Have you visited the Apple website lately? If you haven't, you should go check it out especially if you're concerned about climate change and politics. Apple put on a message - loud and proud - congratulating the former U.S. Vice-President for winning the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

Gore is regarded by some as one of the geniuses of our time, becoming one of the biggest voices in the fight against global warming. Aside from the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize, Gore won an Academy Award for his documentary on climate change "An Inconvenient Truth."

The message in the official Apple site reads:

Al has put his heart and soul, and much of his life during the past several years on alerting and educating us all on the climate change crisis. We are bursting with pride for Al for this historic recognition for his global contributions.

Amid wars and world conflicts, the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded to (drum roll please) Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Their award isn't without merit of course. The committee believes that uncontrolled climate change may give a reason for the world to rise in conflict again:

[It] may induce large-scale migration and lead to greater competition for the Earth's resources. Such changes will place particularly heavy burdens on the world's most vulnerable countries. There may be increased danger of violent conflicts and wars, within and between states.

Thus Al Gore has achieved with his film, An Inconvenient Truth, what every stereotype beauty queen always wanted: world peace. In a bit of an odd twist, the Nobel Prize was given on the same week that a judge in the UK declared that parts of the film were scientifically inaccurate - mostly those parts that had to be simplified to present a complex topic to a broad audience.

New Jersey legislators have passed and approved the Global Warming Response Act, which seeks to lower greenhouse gas emissions to non-critical levels to contribute in the world's bid to stop climate change.

Former Vice President and global warming activist Al Gore was present to witness the enactment of the milestone legislation, along with New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine.

The law requires the state to cut down on the release of greenhouse gases to restore the status of the air to 1990 levels by the year 2020. More ambitiously, the Global Warming Response Act seeks to have total emissions lowered by 80 percent of present levels by 2050.

"We are making a long-lived commitment today that will impact not just our generation but future generations," says Corzine as he described the day of enactment as a very important one for the Garden State.

Gore, on the other hand, says that New Jersey's initiative is very important and should serve as a model for other states and the federal government. "The states are making a difference; New Jersey is making a difference," he says.

Not everyone is pleased with the development, though. Several figures from the state's power industry have criticized the bill, saying that the lone efforts of New Jersey will not change a thing on a global scale and could dampen the economy. Still, support by the citizenry and lawmakers has proven that the populace is in favor of the act.

So, what would you do if you're an architect who never has to worry about money (counting 'em perhaps, but not running out of it)? Build a palatial estate of course! That's just what renowned architect Rolf Disch did. He built a Heliotrop house which tracks the Sun. Now, that's something! Disch must really love sunrises and sunsets.

But the house isn't all about looks and aesthetics - it's environment friendly too. Something that would make Al Gore and other environmentalists green with envy. The balcony rail is actually a solar vacuum tube that is used to heat water. The roof is equipped with Photovoltaics that rotate independently to track the Sun - this generate four to six times the energy needed for the house.

Aside from all that, there is on-site composting, chemical free sewage treatment and rainwater catchment in Rolf's estate. This Green house has been Disch's personal residence since 1994.

After Al Gore told us about the Inconvenient Truth, the White House seems to be buckling under the inconvenience. This is after an internal memo, distributed in the Alaskan division of Federal Fish and Wildlife Service, appear to be discouraging biologists and other employees traveling in countries around the Arctic to speak regarding climate change, polar bear, and melting ice caps unless assigned to do so.

Late last year, the Bush administration was pelted by calls from environmental groups to include polar bears as one of the species under the Endangered Species Act. The said Arctic mammal is facing sheer loss of numbers from the unusual retreat of sea ice (used by bears for seal hunting) caused by warming climate. Environmentalists are trying to use such a listing to force the United States to restrict heat-trapping gases that scientists have linked to global warming as a way of limiting risks to the 22,000 or so bears in the far north.

The issued memos, to be used by biologists and wildlife officials as a guide in prepping travel requests, carry the heading "Foreign Travel — New Requirement — Please Review and Comply, Importance: High". Here's what's written on the cover note:

Please be advised that all foreign travel requests (SF 1175 requests) and any future travel requests involving or potentially involving climate change, sea ice and/or polar bears will also require a memorandum from the regional director to the director indicating who'll be the official spokesman on the trip and the one responding to questions on these issues, particularly polar bears.

The sample memorandums indicate that employees applying for travel permits should understand "the administration's position on climate change, polar bears, and sea ice and will not be speaking on or responding to these issues."

When asked for comment, Alaska Fish and Wildlife Service spokesperson Bruce Woods defended the memo saying. "What the administration wants to know is who is going to be spokesperson and do they understand administration policy? It's not saying you won't talk about it."

It will be remembered that the US government has been wary of verging into efforts to alter the negative impacts of Earth's deterioration, even choosing to pull itself out of the Kyoto Protocol back in 2001. It's been long argued that capitalist nations would be hit the hardest when the rest of the world has started clamping down on pollution.

You'd think that Sir Richard Branson is crazy when he came up with ideas like space tourist flights and storing your baby's umbilical cord and placental blood. But his next idea is attracting the good kind of attention.

The Virgin boss recently launched a contest looking for the person who can come up with the best way to remove huge amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The prize? A cool, US$ 25 million.

The competition was launched recently alongside former US VP, Al Gore. A panel of judges will oversee the prize, including James Lovelock (Gaia theory inventor) and NASA scientist James Hansen. Other members of the panel include British environmentalist Sir Crispin Tickells, Gore, and Australian mammalogist and paleontologist, Tim Flannery.

To win the cash prize, you have to come up with a method that will remove at least one billion tons of carbon per year from the atmosphere. Here's to hoping that those who'll enter the competition will not do it for the money or the fame, but will do it because this is a cause he/she believes in.

Voted Most Unlikely Box Office Star, Al Gore's global warming docu-movie "An Inconvenient Truth" scored well with audiences. In the film version of his environmental campaign, Gore blames global warming for Hurricane Katrina and Greenland's melting ice, among other things. But Kevin Shapiro disagrees with Gore and all proponents of global warming. Basically, he thinks Al and his gang are full of hot air. We don't think he means greenhouse gases.

Shapiro, a research fellow in neuroscience and a student at Harvard Medical School, says global warming is nothing more than  "a tool to embarrass the political Right, and especially the Bush administration." He cites data based on actual observations (not data extrapolation) of the earth’s climate indicates there's nothing to worry about.  Moreover, if the planet is heating up, Shapiro says there's nothing we can do about it.

He dismisses the carbon-free economy, which will wipe off both carbon dioxide emissions and greedy energy companies, as unrealistic. For Shapiro, the overall effect of limiting fossil-fuel consumption without enforcing viable substitutes (e.g. nuclear energy) will send the price of energy higher than Don King's hair.

"There are many good reasons to wean ourselves from a dependence on fossil fuels, not least to cease enriching unsavory regimes...like Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Venezuela. But in combating climate change, we should not ignore the damage done by the proponents of global-warning themselves in diverting money and energy away from more obvious and well-substantiated problems...many people seem to be more concerned with the supposed menace of global warming...which we can realistically do very little...than infectious disease, about which we can do quite a bit. Speaking of inconvenient truths, this is a real one."