Climate and environment round-up – cars, UN, beetles

First, is the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change at risk of becoming irrelevant? If so, does it need to start offering specific climate-control prescriptions?

Second, how green, really, is “cash for clunkers”? Or similar programs for older household appliances? Not very, at bottom line.

Third, even as the neoliberal Waxman-Markey plan has yet to start consideration in the U.S. Senate, and may not even meet watered-down U.S. carbon-dioxide targets, the nation has another carbon problem — beetle infestation in western forests, making them less and less of a “carbon sink.”