Climate Change This Week: Repair Café, Forest Crime Syndicates, and More

Hot Date Idea: In Amsterdam, a new social activity, the Repair Café, offers to repair things for free, reports Sally McGrane at The New York Times. It's helping to reduce waste, consumption, and -- yup, you guessed it -- climate change.

Illegal loggers are destroying much of the remaining Asian and Amazonian forests, and the World Bank is urging law enforcers to track down these international criminal syndicates fast to safeguard these important carbon storage ecosystems, reports William Laurance at Australia's Canberra Times.

Complications in the corn belt: Global warming is creating much more variable weather, making it difficult for reservoir managers to control water for irrigation, recreation and fisheries, reports Rocky Barker at the Idaho Statesman.

If you want to cut carbon emissions, forget taxes, says the U.S. public in a new poll -- give us incentives to adopt renewable clean energy instead, reports Dan Vergano at USA Today.

Get greenbacks for going green! The Big Apple (NYC) plans to save residents almost $1 billion annually by modifying zoning laws to allow adoption of rooftop solar and wind, and greener buildings, reports Maria Gallucci at InsideClimate News.

Every day is Earth Day, folks, as I was reminded when I photographed these wildflowers recently. Making the U.S. a global clean energy leader will ensure a clean, safe future. If you'd like to tell Congress that you support clean energy and will vote for clean energy candidates, join the increasing numbers of people doing so here. For more detailed summaries of the above and other climate change items, audio podcasts and texts are freely available.