At this point, oil sands production of 3.2 million barrels a day by 2020 seems more inevitable than a United Nations-brokered agreement on climate change.

The movement founded by people pejoratively labeled as tree-huggers, enviro-Nazis and hippies has now been joined by governments, multinational corporations and the armed services. Here’s a rundown of recent news stories that demonstrate how Cleantech is moving forward, both as a concept and burgeoning industry.

The point to understand here is that the year-long rally in emerging markets isn’t based on the conviction that the global economy is completely out of the woods and that the Anglo-Saxon financial system has resolved all its problems.

A catalyst may emerge to take down stocks. But with companies borrowing at such low rates, it’s not going to be the credit markets that do the damage. And, amazingly, few of today’s cautious investors are aware of this reality.

If markets have no major hiccups for the rest of October and into early November, expect them to move higher through the first few months of 2010, with November, December and January being the “money months.”

Takeover talk is often more fun than the deals themselves. That’s because the speculation is so pregnant with promise and everyone, from investors to business partners, is a potential winner.

For the US-based investor, buying Canada right now means accessing a relatively stable, low-beta play on a global economic recovery. It means benefitting from fundamental factors that support a strong and rising Canadian dollar. It means owning solid businesses that pay sustainable distributions.

The correct role of the regulator has always been a matter of debate for the state and federal officials who oversee industries from electricity and communications to banking.

At current levels, energy, telecommunications, financial, industrial, and material companies appear to be the cheapest in Asia.

The Australian dollar has rallied over the last several months on speculation its central bank would act before its global monetary peers, but only one analyst of 20 surveyed by Bloomberg predicted a rate hike this soon.