BROWNSVILLE, Texas — An armed eighth-grader gunned down by police officers in the hallway of his Texas middle school Wednesday was brandishing a pellet gun that looked like a firearm, and he refused repeated orders to lower the weapon before the officers opened fire, police said. The carbon-dioxide powered pellet gun 15-year-old Jaime Gonzalez was holding looked like a handgun, and the initial report to police that sent officers rushing to Cummings Middle School Wednesday morning was for a student seen holding a gun, Orlando Rodriguez, Brownsville’s interim police chief, said at a news conference. Read full article > >

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Police: Texas eighth-grader killed by police had pellet gun that looked like firearm

Two Nobel laureates involved in creating graphine, a flat sheet of carbon just one atom thick, are among the scientists recognised in the New Year Honours.

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Knighthoods for graphene pioneers

2011 was an unforgettable year with the rise of the Arab Spring, the Occupy Movements challenging the corporate world and a general overall social consciousness. Architects , too, learned that it is our responsibility to design in such a way to enhance and impact some of the world’s urgent concerns: poverty, climate change, unemployment, energy crises and education. With community’s no longer willing to accept the status quo, as we’ve seen in many parts of the world with successful protests, education is a key component for the mass majority. Education has always been a right and architecture has played a vital role in creating school buildings, which have become a teaching tool for urban sprawl in a poverty setting, have responded to climate change, sustainability, energy crises and preservation of culture and heritage. For example, the Children Academy in Haiti, the Boarding School for Girls in India, the Bamboo School in Liberia and The United Nations Relief and Works Agency Zero Carbon Gas Schools in Gaza Palestine, are all exemplary projects that can be set a new standard for architectural education.

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2011: A Year of Change

A month after joining Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi in a televised call to fight climate change in 2008, Newt Gingrich pivoted to a much different message: Increase domestic drilling and block legislation aimed at implementing a “cap-and-trade” system to curb carbon pollution. “We could drill here, drill now and pay less,” Gingrich said in a May 2008 video for his now-defunct nonprofit group, American Solutions for Winning the Future. Read full article > >

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Donations flowed to Gingrich’s nonprofit after he shifted on energy issues in 2008

A decision by the European Union’s highest court on Wednesday could spark a trade war with countries that oppose being forced into Europe’s carbon-trading system.

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Court Upholds Europe’s Plan to Charge Airlines for Carbon Emissions

Experts worry that if the permafrost thaws in the Northern Hemisphere, huge amounts of carbon will be released into the air, greatly intensifying global warming.

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Temperature Rising: Warming Arctic Permafrost Fuels Climate Change Worries

At the UN climate talks, nations appear to be edging their way to agreeing that a process towards a new carbon-cutting deal should start in the New Year.

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UN climate talks heading to deal

Global emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil-fuel burning jumped by 5.9 percent, upending the notion that a decline during the recession might persist.

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Record Jump in Carbon Emissions in 2010, Study Finds

Two large energy firms agree to work together to develop carbon-capture and storage – if they can get the UK government funding.

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Carbon capture plan for Peterhead

EU plans for carbon pricing aviation, “broken promises” on finance and the West’s historical emissions look set to divide nations at the UN climate summit.

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Climate summit set for flying row

Federal agencies are buying more hybrid vehicles, installing energy-efficient light bulbs and using rainwater to hydrate outdoor landscaping as part of the Obama administration’s goals of reducing the government’s carbon footprint. Dozens of federal agencies — from the Pentagon to the Smithsonian — plan to release progress reports Monday on what they’re doing to reduce the government’s carbon footprint after President Obama ordered them to do so back in 2009. Since then, the White House has said that the government is aiming to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 28 percent by 2020 . Read full article > >

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What is the government doing to go green?

Scotland’s first minister says the UK government’s move to scrap the UK’s first carbon capture project in Fife was a “tragedy”.

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Salmond anger over scrapped plan

Researchers find that tiny tubes of carbon bound together in a “yarn” rotate like muscles – but with a thousands of times more twist than ever seen before.

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Nanotube yarns twist like muscles

The European Union has the legal right to force foreign airlines to pay for their carbon emissions, an adviser to Europe’s highest court declared Thursday. Starting in January, any airline that lands or takes off in Europe will have to offset the greenhouse gases it emits during those flights by buying carbon allowances as part of the E.U. Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). The European Commission estimates the carbon permits could add a cost of between $2.66 and $15.96 per ticket. Read full article > >

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E.U. can force U.S. airlines to buy carbon permits, court adviser says

Trees, natural carbon sponges, help keep heat-trapping carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. But insect and human threats are taking a heavy toll on them.

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Temperature Rising: With Deaths of Forests, a Loss of Crucial Climate Protectors