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LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Could "green" become a new watchword in TV programming? While the media companies have long been touting everything they're doing behind the scenes to become more environment-friendly, the message increasingly is seeping into their programming. On Wednesday, Discovery Communications launches the first 24/7 eco-friendly network, Planet Green, which will take over the space occupied by Discovery Home Channel. That follows NBC Universal's second companywide "Green Week" in April -- featuring 100 hours of green-themed content airing across 42 NBC Universal brands and 28 Web sites -- with two more already planned for November and April....

WASHINGTON - The Senate began what is expected to be a weeklong, contentious debate Monday over legislation to combat global warming by mandatory reductions in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Senators voted 74-14 to proceed to the bill, but immediately it became clear Republican opponents were not going to make it easy. A request by Democrats to begin considering substantive changes in the bill was blocked by GOP opponents until Wednesday at the earliest. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada promised a thorough debate that will probably last through the week, if not longer. He said it's clear...

RALEIGH, N.C. -- Each April, weather wizard William Gray emerges from his burrow deep in the Rocky Mountains to offer his forecast for the six-month hurricane season that starts June 1. And the news media are there, breathlessly awaiting his every word. It's a lot like Groundhog Day -- and the results are worth just about as much. ''The hairs on the back of my neck don't stand up,'' ho-hums Craig Fugate, director of emergency management for Florida, the state that got raked by four hurricanes -- three of them ''major'' -- in 2004. When it comes to preparing, he...

If there indeed is a second Great Depression to come, this will be the government measure that guarantees it arrives with a devastating gut punch. The U.S. Senate returns to session this week and will take up something deceptively labeled "America's Climate Security Act of 2008." It's a bill designed to combat man-made global warming. But anybody with a brain should be able to understand that the only thing this bill would "secure" would be our national demise. Not only is it one of those sadly classic bureaucratic "solutions" in search of a problem, it is a sad exercise...

A bill going to the U.S. Senate next week seeking deep cuts in U.S. greenhouse gases by 2050 is a "first step" but not enough to avert damaging climate change, the head of the U.N. Climate Panel said on Friday. Rajendra Pachauri also said that even tougher plans by some other developed nations to rein in emissions were insufficient to head off some projected impacts of global warming, ranging from more heatwaves and droughts to rising seas. The U.S. bill, sponsored by Sen. Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut independent and Sen. John Warner, a Virginia Republican, seeks to cut U.S. emissions...

Climate scientists Robert Allen and Steven Sherwood from Yale Universitry have used a new technique to show temperatures changes in the upper troposphere (7.5-10 miles up) since 1970 are clearly in sync with most of the climate change models in showing a general warming of 0.65 degrees celsius per decade. Over the past two decades, temperature data directly gathered by satellites and balloons had showed little or no increase in upper troposheric temperature during that period, but researchers suspected these discontinuities with the model projections were due to unknown changes in instrumentation and data processing. By tracking radiosondes attached to...

May 28, 2008 Posted By Marc Morano – 3:33 PM EST – Marc_Morano@EPW.Senate.Gov New York Times Makes Factual Blunder Paper erroneously claims Senate last voted on global warming bill in 2003 A New York Times editorial today arguing in favor of the Senate’s upcoming mandatory global warming cap-and-trade legislation committed a blatant factual error. The May 28 Times editorial incorrectly claimed, “The Senate last addressed climate change in 2003 when it cast 43 votes in favor of a bill sponsored by Mr. McCain and Mr. Lieberman.” (LINK) In their apparently hasty Google search of Senate history, the editors at the...

The global warming debate arrives in the Senate next week, and it's about time. Finally, the Members will have to vote on something real, as opposed to their buck-passing to courts and regulators, and their easy trashing of President Bush. The vehicle is a bill that principal sponsors Joe Lieberman and John Warner are calling "landmark legislation." They're too modest. Warner-Lieberman would impose the most extensive government reorganization of the American economy since the 1930s. Thankfully, the American system makes it hard for colossal tax and regulatory burdens to foxtrot into law without scrutiny. So we hope our politicians will...

Washington, May 27 : A new study by scientists has suggested that the melting of the Antarctic glaciers might be leading to the release of large amounts of the banned pesticide DDT, which is contaminating the environment in Antarctica. In the study, scientist Heidi N. Geisz and colleagues estimate that up to 2.0 - 8.8 pounds of DDT are released into coastal waters annually along the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet from glacial meltwater. The researchers point out that DDT reaches Antarctica by long-range atmospheric transport in snow, and then gets concentrated in the food chain. DDT has been banned in...

May 27, 2008 -- The polar bears are doing just fine, thank you very much. So says Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who announced last week that her state would sue to block Washington from listing the animals as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act. And it's a good thing, too - because the new bear-population protections mask what may be the most serious threat to American economic might in decades. Yes, polar bears. The polar bear, you see, marks the first species on the "threatened" list whose supposed predicament is linked directly to global warming. The current Alaskan polar-bear population...

32,000 deniers That's the number of scientists who are outraged by the Kyoto Protocol's corruption of scienceQuestion: How many scientists does it take to establish that a consensus does not exist on global warming? The quest to establish that the science is not settled on climate change began before most people had even heard of global warming. The year was 1992 and the United Nations was about to hold its Earth Summit in Rio. It was billed as -- and was -- the greatest environmental and political assemblage in human history. Delegations came from 178 nations -- virtually every nation...

The Grandiose Socialist Scheme Written by Bridget Geegan Blanton Europe is in midst of a period of enlightenment ... .... as reflected by recent election results where voters revolted against the shackles of Socialism. They’re throwing the Socialists out of office along with their burdensome multicultural policies. The European economy is quickly being run into the ground due to excessive entitlements and a Third World Immigration that guarantees welfare without the requirement of assimilation. Once again, Socialism has proven to be unsustainable in the long term. While an increasing amount of economies throughout the world are embracing Capitalism, America is...

Republicans Discount Global Warming McCain, Bush At Odds With Most Of Party POSTED: 2:15 pm EDT May 15, 2008 UPDATED: 2:46 pm EDT May 15, 2008 The proportion of Americans who say that the earth is getting warmer has decreased modestly since January 2007, mostly because of a decline among Republicans, according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center. That puts most Republicans at odds with their standard-bearer, President George W. Bush, and with GOP presidential contender Sen. John McCain. Both men said this week global warming is real and must be addressed. Republicans are increasingly skeptical that...

Global warming is causing significant changes to the Earth's natural systems and it is highly unlikely that any force but man-made climate change can be blamed . Researchers who analysed 30,000 academic studies dating back to 1970 said man was responsible for changes that ranged from the loss of ice sheets to the collapse in numbers of many species of wildlife. "Humans are influencing climate through increasing greenhouse gas emissions, and the warming world is causing impacts on physical and biological systems," said Cynthia Rosenzweig, at the Nasa Goddard Institute for Space Studies. The effects on living things include the...

(CNN) -- Kicking off a week-long push seen as outreach to independent and Democratic voters in crucial swing states, John McCain on Monday will deliver a speech outlining his vision for combating global warming. "We stand warned by serious and credible scientists across the world that time is short and the dangers are great," McCain will say in Portland, Oregon, according to prepared remarks. "The most relevant question now is whether our own government is equal to the challenge." McCain's commitment to fight global warming puts him at odds with some Republicans in Congress and with the Bush administration, which...

When Al Gore and his global warming alarmists take over, one of the first citizens they’ll slap in a prison and charge with crimes against the (green) state will be Steven J. Milloy, founder and publisher of the popular Web site JunkScience.com. For 12 years, JunkScience.com has worked to debunk the bad science that has been used to advance the harmful or merely silly political and social agendas of environmentalists that have led to things such as bans on DDT and incandescent light bulbs.

Curbing a notorious form of industrial pollution may ironically harm Amazonia, one of the world's natural treasures and a key buffer against global warming, a study released Wednesday has found. Its authors see a strong link between a decrease in sulphur dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants and a rise in sea temperature in the northern Atlantic that was blamed for wreaking a devastating drought in western Amazonia in 2005. University of Exeter professor Peter Cox and colleagues created a computer model to simulate the impact of aerosols -- airborne particles that, like sulphur dioxide, are also spewed out by...

Here are a few facts: Over 95 percent of the greenhouse effect is the result of water vapor in Earth's atmosphere. Without the greenhouse effect, Earth's average temperature would be zero degrees Fahrenheit. Most climate change is a result of the orbital eccentricities of Earth and variations in the sun's output. On top of that, natural wetlands produce more greenhouse gas contributions annually than all human sources combined.

Fast-Food Liver Damage Can Be Reversed, Experts SayDiets high in fast food can be highly toxic to the liver and other internal organs, but that damage can be reversed, says one of the country's leading experts on non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, who offers four steps to undo the effects of a 'super-size me' diet. (Credit: iStockphoto/Marketa Ebert) ScienceDaily (May 2, 2008) — Diets high in fast food can be highly toxic to the liver and other internal organs, but that damage can be reversed, says one of the country’s leading experts on non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, who offers four steps...

The Global Warming Hoax-a-thon By Bridget Geegan Blanton Beware the pandering politician. Where there are votes to be won, the truth will be spun. Listening to politicians out on the stump, you’d think we were in midst of the apocalypse. Frankly, I’m weary of candidates avoiding a real discussion on tough issues. Why don’t they just spare us the insult of those televised debates? Where’s the actual debate? It’s predictable and boring as the main stream media poses questions that are simply spring boards for carefully crafted commentary. Talk about compelling television, how about a real debate on our energy...