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Quick Hits: More Climategate, Smart Meter Revolts, and The Platypus Conundrum

So much news, so little time. A few interesting enviro links from around the Web today:

* Not sick of Climategate yet? Five AP science reporters sat down to comb through all 1,073 of the leaked East Anglia e-mails. Their story's worth reading in full, but the bottom line is this: There's nothing to cast doubt on climate-science fundamentals, but there are some worrisome trends in how some climatologists have responded to the onslaught of skepticism over the years.

* While there's been a lot of hype—mostly justified—about smarter utility meters that will eventually help us waste less electricity, early trials are finding a lot of resistance from customers, who are not keen on paying the upfront costs to install them.

* In the New Yorker this week, Evan Osnos explores Beijing's crash program for clean energy. Some good history in there.

* One of the bright spots in the Copenhagen talks was supposed to be a deal over how to slow the rate deforestation. But, as Stacey Feldman of SolveClimate reports, that's in danger of getting watered down—the sticking points are targets and money. (There's also a fierce debate over what role indigenous people will have in conservation—for more on that, see here.)

* How did egg-laying mammals ever survive the competition?

(Flickr photo credit: stavenn)