“What we’ve got to get people used to is the idea that electric cars will become quite normal, quite usual.”

UK transport secretary Geoff Hoon tells the Guardian that incentives of up to £5,000 will be offered to people buying electric cars.

“When US researchers are being actively approached for ideas to use the stimulus money to think big and to hire and retain their researchers, their Canadian counterparts are now scrambling to identify budget cuts for their labs, while worrying about the future of their graduating students.”

In Canada, 2,000 researchers have signed an open letter to the Prime Minister complaining about the recent budget (Globe and Mail).

“Every drop of water requires desalination. One leaf of salad has to be flown eight hours from New Zealand. Cameron would have absorbed so many resources that he was not invited.”

Film director Werner Herzog explains why his two-person crew got to film a documentary in Antarctica and Titanic director James Cameron’s 35-person crew didn’t (Guardian).

“Biomass is a limited resource, and we must make sure it is not wasted on inefficient generators that do not take advantage of the emissions savings to be made from combined heat and power.”

Tony Grayling, head of climate change and sustainable development at the UK’s Environment Agency, comments on a new report suggesting switching to biomass fuel could release more carbon dioxide than fossil fuels (BBC).

“A news agency item, Volcano begins to erupt on Galapagos island, reported that flowing lava could affect “iguanas, wolves and other fauna” on Fernandina island. The surprising reference to wolves probably stemmed from a mistranslation of one of the South American terms for sea lion, lobo marino (sea wolf).”

The Guardian newspaper corrects its invention of a new species of wolf on the Galapagos islands (Regret the Error blog).