Contamination of China's fresh water resources from industrial pollution and inadequate sewage treatment is seen by Chinese residents as the nation's most critical environmental priority, according to a new public opinion survey. The survey by Circle of Blue, an American multi-media news and science organization, and GlobeScan, a global public opinion polling firm, also found that people are hungry for more information.

The year 2008 was the best yet for renewables. Even though the global economic downturn affected renewables in many ways starting in late 2008, the year was still one to remember. As Table 1, on page 22, shows, in just one year, the capacity of utility-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) plants (larger than 200 kW) tripled to 3 GW. All forms of grid-tied solar PV grew by 70%. Wind power grew by 29% and solar hot water increased by 15%. Annual ethanol and biodiesel production both expanded by 34%.

Scientists, led by Professor Martin Parry, the former co-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, are set to warn that the UN negotiations aimed at combating climate change are based on unachievable low costs. The real costs are likely to be 2-3 times greater than estimates set out by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, according to a new report published by the International Institute for Environment and Development and the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London.

The world is heading for a catastrophic energy crunch that could cripple a global economic recovery because most of the major oil fields in the world have passed their peak production, a leading energy economist has warned. Higher oil prices brought on by a rapid increase in demand and a stagnation, or even decline, in supply could blow any recovery off course, said Dr Fatih Birol, the chief economist at the respected International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris, which is charged with the task of assessing future energy supplies by OECD countries.

Where should new solar and wind power facilities go? Seems many of the best potential sites, including rugged, windswept regions in the Rocky Mountains to the sun-baked Mojave Desert, contain swathes of land legally set aside as national parks, or support what remains of an endangered species' dwindling habitat, for example.