There's a lot of deja vu all over again in the fourth assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, but what it has done is remove the question mark about human influence on climate change, writes the BBC's Richard Black.

In the coverage and commentary I've seen on climate change in recent days, some have noted that Canada produces only two per cent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions.

The U.S. produces 25 per cent, which it claims to be a paltry contribution.

Canada has .04 per cent of the world's population, and the U.S. about five per cent.

Essentially, both countries punch well above their weight when it comes to emitting GHGs into the atmosphere. They contribute five times more than they should when compared to their share of the global population.

The 'very likely' in this context means a probability of greater than 90 per cent, says the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

From The Guardian:

Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world's largest oil companies to undermine a major climate change report due to be published today.

Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), an ExxonMobil-funded thinktank with close links to the Bush administration, offered the payments for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of a report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). ...

The letters were sent by Kenneth Green, a visiting scholar at AEI, who confirmed that the organisation had approached scientists, economists and policy analysts to write articles for an independent review that would highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the IPCC report.

"Right now, the whole debate is polarised," he said. "One group says that anyone with any doubts whatsoever are deniers and the other group is saying that anyone who wants to take action is alarmist. We don't think that approach has a lot of utility for intelligent policy."

CBC Radio's As It Happens interviewed Green and some others on this topic.

I Feel Love, by Donna Summer -- in conjunction with the Italian producer/genius Giorgio Moroder.

The first real trance song. Hard to imagine most modern electronica without it.

Still an urgent, slinky, exciting tune today -- and it will be 30 years old this year.

Afterthought

I would also like to call it audio literature. Listen to it through headphones a few times; you can always pick out a few things that you didn't notice before -- and they will make you appreciate this amazing song all the more.

This Wikipedia post has a list of those who have either covered or borrowed heavily from the song.

This YouTube clip has a decent version.

In Bangalore, India, journalists trudge into an office in the middle of the night to begin their day covering the New York Stock Exchange and other financial news for Reuters. Here's why.