On climate change, the medium is Gore’s pointed message: Al Gore only got it half right when he arrived in Cannes last Friday to softly spank the global advertising industry for being naughty and then ask it for help in creating a global consumer movement for climate change. Ad agencies are reasonably resourced to slow down any progress that might be made in convincing the public about individual action that Gore so badly wants to occur, but there’s a far nastier and more subversively influential group of communications companies which the former US vice-president could really go to town on: the public relations and government lobbying industries. — SMH

10 predictions about climate change: Tim Flannery presents 10 (referenced) predictions about climate change that have come true (ar are beginning to come true). 1) That the Earth would warm as more CO2 was put into the atmosphere (Svante Arrhenius in 1893); 2) That we’d begin to see noticeable changes to Earth’s climate by around 2000 (some IPCC scientists); 3) That sea-level would start rising; 4) That Earth’s Ice would start melting rapidly (James Hanson) 5) That hurricanes would increase in intensity (this one goes back to Alfred Russel Wallace in 1900). — Times Online 

UN issues desertification warning: Tens of millions of people could be driven from their homes by encroaching deserts, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and Central Asia, a report says. The study by the United Nations University suggests climate change is making desertification “the greatest environmental challenge of our times”. If action is not taken, the report warns that some 50 million people could be displaced within the next 10 years. — BBC

Europe in grip of heatwave: Dozens of people in Europe have died in a blistering heatwave, while storms whipped the north of the continent and floods killed 4 in Britain. In Greece, authorities said that the longest heatwave in the country’s history had killed five people, but media put the toll at at least 10. Athens on Tuesday registered temperatures of up to 46.2 degrees, the highest since recordings there began in 1955, the national weather service says. — SBS World News

World’s largest ice sheet in ‘stable’ condition: An ice sheet in Antarctica that is the world’s largest – with enough water to raise global sea levels by 200ft – is relatively stable and poses no immediate threat to ocean levels, according to new research. While studies of other ice sheets, such as the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets, show they are both at risk from global warming, the East Antarctic ice sheet will “need quite a bit of warming” to be affected, Andrew Mackintosh, a senior lecturer at Victoria University in Wellington said yesterday.– Scotsman