China has declared the Three Gorges Dam project complete. The $50bn project was started in 1994. It generates huge amounts of clean electricity but attracted criticism for displacing 1.3 million people.
Lawmakers in North Carolina, which has a long Atlantic Ocean coastline and vast areas of low-lying land, have voted to ignore studies predicting a rapid rise in sea level due to climate change and postpone planning for the consequences. Television comedian Stephen Colbert joked recently that North Carolina was considering making sea level rise illegal.
Staying in North Carolina, fracking has been made legal because a lawmaker accidentally voted the wrong way. Democrat Becky Carney meant to vote to keep the ban but accidentally pressed the wrong button handing the decisive vote to the Republicans who were looking to lift it.
Meanwhile in Washington the Department of Energy have made $30m available for companies developing diesel and jet fuel substitutes for conventional fuels - to ensure the USA is not so reliant on imports.
There's evidence that the effects of much of the damage we have done to our atmosphere will be felt for centuries to come. Another report investigating the effects of increased flooding on coastal areas of South East Asia and the Pacific has estimated that as many as 52 million people could be displaced becoming "flood refugees". The result is not new but the estimated scale is.
