Health concerns spur US Senate to global warming action: Amid growing evidence that scientists have underestimated the pace of global warming, public health experts on Tuesday urged U.S. lawmakers to support efforts to better understand the human health impacts from climate change … Furthermore, a warming climate also has the potential to decrease air quality, negatively impact the quantity and quality of fresh water supplies and increase vector, food and water-borne diseases. Environment News Service

Global warming could wipe out most species: Rising temperatures could wipe out more than half of the earth’s species in the next few centuries, according to researchers who published a study on Wednesday linking climate change to past mass extinctions. Researchers at the University of York said their study was the first to examine the relationship between climate, extinction rates and biodiversity over a long period. Reuters

California’s age of megafires: There’s a reason fire squads now battling more than a dozen blazes in southern California are having such difficulty containing the flames, despite better preparedness than ever and decades of experience fighting fires fanned by the notorious Santa Ana winds. The wildfires themselves, experts say, generally are hotter, move faster, and spread more erratically than in the past. The short-term explanation is that the region, which usually has dry summers, has had nine inches less rain than normal this year. Christian Science Monitor

In heat of campaign, climate change is out in the cold: This is the first federal election in Australia in which climate change is one of the crucial issues. Not that this has been easily discernible on the campaign landscape: at this early stage of the long trek to November 24, the environmental imperatives from the two main party leaders have been as purposeless as tumbleweeds — largely insubstantial and inconsequential, tossed hither and thither by heated rhetoric. Meanwhile, in the real world, the realities of climate change continue their inexorable, inevitable path. The Age

Honda sees no future for plug-in hybrid vehicles: Honda Motor Co. Chief Executive Takeo Fukui said plug-in hybrid gasoline-electric vehicles offered too few environmental benefits to be worth pursing for the Japanese car company, according to the Wall Street Journal. Instead Fukui suggested that improved batteries would be better used for electric vehicles.  Monga Bay