Weather, Water, Energy 5-24-07

• This is what global warming leadership looks like. Japan is calling for a Kyoto replacement that will halve greenhouse gas emissions worldwide by 2050, and German chancellor and EU head Merkel calls out the US and China to get on the right side of this.
• Meanwhile, speaking of China, reaping what they're sowing: Melting Tibetan glaciers could cause the worst flooding on the Yangtze since 1998, when more than 3,000 people were killed as China's longest river overflowed, state media said Thursday.
• More leadership. CA's energy commission stopped L.A.'s and other state municipal utilities from contracting new coal-fired power plants. And WA sounds like it's going to follow suit. See? Leadership.
• Finally, we’ve noted here that other nations have glommed onto the fact that retooling to fight global warming actually creates economic opportunities and entrepreneurship. Finally, a couple of US House types have figured that out formally, too. My candidate for econ growth is all the retrofitting of existing cars to whatever new fuel type we end up with. Of course, if I had the brains figure out what that fuel is going to be, I’d probably already be rich, wouldn’t I?