Oh look, another eventful week reaches its end, and, with it, another edition of the Friday Linkfest is here to bring you the environmental highlights.

Good News

• A San Diego company announced it will introduce 'green crude', made from algae, sunlight, carbon dioxide and non-potable water in 3 years. This algae crude is said to be processable in existing oil refineries, and produce fewer pollutants in the process, and lower emissions at the tailpipe.
• 100 metropolitan areas in the US were ranked according to their carbon emissions. Urban areas on the West Coast have the lowest per capita emissions, associated with factors like high population densities, aggressive energy efficiency policies and availability of rail transportation.
• China bans plastic bags! Now don't get your panties in a bunch just yet, they are only banning thin plastic bags. Government is banning production and distribution of the thinnest plastic bags as of June 1st in a bid to curb "white pollution", which will also save an estimated 37 million barrels of oil.
• Some American employers are starting to offer workers the possibility of shifting to 4-day weeks to save gasoline.
• Germany bans pesticides responsible for bee die-offs. Clothianidin, made by Bayer, caused the loss of two thirds of bees in the Baden-Württemberg region, following its application.

Bad News

• An official report shows climate change is already affecting U.S. water resources, agriculture, land resources, and biodiversity and will only get worse. Impacts will include an increased risk of crop failures, forest fires, drought in the Southwest and shifting species distribution.
• UN warns higher food prices are here to stay, as demand from developing countries and production costs rise. Fuel costs, biofuel policies and commodity speculation will ensure prices stay relatively high for the next decade or two, with climate change playing a role in decreasing crop yields. As always, the poor are the most affected. How on earth did this happen?
• Global warming, ever the Bond villain, gases Antarctic penguins with DDT. OK, fine, it's not as linear as that. But melting glaciers are releasing large amounts of the pesticide, which is contaminating the Antarctic environment and finding its way into the food chain.
• Not only that, warming is also threatening the health of the Great Lakes, further dropping water levels in the five lakes and posing added pollution threats to the region's vulnerable ecosystems.

Like "The Onion", only real

• The legendary La Scala opera house is going to produce "Inconvenient Truth" -- the opera, to debut in Milan in 2011. Ah, the epic tragedy of melting glaciers. Ah, the plight of the polar bear.
• Researchers from Munich University, funded by the US army (but of course), have developed a new type of environmentally friendly explosives. To quote the Gizmodo headline, "Eco-friendly bombs ensure no smog results from the destruction of your ancestral village". I'm sure Iraqis are beside themselves with joy.

This week's picks

• Brits are toying with the idea of implementing personal carbon trading. Under the proposed scheme, people would be given an annual carbon limit for fuel and energy use -- which they could exceed by buying credits from those who use less.
• A solar plane capable of flying for 25 hours with no other source of energy and a human inside.