of global warming for its cover story, and its diagnosis is far from optimistic. It was enough to make CNN notice and offer a summary of the story on its website. (Check out the link above.)