In Barack Obama's first speech to Congress Tuesday, February 24 the president mentioned that China had a renewable energy law on its statute books.  He declared that the U.S. must move in that same direction.

China's landmark renewable energy law took effect January 1, 2006, prompting the government to issue a number of pertinent new rules and technical criteria.

According to World Watch Institute, "In particular, financial subsidies and tax incentives for the development of renewable energy sources -- including wind power, solar energy, biomass, and others -- are in the enactment process."

One new regulation based on "feed-in laws" that had generated success in advancing renewables in Germany and other European nations addressed the core issues of pricing and fee sharing for on-grid renewable energy.  

Coal is NOT Clean.
Coal IS Dirty!

Introducing the Clean Coal Body Slam.  Kevin Grandia of DeSmogBlog has put together an amazing team with a clear (not clean) agenda:

For a while now,
whenever I mentioned the term "clean coal" people would roll their eyes and groan, "clean coal," usually followed by a rolling of the eyes or a mock gagging, eyes bulging expression. Most people know coal isn't clean, but that hasn't stopped the coal industry from trying to convince us otherwise.

There are many ways to take action to change the world's heedless path toward the precipice of Catastrophic Climate Change (and Peak Oil, Peak Water, etc ...).  We can act as individuals, families, communities, businesses, nations ...  And, we can foster action by others through our own actions ... directly and indirectly.

When it comes to the easiest first steps toward a better relationship with the environment, for the rich developed world, two easy actions have real impact and start the path toward real change:  replacing incadescents with compact fluorescent bulbs and using canvas bags.

As for the second, here is a video that is worth watching and helping go viral.

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Everyday seems to be met with something special -- perhaps some news that we didn't know about the previous day.

For example, yesterday we were blessed with the news that there will likely be no late-summer ice at the North Pole. Great, huh?

And today is no different. Though this special news came out over a month ago, I heard nothing about it at the time and I think it's safe to imagine that it got very little play in our ever-vigilant, Britney-obsessed press. So here it is -- as if brand spankin' new:)

Some years after Douglas Adams had received world-wide renown from his quirky sci-fi concoctions, he hit upon the idea of a new project.  For this book, called Last Chance to See, Adams would travel round the world, visiting creatures which were not only endangered, but down to the last of their numbers.  Adams recognized quite well that his near universal celebrity was essential to the plan -- even if you're charged with keeping people away from the final example of some vanishing oddity, how can you resist showing it off to Douglas Adams?  And he took advantage of the opportunity to describe these animals, and their plight, with his signature mix of humor and insight.    

Since the book came out in 1992, at least one of the endangered creatures he visited may have lost its fight.  Just as sad, from my admittedly anthropocentric point of view, is that Adams himself has said his farewells.  Were he here today, Douglas Adams would not have had to travel so far to see creatures in danger of disappearing.  He'd only have to stroll down to the beach, because it now seems that the oceans are dying.

Below you can view the ad that is said to have sparked the environmental movement that began in earnest on the first Earth Day in 1971. My thoughts on that, and what and who I believe can and will rekindle it.

Your life is being shaped by people you don't know, making discoveries and decisions of which you're mostly unaware, and those decisions have implications far more wide-ranging than any of the most controversial issues discussed in the halls of congress.  Sound frightening?  In a sense, it should.  These men and women don't work for the NSA.  They're not laboring in the depths of the Pentagon.  Despite the title of the diary, they aren't generally fans of spandex and capes, though some of them have been known to adopt an archetypical costume: a white lab coat.

The people in question are scientists, and more than any elected official, they will shape the world you live in for good... and for bad.