It's worth stopping to think about the true price of the salmon you eat. And there's quite a lot to think about.

Salmon is one of the biggest international seafood commodities, and in the UK it's easily one of the most consumed and most conspicuous species in our supermarkets and restaurants. But the vast majority of the salmon you'll find on shelves or plates these days has been farmed rather than fished. Partly that’s because there's hardly any wild Atlantic salmon left, but it's also because salmon's popularity has grown and it has gone from being a delicacy to become more of an everyday food in the past few decades.

It's tough being an energy bill - excellent work from all at Friends of the Earth USA.

(Based on the below, our American colleagues tell me.)

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When Hewlett Packhard staff arriving for work at the company's California HQ checked their phone messages yesterday morning, they found a recorded message from Star Trek's Captain James T Kirk waiting for them. Actor William Shatner urged them to question their boss, Mark Hurd, about the reasons why HP recently reneged on its promise to phase out dangerous toxic substances from its computers by 2009.

Fox News is a strange beast which is at once both wonderfully entertaining and deeply, deeply disturbing. Here in the UK, we're insulated from its 'Day Today gone real' presence (although I'm not so smugly parochial that I haven't noticed our own TV news drifting in a similar direction) and if it weren't for the wonder of YouTube, we might not see it at all.

So a big thumbs up to Rolf Skar from Greenpeace USA who gave an interview this week about the new tissue paper guide they've recently released. The two newscasters get to do a tissue texture test (recycled comes out good), and Rolf valiantly presses on when one says she finds recycled toilet paper "really hard and scratchy". But there are creams you can get for that.

From WattHead:

The Sierra Club just won a HUGE legal victory in a coal permitting case at the Environmental Protection Agency's Environmental Appeals Board [in the USA]...

While the Sierra Club's legal team and other lawyers are still determining the full implications of the decision, it appears that this decision will essentially stop all new coal plant permitting dead in it's tracks for at least a year as EPA decides what BACT means in the context of CO2...

In short, with this new regulatory uncertainty, it's highly unlikely anyone will want to invest a dime in a new coal plant for the foreseeable future.

Read the full story on WattHead »

I've noticed a higher-than-expected amount of traffic going to our Obama press statement over the past couple of days, so it looks like people are interested in what we make of Obama's victory.

I think this image, on the homepage of the Greenpeace USA website, says it all:

Residents of Washington DC were given a first hand experience last week of what climate change is doing to the polar bears. Scattered across the city, puzzled onlookers stopped in their tracks to see, touch and sometimes kiss polar bears in homeless garb. By portraying polar bears as homeless and destitute, Greenpeace USA has managed to humanise their plight and raise concerns about climate change which is melting the arctic sea ice polar bears depend on.

NATO and Russia facing off, plans for star wars causing political ructions – its almost like the 80’s all over again. Without the ra-ra skirts. Which can only be a good thing.

So finally Poland has signed an agreement to host part of the US missile defence system on its soil. With just parliamentary approval to leap (and a supportive parliament in place) it seems the US's Son of Star Wars dreams have advanced apace.

In return for hosting ten US missile interceptors the ex communist, now NATO, country gets 100 US troops stationed on its soil, US patriot missiles and ‘assistance in modernising its military’ and (ahem) help with ‘responding to the threats of the 21st century’.