The report, released on Tuesday, came under sharp criticism from environmental groups for charting a route to a "golden age" in the extraction and use of natural gas. 

As governments around the world are barraged with new applications for exploiting gas deposits, the full implementation of these recommendations could indeed lead to far greater oversight and lessened environmental impact. 

However, only very late in the report does the IEA, a Paris-based intergovernmental organization, note that such use could lead to a rise in world temperatures "of more than 3.5 degrees Celsius … well above the widely accepted 2 (degree Celsius) target" set by the United Nations. 

Although the report does warn that the future of "unconventional" forms of natural gas would be significantly hindered if environmental concerns are not directly addressed, advocacy groups are warning that the IEA should not be focusing attention on increased fossil fuel consumption at this time. 

"Drilling for shale and other unconventional gas would put the world on course for catastrophic climate change – incomprehensible when we have clean energy solutions at our fingertips like wind and solar power," said Tony Bosworth, with Friends of the Earth. 

"Our changing climate is already leaving millions hungry, destroying wildlife and costing our own economy billions – more fossil fuels will just make that worse." 

Much has been made of the unexpected boom in natural gas production in recent years, brought about by new technologies able to ...

Accelerating commodification of water, oil, land, and nature over the past few decades has resulted in a global power play, wresting precious resources away from communities that have lived sustainably with them for centuries. Oil is one example where the domination of multinational companies has led to mass displacement, seeded social conflict, and fundamentally disrupted the relationship between indigenous communities and their environment.

Groups the worlds over are striving to defend an alternate understanding of the earth and how we should treat it, however. They view entities such as oil as part of the global commons -- the set of natural resources, basic services, public spaces, and cultural traditions that should be part of a public trust to be enjoyed by all -- rather than as commodities to be bought and sold. Another way to conceive of these assets is through the Spanish term for them: el bien común, the common good. Behind the commons is the fundamental idea that life, information, human relationships, popular culture, and the earth's riches are sacrosanct and not for sale.

Everywhere, indigenous peoples are claiming their autonomy over their territories, which include the right to self-government and control of everything over, on, and in their lands. At this moment, some 30,000 indigenous peoples from the Ecuadorian Amazon are embroiled in legal battles with Chevron for contaminating their water and destroying the health of entire villages. This past January, a broad-based coalition of U.S. and Canadian groups stalled the Keystone XL Pipeline project and are working to uphold this decision. And for decades, indigenous people everywhere have been defending their lands and the earth's resources in epic battles.

On top of this, communities are working to repair the divisions that corporate and governmental repression has ...

Budget-slashers in Washington could get a jump-start toward their goal by eliminating environmentally harmful subsidies, an unusual coalition of conservative and liberal groups advised Wednesday.

The coalition agreed in a report that many programs Congress has been protecting for years should be eliminated, including subsidies for coal, oil and gas, the ethanol tax credit, farm subsidies and nuclear and solar loan guarantees.

These and other proposals in the groups' "Green Scissors" report would save $380 billion over five years. That's about a quarter of the $1.5 trillion Congress is required to cut over 10 years in the second round of debt reductions it agreed to earlier this month.

This is the 16th year of the Green Scissors report, but this time its total of recommended cuts is larger, and a sharply partisan Congress is under great pressure to find agreement on budget cuts. Also new is that one of the groups behind the report is the Heartland Institute, an anti-regulatory organization best known for its attacks on the work of the vast majority of the world's climate scientists.

Eli Lehrer of Heartland, one of the authors, said he hoped it showed "that well-meaning people, whether they're self-identified progressives or libertarians or conservatives, can get together and come up with common-sense, common-ground solutions to cut spending and save the environment."

Lehrer, who describes himself as a conservative Republican, specializes in insurance issues, not climate.

Ben Schreiber of Friends of the Earth, another author, said the report is a good starting point. The other groups that produced it are Taxpayers for Common Sense, a government waste watchdog, and Public Citizen, a consumer group.

"There's support across the political spectrum for these types of cuts," Schreiber said.

Some of those cuts include:

_ Subsidies for coal, gas and oil: Fossil fuel ...