More on that story of Britain's stagnated climate change strategy. The Guardian reports how the strategy has "been paralysed for seven months by a dispute between two Whitehall departments."

So yesterday we find out that Blair says climate change is worse than previously thought - the greatest threat facing humanity. Today we read about the reality of government. The Liberal Democrat environment spokesman, Norman Baker, puts it quite nicely: "I fear there are some in government, especially in the DTI [Department of Trade and Industry] and in No 10, that are quite happy to postpone decisions on climate change. The longer

Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair has admitted that climate change could be much more serious than previously thought in a new government report on global warming published today. The report is a major update to a scientific conference held in Exeter last year by the British government on the subject.

Whilst everyone else gets excited about the potential for renewable energy, the Chief Executive of Shell, Jeroen Van Der Veer shows a remarkable lack of foresight or imagination. Writing in the Financial Times this week, Van Der Veer outlined his “vision for meeting energy needs beyond oil”.

Let’s move on from the last blog about the political will being needed to make technological change. Two reports on two different continents show how we could reduce our oil dependency now, and reduce carbon dioxide emissions given political will and economic investment.

Writing in Monday's Financial Times, James Woolsey, the head of the CIA from 1993 to 1995 and Robert McFarlane, who was Ronald Reagan's national security adviser, argued that “America must end its dependence on oil”.

Dr. Jeremy Leggett on peak oil in the UK Independent. Leggett, trained as petroleum geologist, advisor to Greenpeace for a long time, has a knack for being ahead of his time. Now he's on peak oil, and its pretty compelling stuff. Click here to download a pdf version of his article.

Chomsky: " Well, you know, if you have three gray cells functioning, you know that...the U.S. invaded Iraq because it has enormous oil resources..."
http://www.alternet.org/story/30487/

Today's Independent newspaper carries an indepth interview with celebrated scientist, James Lovelock who invented the "Gaia" theory thirty years ago.

His new book, called the The Revenge of Gaia is published next month. In it Lovelock argues that climate change has already past the point of no return and that billions of people will die before the end of the century.

On the Independent's website, the Lovelock article is running opposite a BP advert saying "Its time to listen".

Don't you just love irony.

So the Bush administration has just given the green light to oil and gas exploration in an area of the Arctic that even the hard-line Reagan administration wanted to protect.

Frustrated by its failure to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the Bush administration has given the green light to open up an area in the nearby National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.

The news reported in the scientific journal Nature this month that trees might be account for about 10 to 30 per cent of the potent greenhouse gas methane that is entering the atmosphere is a gift to climate skeptics and the oil industry.

For years they have tried to argue that man-made emissions were not to blame. It is also a gift to those people who oppose the UN Kyoto protocol, because part of that agreement is the off-setting of carbon dioxide emissions with the planting of trees.

Watch this space – we will monitor what these groups have to say in