Energy minister John Hayes gets on the internet, clicks a mouse and instantly turns off the electricity being used to charge up an electric car 15 miles away. At the same time, he can shut down a fridge and a water heater in a house three miles away. History may record his activation this week of a rudimentary smart grid of two buildings on the Isle of Wight as the start of a power revolution which its advocates hope will spread across Britain and vastly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and electricity consumption.

If the final pieces of a complex financial jigsaw can be put in place, then within 10 years the island can expect to have not only a smart grid to manage the energy used in tens of thousands of homes and businesses, but it could also be self-sufficient in renewable energy generated from waste, wind, solar and marine sources.

The American businessman who dumped around 100 tonnes of iron sulphate into the Pacific Ocean has become a lone defender of his project, after a storm of criticism from indigenous peoples, the Canadian government and a UN biodiversity meeting in India.

Russ George, who told the Globe and Mail that he is the world's leading "champion" of geoengineering, says he has been under a "dark cloud of vilification" since the Guardian broke news of an ocean fertilisation scheme, funded by an indigenous village on the Haida Gwaii islands, that aimed to make money in offset markets by sequestering carbon through artificial plankton blooms.

A major review into the impact of climate change on plants and animals has found that scientists have almost no idea how it drives various species to extinction.

Though some organisms struggle to cope physiologically with rising temperatures – a simple and direct result of climate change – there was scarce evidence this was the main climate-related threat to many species whose numbers were already falling.

Despite frequent headlines about a warming planet, melting sea ice, and rising oceans, climate analysts pointed to a seeming bright spot this week: During Southern Hemisphere winters, sea ice in the Antarctic, the floating chunks of frozen ocean water, is actually increasing.

In fact, in late September, satellite data indicated that Antarctica was surrounded by the greatest area of sea ice ever recorded in the region: 7.51 million square miles (19.44 million square kilometers), the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center announced Thursday. Even so, it's a slow rate of growth—about one percent over last year—not nearly enough to offset melting in the Arctic, which broke records just weeks ago.