(Update: Newspapers in 45 countries ran an editorial urging countries to forget their differences at the Copenhagen climate conference, and come together in an honest effort to address climate change and its consequences. Here are editorial comments from around the world.).

As the international conference on climate change opens today in Copenhagen, expectations are much lower -- call them more realistic -- than what had been hoped for a few months ago.

That's not necessarily bad, if the major countries can come up with political agreements that lead to binding treaties in the next year or so. Moderate success may be measured on the basis of emissions targets agreed to  by the U.S., China and other major polluting countries; agreements on the implementation of green technologies replacing polluting ones; and, at least a handshake by wealthy countries to help poorer, developing countries deal with global warming.

Earthjustice attorneys Martin Wagner and Erika Rosenthal will be blogging from the conference, which runs until Dec. 18.

Here's an interesting climate change observation reported by the BBC—over the last 800,000 years, up until industrial revolution times, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere never rose above 300 ppm. Since then, and particulary from the 20th century on, CO₂ concentration has steeply climbed to where it is today, nearing 400 ppm. Many scientists believe significant global warming consequences are inevitable above 350 ppm.

The historical data cited by the BBC come in part from ice core samples taken in Antarctica and Greenland. Bubbles of air trapped in the ice show cycles of 100,000 years, during which air temperatures and CO₂ levels fluctuate in parallel. As humankind grew in population and started heavily relying on fossil fuels, the cyclical pattern was broken. Now, CO₂ and temperatures are simply going up.

This bad news is actually good news of a sort as the world prepares to meet next week in Copenhagen to deal with climate change. The recent hacked email scandal is being used by deniers and contrarians to weaken the chances of getting anything done at the conference. A good dose of solid science like this could help keep things on track.

A host of wildlife, plants and fish in America may not survive the current debates over global warming in Congress and among the world's nations. According to a report from the Endangered Species Coalition, the effects of global warming could be the coup-de-grace for species that are already endangered by other causes. Says Leda Huta, executive director of the Endangered Species Coalition:

Global warming is like a bulldozer shoving species, already on the brink of extinction, perilously closer to the edge of existence...We need action now. Polar bears, lynx, salmon, coral and many other endangered species are already feeling the heat.

The report focuses on 10 endangered or threatened species that represent many other species jeopardized by a warming climate, and sets forth actions that Congress and the international community must quickly take to keep species from disappearing forever. Read the full report here.

The thin ice polar bears have been on because of global warming is actually thinner than we thought, according to a Canadian researcher.

A ship survey debunked recent satellite data that suggested an improvement in Arctic ice conditions. Instead of thick ice reported by satellite, the ship found thin ice -- too thin for polar bears to stand on. Consequently, there were fewer polar bears.

That alarming news was followed a report that, as a result of the lessening sea ice, starving adult polar bears are eating bear cubs.

Just one week before the Copenhagen climate change conference begins, the Dalai Lama is asking the world's governments to downplay their national economic interests and give priority to solving global climate change. At a news conference in Australia, he said:

Sometimes their number one importance is national interest, national economic interest, then global (warming) issue is sometimes second. That I think should change. The global issue, it should be number one.

The conference is Dec. 7-18.

(Update: Today, China announced that it, too, will pledge limits on greenhouse gas emissions.)

It's official -- President Obama will lead the U.S. delegation at the Copenhagen climate change conference, and he will promise the world a 17 percent decrease (from 2005 levels)  in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. His pledge mirrors the levels contained in climate change legislation being considered by Congress.

Although this will not improve chances of an actual treaty being reached at Copenhagen, the expectation is for a political agreement among the major nations. Such an agreement depends on what China brings to the conference, and that remains a mystery. China and the U.S. are the planet's two biggest contributors to global warming.

(Update: Energy lobbyists are hard at work in developed countries, pressing to make sure the Copenhagen conference doesn't harm the fossil fuel industry, according to an investigative report by the Center for Public Integrity. Check out the Center's interactive map of the world's biggest greenhouse gas emitters.)

(Also: Here is a United Nation's report on what climate change is already doing to the earth and its inhabitants, along with a forecast of what's to come.)

Probably this week, President Obama will announce whether he will attend next month's international climate change conference in Copenhagen -- and what the U.S.will be offering up. The latest news scuttlebutt is that the U.S. delegation is set to propose greenhouse gas emissions limits similar to what Congress is considering.

No one is counting on a treaty to come from the conference, nor is there any hope that Congress will pass a climate change bill by then.

"Putting lipstick on a pig" describes a PR tactic of making something bad look good. But, two Canadian companies have added a new twist to this old ploy—they've changed the name of the pig.

We're referring to the oil mining practices of EnCana Corp. and Cenovus Energy Inc. The companies employ a form of mining oil from Canadian tar sands that has a bad reputation for being highly destructive to the environment. To counter this, they are no longer using the phrases "tar sands" and "oil sands" in referring to their work. Now they describe themselves as conducting "enhanced oil projects."

Extracting oil from tar sands is one of the dirtiest, most polluting methods—and Earthjustice is challenging a pipeline that would daily bring nearly half a million barrels of oil obtained this way into the United States from Canada. No matter what you call it, there's no disguising its harmful impacts: the excessive greenhouse gas emissions, the vast amounts of water employed in mining, the multitude of toxins released into our air and water.

Earthjustice attorney David Henkin is giving the keynote address this month at the United Nations Environmental Program workshop in Okinawa on the military and the environment. Here's a glimpse of what he will discuss:

What kind of work does Earthjustice do in the Mid-Pacific office?

UPDATE: Democrats today (Nov. 5) ducked a Republican boycott to pass a climate change bill out of a key Senate committee. One senator described the move as a way to prove the United States is serious about fighting global warming.

President Obama hoped to have a climate change bill in hand to strengthen America's credibility in December at the world climate change conference in Copenhagen—but he may have to settle for a "show of progress" instead. A Republican boycott on the bill this week all but doomed hope of getting a bill passed before the conference.

But, is a "show" enough to convince other countries that the U.S. is no longer the rogue nation it was under Bush? We posed the question to Earthjustice legislative representative Sarah Saylor. Here's her response:

Anyone watching the process knows that our Congressional leaders are moving the legislative process forward. That bill has cleared two of five key hurdles in the legislative process by passing through committee to the House floor, and through the House floor to the Senate.