Time for some housecleaning. That’s right: a link dump! Here’s some random stuff I’ve had open in Firefox (have you seen 2.0?) tabs for varying lengths of time:

This one’s gonna be a game-changer (watch for a longer story on the subject in Grist soon):

Global warming could cost the world’s economies up to 20 per cent of their gross domestic product (GDP) if urgent action is not taken to stop floods, storms and natural catastrophes.

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That stark warning was given to Tony Blair and his cabinet [on Thursday] by Sir Nicholas Stern, a former World Bank economist, and is said to have left cabinet ministers chastened by the magnitude of the threat posed by climate change.

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Stern’s full report — said to be hard-headed and focused almost purely on economics — will be released Monday.

In other big news, financial powerhouse Morgan Stanley announced it’s investing $3 billion over 5 years on carbon credits and offsets.

Green Mountain Energy Company is now offering carbon offsets through a program called BeGreen. This is a really slick, attractive site, with multiple calculators for determining the carbon footprint of various activities and even some social networking features.

Through BeGreen I stumbled on this CBS News report from a while back on how green is going mainstream. Watch the video, it’s somewhat heartening.

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In the December issue of the journal Climatic Change appears a new study: "Going to the Extremes" (link to press release). It analyzes the top climate models with a focus on coming changes in weather extremes. (Hint: there will be more.) On a less appropriate note, I think I’m in love with the lead author.

The cover story of The American Prospect this week is about oil company profiteers chomping at the bit to get up in that melting Arctic and start drillin’!

A couple weeks back, the NYT ran a long and (for the mainstream media) extraordinarily detailed and fair assessment of the various alternatives to fossil fuels, as part of its Talking Points series. But it’s behind the $elect wall, so I don’t even know why I’m mentioning it.

And OK, this isn’t environmental, but it’s pretty cool. Sometimes I wish I could remap my brain.