Climate Change

In his State of the Union address this evening, President Obama will propose aid mechanisms that benefit middle-class Americans struggling to send their children to college while carrying the economic burden of aging parents and combating rising unemployment.

Royal Dutch Shell, one of the world's largest suppliers of oil and natural gas, has announced that it intends to move away from the exploitation of unconventional energy resources, such as those in Canada's oil sands, and back towards conventional oil and gas exploration.

Climate change was one of the most hotly debated issues of the decade. In 2001, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) debated whether the phenomenon existed. Today, the scientific community is almost unanimously of the opinion that human activity is responsible for the rise in global temperature. One of the many pieces of evidence emerging during the last decade that led scientists to this conclusion is the accelerating rate of ice melt at the poles.

The image of the corporation, especially those that engage in any kind of environment-affecting business, has never been rosy in this country. In particular, electric utilities have often born the brunt of any criticism surrounding the environment or climate, perhaps best epitomized in the 1993 film Erin Brockovich.

Ahead of the opening session of the United Nations, where heads of state are slated to discuss global climate change and the divisive issue of carbon dioxide emission reductions, the group The Yes Men, known for championing liberal causes by parodying prominent public officials and companies, flooded the streets of New York City with satirical versions of the New York Post.