Obama, Harper Launch 'Clean Energy Dialogue'

American protectionism worries our northern neighbor

(NEWSER) - Canada’s biggest problem now also happens to be its best friend: America. PM Stephen Harper once worried that Canada’s “special relationship” with the US had been lost under George W. Bush—and it hasn’t improved a bit under Obama, writes Luiza Ch. Savage in Macleans. Not only has Obama kept Bush’s tighter border-security measures, he’s sent spy drones to watch the border, giving it “something in common with the tribal lands between Afghanistan and Pakistan.” More»

President's miscalculations include scale, momentum

(NEWSER) - Scott Brown’s Senate victory in Massachusetts is the final nail in the coffin of the Obama administration’s first-year political strategy, John F. Harris and Carol E. Lee write for Politico . The miscalculations cover “three major counts":

• Believing 2008 was a game-changer: The Obama team thought the "election represented something seismic." But "the assumption that Obama would be swimming mostly with the current rather than often against it on issues such as health care, financial regulation and global warming was naive in retrospect."

(NEWSER) - The EPA's decision today to declare carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases dangerous pollutants could have enormous consequences for US businesses, writes Andy Stone in Forbes. The big winner: green technology. The ruling could eventually give the EPA unprecedented regulatory control over everything from power plants to oil refineries to automobiles. The US Chamber of Commerce says the decision could wreak havoc on the economy. More»

Geo-engineering could be last resort, Holdren says

(NEWSER) - Global warming may get to the point where drastic "geo-engineering" measures to cool the earth will be necessary, President Obama’s top science adviser tells the AP. John Holdren said shooting reflective particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect some sunlight is a last resort, but one he's raised with other administration officials. "We don't have the luxury of taking any approach off the table," said Holdren. More»

US to take major role in new environmental treaty

(NEWSER) - The Kyoto Protocol signed more than a decade ago faced roadblocks to achieving its environmental goals—but with President Obama pushing hard on climate change, new international agreements could be much stronger, the New York Times reports. Obama has placed the US “at the forefront of the international climate effort,” writes Elisabeth Rosenthal, and the country will be deeply involved in developing a new treaty, said a climate official. More»