New Zealand’s tuatara may be one for the climate change history books. It's a lizard-like creature that's become global warming's latest canary in the dirty coal mine.

The two species of tuatara are the only surviving members of the Sphenodontians which flourished around 200 million years ago, but because of climate change, they are reaching the end of a very long earthly run for a very peculiar reason.

A small but growing number of churches in Massachusetts began tolling their bells 350 times last week, bearing spiritual witness to the changes we have wrought on the world's climate.

It's one of the latest efforts to emerge from 350.org, an international grassroots campaign that aims to mobilize a global climate movement united by a common call to action -- to reduce the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million.

We are standing at the threshold of a revolution in the world energy economy. Or, so we might hope after reading this week’s Economist.

The tell-tale signs of that revolution are documented in a 14-page special section on “The Future of Energy.”

Here’s the latest on America’s solar energy potential from a well-reasoned new report by Clean Edge and Co-op America:

Solar could become ubiquitous as with earlier semiconductor-based revolutions.

Right now, solar makes up just one-tenth of one percent of the US total energy supply. But that could jump to ten percent by 2025 with a total investment of about $30 billion a year and a sharp turn in thinking from the nation’s utilities, according to the new roadmap to a solar future, Utility Solar Assessment (USA) Study (pdf).

It’s practical counsel when you consider that the utility industry spent $70 billion last year on traditional power plants and distribution. From the study:

Think "green building" and what advances come to mind? FSC-certified wood or LEED credits, perhaps. Think again. Try heavy machinery.The $90 billion construction equipment industry is going hybrid, with Japan's Komatsu being first to release a product.