Paul Hanlon, the science editor of Britain’s Daily Mail has been possibly the UK’s most influential climate sceptic. Following a trip to Greenland he writes: "Yes, global warming is real – and deeply worrying".

His article continues "I have long been something of a climate-change sceptic, but my views in recent years have shifted. For me, the most convincing evidence that something worrying is going on lies right here in the Arctic. "

"Greenland is silent, almost. There is no wind, no birds, no insects; apart from the scientists around me the world of Man is far away. But there is sound, which you have to strain your ears to hear. A gurgling sound, the tinkle-trickle of drains, and a deeper, Hadean roar – the noise of an icecap liquefying."

"Sceptics will argue that Greenland has always had moulins and meltwater rivers; this is true. But what is new is these used to be confined to the very edge of the icesheet, marginal, ephemeral features that lasted just a few weeks in the height of the summer melting season. Now there are lakes and moulins right on the centre of the cap, and persisting well into August."

In the United States, CNN meteorologist Chad Myers, has been regarded as one of America’s most influential global warming sceptics. Following the Russian heatwave and a giant iceberg breaking off Greenland, he commented "Is it caused by man – yes … A significant portion of this is caused by greenhouse gases keeping heat on the shore, on the land, in the atmosphere that could have escaped without those greenhouse gases".

(Also see Leading Climate Change Sceptic Changes Tack)

In a book to be published this month, Bjørn Lomborg, the world’s most high-profile climate change sceptic declares that global warming is "undoubtedly one of the chief concerns facing the world today" and calls for a $us100 billion fund to fight it.

The self-styled "sceptical environmentalist" is famous for attacking climate scientists, campaigners, the media and others for exaggerating the rate of global warming and its effects on humans, and the costly waste of spending to deal with the problem. He has campaigned vigorously against the Kyoto Protocol and other financial measures to cut carbon emissions.

In his new book, he recommends pumping money into researching and developing clean energy sources such as wind, wave, solar and nuclear power and more work on climate engineering ideas with the funds being raised by a tax on carbon emissions.

Mr Lomborg told the Guardian "The point I’ve always been making is it’s not the end of the world. … This is not about ‘we have all got to live with less, wear hair-shirts and cut our carbon emissions’. It’s about technologies, about realising there’s a vast array of solutions."

Researchers at the University of Michigan have published an article in Nature Communications describing an optical film that promises to boost the overall efficiency of LCDs by more than 400 percent.

Normally, LCDs use several layers of optical devices, such as prisms, to colorize, polarize, and shutter light from a backlight,. Inefficiencies in each layer mean that even the best LCD screen only emit about 8% of the light produced by their backlights.

The new color filter is a three-layer sandwich of an insulating material between two layers of aluminum. The entire stack is less than 200 nanometers thick and is etched with periodic slits, like a grate. The distance between the slits and their width determines the color they produce when illuminated by a white backlight.  The filter transmits about 36% of the light from the backlight.

As well as being much more efficient, the new filter is simple to manufacture. The researchers have demonstrated a way to use nanopatterning techniques over large areas at high speed on roll-to-roll printers which could be used to mass produce displays.

Other researchers are working on similar grating structures for focusing light and for getting more light out of displays or solar cells.

According to a survey carried out for the British insurance company, Shiela’s Wheels, the average British male motorist drives an extra 444 kilometres a year, and the average female motorist drives an extra 412 kilometres a year, as a result of being lost. The company calculated that motorists waste an average of about 1,660 litres of petrol costing about £2,000 ($3,500) in their lifetime.

More than a quarter of men (26 per cent) surveyed wait at least half an hour before asking for directions, with 12 per cent of male motorists refusing to ask a stranger for help at all. 40 per cent of the men polled said that even if they were to ask a stranger for directions, they wouldn’t always trust or follow them. In contrast, almost three-quarters of women (74 per cent) have no qualms about asking for directions, with 37 per cent saying that they pull over as soon as they realise they are lost. 

The research revealed that motorists over 55 have the best sense of direction, getting lost "just" 26 times a year on average – compared to motorists under 25 who get lost on average 37 times a year.

The survey didn’t cover countries outside of Britain and Northern Ireland, where 58% of men pretend to know where they are when lost, compared to 25% of Londoners.

Since it seems unlikely that motorists will change their habits, satellite navigation systems look like a good investment.

"Dry water" is actually tiny droplets of normal wet water coated in silica. The result is a powder that resembles fine sugar but is 95% water. It was discovered in 1968 and has been used in the cosmetics industry.

Scientists at Liverpool University have found that "dry water" has a powerful ability to absorb gases. For example, "dry water" can absorb up to 180 times as much methane as normal water in the same time. One possible use is to store methane gas for transportation. In principle, a pressurised tank of "dry water" containing methane could be used to fuel a car.

The researchers have also shown that it can absorb more than three times as much carbon dioxide as ordinary water and silica.  It is therefore seen as an ideal candidate for research into finding ways to absord and store greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, (The problem with simply placing it in the chimney of a coal-fired power atation is that the heat would make the water evaporate.)

The California Energy Commission has about a dozen large-scale solar thermal energy projects seeking approval before the end of 2010. Many companies are in a scramble to get approval for their solar projects started this year in order to take advantage of a Treasury grant program and the Department of Energy’s renewable-energy loan-guarantee program, both of which are both expire at the end of 2010.

The California Energy Commission has already approved plans for a 250-megawatt solar thermal farm near the Mojave Desert. The Beacon Solar Energy thermal solar plant would be built at the western edge of the Mojave Desert, near the town of Mojave. The Beacon project is expected to be the first solar thermal project to be built in the state in 20 years

The Commission has also recommended approval of the Blythe Solar Power Project in southeast California which still needs final Environmental Impact Statement approval. When fully operational, the solar thermal power plant would the largest solar plant in the world with the capacity to produce 1,000 megawatts of electricity. When completed, the Blythe plant would nearly double the current 585 megawatts of installed commercial-scale solar generation nationwide in the U.S.

The Federal Bureau of Land Management has issued the final environmental impact statement which is open for public comment until September 18.

In other renewable energy projects, Terra-Gen Power has announced that it has secured $us1.2 billion in financing to complete what could be the largest wind energy project in the U.S. The 3,000-megawatt Alta Wind Energy Center would actually be a series of several massive wind farms located near Tehachapi, California about 185 kilometres north of Los Angeles. Construction of the first phase of the project has already begun.

Peugeot has announced that the world’s first diesel/electric hybrid car, based on its 3008 model, will go on sale in the next European spring.

The car has a 163-horsepower 2.0-litre diesel engine and a 37-horsepower electric motor. Claimed fuel consumption is 3.8 litres per 100 kilometres.

The car has four modes of operation:

• Auto – the system automatically operates the diesel or electric motor as required;
• ZEV- only the electric motor is used (providing the batteries are sufficiently charged);
• 4WD – both motors are used – the diesel motor drives the front wheels and the electric motor drives the rear wheels;
• Sport – for higher speeds and quick gear changes.

Pricing has not been announced but is tipped to be more than €35,000 ($50,000).

A Japanese company, Blest, has developed a small machine that it claims can convert several types of plastic back into oil.

The machine is able to process polyethylene, polystyrene and polypropylene but not PET bottles. The result is a crude gas that can fuel things like generators or stoves and, when refined, can fuel a car, a boat or motorbike.

The company says that one kilogram of plastic produces almost one litre of oil. To convert that amount takes about 1 kilowatt of electricity, which is approximately ¥20 or 20 cents’ worth. The conversion technology is said to be very safe because it uses a temperature controlled electric heater rather than flame.

The company makes the machines in various sizes and has 60 in place at farms, fisheries and small factories.

Dust significantly reduces the effectiveness of solar panels. This is particularly a problem in deserts which often have very good sunlight but also a lot of dust and not much water for cleaning the panels.

A team at Boston Unoversity, led by Dr Malay K. Mazumder, has suggested a solution using technology developed for the Mars rovers.

A transparent, electrically sensitive material is deposited on a glass or a transparent plastic, sheet covering the panels. Sensors monitor the dust level on the surface of the panel. When the dust concentration reaches a critical level, an electric charge sends a dust-repelling wave cascading over the surface of the material, lifting away the dust.

Dr Mazumder says that "Our technology can be used in both small- and large-scale photovoltaic systems. To our knowledge, this is the only technology for automatic dust cleaning that doesn’t require water or mechanical movement."

The Californian environmental group Heal the Bay has released this BBC nature file-style mockumentary: