Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov -- the man behind the world's ugliest statue -- has a new grandiose project, keeping winter snow out of Moscow:

Moscow will blast clouds from the sky this winter to save money on snow removal, a city official said Wednesday, but the plan threatens to anger the surrounding region, which would have to cope with the extra powder. ....

Luzhkov is a long-time proponent of fighting clouds by spraying liquid nitrogen, silver, or cement particles into the cloud mass, which forces precipitation to fall before it can reach the capital and spoil holidays like Victory Day and City Day.

Last month, Luzhkov proposed expanding the technology to fight the snow drifts that snarl traffic every winter.

“What if we force this snow to fall beyond Moscow? The Moscow region will have more water, bigger harvests, while we will have less snow,” he said at an award ceremony for Moscow’s best-kept yard. He said that using the Air Force to prevent massive snowfall would be three times cheaper than using the regular system of trucks and snow-melting stations.

City hall estimates that the project will save the city $10.2 million in snow removal. Needless to say, officials in the surrouding region are less than thrilled with the plan. Locals have also criticized Luzhkov's previous cloud prevention schemes, noting that they make "the cucumbers turn yellow."

Alexander Kadobnov/AFP/Getty Images

After a slate of big speeches yesterday at the U.N. climate summit in New York, the jury is still divided on how significant the new carbon mitigation steps announced by China, India, Japan, and other countries are. (There's even a range of opinions on this site. But there seems to be a growing consensus on one thing: the US is increasingly seen as falling behind, isolated.

Funny that, in China, they saw this coming. This summer in Beijing, I spoke with one of the leading private-sector Chinese energy analysts, someone present at the last big round of climate negotiations held in Bonn. In between meetings, he and some of his colleagues had joked about something they called the "Chinese conspiracy." The gist was, as he put it, to view future climate talks as "an opportunity" and "to keep America off the table at Copenhagen."

He was kidding, of course, and even were he serious, he wouldn't have been speaking for the government. But as it happens, something like that scenario may be unfolding.

In the final weeks before Copenhagen, several countries, including China, are rushing to claim the mantle of leadership, to define what "success" means, and to offer their own proposals. At a press conference this morning in Washington, the director general of climate change for Mexico's ministry of the environment was talking about his country's proposal for the architecture of a redistributive "green fund," which would collect money from the world's economic leaders and then steer money toward green-friendly development in poorer countries. Next up, rumors are swirling of a coalition of Latin American countries preparing to offer their own pre-Copenhagen proposals.

It seems telling that President Obama ended his first major address on climate change not with a stirring call to action, but by urging pragmatism and compromise:

But the journey is long. The journey is hard. And we don't have much time left to make it. It is a journey that will require each of us to persevere through setback, and fight for every inch of progress, even when it comes in fits and starts. So let us begin. For if we are flexible and pragmatic; if we can resolve to work tirelessly in common effort, then we will achieve our common purpose: a world that is safer, cleaner, and healthier than the one we found; and a future that is worthy of our children. Thank you.

It sounds a bit like Obama is premptively defending a climate bill that will probably turn out to be less aggressive than the other delegates in Copenhagen might like and like Bill Clinton, is looking to assure environmentalists that any bill is better than none if it moves the ball forward.

A new proposal in Australia plans to slaughter thousands of camels that are wrecking havoc in the outback.

First introduced to the country in the 1840s to help explorers traverse the harsh deserts, feral camels now number more than one million, with a population that doubles in size every nine years. The herds roam unchecked through much of central and western Australia, destroying sacred indigenous sites and fragile ecosystems alike. Traveling in large, intimidating packs, they compete with livestock for food, trample vegetation and ravage residents' homes in search of food and water.

Last month the federal government set aside $15.6 million dollars for a "camel reduction program" that needs to drastically reduce the population down to at least a third of its present size to avoid "catastrophic damage". So far the most practical strategy seems to be a cull, with sharpshooters in helicopters firing on large groups -- an "actually quite humane" plan, according to some. This is good news for certain farmers, who are looking to expand the market for camel meat, reportedly an excellent source of low cholesterol protein.  Alternative suggestions, including exporting the camels or instituting a mass sterilization policy, are thought of as unfeasible given the animals' enormous size and aggressiveness.

Unsurprisingly, animal welfare activists are deeply disturbed by the proposals, but criticism for the government is also coming from an unexpected outlet: the foreign media. American broadcaster CNBC referred to the plans as "camelcide" and dubbed Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd a "serial killer." Similarly, hosts of a program on China's Central TV are calling the government out for its "massacre...of innocent lives." 

Ezra Shaw/Getty Images

The financial crisis, which has already hit Cuba's economy hard, is about to give the country another big kick, this time in the tuchas. Literally. Cuba is on the verge of a toilet-paper crisis.

Devastating hurricanes have left the state-run company that produces the country's supply, without the raw materials necessary to keep up with demand. In addition to which, President Raul Castro recently announced a 20 percent cut in imports, meaning a lot less goods on state-run store shelves. Cuban officials are saying they may not have sufficient TP supplies until the end of the year.

Worldwide, toilet paper is a booming business, especially in the United States where consumers use up to 50 million pounds of TP a year. It seems American bottoms have a "soft-tissue" fetish, one that's not only costly, but harmful to the environment. In order to get the fluffiest tissue, suppliers take from the world's rainforests. Earlier this year Greenpeace released a toilet-paper guide listing the more planet-friendly products. 

One penny-saving option for Cuba would be to use recycled lavatory paper, a much cheaper alternative on the whole. Indeed, many countries are already using the eco-friendly alternative, even if it is a little ... rough.

For Cuba, this could be an opportunity to take that initiative one seriously brave step further to becoming a leader to an "greener" planet: Go cloth.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Earlier this month, the leaders of the G8 attracted strong criticism with what many perceived as a failed attempt to make progress fighting climate change. The lack of action, though, is not stopping the tiny Pacific island nation of Tuvalu; the world's fourth-smallest country now pledges it will become entirely carbon-neutral by 2020.

Public Utilities Minister Kausea Natano said his nation of 12,000 people wanted to set an example to others.

Tuvalu is made up of a string of atolls with the highest point only 4.5m (15 ft) above sea level, making it extremely vulnerable to flooding.

The government hopes to use wind and solar power to generate electricity, instead of imported diesel.

"We look forward to the day when our nation offers an example to all - powered entirely by natural resources such as the sun and the wind," Kausea Natano said.

Many Pacific atolls like Tuvalu are worried that rising sea levels in the future could flood entire islands. But Tuvalu is not the first to make such a pledge -- in fact, it is only the 11th to make the pledge, joining countries like Iceland, New Zealand, and even Portugal (which has 10.6 million people, or approximately 1060 times as large a population as Tuvalu's).

TORSTEN BLACKWOOD/AFP/Getty Images

In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimated that global warming would decrease global GDP by up to 5 percent. As Waxman-Markey was being debated on the Hill, Jim Manzi over The American Scene questioned the necessity for action on global warming, noting that 5 percent was a small amount to be worried over. Nate Silver at 538.com decided to take up that challenge, seeing how many countries could be removed before reaching 5 percent of global GDP. The result is a startingly large number:

Silver explains: 

Let's see how much of the world we can destroy before getting to 5% of global GDP. The figures I'll use are IMF estimates of 2008 GDP, for all countries bit Zimbabwe where the IMF did not publish a 2008 estimate and I use 2007 instead.

Zimbabwe, indeed, is the first country on the chopping block, whose 11.7 million greedy bastards consume a whole 0.0196 percent of the world's output -- a global low of just $55 per person. After that, we get to destroy Burundi, The Congo (the larger of the two Congos -- the one that used to be called Zaire), Liberia, Guinea-Bissau, Eretrea, Malawai ... do you really me to go through the whole list? You do? ... Malwai, Ethopia, Sierra Leone, Niger, Afghanistan (big problem solved there), Togo, Guinea, Uganda, Madagascar, the Central African Republic, Nepal, Myanmar, Rwanda, Mozambique, Timor-Leste, the Gambia -- we've only used 0.27 percent of GDP to this point, by the way -- Bangladesh (which has 162 million people), Tanzania, Burkina Faso, Mali, Lesotho, Ghana, Haiti, Tajikistan, Comoros, Cambodia, Laos, Benin, Kenya, Chad, The Soloman Islands and Kyrgyzistan. Next up is India, which, while growing, still consumes only 2 percent of world GDP. Then Nicaragua, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Mauritania, Pakistan (another problem solved), Senegal, São Tomé and Príncipe, Côte d'Ivoire, Zambia, Yemen, Cameroon, Djibouti, Papua New Guinea, Kiribati, Nigeria (another pretty big country -- we've now got only about 1.4 points of GDP left), Guyana, the Sudan, Bolivia (our first foray into South America), Moldova, Honduras, the Philippines, Sra Lanka, Mongolia, Bhutan and Egypt.

At this point, we've used up 4.4 points of GDP. Indonesia is next on the list of lowest per-capita GDPs. But unfortunately we can't quite fit them into the budget so we'll spare them, opting instead for Vanauatu, Tonga, Paragua, Morocco, Syria, Swaziland, Samoa, Guatemala, Georgia (the country -- not the place where they have Chik-Fil-A), the other Congo, and Iraq. Skipping China, we then get to Armenia, Jordan, Cape Verde, the Maldives -- and another big bunch of skips follows here since we're very low on budget -- Fiji and finally Namibia[...]

So, we'll have to settle for just these 81 countries, which collectively have a mere 2,865,623,000 people, or about 43 percent of the world's population.

Just to cement the contrast, using those same IMF stats, the average American makes almost 183 times as much as Democratic Republic of Congo resident. 

Graphic from 538

As Democrats in Washington scramble to find enough votes for their cap-and-trade bill, China may be making some gestures towards dealing with climate change and pollution. One step is preventing last month's acquisition of Hummer by a Chinese company:

A Chinese firm's bid to buy the gas-guzzling Hummer car brand will be blocked on environmental grounds, according to Chinese state radio.

Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery emerged as the surprise buyer for the brand earlier this year.

But China National Radio said Hummer is at odds with the country's planning agency's attempts to decrease pollution from Chinese manufacturers.

The acquisition from General Motors would need Chinese regulatory approval.

The value of the bid was not disclosed at the time, but analysts say that GM would have made about $100m (£61m) from the sale.

National Development and Reform Commission will also block Sichuan Tengzhong from buying Hummer because the Chinese construction equipment maker lacks expertise in car production, state radio added.

Another interesting fact from the article: Hummer is known as "Han Ma," or "Bold Horse" in China.

Scott Olson/Getty Images

The New York Times reports:

Two years after [Australian] Prime Minister Kevin Rudd drew worldwide applause for reversing Australia’s longstanding refusal to ratify the Kyoto protocol on global warming, the government’s ambitious plan to change the way Australians use energy is facing major obstacles, raising the prospect of an early election with climate change as the central issue.

Two key points to note here: first, new elections could give the liberal Labor party a serious leg up on the climate change issue and increase the chances for the passage of future green legislation. But if Rudd wants to hold elections and gain that edge before the world meets to talk about climate change in December, that means losing today's battle to win the war. 

Second, and more importantly, is this plan as "ambitious" as Australian officials are making it out to be? It proposes a cut in carbon emissions by "at least" five percent of 2000 levels by 2020. Granted, Australia is responsible for only two percent of the world's carbon output, but if it wants to be seen as a leader on climate change (as Rudd allegedly wants), it'll have to do better than that.

Sometimes it seems like we just can't win. We finally find a power source that doesn't release fossil fuels, can't be made into a weapon of mass destruction, doesn't pose a risk of flooding and doesn't contain poison gas, and guess what? It tortures goats to death!

Late-night noise from spinning wind turbines on an outlying island of Taiwan may have killed 400 goats over the past three years by depriving them of sleep, an agricultural inspection official said on Thursday.

After the eight turbines were installed in the notoriously windy Penghu archipelago in the Taiwan Strait, a neighbouring farmer reported that his goats had started dying, Council of Agriculture inspection official Lu Ming-tseng said.

An interesting editorial in The Guardian by a member of Britain's Royal Society, the country's national academy of science, announced -- with a bit of modesty bordering on self-skepticism -- plans to look into "geoengineering" schemes to combat climate change:

The Royal Society has set up a study group on geoengineering climate. Without the answers there will be no way to take sensible decisions on this issue, based on evidence and facts rather than beliefs and suppositions (either for or against the idea). It may well be that our study will conclude that such schemes are not feasible, or too costly, have serious side-effects, or are too difficult to control. But it may not; and it is likely that we will need a lot more information before we can really decide."

After this rather remarkable bit of don't-get-your-hopes-too-high-ism, John Shepherd, the author, gets around to defining just what geoengineering means:

Geoengineering schemes for moderating climate change come in two main flavours. First there are those that aim to increase the amount of sunlight that is reflected away from the Earth (currently about 30%) by a few percent more. Second there are some that aim to increase the rate at which CO2 is removed from the atmosphere, by enhancing the natural sinks for CO2, and maybe even by deliberately scrubbing it out of the air. 

In other words, the Royal Society will be studying the possibility of reflecting sunlight away from the earth on a massive scale, and looking at new ways to sink CO2 into the ocean, or scrub clean the atmosphere. Pretty Jules Verne-seeming stuff, as Shepherd acknowledges:

If world leaders are unable to agree on effective action to deal with climate change ...  we may in future be glad that someone took these ideas seriously. Seriously enough to separate the real science from the science fiction, anyway."

What's remarkable is that the Royal Society, founded in 1660, represents nothing if not the nation's crusty scientific establishment. And while the author presents these schemes with much hesitation and ado, it does seem an indicator of just how much more urgent, and desperate, the discussion over climate change is beginning to seem in the U.K.  

State-owned Venezuelan oil company Citgo finalized a deal yesterday to donate an island it owns in the Delaware river back to the state of New Jersey. Citgo built refineries on Petty Island decades ago but the facilities are no longer in use and the island has become a sanctuary for eagles and waterfowl. New Jersey plans to create a nature sanctuary on the island.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez trumpted the deal at last weekend's Summit of the Americas. According the Newark Star Ledger the involvement of Chavez spooked New Jersey governor Jon Corzine who decided not to attend the handover ceremony:

A ranking Corzine administration official, however, said the governor's office feared Chavez was planning to issue a video statement complimenting Corzine, which would prove potentially sticky for the Democrat during his re-election bid this year. The official said the concern was that Republicans would use a Chavez statement to paint Corzine as a "socialist."

You know things have gotten bad when the former CEO of Goldman Sachs is afraid of being called a socialist.

FP previously wrote about "Long Range Acoustic Devices" in our 2008 "stories you missed" list when we reported that U.S. companies were selling them in China.

Now it seems the LRAD -- a non-lethal weapon capable of causing nausea, panic and ear damage -- is possibly being employed by Japanese whaling ships to deter interfering environmentalists from the controversial Sea Shepherd Conservation Society:

In Japan, the government’s Fisheries Agency admitted that water sprays and “beeping warning tones” had been used against the environmentalists. A spokesman for the Institute of Cetacean Research, a government funded organisation which campaigns in the whaling cause, did not deny that the LRAD had been put to use. “All legal means available will be used to ensure these pirates do not board Japanese ships or threaten the lives of the crews or the safety of the vessels," Glenn Inwood said.

If the Japanese are in fact using the LRAD, the degree that spokesmen will go to in order to avoid calling it a weapon is becoming absurd. "Beeping warning tones" definitely trumps "directed-sounds communications system."

Photo: Department of Defense

Who'd have guessed it? U.S. President George W. Bush might be going down as the greatest protector of the seas ever. Later today, he is to announce the establishment of the "largest area of protected sea in the world." Commercial fishing and mining will be largely prohibited in protected zones of the remote Pacific that include some of the most biologically diverse locations on Earth.

Critics say that any benefit from the establishment of protected areas will be cancelled out by the effects of greenhouse gases and climate change. Nevertheless, Joshua Reichert of the Pew Environment Group told the BBC that Bush has "protected more special places in the sea than any other person in history."

It just might be another achievement to add to Bush's legacy.

Photo: SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images