The world is not on track to limit global temperature increases to levels that the international community says will stave off the worst impacts of climate change, a global energy policy organization warned Tuesday.

The International Energy Agency’s annual World Energy Outlook report projects that energy-related carbon dioxide emissions will rise by 20 percent by 2035 despite efforts by many countries, including the United States, to impose measures to tackle climate change.

‘This leaves the world on a trajectory consistent with a long-term average temperature increase of 3.6 °C, far above the internationally agreed 2 °C target,

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PEN America, a nonprofit that works to advance freedom of expression and speech in literature, has released a disturbing survey that finds American writers are not just increasingly worried about government surveillance as a result of the NSA - but also engaging in self-censorship. Out of the 528 PEN members who responded to the survey, ‘Fully 85% are worried about government surveillance of Americans, and 73% of writers have never been as worried about privacy rights and freedom of the press as they are today.

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It looks like some idealistic architecture student’s vision for the future of sustainable energy production. In fact, it’s a photo of a real-life solar plant that went into operation on Nov. 1 in Japan.

This is what happens when a country confronts the real costs of nuclear and fossil fuels.

The Kagoshima Nanatsujima Mega Solar Power Plant, built by the electronics manufacturer Kyocera, boasts postcard views of Kagoshima Bay and Sakurajima volcano. It’s also Japan’s largest, with a capacity of 70 megawatts. That’s enough to power some 22,000 Japanese homes. The $280 million project is part of a national effort to invest in clean, renewable energy as the country continues to grapple with the fallout of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. The country’s new feed-in tariffs have made it one of the world’s fastest-growing solar markets.

This sort of sprawling solar-panel farm is hardly the most efficient form of power generation in terms of either cost or the amount of land required. Still, it makes more sense when you consider that Japan has been dealing with soaring energy prices in the wake of a disaster that threw into question its entire nuclear-power program into question. While solar is clearly more expensive than nuclear power, […]

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MALMO, SWEDEN — Sweden closes four prisons as number of inmates plummets. Decline partly put down to strong focus on rehabilitation and more lenient sentences for some offences

Prison numbers in Sweden, which have been falling by around 1% a year since 2004, dropped by 6% between 2011 and 2012 and are expected to do the same again both this year and next year. Photograph: Paul Doyle/Alamy

Sweden has experienced such a sharp fall in the number of prison admissions in the past two years that it has decided to close down four prisons and a remand centre.

‘We have seen an out-of-the-ordinary decline in the number of inmates,’ said Nils Öberg, the head of Sweden’s prison and probation services. ‘Now we have the opportunity to close down a part of our infrastructure that we don’t need at this point of time.’

Prison numbers in Sweden, which have been falling by around 1% a year since 2004, dropped by 6% between 2011 and 2012 and are expected to do the same again both this year and next, Öberg said.

As a result, the prison service has this year closed down prisons in the towns of Ã…by, HÃ¥ja, BÃ¥tshagen, and Kristianstad, two of which will probably […]

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Fracking outfit Range Resources slapped Texas homeowner Steve Lipsky with a $3 million defamation suit to bully him into silence about his polluted water but Lipsky is fighting back. Lipsky is a wealthy man, not used to being bullied, but the frackers think they can use their control of the state of Texas to bulldoze him. They have bought off the Texas Railroad Commission that supposedly regulates fracking in Texas, and intimidated the USEPA into inaction so they don’t intend to let minor matters like safe drinking water, private property rights and the first Amendment get in the way of their pursuit of profits.

On October 10, 2013, the Fort Worth Court of Appeals ruled that Range Resources could move forward with their defamation suit against Lipsky, based in part on accusations that Lipsky is misleading the public about being able to set his water on fire

In 2010 the EPA issued an emergency order over Lipsky’s contaminated water, but then retracted the order a little over a year later with no justification. An AP investigation discovered that Range had successfully pressured the EPA into submission. Although the EPA had water chemistry measurements that showed Lipsky’s water was […]

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