The world’s oceans are turning acidic at what could be the fastest pace of any time in the past 300 million years, even more rapidly than during a monster emission of planet-warming carbon 56 million years ago, scientists said on Thursday. [Reuters]

As energy companies from Spain, Russia and Malaysia line up to drill for oil in Cuban waters 60 miles from the Florida Keys, U.S. agencies are struggling to cobble together emergency plans to protect fragile reefs, sandy beaches and a multibillion-dollar tourism industry in the event of a spill. [Washington Post]

Members of the reinsurance industry urged Congress yesterday to prepare the country forrising weather perils from climate change. [E&E News]

Health impacts from the radioactive materials released in the Fukushima Daiichi meltdownswill probably be too small to be easily measured, according to experts assembled by the Health Physics Society for a panel discussion on Thursday. [NYT]

Residents of storm-tossed midwestern towns searched for photographs and mementos from their ruined homes on Thursday as the death toll from a line of tornado-producing storms rose to 13, while more storms bore down on the region. [Reuters]

Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney on Thursday channelled his inner Stephen Harper in a speech touting the Keystone XL pipeline as a “no-brainer,” while accusing President Barack Obama of failing to understand the value of Canadian oil to the U.S. economy. [Vancouver Sun]

Legendary Sherpa mountaineer Apa is on a quest to draw attention to the danger of moredevastating floods in the Himalayas as glacial melt caused by climate change fills mountain lakes to the bursting point. [,a href='http://www.newsday.com/news/nation/everest-hero-highlights-flood-threat-in-himalayas-1.3572186'>AP]

The cost of gasoline is going up while the cost of natural gas is going down, driving a resurgent interest in natural gas vehicles. [NPR]

In just the past few months, projects were announced in Florida and California that will attract hundreds of millions of dollars in energy-efficiency investments financed through the Property Assessed Clean Energy program, better known as PACE. [Houston Chronicle]

China’s cheap labor isn’t the major cause of the hole we’ve found ourselves in with advanced technology manufacturing, which is capital intensive, not labor intensive; rather, China gives its manufacturers whatever advantage it can over U.S. and other foreign competitors. [Detroit Free Press]

The trial that will determine the extent of any liability U.K.-based oil company BP and its partners face for the April 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill is scheduled to begin next week in New Orleans federal court. [Bloomberg]

The Keystone XL pipeline really is a big deal for what it portends about the growing climate risks of our oil dependence. [Politico]

Oil prices spiked to their highest levels since 2008 on fears that tensions with Iran have the potential to disrupt supplies through the Strait of Hormuz. [CNN]

- Saturday night, watch a live reading of Dustin Lance Black’s play, “8,” based on the Proposition 8 trial, starring Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Martin Sheen, Christine Lahti, Jamie Lee Curtis, Matthew Morrison, Matt Bomer, Kevin Bacon, Jane Lynch, John C. Reilly, Campbell Brown, Chris Colfer, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, George Takei, and more! It will be livestreamed at 10:45 PM EST / 7:45 PM PST.

- In Maryland, marriage advocates are optimistic about beating a referendum, the wedding industry is optimistic about increased business, and transgender activists and allies are optimistic about a proposed gender identity non-discrimination bill.

- A North Carolina panel has completed the official explanation of Amendment One, but neither side of the fight are particularly pleased with the result.

- The Illinois House Criminal Law Committee has advanced a bill that would add gender identityto the hate crimes law’s protected classes.

- Despite an effort by Republican lawmakers in Indiana, the specialty license plates supporting LGBT youth are here to stay.

- The University of Nebraska’s proposal to offer domestic partner insurance coverage is stymied by many questions from the Board of Regents.

- The Episcopal Bishop of Alaska has endorsed the Anchorage Equal Rights Initiative.

- WikiQueer has officially launched, seeking to be a hub for detailed information and history about the LGBT community.

- New York City has opened a full-service LGBT senior center.

- An Oxford graduate has returned his degree in protest of the university hosting a conference for a religious group that opposes LGBT rights promotes harmful ex-gay therapy.

- Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe concluded his birthday celebrations by warning young people to shun Western values like homosexuality and greed.

- The University of the Philippines has elected the nation’s first transgender head of student government.

- Ebony Magazine highlights African-American transgender trailblazers.

- One mother explains what she learned from her transgender nanny:

Y’s transition changed me too. Watching Y’s struggle with weekly hormone therapy, decide when to come out to his family, friends, and employers, and select the appropriate public restroom, transformed my beliefs on gender identity. Even though I always supported the notion that people could be born into the wrong gender, I now view gender as more fluid — if there is a spectrum for sexuality, maybe there is also one with gender. I started making sure that I approach gender more sensitively with my own girls, allowing them to tell me who they are.

A powerful storm system tore through parts of the Midwest and South on Wednesday, killing at least 12 people, leaving pockets of devastation across several states and marking the acceleration of another deadly tornado season. [New York Times]

President Barack Obama intends to press lawmakers today to quickly strip billions of dollars in oil industry tax breaks, remarks that will come during his second energy-themed speech in two weeks aimed at blunting GOP attacks over gasoline prices. [The Hill]

The Environmental Protection Agency is acknowledging it will not complete first-time greenhouse gas standards for oil refineries in 2012. [The Hill]

Heavy rain and major flooding is continuing to cause misery for people in Australia, as floodwaters covering an area the size of France sweep across the state of New South Wales. [Sky News]

A late season storm is bringing heavy snows to California’s high country, and snow storms are also creating avalanche conditions in Colorado and forcing some schools to close in New York. [AP]

Denmark, followed by Israel, Sweden, Finland and the United States are the nations worldwide that provide the best conditions for clean technology startup companies, a recent ranking by the CleanTech Group stated. [YNetNews]

Royal Dutch Shell launched an extraordinary preemptive legal strike Wednesday against opponents of offshore oil drilling in the Arctic Ocean, filing suit against more than a dozen environmental organizations likely to challenge its plan for drilling exploratory wells in the Chukchi Sea this summer. [LA Times]

A second wildfire in under a week has broken out in a western North Carolina national forest, but firefighters say both blazes are under control. [AP]

San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) was nationally recognized today with the Organizational Leadership Award at the inaugural Climate Leadership Awards. [Sacramento Bee]

Transocean Ltd. may be hit with a $473 million bill for back taxes in the U.S. for 2008 and 2009, the offshore drilling giant said in a regulatory filing on Monday. [Law 360]

Settlement talks between BP and lawyers representing business owners and individuals affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill hit an impasse on Wednesday. [Houston Chronicle]

Rising gasoline prices already are causing consumers to buy more small cars, Ford sales analyst Erich Merkle said Wednesday. [Detroit Free Press]

TransCanada’s Keystone XL oil pipeline, a project backers including Republican Presidential candidate Rick Santorum say will create cheaper U.S. gasoline, instead risks raising prices as much as 20 cents a gallon in the Midwest, Great Plains and Rocky Mountains. [Bloomberg]

Al Gore discusses sustainable capitalism. [Huffington Post]

After a two-day hearing, a federal appeals court appeared inclined to uphold key parts of the Obama administration’s first-ever rules for reducing greenhouse gases, but it wasn’t clear whether the court would endorse the government’s entire approach. [WSJ]

Rick Santorum is touting the support of Sen. James Inhofe (R) even though the Oklahoma senator has not endorsed him. [The Hill]

A new NASA study revealed that the oldest and thickest Arctic sea ice is disappearing at a faster rate than the younger and thinner ice at the edges of the Arctic Ocean’s floating ice cap. [Science Daily]

A federal judge sentenced a former Massey Energy Co. security chief to three years in prisonWednesday for obstructing a criminal probe into the 2010 explosion that killed 29 miners in the worst U.S. coal-mining disaster in four decades. [WSJ]

- The White House continues to stay mum about an executive order that would require federal contractors to protect against LGBT discrimination.

- Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D) is leading all the potential Republican candidates in her Senate race.

- The DC Trans Coalition argues the Metropolitan Police Department is not honoring its commitment to reduce anti-transgender violence in the city, and may be lying about it too.

- Equality Matters takes an in-depth look at the National Organization for Marriage’s failed “Marriage Anti-Defamation Alliance.”

- The Family Research Council continues to eagerly defend ex-gay ministries, claiming they aren’t anti-gay.

- St. Louis Park will join three other Minnesota cities in opposing the state’s anti-equality amendment.

- Over 75,000 Change.org petitioners have called upon Union-Scioto School District in Chillicothe, Ohio to pass an anti-bullying policy that protects gays students like the 15-year-old whose assault was recently captured on video.

- Lady Gaga, flanked by the likes of Oprah Winfrey and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, launched her “Born This Way” Foundation yesterday to fight bullying.

- George Clooney sat down with The Advocate to discuss his support of marriage equality and how he will never deny rumors that he is gay because he just doesn’t care.

- A Washington couple who’ve been married nearly 70 years express their support for marriage equality for their two gay grandsons:

Click here to view the embedded video.

At least four people were killed early Wednesday as a line of tornadoes marched across the Midwest. [NBC News]

Judges on a U.S. appeals court appeared skeptical Tuesday of industry challenges to the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2009 finding that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare, a key determination for Obama administration rules regulating carbon-dioxide emissions. [WSJ]

Evacuations are underway in one town and emergency crews are standing by in three others as large parts of New South Wales, Australia continue to be deluged with the heaviest rains in more than 80 years. [AAP]

Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee criticized the idea of using theStrategic Petroleum Reserve to moderate gas price increases. [The Hill]

Britain’s policies encouraging renewable-energy use will prevent the country from suffering an electricity crisis leading to blackouts toward the end of the decade, Bloomberg New Energy Finance said. [Bloomberg]

The winter storm that brought 1 to 2 feet of snow to the central and southern mountains will bring hurricane force winds to the Front Range foothills again overnight, according to the Colorado weather forecast. [KUSA]

Facing a tough global market for solar power, Tempe-based First Solar Inc. said Tuesday that it lost $413 million in the fourth quarter and that it would further delay opening its factory in Mesa. [AZ Central]

A possible deal between BP and business owners and individuals harmed by the Deepwater Horizon disaster would call for BP to close the fund it’s been using to pay claims for the past two years and apply the balance to settle a mammoth legal case awaiting trial in New Orleans. [MySanAntonio.com]

Transocean, the world’s biggest offshore oil drilling company, has a surging stock, even though it is still mired in legal issues arising from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil well disaster in the Gulf of Mexico (it owned the rig that exploded and sank, causing the worst offshore oil spill on record in the United States and killing 11 people). [Fiscal Times]

Attorney General Eric Holder told Congress on Tuesday that a criminal investigation of the 2010 BP oil spill is progressing and that he expects to discuss the probe publicly “within months.” [New Orleans Times-Picayune]

Congressional Democrats are ramping up pressure on President Obama to tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to prevent rising gas prices from threatening the economy and their election-year prospects. [The Hill]

The head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday defended the Obama administration’s plan to eliminate federal funding for health testing at beaches nationwide, telling lawmakers that it is the role of state or local government to monitor whether water is too contaminated to swim in. [LA Times]

Environmental groups and local governments on the Gulf Coast have stepped up their lobbying push for legislation that would redirect federal funds toward the cleanup of 2010’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill. [The Hill]

February has been one heck of a month for American motorists, who have been hit with an 8 percent spike in the price of gas. [CNN]

- Two different challenges have been filed to the language of Washington’s Referendum 74, a vote on the state’s new marriage equality law, because it currently describes the law as “redefining marriage.” Conservative attorney general candidate Stephen Pidgeon has also launched an effort to ban same-sex marriage, known as Initiative 1192.

- Northeastern University has canceled plans to bring Chick-fil-A to campus after the student Senate resolved 31-5 against the proposal because of the chains record of opposing gay rights.

- Students and alumni of Harvard University are petitioning and protesting the administration to grant honorary degrees to nine students who were expelled and kicked out of Cambridge in 1920 by a secret court set up to hunt down homosexuals.

- The University of Pennsylvania has extended its employee insurance to cover the health needs of transgender staff, including sexual reassignment surgery.

- The Student Government at the University of South Carolina is considering gender-neutral bathrooms and housing.

- Mount Pleasant, Michigan is the latest municipality to have a heated debate about creatingLGBT non-discrimination protections.

- A St. Louis music teacher has been fired from his job at a St. Ann Catholic School for announcing plans to marry his same-sex partner of 20 years.

- Almost 150,000 people have signed a Change.org petition calling on the MPAA to lower its rating on the new documentary Bully from R to PG-13 so that it can be shown in schools.

- Conservatives are concerned that a new law in Alberta promoting diversity education will make it illegal to teach that homosexuality is sinful.

- After some confusion over the past week, the government of India has clarified it accepts a Supreme Court ruling that gay sex is legal.

- Last week’s winter finale of Glee, which featured an attempted suicide and an accompanying PSA featuring Daniel Radcliffe, led to record traffic on the Trevor Project’s website.

- Josh Hutcherson of The Kids Are All Right and The Hunger Games has joined the group Straight But Not Narrow to support the Gay-Straight Alliance Network:

Click here to view the embedded video.

- Frank Rich takes on the whitewashing of the LGBT movement, explaining how liberals have not always been on the side of equality:

We—and by we, I mean liberal New Yorkers like me, whether straight or gay, and their fellow travelers throughout America—would like to believe that the sole obstacles to gay civil rights have been the usual suspects: hidebound religious leaders both white and black, conservative politicians (mostly Republican), fundamentalist Christian and Muslim zealots, and unreconstructed bigots. What’s been lost in this morality play is the role that many liberal politicians and institutions have also played in slowing and at some junctures halting gay civil rights in recent decades.

- This week, the North Carolina Constitutional Amendments Publication Commission will write the official explanation for Amendment One.

- At the funeral for a lesbian’s mother, a Maryland priest first refused the woman communionfor the sin of living with another woman, then left the funeral claiming he was sick after her eulogy.

- Three openly gay candidates are running for seats in Pennsylvania’s General Assembly, which has never had a gay lawmaker before.

- Advocates in Louisiana are petitioning for LGBT-inclusive bullying legislation.

- A Tennessee high school student is facing obstructions to his creating of a gay-straight alliance.

- A Change.org petition with almost 200,000 signatures is calling on Citibank and Barclays, two of the largest banks in the world, to publicly condemn Uganda’s “Kill the Gays” legislation.

- Parks and Recreation‘s Aziz Ansari is hosting a benefit tonight to support anti-bullying efforts in Anoka-Hennepin School District.

- Transgender teens are taking to YouTube to document their transitions and experiences using hormone-blockers.

- Learn the strange history of Poison, the transgender character from Capcom’s Final Fight video games.

- New York City’s Congressional Delegation says, “It Gets Better”:

Click here to view the embedded video.

BP investors said progress toward a settlement with the victims of the Deepwater Horizon disaster signals a share-price rebound, closing the $44 billion gap with the company’s value before the worst U.S. oil spill. [Bloomberg]

SoCore Energy, a commercial-scale solar installer in Chicago, has raised $4 million in its third round of funding. [Forbes.com]

The Chinese government has set new targets for domestic growth in the solar power sectorunder its latest five-year plan. [UPI]

The House Energy and Commerce Subcommittees of Energy and Power, and Environment and the Economy, hold a hearing on the Environmental Protection Agency budget request for Fiscal Year 2013 today, where EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson will testify. [C-SPAN]

Newt Gingrich is wrong on energy policy, says Kate Brandt. [PolicyMic.com]

Gas prices continued to climb on Tuesday, inching closer to $4 a gallon as they rose for the 21st day in a row. [CNN]

Transocean Ltd took a $1 billion charge related to the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the clearest indication yet that the contract driller is preparing to settle the case. [Reuters]

Diseases including the Schmallenberg virus will become more prevalent in UK livestock unless something is done to reduce the effects of climate change, experts have warned. [Farmers Guardian]

TransCanada Corp. said Monday it would seek to start building the southern segment of its Keystone XL pipeline while it prepares to file a new application for U.S. approval of a cross-border pipeline to import Canadian crude oil. [My San Antonio]

The newly formed Climate Change and Shoreline Preservation task force is planning how it can best investigate the ways Connecticut can adapt to rising sea levels and guard against future storms. [The Republic]

Higher energy consumption and warmer weather drove up total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions3.3 percent to 6.866 billion tons between 2009 and 2010, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said in its latest emissions inventory report released Monday. [Reuters]

Brad Plumer writes about the court challenges to the EPA’s climate rules. [Ezra Klein]

“I think blaming the president for high gas prices is like blaming Rudy Giuliani for 9/11,” former Democratic Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm said Sunday on the “This Week” roundtable. “It’s totally ridiculous.” [ABC News]

A flood alert has been issued for large areas of inland New South Wales, Australia, with a thickening cloud band expected to dump heavy rain. [AAP]

The Washington Post Fact-Checker is not sure that economic misery is worth cheap gas. [Washington Post]

Earth’s clouds got a little lower — about one percent on average — during the first decade of this century. [Science Daily]

A powerful storm system will develop today in the Rockies and cross the Plains states Tuesday. [Wasau Daily Herald]

Volunteers and governmental assistance are helping North Carolina communities rebuild fromHurricane Irene. [WRAI]

A solar energy array now working at Jefferson County International Airport makes the small airfield the only airport in Washington state with operational reliance on solar power. [Peninsula Daily News]

Gov. Martin O’Malley (D-MD) brushed aside Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich’s plan to bring gas prices down to $2.50 a gallon by comparing it to his idea for colonies on the moon. [The Hill]

The New York Times praises the European Union’s requirement that airlines pay a fee for greenhouse pollution. [New York Times]

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R-IN) blamed President Obama for the spike in oil prices, saying the president “wanted” consumers to pay higher prices at the pump. [The Hill]

The BP trial over liability for the explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig and the Gulf of Mexico oil spill that followed was delayed until March 5 as settlement negotiations continue, according to court records. [Businessweek]

Solar energy, climate change and gas-drilling wastewater are the top legislative priorities forNew York‘s leading environmental groups this session in Albany. [Syracuse.com]

First Wind, an independent U.S.-based wind energy company, celebrated the start of construction of its 69-megawatt Kawailoa Wind project on Kamehameha Schools’ Kawailoa Plantation lands on Oahu’s North Shore. [First Wind]

- This photo of a marine’s homecoming reunion with his partner has gone viral. The marine, Brandon Morgan, has said he is “glad I can be an inspiration to someone.”

- Though the Charlotte city council has yet to take a position, Mayor Anthony Foxx spoke out against North Carolina’s proposed constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, civil unions, and domestic partnerships.

- Oklahoma state Rep. Mike Reynolds (R) may have failed at advancing his own version “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” but now he is trying to ban all municipal nondiscrimination protections for the LGBT community.

- The Utah House of Representatives recently advanced abstinence-only sex education requirements.

- Sweden may soon repeal its policy requiring the sterilization of transgender people seeking to legally switch their gender.

- The President of Uganda is worried about Western Europe’s “promotion of homosexuality.”

- A transman shares how disconcerting it can be just to use a public restroom.

- Chrisopher Plummer made history last night as the oldest actor to be awarded an Oscar, winning for his role as a gay father in the film Beginners. Watch his acceptance speech and comments to the press about playing gay:

Click here to view the embedded video.