From NOW on PBS--Power Struggle. More available here.

This is what I hate having to explain to my relatives and friends abroad in Europe about politics in the US. We know that global warming is a fact. We know that our actions, if they didn't cause global warming, definitely exacerbate it. We know that we must reduce our dependency on oil, for both ecological and political/strategic reasons. And yet, what we are able to do is hampered so predictably by the Republican party:

Here we go again. James Inhofe, the most prominent climate change denier in the United States Senate, has concocted a new and innovative strategy to thwart the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act. To wit, he and his Republican colleagues on the Environment and Public Works Committee have worked up a plan to simply not show up for next week’s markup:

But Boxer cannot hold the markup unless at least two Republicans show up, and EPW ranking member James Inhofe (R-Okla.) signaled that he has unanimous support among the panel’s minority members to boycott the session until they get more data on the legislation from U.S. EPA and the Congressional Budget Office.

Inhofe said he will wait for Boxer to file an official notice of the markup — expected today — before responding with his own declaration of the GOP’s markup strategy.

“As soon as we find out what her announcement is and what she wants to do, we’ll have our response,” Inhofe told E&E last night. “We’ll have our unanimous expression ready.”

Sadly, this is a continuation of the GOP’s longstanding strategy of delaying clean energy legislation:

• As Chairman Markey shepherded his American Clean Energy and Security Act through the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Republicans employed multiple parliamentary tricks to — as Politico put it — “nitpick the bill into legislative oblivion.” Brian Beutler called these nefarious stall tactics, and noted that Democrats responded by hiring a speed reader.
• Last year during the debate over the Climate Security Act, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell demanded that the entire 491 page bill be read on the floor of the United States Senate. A strategy memo was leaked at the time detailing the Republican strategy for delaying the bill as much as humanly possible.

While this Republican obstructionism is not necessarily surprising, it is especially egregious this time. Here are a few things about this episode that struck me:

1. Despite the fact that Senator Inhofe has been working to orchestrate this obstruction for a week now, Republicans are pretending the effort is being led by the two moderate Republicans on the committee. Politico handled the stenography.

The Politco, acting as a mouthpiece for the Republican Party? Say it isn't so!

Can you imagine how much further we'd get in this country if we didn't have so many idiots in office?

Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue gave an interview to the Politico yesterday, the majority of which is your basic claptrap posturing after the White House put the Chamber of Commerce in its place and called it a lobbying group: the White House is wrong, membership is stronger than ever, yadda yadda yadda. Apparently, all those companies that have left the CoC, like Nike, PG&E, Exelon, PNM Resources, and Apple over their climate change stance are just penny-ante companies not worth worrying about.

But showing that they are firm in their resolve to not budge from their 20th century industrial age thinking here in the 21st century, I noted this little nugget from Donohue:

Under pressure from MoveOn.org and other groups, Apple, PG&E and Exelon have left the Chamber over the issue — and Nike resigned from its spot on the board. And pressure on others to follow suit is often intense.

Donohue refused to say if he believes the science behind global warming. “Is the science right? Is science not right? I don’t know,” he said.

Interesting. Especially considering his comments last week:

“We have not, are not and will not” challenge the science behind climate change, he added, noting that the Chamber has for years called for comprehensive climate legislation “that is workable.”

Uh huh. We go back to yesterday's Politico interview:

What he does know, though, is that he’ll fight anything that the Chamber believes would unfairly harm business, especially if the Environmental Protection Agency moves forward, while Congress haggles, with its authority to regulate the release of greenhouse gases.

“If we got the EPA one, then we are in deep sh-- as a country,” he said. “You want to see unemployment? You will see some.”

Good to see your priorities straight. Who cares about poisoning the planet (and us with it) if it means unemployment?

MoveOn's campaign encouraged Prius-owning members to send pictures of their cars to Toyota to express their displeasure with their continued membership in the CoC. If you're a Prius driver, you may want to consider adding your picture as well.

On November 3rd, there will be a Constitutional Amendment on the ballot in Ohio. This is no ordinary ballot initiative. Its very existence and marketing has been bought and paid for --to the tune of millions--by national and international agri-business corporations, such as Pioneer Hi-Bred International (owned by DuPont, a "developer and supplier of advanced plant genetics"--healthy!--and grantee of 100K to the effort),the National Pork Producers Council (113K), and the United Egg Producers (200K!).

(Join our Facebook Group and help us stop this travesty!)

Now why, you ask, would these Big Agra players get involved in a state issue, and to support a campaign that is for touchy feely things like "food safety" and "local control?" I'm not sure, but it might be that this corruption of Ohio's Constitution will provide "food safety" much like George W. Bush provided "healthy forests," "clear skies" and a "mission accomplished." In other words--and I know this will shock you--they're lying. And they're lying with millions of dollars they've acquired, by being, like their "products," pigs at a trough.

So what is Issue 2, what will it do, and why should you care about it if you're not a resident of the Buckeye State? It's simple: Issue 2 was put on the ballot overnight by state legislators bought off by Big Agri-Business and their mouthpiece here, the Ohio Farm Bureau. Why? So that they can corrupt Ohio's Constitution to give the Governor the power to appoint a board of unaccountable agri-business cronies to make decisions in smoke-filled rooms about all farming practices in Ohio.

I know what you're thinking. Unaccountable, corporate-influenced governing has worked out so well with TARP money and preemptive war, we might as well try it with farm policy.

With Issue 2's passage, those only interested in their bottom line can (and you can bet will) stuff millions more animals into smaller and smaller crates together, increasing the likelhood of H1N1 and E. Coli outbreaks and mutations and their capacity for animal cruelty. They can ignore the waste caused by big factory farms that contaminates the water we drink. They can allow workers to be exploited and placed in situations that endanger their health, while putting family farms--held for generations--out of business.

And why should you care if this passes in Ohio? For all the reasons above, but also...because you're next. This amendment was a reaction to successful efforts to rein in their greedy, dangerous and abusive practices in California (Prop 2), Arizona and Florida, among others. If they can use the camouflage of bought off Democratic and Republican Establishments, millions of dollars in lies, and an off-year low-turnout election to enshrine their corporate malpractice into state constitutions, they can fly under the radar while endangering our health, undermining the people's right to petition (another amendment would be needed to overturn it if passed, as the new board's decisions would supersede ballot initiatives, legislative decisions and opinions by the State Department of Agriculture) and spiking their profits.

How can you help? Well, we only have 10% of their budget. But we have the grassroots energy. We have you.

So please join our Facebook group. Tweet this. Blog it. Call and email everyone you know in Ohio. And be prepared when this garbage dressed up as a gift inevitably makes its way to your state.

(Watch this video for more on this - the 1st minute and then from 5:22 on)

Full Disclosure: I am proud to be a consultant in the effort to beat back Issue 2 in Ohio

For C&L's participation in Blog Action Day, we invited science blogger Professor Matthew C. Nisbet to post here on how we activists can communicate with the public more effectively on the issue of climate change. The article below is excerpted from Professor Nisbet's fine blog, Framing Science. -eds.

Dimensions of Climate Literacy: What Do We Want the Public to Learn?

There needs to be more focus and clarity about the goals and outcomes of public engagement and communication, even down to the most basic questions as to what do we want citizens to learn about climate change? Or put another way, what dimensions of knowledge matter to public engagement and participation?

Unfortunately, well intentioned commentators have confused the important distinctions on science literacy to the point that the term has lost its meaning in popular discussion. Yet based on the relevant literature in science communication, below are several dimensions of climate change literacy and knowledge that are likely to matter to public engagement. More work is needed in measuring these dimensions of knowledge in research studies and in evaluating different types of communication and media initiatives that might promote learning specific to one or several of these areas:

Civic science literacy refers to a level of understanding of scientific terms and constructs sufficient to make sense of a news report, and/or to interpret competing arguments on the reality and risks of climate change. It also involves understanding how scientific investigation works, and how expert agreement develops over time.

Social, legal, and ethical knowledge commonly refers to information about who funds climate change research, how relevant policy decisions are reached and by whom, the ethics and values that guide decisions, and the connections between the climate change debate and other societal areas such as the economy, partisan politics, or national security.

Participatory knowledge refers to information and details on how a citizen can get involved and have a say in decisions that are made about climate change at the community or national level. Civic education on climate change makes it easier for community members to voice their preferences, draw attention to perceived problems, and to express their ideas on possible solutions. Emphasizing this dimension of knowledge promotes a two-way exchange of information between experts and the public. Knowledge conveyed to the public might include the range of organizations in their community that are working on climate policy; upcoming major events, decisions, or meetings; and the names and contact information of key government organizations and officials. Web sites that make contacts and participation easier through direct email links or displaying maps for event locations would also reduce barriers to participations.

Consider that the recent Six Americas of Climate Change survey found that more than 90% of Americans had never written, emailed, or phoned a government official about the issue. When respondents were then asked about the reasons that prevented them from participating more frequently, 17% simply said they "didn't know how" while another 16% said it "took too much effort."

Localized and experiential knowledge involves evaluating and drawing connections between complex science-related topics and local impacts or relevance. For example on climate change, a resident living in a Midwest city may draw upon their own personal experience observing agriculture-related energy use or on the potential of biofuels whereas a reside of a Northeast city may reference their experience with commuting, urban sprawl, air pollution, and/or public transportation. Public education in a city or region should therefore be tailored to these unique connections and needs of the public.

Practical science literacy refers to knowledge that can be applied to solving common everyday personal problems such as consumer and household decisions or interpreting the packaging on energy appliances. For example, in a survey by Tony Leiserowitz and colleagues, when asked about the important energy reduction actions of insulating their attic or weather proofing their home, more than 20% of Americans said that a barrier was that they "didn't know how" and nearly a quarter indicated they didn't have the time to research the options. In addition, many Americans may erroneously assume they have already adopted the best and most effective energy efficiency practices in terms of heating and insulation and may not be aware of newly available options. Many Americans also express that they would like information on what personal actions they can take that would have the "most bang for the buck," in other words the actions that are likely to make the most difference in terms of energy conservation or cost-savings. As expert agreement emerges on these questions, focusing communication around these practical, consumer dimensions is likely to increase public engagement and action.

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Sean Hannity devoted to the entire hour of his Fox News show Thursday to a special reported titled "The Valley That Hope Forgot," all about the water crisis in California's San Joaquin Valley that many right-wingers -- including Sean Hannity -- are blaming on the diversion of water to maintain the fishery on the San Joaquin Delta.

It's actually a classic case of resource juggling: Giving water to the farmers in drought years might keep farmed produce turning, but it would destroy the fishery that supplies millions of fish -- and not just the delta smelt -- to the oceans and ultimately to our food supply. For the time being, the fish have won in the courts. Moreover, there are signs the water is returning to the valley on its own, since the recent drought appears to be subsiding.

Still, Hannity was more interested in demagoguing than in producing an accurate portrait of the situation, let alone helping find a resolution. He blamed the high unemployment rate in the San Joaquin Valley on the lack of water for farmers, and blamed that solely on the delta smelt lawsuits.

Near the end of the show, he had on his usual Intended Liberal Victim, for whom he could reserve such deep journalistic questions as "And I just want to know: How did you get your priorities so screwed up in life? What happened to you?"

But the Intended Victim, a fellow named Zeke Grader of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, actually bit back, pointing out how callous and indifferent Hannity was toward the plight of the people on the coast who have traditionally made their livings by fishing salmon, both commercially and recreationally.

Judge for yourself, but it seemed to me Grader got the better of this exchange. Hannity was left to sputter insults at Grader instead of actually addressing his main point: That defending the fishery is a matter of defending people's livelihoods, too. It's not fish vs. people; it's people vs. people.

Doug Obeggi at the Natural Resources Defense Council has a good piece explaining why the whole "delta smelt" claim is a red herring:

First, Endangered Species Act protections for delta smelt aren't just about a tiny fish. Nor are those protections only about protecting the Bay Delta estuary, the largest estuary on the west coast of the Americas, home to migratory birds on the Pacific Flyway, to magnificent salmon that migrate past the Golden Gate Bridge through the Delta, and to numerous native fish and wildlife.

Moreover, as local economists have pointed out, the recession, not the lack of water, is the cause of the economic downturn in the San Joaquin basin.

And what about the California/Oregon coastal fishermen? The folks whose salmon catch we depend on for food just as much (if not more) than we do produce from the San Joaquin? Well, because of previous mismanagement of the river, the salmon fishery from the Central Valley has seen an unprecedented collapse -- forcing a halt to the California salmon fishery generally.

A California commercial fisherman named Mike Hudson wrote a piece describing what life has been like for people in his line of work:

I’m pretty proud of doing a good job at it.

At least I was until two years ago, when excessive water diversions from our rivers and Delta totally destroyed our industry. In 2004, the Bush Administration issued new permits to allow the Delta pumps to export more water. And as these water exports increased, salmon numbers collapsed. So commercial fishermen, recreational fishermen, Tribes, and environmental groups like NRDC joined together and sued to invalidate those permits, and we successfully won better protections for California's endangered salmon and other fish.

The damage was already done. Thousands of commercial salmon fishermen like myself are now out of work. Our boats stay tied to the docks along the entire California coast all the way into Oregon while tens of thousands more good jobs are lost in businesses that surround our fishing industry. Closing the salmon fishing season affects everyone from processors laying off their fish cutters to marine fuel docks and commercial tackle shops closing their doors. How do you think the local grocery store in Bodega is doing now that all of a sudden 100 hungry commercial fishermen don’t stop by any more to purchase groceries for their next trip and thousands of recreational anglers don’t come to their community any more because there’s no salmon to be caught? Not good.

The Department of Fish and Game estimated that the closure of our commercial salmon fishery cost the state 279 million dollars and nearly 2,600 jobs in 2009, and that’s a conservative estimate at best.

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Fox News ran a several segments yesterday touting New York City's newly unveiled bicycle lanes, created in response to the sharp increase in bike ridership in the Big Apple:

Despite the dangers, biking is New York City's "fastest growing mode of transportation," says City Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, who herself bikes to work in lower Manhattan, about a mile from her Greenwich Village home.

The number of cyclists has jumped by 80 percent in the past decade — to 185,000 among the more than 8 million city denizens.

City officials say they've worked to make the city more biker friendly. They note the hundreds of miles of marked bike paths created in recent years, safety awareness campaigns and handouts of free helmets to unprotected cyclists.

Over that time, bicycle accidents have fallen more than 40 percent.

"A lot of people consider it an act of bravery to get on a bike in New York City," Sadik-Khan says. "But we've created a biking network that affords more security for bicyclists — a safer and healthier way to get around."

... The city now has 420 miles of marked bike lanes and paths along the streets in all five boroughs — half of those created in the past three years. Another 200 miles are off the street, including Central Park and other green oases like the Hudson River path.

Three specially designed street lanes are separated from moving traffic by parked cars, which Sadik-Khan calls "a wall of steel." Two are on Manhattan's far West Side and the third snakes downtown through the city's Soho, Little Italy and Chinatown.

You'll notice from the video segment that more than a few NYC riders still have some safety fundamentals to work on -- particularly the lack of helmets.

Still, it's a great start for one of the nation's more difficult bicycling cities. In one of the Fox segments someone from the city bike program boasted that New York could now claim to be the nation's biking capital. That's pretty laughable -- everyone knows Portland is king, and a long ways in front of everyone else -- but hey, at least it's not in the same category as Dallas, which remains the nation's worst.

Regardless, it's encouraging to see so many people turning to bicycling as a viable transportation option. It's obviously not for everyone, but it is an option that makes great common sense from a variety of angles:

1. Bikes are non-polluting.

2. Parking and the space they occupy is so much less of a problem.

3. They're good for your health. (If you keep yourself safe.)

4. They consume far less energy.

Bikes, in fact, are considered by many mechanical engineers to be the most efficient machine ever devised by man. It's silly not to be using them as abundantly and efficiently as possible.

Still, as Matt Yglesias noted earlier this year, Republicans love to make fun of bicycling programs whenever they come up -- especially in the federal budgeting process, where they are regularly held up for ridicule as examples of federal waste.

No doubt because they make so much sense.

I found this cheery news over at my pal Dr. S.'s place. This is a handy piece of information to remember when the administration and congressional leaders start pushing (and they will) for "clean" coal:

WASHINGTON — A federal study of mercury contamination released Wednesday found the toxic substance in every fish tested at nearly 300 streams across the country, a finding that underscores how widespread mercury pollution has become.

The study by the U.S. Geological Survey is the most comprehensive look to date at mercury in the nation's streams. From 1998 to 2005, scientists collected and tested more than a thousand fish from 291 streams nationwide. While all fish had traces of mercury contamination, only about a quarter had levels exceeding what the Environmental Protection Agency says is safe for people eating average amounts of fish.

[...] Mercury can damage the nervous system and cause learning disabilities in developing fetuses and young children. The main source of mercury to most of the streams tested, according to the researchers, is emissions from coal-fired power plants. The mercury released from smokestacks rains down into waterways, where natural processes convert it into methylmercury — a form that allows the toxin to wind its way up the food chain into fish.

Some of the highest levels in fish were detected in the remote blackwater streams along the coasts of the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida and Louisiana, where surrounding forests and wetlands help in the conversion.

Mercury was also detected in high concentrations in western streams that drain areas mined for mercury and gold. At about 59 of the streams, mostly in the West, mining could be contributing to the mercury levels, the researchers said.

"Some ecosystems are more sensitive than others," said Barbara Scudder, the lead USGS scientist on the study.

All but two states — Alaska and Wyoming — have issued fish-consumption advisories because of mercury contamination. Some of the streams studied already had warnings.

Now, this doesn't even make sense. Because if it was a threat to national security, the Republicans would have taken care of it already, right? RIGHT?

WASHINGTON — The changing global climate will pose profound strategic challenges to the United States in coming decades, raising the prospect of military intervention to deal with the effects of violent storms, drought, mass migration and pandemics, military and intelligence analysts say.

Such climate-induced crises could topple governments, feed terrorist movements or destabilize entire regions, say the analysts, experts at the Pentagon and intelligence agencies who for the first time are taking a serious look at the national security implications of climate change.

Recent war games and intelligence studies conclude that over the next 20 to 30 years, vulnerable regions, particularly sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and South and Southeast Asia, will face the prospect of food shortages, water crises and catastrophic flooding driven by climate change that could demand an American humanitarian relief or military response.

An exercise last December at the National Defense University, an educational institute that is overseen by the military, explored the potential impact of a destructive flood in Bangladesh that sent hundreds of thousands of refugees streaming into neighboring India, touching off religious conflict, the spread of contagious diseases and vast damage to infrastructure. “It gets real complicated real quickly,” said Amanda J. Dory, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy, who is working with a Pentagon group assigned to incorporate climate change into national security strategy planning.

Much of the public and political debate on global warming has focused on finding substitutes for fossil fuels, reducing emissions that contribute to greenhouse gases and furthering negotiations toward an international climate treaty — not potential security challenges.

But a growing number of policy makers say that the world’s rising temperatures, surging seas and melting glaciers are a direct threat to the national interest.

NewsHounds:

The headline of the linked article is “House Passes Milestone Energy, Climate Change Bill.” Obviously not happy with the AP headline, the Fox Nation writers, in order to put it in right wing terms the pitchfork gang can understand and appreciate, tweaked it thusly: “Treason? House Passes Direct Assault On Industrial Base.” It is accompanied by a photo of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The AP article is what real journalism is all about, as it describes what happened in the House of Representatives with no reference to “treason.” The Fox Nation headline is a subjective statement of pure right wing propaganda by those who haven’t read the constitution and is aimed at those who are constitutionally illiterate. But then, in Fox Nation, anyone who dares disagree with the solons of right wing dogma are traitors. Republican Rep Michele Bachman claims that Jesus has taken care of global warming, so why worry? BTW, Republican Representative John Shimkus said that "This is the largest assault on democracy and freedom in this country that I have ever experienced.” He didn’t accuse the other side of treason. But it’s ironic, don’t ya think, that the same folks who accused those of disagreeing with Bush administration of being traitors, are now those who are disagreeing with the Obama administration to the point of advocating secession.

I swear, these Murdoch minions will not be happy until there's a full-out civil war in this country.

[Ed. note: Please welcome to C&L our old friend and erstwhile congressional candidate from Washington's 8th District, Darcy Burner. Darcy's now heading up Progressive Congress, and we hope to have her contribute posts as often as she's willing and able. -- DN]

We talk a lot about wanting representatives who will display courage and conviction. But the real test of that isn’t what they do when it’s easy – it’s what they do when it’s hard.

**

When I was running for Congress, my son Henry would take every opportunity he could to talk about climate change. He talked to me, he talked to Democrats at legislative district meetings, he grabbed the microphone if he saw TV cameras. He used my webcam two years ago to cut this video:

Today the U.S. House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on the Waxman-Markey energy bill, the most significant climate change legislation in history. It establishes a cap-and-trade regulatory system designed to decrease the amount of carbon dioxide we release into the atmosphere over the next several years.

I want to help principled progressives who vote their conscience when it's politically costly understand that we have their backs.

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While the corporate media is praising Obama's announcement yesterday to more stringently monitor mountaintop mining, those involved in fighting the massive pollution that results from the practice say it's nowhere near enough. One group's attorney called it "rearranging the bureaucratic deck chairs." (Remember how Obama kept talking about "clean coal"? This is what it looks like, folks: powerful poison dumped into people's lives.)

Friday morning, this terrible news:

Just how bad has the coal ash situation gotten in the United States? So bad that the Department of Homeland Security has told Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) that her committee can't publicly disclose the location of coal ash dumps across the country.

The pollution is so toxic, so dangerous, that an enemy of the United States -- or a storm or some other disrupting event -- could easily cause them to spill out and lay waste to any area nearby.

And yet, for some reason, it's perfectly fine when mining companies do it! Hey, how about that "clean coal"?

There are 44 sites deemed by the Environmental Protection Agency to be high hazard, but Boxer said she isn't allowed to talk about them other than to senators in the states affected. "There is a huge muzzle on me and my staff," she said.

In other words, this is a very urgent problem. Activists say all Obama has to do is enforce the Clean Water Act that already exists.

If the Obama administration wants to protect the people and mountains of Appalachia, it needs to end the destructive practice of mountaintop mining, not settle for promises of stricter scrutiny of the mining permits, advocates say.

[...] The White House announced what it described as an “unprecedented” agreement among the Environmental Protection Agency, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Interior Department to better coordinate and tighten the agencies’ oversight of mountaintop mining and to review the mining existing laws.

In a memorandum of understanding, the agencies promised to:

• Require more stringent environmental reviews for future mountaintop mining permits, including using the Clean Water Act to reduce contamination in streams and watersheds;

• Propose a rule change to stop allowing a type of nationwide permit that doesn’t require site-specific reviews for mining operations to dump the mineral-laden debris of former mountaintops into streams;

• Strengthen oversight of state agencies, both in their permitting and enforcement;

• And, if the U.S. District Court vacates the Bush administration’s 2008 Stream Buffer Zone Rule as requested, return to the 1983 rules restoring the 100-foot buffer zone around streams for mining waste.

These are all steps in the right direction, but they aren’t enough, says Willa Mays, Executive Director of Appalachian Voices:

"Their priorities do not take into account that mountains are being blown up today, and until mountaintop removal coal mining is ended, residents will continue to suffer from high disease rates, floods, and poisoned water supplies directly attributable to this mining practice."

Advocates across Appalachia echoed her concern.

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The America's Future Now gathering in D.C. just wrapped up today. I haven't been able to post a lot about the panels and talks that went on over the past three days, but probably the most interesting speech I heard came from Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, talking about the energy bill working its way through Congress.

Adam Siegel at GetEnergySmartNow has a good post up about with excerpts:

If I’d been here a year ago, I would have talked to you about three things: The need to transform energy economy, create jobs, and tackle global warming. ... About the third, during the campaign, I spoke it about every single night. People asked me why, as it was 21st on people’s concerns. I responded: it should be first on everyone’s agenda and the only way it will be is if we talk about it.

... If I am going to simplify the issue, we have to quit taking geologic carbon and turning it into atmospheric carbon.

... In the past, people have described the Senate as the place where a good House bill goes to die. ... We need to change that. We need to reestablish the Senate as a place where an okay bill goes to get vastly improved.

... There is the possibility that we will end up with a framework that is ineffective, that has offsets, that doesn’t have a firm cap. ... Or, we could end up with something that could really transform our use of energy. Obviously, we’re going to have to work real hard to get from the former to the latter.

The whole session was fascinating -- including the speech by Sierra Club president Carl Pope, who talked at length about how the federal government's fickle ways on energy have been killing our ability to create green jobs. (You can watch it all here.) The classic case of this involves the reality that even though wind turbine transformers require elements mined from American soil, China is the world's leading manufacturer of them.

And if you don't believe that "green energy" is going to be the key to restoring America's position as the world's leading economy, check out this report about the fact that investment in that sector is rising at a sharp rate:

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I can't be the only one who's avoiding just about anything made in China:

At the height of the U.S. housing boom, when building materials were in short supply, American construction companies used millions of pounds of Chinese-made drywall because it was abundant and cheap.

Now that decision is haunting hundreds of homeowners and apartment dwellers who are concerned that the wallboard gives off fumes that can corrode copper pipes, blacken jewelry and silverware, and possibly sicken people.

Shipping records reviewed by The Associated Press indicate that imports of potentially tainted Chinese building materials exceeded 500 million pounds during a four-year period of soaring home prices. The drywall may have been used in more than 100,000 homes, according to some estimates, including houses rebuilt after Hurricane Katrina.

“This is a traumatic problem of extraordinary proportions,” said U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, a Florida Democrat who introduced a bill in the House calling for a temporary ban on the Chinese-made imports until more is known about their chemical makeup. Similar legislation has been proposed in the Senate.

One of the ingredients they used was fly ash. You remember fly ash, don't you?

Neither the authority nor the E.P.A. has released the results of tests of soil or the ash itself. Authority officials have said that the ash is not harmful, and the authority has not warned residents of potential dangers, though federal studies show that coal ash can contain dangerous levels of heavy metals and carcinogens.

“You’re not going to be endangered by touching the ash material,” said Barbara Martocci, a spokeswoman for the T.V.A. “You’d have to eat it. You have to get it in your body.”

The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation also released a statement saying there was no indication of risk unless the ash was ingested.

Personally, I think breathing in particulate matter counts as ingested. But that's just me! Oh, and look out for leather furniture, too.

I have a deal with my kids on Sunday mornings. They leave me alone to review the bobbleheads on the Sunday shows in exchange for me making them a Sunday breakfast with the works: bacon, fresh berries, hash browns and above all, light, fluffy pancakes with lots of warm, real maple syrup. They get their carbohydrate overload while I try to keep down my heart-healthy oatmeal as I listen the the latest spin.

But it looks like Mother Nature may be forcing me to renegotiate the deal:

Sadly, thanks to increasingly ‘weird’ and warming weather, the long-standing tradition and $65 million business of “maple sugaring” in the northeastern U.S. is in danger of becoming a historical footnote.

It’s because the cycles of what is called ‘cold recharge’ – where weeks of below-freezing temperatures, followed by warmer temperatures – are shortening to the point where sugar maples are not producing the sap which is later boiled down to make maple syrup.

It this recharge cycle which allows the sap in sugar maples’ limbs to turn to ice, creating an area of lower pressure which in turn pulls up more sap into the frozen areas from the roots up. In this state, the trees convert their stored starches into sucrose that will fuel spring budding. As the warming weather melts the sap ice, liquid sap is pushed in all directions. All one has to do is drill a hole for the sap to flow.

But for some places in the Northeast, the sugar-tapping season is either getting shorter and shorter, sometimes lasting only a week, as it did in Quebec last year.

"This is a weather-related industry," says Sam Cutting, owner of Dakin Farm in Vermont and who has been in the sugar business for 40 years. "There are always problems in the maple industry: gypsy moths, floods, droughts."

Warmer weather has also translated to problems with pests such as the pear thrip, and the non-native Asian longhorn beetle destroying maple trees. Deer populations have also exploded in some places, meaning that more maple shoots are eaten before making it to maturity. It requires a mature tree of 40 to 50 years old to make maple syrup safely.

My daughter has reminded me that I could purchase the less expensive "maple-flavored" syrup instead, but given that they have found they have found mercury in High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS), the primary ingredient in those syrups, I find that an unacceptable alternative.

I wrote about the original survey back in December, and this is great news for the families of children who attend these schools. (One of these schools is only a few blocks from my house. You can check your local school at the link.)

While I'm not too pleased with the direction of Obama's economic and military policies, I do give the administration big props for the actions taken so far by the top federal agencies:

WASHINGTON — In its most sweeping effort to determine whether toxic chemicals permeate the air schoolchildren breathe, the Environmental Protection Agency is expected to announce plans today to monitor the air outside 62 schools in 22 states. Texas and Ohio have the most schools on the list, with seven each; Pennsylvania has six.

The plan will cost about $2.25 million and includes taking samples outside schools in small towns such as Story City, Iowa, and Toledo, Ore., and in large cities such as New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Houston. It comes in response to a USA TODAY investigation that used the government's own data to identify schools that appear to be in toxic hot spots.

"Your stories raised important questions that merit investigation and that's what we're doing," EPA administrator Lisa Jackson said Monday. "We want parents to know that the places their children live, play and learn are safe."

USA TODAY's investigation, published in December, used a government computer simulation that showed at least 435 schools where the air outside appeared to be more toxic than the air outside Meredith Hitchens Elementary, an Ohio school closed in 2005. At Hitchens, the Ohio EPA found levels of carcinogens 50 times above what the state considered acceptable.