Teresa Herrmann's Climate Chronicles

New Zealand’s tuatara may be one for the climate change history books. It's a lizard-like creature that's become global warming's latest canary in the dirty coal mine.

The two species of tuatara are the only surviving members of the Sphenodontians which flourished around 200 million years ago, but because of climate change, they are reaching the end of a very long earthly run for a very peculiar reason.

Forget the Y2K countdown clock, that's ancient history, or the trillion-dollar-counter tracking the nation's deficit. Instead, bring the most important number to your website with a newly available widget. It tracks atmospheric C02.

There’s a grassroots organization launching a multi-lingual social networking site today to promote the most important number on the planet.

The number is 350 -- as in parts per million (ppm) of carbon in the atmosphere, the limit of what's acceptable.

And the grassroots group - aptly named 350.org -- is working to embed the number into global consciousness. They're organizing online to have offline results in every corner of the globe, an attempt to redeem the story of the Tower of Babel and unite humanity around a single number.

Think "green building" and what advances come to mind? FSC-certified wood or LEED credits, perhaps. Think again. Try heavy machinery.The $90 billion construction equipment industry is going hybrid, with Japan's Komatsu being first to release a product.

Rumor has it that the US Green Building Council (USGBC) is about to unclog its big backlog of LEED registration certificates. So reports the Huffington Post.

Good news for green developers because that backlog is crazy.

Take New York City. By the end of 2007 -- after four years in the program -- the USGBC had LEED-certified 15 buildings. Meanwhile, the number of projects waiting for approval had swelled to 294.

That’s a ratio of one certification for every 20 registrations -- just five percent. Pretty poor. Especially when you compare it with the UK’s equivalent green building program BREEAM, which boasts a ratio of one in five.

The reported fix?

Linux enthusiasts, rejoice! You now have more ammo in your arsenal to throw out against rival Windows – and this time it’s green.

From Network World Magazine:

Independent tests show that Linux pulls as much as 12% less power than Windows 2008 on identical hardware.

For that, Linux captured the magazine's "green flag" award.

So how did Network World do it?

Oil-drenched Abu Dhabi has been sinking billions into colossal clean energy projects. And now it's promising to enact the world's toughest green building standards.

The measures, called the Estidama Program (Arabic for "sustainability"), are still in development -- part of Plan Abu Dhabi 2030, the long-term green scheme for the UAE capital.

Here are some key parts of the pending law, via Arabian Business:

Give hot rocks a chance. That's all the geothermal experts have been saying.

And now, it seems, more and more nations are paying attention.

Take Australia.

By the end of '08, it will shut down the diesel-fueled generators in the southern town of Innaminck (population 12).

And in their place will come the nation's very first geothermal power plant.

Dallas-based BroadStar Wind Systems is about to turn a giant corner --- into $1 per watt wind, into urban windmills and into the global energy big league.

If, that is, its new wind turbine -- the "flexi-location" AeroCam -- can live up to all of it of its enormous claims.

No small task.

The company busted out of stealth at WINDPOWER 2008 with the announcement of its long-awaited AeroCam -- and this shocker of a double promise:

There seems to be a lot of excitement over the massive, 105-foot-long space-roo that's landed in suburban Melbourne.

NASA's using the white cardboard cut-out to bounce sunlight back into space as part of a new climate change experiment.

But why exactly?