Fresh green links

It’s been an interesting week!

Rudd announces 50,000 green jobs and apprenticeships – mostly in the building industry, which is great. But as the Australian Conservation Foundation points out, the funding is for the unemployed, and we need to upskill people already working in the industry. And the Greens, while supporting the move, say that it’s not much good to have green skills if you won’t make serious reductions in emissions.

Power firm sued over carbon emissions – eco-group Rising Tide is taking the fight to the Baywater coal-fired power station in NSW. Their goal is to toughen environmental emissions laws, and make it compulsory for CO2 emissions to be controlled (not just monitored).

Olympic Dam uranium mine expansion will increase South Australia’s emissions by 12% – which kind of puts Premier Mike Rann in a hot spot, since he pledged to get emissions down to 108% of 1990 levels by 2012.

Spy photos reveal extent of Arctic ice loss – the Bush government kept them secret for ‘national security’ reasons, but President Obama has declassified them.

Toyota answers reader questions at the Guardian’s Ethical Living blog – I wish I’d heard about this sooner, but it looks like the readers asked all the same questions about the Prius and hybrid cars that I would have. Readers had a week to leave comments on the blog with questions, and a Toyota representative (ToyotaGB, if you want to skip to the answers) replied with as much information as they could.