NY Post:

[Environmentalist Laurie] David was cited for violating the Wetlands Protection Act during the construction of a tennis court on her sprawling Chilmark property, when workers installed boards and stones to construct a path to the court.

But David -- who spent weeks on the road with Sheryl Crow in 2007 during their Stop Global Warming College Tour -- let her contractor, Bart Thorpe, take the fall for the violations. "She's obviously a very busy person, and she trusted the contractor," Thorpe told the Gazette. "I inadvertently made a mistake. It's something she had no knowledge of . . . It's a minor thing."

Maybe it wouldn't be such a major deal on the Vineyard if the supposed eco-obsessed celebrity hadn't been cited for the exact same violation four years ago. In 2005, David constructed a stone fire pit, a barbecue area and a children's theater stage in a wetlands area without a permit.

Because of the repeat offense, Chilmark officials fined David and required her to restore the area.

Gawker.com has more. Ashamed to say that it looks like contractor/boyfriend(?) Thorpe is a Republican. [Got the pic from here.] 

Patterico on Yale graduate student Elizabeth Turnbull, the sustainable house lady:

[R]egardless of what she calls it, she’s living in the equivalent of a small mobile home.

Wow - We're further along in this whole sustainability thing than I thought.

Recycle an old truck, some recycled building materials, an au naturale outdoor privy, git totally off the grid - sweeeeeet.

Senator Alexander made a call to return to the promise of nuclear energy:

Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander called Wednesday for doubling the number of nuclear reactors nationwide, a potentially $700 billion proposal that calls for building 100 more over 20 years.

Obama's administration is considering a cap-and-trade program designed to reduce greenhouse gases and to require larger quantities of carbon-free energy production.

The country's 104 commercial nuclear reactors produce 20 percent of the nation's electricity, while most of its energy comes from carbon-producing coal.

Of course, the enviro-radical end of the eco-concerned quickly turned on the scare tactics:

Steve Smith, director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, called Alexander's proposal "reckless."

"Nuclear power is a problem, not a solution," Smith said. "New nuclear reactors are expensive, create significant water use and thermal pollution risks to our communities and produce radioactive waste that after 50 years we still have no long-term solution for."

Actually, had we built all of the reactors we originally planned decades ago, we wouldn't be having an energy crisis. Nuclear energy has been proved safe. Other countries use it even more extensively. New reactors are even safer, produce less waste (much of which is recyclable), than the older generations. We do have places to store waste, people like you, Steve, won't let us.

Alexander said he also backs renewable energy sources, notably solar power and biomass fuels, yet called those still too expensive and inefficient.

Exactly. We need diversity.

"Today there is a huge energy gap between the renewable electricity we would like to have and the reliable, low-cost electricity we must have," he said.

There are a number of reactors waiting approval or already approved. It's time to end the scare tactics and the pretend-to-care-politicians and really solve our energy problems. -D

The National Ignition Facility opened today at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory:

[the device] will focus 192 laser beams on a hydrogen pellet the size of a bead, heating it to incredible temperatures in an attempt to recreate the power of the sun.

Nuclear fusion would create huge amounts of energy from tiny amounts of fuel. It would produce far less radioactive waste than conventional nuclear reactors. But it takes huge amounts of energy to trigger, and so far humans have managed to do so only by detonating atomic bombs.

Of course there are critics:

"We don't need this machine to solve our energy problems," says Dr. Arjun Makhijani of the Institute for Energy and Environment Research in Takoma Park, Md. "The main thing the National Ignition Facility has accomplished so far is to burn a hole in the taxpayers' pocketbook."

People like you, Dr., are why we don't have working fusion yet. Instead we're bailing out failing companies so they can continue to fail with our tax dollars. -D

That's the number of people killed by climate change each year, according to Kofi Annan's Human Impact Report: Climate Change -- The Anatomy of a Silent Crisis.

The Economist has the counterpoint(s).

Thus sayeth the Veep.

Some maintain it was World War II that pulled America out of the Great Depression. Will the War on Carbon pull us out of this one? I wonder...

Treehugger's Jaymi Heimbuch links a Lunchbreath cartoon poking fun at "the ungreen." The evil-doers are corporations who have adopted green product packaging either to sell products (well, that is what they're in business to do) or to genuinely clean up their act. (On the other hand, this packaging, also at Treehugger, is ok.)

So is Treehugger now in the business of beating up green business? From the comments:

For decades, the environmental movement has been pressuring businesses to be more sustainable, especially in their packaging of products. Finally, corporations are starting to listen, and they're slowly beginning to make changes.

And what do environmentalists do? Do they applaud the change, or celebrate? No. They create snarky cartoons to make fun of businesses progressive steps. How is this helpful at all?

It's articles like this that make it hard for me to identify as an environmentalist.

Indeed. 

Green Christian, Jesus said "beware of the leaven of the Pharisees."

UPDATE: Ad campaigns invite people to church. Are green programs attracting or driving people away? I honestly couldn't tell you. But I do know that good behavior is discouraged by those who say you're never good enough, when God has already said "you're good." Those of you who have studied the life of Christ know what I'm talkin' about here.

From the header in freelance writer Penny Musco's terrific blog:

I love God and I love His creation! The two are inseparable: “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—His eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made…” (Romans 1:20). And while I can (and do) enjoy God’s handiwork just sitting on the deck overlooking my back yard, I’ve discovered the national parks provide an even greater variety of environments in which to worship and learn more about the Creator. My prayer is that my humble observations will strengthen you in your Christian walk, whet your appetite for your own exploration of our wonderful parks, and, most importantly, in case you don’t know what in the world I’m talking about, encourage you to “seek the Lord while He may be found [and] call on Him while He is near” (Isaiah 55:6). He’s knocking on your heart’s door right now (Revelation 3:20).

As a kid who grew up in Washington State's national parks it was an easy decision to add LLNP to the blogroll today. Great to see she's taken up blogging. 

Drop by and say howdy!

If the UN were actually capable of enforcing this, I'd be worried.

UPDATE: But the US House of Representatives is capable of enforcing at least some of this (via Drudge): Green Queen - 'Every aspect of our lives must be subjected to inventory'.

Every. That's a lot.

UPDATE: And this, from San Diego:

Broyles said, "The county asked, 'Do you have a regular meeting in your home?' She said, 'Yes.' 'Do you say amen?' 'Yes.' 'Do you pray?' 'Yes.' 'Do you say praise the Lord?' 'Yes.'" The county employee notified the couple that the small bible study, with an average of 15 people attending, was in violation of county regulations, according to Broyles. Broyles said a few days later the couple received a written warning that listed "unlawful use of land" and told them to "stop religious assembly or apply for a major use permit" -- a process that could cost tens of thousands of dollars. "For churches and religious assemblies there's big parking concerns, there's environmental impact concerns when you have hundreds or thousands of people gathering. But this is a different situation, and we believe that the application of the religious assembly principles to this bible study is certainly misplaced," said Broyles.

Environmental impacts from Bible studies?

Just finished proctoring a Qualified Environmental Professional exam for a couple Navy colleagues.

If you're a non-engineer (or even a PE) interested in a professional environmental registration, head on over to the Institute of Professional Environmental Practice and start working on your credentials. 

EPA, the Air Force, the Navy, ENSR, Tetra Tech, 3M, Alcoa and others recognize the QEP as equivalent to a professional engineering registration for the purpose of promotion or assessing a private contractor's capabilities. Download a powerpoint presentation with more info at this link.

And if you live up in the New England area, look me up (IPEP Reg. #04050013) to help you get started.

Ten ethanol production plants have filed bankruptcy in 2009 (and we're only half way through this year). Many of these were subsidized with your tax dollars.

This is what happens when the government forces something into the market before it's mature, cost-effective and even demanded by consumers.

As the corn prices skyrocketed and gas prices sank, no one wanted ethanol. I'm sure the realization that ethanol usually takes more energy to be produced than gas, and usually burns less efficient, didn't help either. This is what you get for letting politicians dictate economics and energy policy. Ethanol has a place in our energy system, but let us figure it out.

Read more here.  -D

A nice glass of Mouton Cadet 2006 and I'm all set to live blog The Goode Family this evening.

9:02 - so far the funniest thing is the vegan dog hunting around for dead animals to eat.

9:04 - WWAGD? "Oh, I get it, they worship Al Gore." Eco-daughter's not like'n it so far.

9:09 - Chuckles over the "see how you can limit your existence" board in the organic grocery store.

9:12 - Lost the Eco-daughter. She's in the kitchen putting food and water in Jake the Wonder Lab's bowl. The Vegi-daughter is bummed that the mom and daughter don't get along well, and that they don't wear flag pins, but liked the whole vegan thing.

9:13 - Commercial break - time to top off the glass.

9:20 - The whole Afrikaner American thing is pretty funny. Wait - the vegetarian dog's going after the cat now. Not sure what to do with the whole make-fun-of-Christians-and-abstinence thing.

9:27 - Drag racing the hybrid - heh.

9:29 - Biggest chuckle when the dog finally bags the cat. And the bird.

Best part of the show: Ubantu and the dog.

Worst part of the show: The way they portrayed Christians. Sorta like "The Goodes are awful, but those Christian people are awfuler."

Unanimous decision: If the gang had to connect the TV to a bicycle-powered generator to watch it, it wouldn't be worth the effort.

My two cents: Skip the bordeaux and go straight for the tequila shots next time.

UPDATE: Some great comments here.

UPDATE: A different take. Christian Toto reviews Goode over at PJM. Lots of commenters like the idea of goring (no pun intended) liberal sacred cows, but I agree with this comment:

The problem is suffusing the story in the PC Goode’s rather than using them as a comic foil to a more sensible/skeptical/sarcastic character or family. As it is, this will wear people down in 15 minutes. I’m surprised Judge didn’t see it.

Um, 12 minutes, actually.

UPDATE: National Review's Rob VerBruggen liked it.

around Mt. Everest. Well, re-positioning themselves, actually.

AAEA's got first-hand experience with Judge Sotomayor's 2007 Clean Water Act ruling, subsequently overturned (6-3) by the Supreme Court.

The Gristees cover this and other cases involving EPA. They like her (natch) and expect her to neatly replace "reliably green voter" Justice Souter. 

And OpinionJournal provides an illuminating refresher on her involvement in a 2008 eminent domain "takings" case.  "[S]he's going to be writing a lot of dissents," says James Taranto et al. Yup. But speaking as a white male here, do you think she'd rather do that, or be satisfied with issuing opinions (overturned or otherwise) on appellate court? No brainer.

[AP photo via the Wall Street Journal]

UPDATE: By the way, as Jeremy notes, Sotomayor isn't the first Hispanic nominee to our highest court.

Meet Maji! What's he thinking right now?

It started with The Simposons movie, where the EPA encases Springfield in a giant dome. People laughed. Hard.

The Goode Family (by the creator of Beavis and Butthead) will finish it off.

Environmentalism is 51% parody now. Al Gore is the new Al Bundy.

Have we all been had?

UPDATE: Global warming is the new Pet Rock.

UPDATE/BUMPED: Wall Street Journal "Making a mockery of being green"

UPDATE: NY Times "Bursting the Green Bubble."

So, now that the Journal and Times are on board, I just want to note for the record that the my original "Death of environmentalism" post went up over two weeks ago.

Thou shalt not gloat.  Heh!

Foxnews:

Instead of paying rent in a traditional apartment month in and month out, Turnbull calculated how much it would cost for her to live in New Haven for the two years she is working on her degree. She then took that money, about $14,000, and invested in her sustainable house. "I wanted to see, well, could I build this thing, a comparable thing, for about what it would cost" to live in a traditional house, she said. It didn't take long, either. She started building last summer and finished in October. The key to keeping costs low was reusing and recycling materials. The floor, the windows, even the ceilings were all donated by contractors and others looking to lend a hand. "It was incredible, I couldn't have built it by myself," Turnbull said. "I kind of put feelers out and was like, 'Hey, I'm building this thing, and if you have cast-off stuff I'd love to use it.' "I ended up having building parties, where we would say, 'Hey! If you want to come and pick up a hammer or paintbrush, awesome, great. We'll have burgers,'" she said. The house is powered by three solar cells that Turnbull adjusts throughout the year to maximize the collection of sunlight. The cells connect to a couple of batteries inside the house, where they provide enough energy for a handful of lights and a heater. She cooks on a small propane stove. The tiny house is missing a bathroom, but just as during the construction of the house, she's still able to rely on the kindness of others. She uses the bathroom of a neighbor who has also allowed her to keep the micro-dwelling based in the backyard.

What's wrong with this picture? OpinionJournal says it better than I ever could:

So it's totally "sustainable" except for the building materials, land and use of a bathroom, for all of which she depends on people who are living normal, environmentally unfriendly lives. She might as well move back in with her parents.

AlterNet: "Good News, There's a Climate Bill -- Bad News, It Stinks"

First, the good news: One of the most comprehensive pieces of energy and climate legislation ever drafted by members of the U.S. Congress has finally seen the light of day. After lots of haggling among fellow moderate and conservative Democrats, Representatives Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Edward Markey (D-MA) released their "American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009."

Now the bad news: Their bill stinks. I'll spare you the many odiferous details and just highlight three particularly bad aspects: 1) It won't protect the poor from price-hikes as the price of carbon is slowly internalized into our energy bills, but will protect polluting industries by allowing them free pollution permits; 2) It opens the door to fraud and shell games instead of real climate action by setting up a huge carbon derivatives market; 3) It makes a mockery of our common understanding of "renewable energy," favoring dirty smokestacks over truly clean, renewable energy.

Obama and Waxman like it, though:

After the vote on the legislation, President Barack Obama said: "We are now one step closer to delivering on the promise of a new clean energy economy that will make America less dependent on foreign oil, crack down on polluters, and create millions of new jobs all across America."

Henry Waxman, the panel's Democratic chairman, said the bill represents "decisive and historic action".

So does the Environmental Defense Fund:

As President Obama said, and we agree, the chairman’s mark reflects an “historic agreement” that sets the stage for Congress to cap greenhouse gas pollution, begin to break our dependence on foreign oil, and create millions of new jobs. Companies across America are ready to build the clean energy technologies we need to grow the economy and protect the climate; a cap will unleash the private-sector investment they need get going. The short-term targets in the bill help ensure that investments are made quickly, and they increase our chances of minimizing climate impacts by kick-starting the transition to low-carbon energy sources. Protecting consumers from volatile energy prices during that transition is essential. We believe the American Clean Energy and Security Act’s provisions to ensure that end-use energy consumers receive a significant amount of the value of emissions permits under the cap is an effective and efficient way to keep electricity rates low. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, a well-designed cap that returns value to consumers can be achieved for as little as $98 per household per year – about a dime a day per person.

Reminds me of the old saw about a mob of bureaucrats busily hacking their way through the jungle. One of them climbed a tall tree, saw a cliff ahead, and hollered down to warn them. To which they all replied: "Shut up, we're making progress."

UPDATE: Environmental Capital:

Plenty of folks are chuffed there’s some political momentum behind a U.S. bill tackling greenhouse-gas emissions. Plenty of folks are horrified—for entirely opposite reasons. Even with all the compromises, conservatives are still aghast at the costs of what they call a giant “energy tax.” Thanks to all the compromises, some environmentalists are aghast at what they see as a toothless bill. You could drive yourself insane plowing through the nearly 1,000 pages and try to work out how all the overlapping policies, regulators, giveaways, exemptions, and mandates actually affect U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions over the next four decades. Actually, folks at the Breakthrough Institute did that and came away horrified by how little the bill will really do.

and

Do the compromises that allowed Waxman-Markey to make it out of committee, and survive a vote in the full House, make it that much harder to get the rest of the world in line?

Short answer: No. The rest of the world is either way ahead of us (however you want to define that) or is playing us for fools.

By the way, here's a link to the thousand-page bill if you have time to speed read it. 

And please, for God's sake (amen), don't print it out.

UPDATE: Grist has a pretty cool "Gore vs. Hansen" post, but between these two it's more like Left vs. Leftier.

Honda invests in "people are fundamentally good" to sell its new Insight hybrid. Wonder if that'll be a more successful approach than the Prius business model:

  All people are planet warming spawns of satan 'cept me 'cus I drive a hybrid.

Wouldn't go with the notion that people are fundamentally good. But I think most try to do right by the environment these days. People are tired of being beat up for not being green enough.

Honda's on the right (starboard) tack here.

The current issue of Backpacker magazine (June '09) has an article "Hike it, Save it" that details 10 wilderness areas in danger of one sort or another. It also lists some recently saved sites.

P.S. The article notes with excitement new land protections under a recent bill signed by President Obama. But no one seemed to care when President Bush signed the biggest increase for National Parks in its history. That didn't matter according to the political partisans. -D

In our quest to live "germ free" we have eliminated many of the beneficial organisms our bodies use to maintain health. Some believe this is contributing to a variety of health issues. From The Maker's Diet:

Years ago, the food we harvested from the field was covered with beneficial microorganisms that "became part of us" when we ate the produce. Today, America's soil is essentially sterile. Pesticides and herbicides are believed to be the "total solution" in the natural world. They kill virtually every microorganism they touch, much as our overuse of medical antibiotics has...

...our overly sterile environment, which has virtually severed our healthy relationship to the earth, is seriously weakening our immune system...The intestine of a healthy child or adult normally contains billions of bacteria...Ideally, the beneficial or benign bacteria in your body should outnumber the cells of your body...The beneficial bacteria in the environment and your gut serve as your first line of immune defense against the unfriendly bacteria and fungi...

-D

The Edict of Worms was issued on this day in 1521 by Emperor Charles V, declaring Martin Luther an outlaw and a heretic, banning his literature. It also made it a crime for anyone in Germany to give Luther food or shelter.

The Papal nuncio at the Diet, Girolamo Aleandro, drew up and proposed the fierce denunciations of Luther that were embodied in the Edict of Worms, promulgated on May 25. These declared Luther to be an outlaw and banned the reading or possession of his writings. It permitted anyone to kill Luther without legal consequence. Lots more here.

And a bit of Luther on ecology:

If God is to create or to preserve a creature, God must be present and must make and preserve God’s creation both in its innermost and outermost aspects.

From The Maker's Diet:

Myth: Meat consumption contributes to famine and depletes the earth's natural resources...The fact is, two-thirds of the earth's landmass is unsuitable for farming, but easily provides food for grazing animals.

...two-thirds of the plants and plant products fed to animals are unsuited for human consumption. Both the animals and the plants are renewable resources, in no danger of depletion.

People do need to eat an abundance of plant products for good health, but the problem has never been a shortage of these foods, rather their equitable distribution as well as widespread poverty. Even the Population Reference Bureau attributed the world hunger problem to poverty, not eating meat, and did not consider mass vegetarianism to be a solution to world hunger.

-D

Princeton University:

Scientists have called it "junk DNA." They have long been perplexed by these extensive strands of genetic material that dominate the genome but seem to lack specific functions. Why would nature force the genome to carry so much excess baggage?

The favored answer, even by Christian geneticists, is this is flotsam and jetsem left over from evolution. In fact it's proof of evolution. Or not? 

Now researchers from Princeton University and Indiana University who have been studying the genome of a pond organism have found that junk DNA may not be so junky after all. They have discovered that DNA sequences from regions of what had been viewed as the "dispensable genome" are actually performing functions that are central for the organism. They have concluded that the genes spur an almost acrobatic rearrangement of the entire genome that is necessary for the organism to grow. 

Wow - you mean we knew everything there was to know about how God made genetics, and then found out we didn't? Hmmmmmmm...

“I certainly don’t claim to know everything that’s in this bill…I don’t know the details…” 

-- Energy & Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA), the 982-page global warming bill's author and sponsor

"Phase One: Inaugurate the era of "green" energy. Phase Two: Overturn the first and second laws of thermodynamics. Phase Three: Carbon neutrality!"

-- OpinionJournal's Bret Stephens compares the Obama Administration's energy policy to South Park

Hospitals should be treating the planet. People, not so much.

Wonder if this sorta thing will crop up during the (looming) healthcare "debate."

The Defense Secretary has released its overview of the issues being looked at in the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review. The QDR is an every-four-year look forward that assesses "the threats and challenges facing the United States in order to balance strategies, capabilities and forces."

Given the Senate's mandate to consider climate change in future defense planning, it's not a surprise to see this listed as a to-do for the analysts. What did catch my eye was this analysis in New Atlanticist:

At the same time the threats to U.S. security are unchanged, the Defense Department notes that the dominant position of the United States is not guaranteed.  Instead, there are “a series of powerful trends that are reshaping the international landscape and will dramatically complicate the exercise of American statecraft and overseas relations.”  This assumption can translate into more prominent roles for European countries, Russia, India, China and Brazil.

Yet, the shared global challenges of the current global economic downturn, climate change and demographic shifts tend to favor the United States.  Europe, Russia, India, China and Brazil also face serious challenges, and it’s uncertain that they are any better prepared than the United States to emerge as more powerful.

Don't know if they meant to say that our ability to adapt to a changing climate (man-made or no) was exploitable as a national security advantage.  One could take it that way.  Will have to wait and see exactly how the QDR defines favor...

Conservatives and progressives see morality differently, says Jonathan Haidt in Miller-McCune. Here's the bit on ecology:

Haidt notes that the environmental movement was started by liberals, who were presumably driven by the harm/care impulse. But conservative Evangelical Christians are increasingly taking up the cause, propelled by the urge to respect authority. "They're driven by the idea that God gave man dominion over the Earth, and keeping the planet healthy is our sacred responsibility," he notes. "If we simply rape, pillage, destroy and consume, we're abusing the power given to us by God.

That's a good insight. More:

"The climate crisis and the economic crisis are interesting, because neither has a human enemy. These are not crises that turn us against an out-group, so they're not really designed to bring us together, but they can be used for that. I hope and think we are ready, demographically and historically, for a less polarized era."

There's a little book, been out for a while, called The Grace and Truth Paradox that explores this from a Christian standpoint. It seems (according to this author) that conservatives tend to be "truth" oriented and progressives "grace" focused. Problem is, as John says and the author notes, Christ is full of grace and full of truth. He doesn't give us the option to be one exclusive of the other.

Perhaps we're most like Him when we're most united as a body. Ultimately it is the reconciling power of Christ that will overcome polarization. Nothing else can do that.

An environmentally friendly, battery-powered chainsaw.

They test a bunch of other green yard maintenance equipment too.

National Wildlife Federation teams up with the Christain Coalition.

WWRRD?

Heh.

Some environmentalists never missed a chance to vilify President Bush, but look here:

The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research analyzed data collected by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and concluded that levels of numerous gases linked with air pollution have fallen off since 2001.

Among the findings: Carbon monoxide decreased by 39 percent, ozone by 6 percent, and sulfur dioxide by 32 percent.

"Pick any category you want and pollution levels are generally lower than they were seven years ago," said Steven Hayward, the policy analyst who authored the report, titled "Index of Leading Environmental Indicators," for the conservative think tank.

"(Environmental groups) said air pollution was out of control, but this was always more about politics than it was fact," Hayward said.

Imagine that. Politics instead of science.

Jeff Holmsted, a high-ranking official at the EPA from 2001-2005 and now an attorney with the law firm Bracewell & Giuliani, acknowledged that the decrease in air pollution over the last eight years owes much to efforts of past administrations. But he called the statistics a vindication of Bush's environmental policy, which he said did away with cumbersome regulations while still protecting the environment.

"I think among people who actually understand how the regulatory process works, they, in private, would acknowledge that we accomplished a lot," Holmsted said.

-D

Green up your grilling. Lots of good info at SustainLane this week.

I hope you will also visit your local Veterans memorial or cemetery this weekend. Do thank someone in the armed forces, fire fighting and lifesaving organizations, and police forces (and their families) for their sacrifice. 

Other ways you can help:

As a Navy Reservist, I also want to say thanks for supporting our military. I have several folks in my unit deployed around the world right now. They and their families really appreciate your prayers.

Excerpts from "New Obama rules will transform US auto fleet" :

Carpenters will still haul materials around in pickup trucks, but they will cost more.

So business' will get hit with higher costs. Especially small business'. Can our bankrupt car companies afford to sell less of trucks - a best seller?

That means cars and trucks on American roads will have to become smaller, lighter and more efficient.

"Smaller, lighter" to me means "less safe." I don't care if a Prius meets government standards, you can't change physics. More steel, more weight, more protection.

Already on Tuesday, some drivers were skeptical. Dixie Bishop, who runs a plumbing business in San Antonio that uses vans, worries the new requirements will drive up her costs at a time when customers are cutting back on repairs.

"Are they going to take my horsepower down?" she asked. "I have to be able to carry old water heaters and toilets. It's not beneficial for me to haul one water heater at a time. We need the power to pull these heavy items."

The government doesn't care about you Dixie. They think they can run your business better than you. And they believe in the Global Warming Hoax, and believe you should believe in it too.

Of course, developing the technology will cost money — billions of dollars — and automakers will pass that on to their customers.

No kidding.

The Obama administration says the changes mean the average vehicle would cost about $1,300 more, although some private analysts say the increase will be much heftier. The administration says gas savings will make up the difference in about three years.

Not when gas keeps rising. Who can wait three years?

Automakers have said they need stable, relatively high gasoline prices to create a market for electric vehicles. General Motors fears rolling out its rechargeable Chevrolet Volt next year with gas at $2 per gallon.

So it's in the government's best interest to not attempt to lower gas prices .

But the Volt is expected to sell for $35,000 to $40,000, and buyers may be unwilling to pay that much for a sedan, even if tax credits help ease the burden, unless gas prices soar.

Who want's to pay luxury prices for a car that - compared to the luxury cars - is a soda pop can?

Is anyone yet regretting electing these people who are intent on ruining your life? Yes, let's improve how we drive, but let's not drive off a cliff in the process. -D

I noticed on a map one day that the entire coast of Oregon consisted of parks. As it turns out, there is 363 continuous miles of protected shoreline. In a day and age where companies and individuals have sectioned off shoreline, or destroyed its natural beauty by building right to the shore, Oregon's approach is refreshing. Of course, we have to be careful of the government trying to take private land. However, Oregon's approach should be carefully considered in preserving nature. I'm all for advancement and economic development, but at what point does it become excessive, over-development? Maybe the answer lies in comparing the two extremes.

From the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:

If the Waxman-Markey global warming bill becomes law, it will have a devastating impact on people but virtually no impact on the planet.

It's a massive energy tax in disguise that promises job losses, income cuts and a sharp left turn toward bigger government, concludes The Heritage Foundation.

By 2035, the bill would:

• Reduce aggregate gross domestic product by $7.4 trillion

• Destroy 844,000 jobs annually on average, with peak years seeing unemployment rise by more than 1.9 million jobs

• Raise electricity rates 90 percent after adjusting for inflation

• Raise inflation-adjusted gasoline prices by 74 percent

• Raise residential natural gas prices by 55 percent

• Raise an average family's annual energy bill by $1,500

• Increase inflation-adjusted federal debt by 29 percent ($33,400 additional federal debt per person).

But Waxman-Markey would result in virtually no difference regarding global warming. Climatologists have calculated the impact on temperature to be only hundredths of a degree in 2050 and no more than two-tenths of a degree at the end of the century.

The cost-benefit analysis clearly indicates that this latest Gang Green scheme is all cost and no benefit. Some way to "save" the planet, eh?

-D

Newswise reports on a study showing no economic impacts to smoking bans in public places.

New research suggests that exempting bars from community smoking bans makes no economic difference in terms of preserving bar employment, and that even the most comprehensive clean indoor air policies do not lead to a reduction in hospitality jobs.

Researchers hope the findings, based on a study in Minnesota, will factor into future debates within municipalities and states considering the economic and health issues surrounding smoking-ban proposals.

Hmm. OK. Scroll down for the punchline:

This research was supported by a grant from the ClearWay Minnesota research program.

Co-authors of the study are Jean Forster, Darin Erickson and Leslie Lytle of the University of Minnesota School of Public Health and Barbara Schillo of ClearWay Minnesota.

ClearWay Minnesota is an anti-smoking group. The grant money for this study came from a tobacco lawsuit settlement.  Any big surprise that they got these results?

I like being able to take my wife and kids to a restaurant and enjoy a meal without cigarette smoke, so there are probably more folks who will go out an eat for that reason.  As a cigar guy it bugs me that fewer and fewer places allow them, and I can imagine smokers are taking their business elsewhere for that reason.

So while the overall numbers/economics haven't changed, the demographics certainly have.

Knoxnews.com:

"The customer is still paying for the electricity they would have used in their home or business, and then they receive this 100 percent payment for all generation that they are credited on their bill," she said. "Basically, the customer is charged for all of the energy that is used in their home whether it is energy from the local power company or energy from their (at-home system)."

More than one solar panelist was snagged by this, apparently. (h/t)

Interesting paper by Leslie E. Sponsel on the intersection of faith, anthropology, and biodiversity:

Sacred places are a new frontier for interdisciplinary research on their own merits and for their relevance for biodiversity conservation. The religious or cultural designation of an area as sacred, especially those which are relatively natural, may either intentionally or coincidentally promote the conservation of its associated biodiversity. Such sacred places can complement national parks and other protected areas established by governments. Collaboration among religious, governmental, scientific, and/or conservation agencies may be desirable for the protection of sacred sites and landscapes.

A rather lengthy article that's worth setting aside some time to absorb.

...but I haven't had an Al Gore post up in a while, and couldn't resist this via AAEA:

National Black Chamber of Commerce (NBCC) Energy Committee Chair Maurice R. Stone, [right], who just finished the first ever Climate Change Summit course administrated by Vice President Al Gore, is now a certified Climate Change Ambassador. [snip]

Maurice Stone is a senior management executive with over 27 years of extensive entrepreneurial and business management experience. From December 2007 to the present Mr. Stone has been involved as an equity principal and/or agent in various business structure financings in the energy, healthcare, baked goods, and real estate markets. Mr. Stone earned his B.S. degree in electrical engineering, with a minor in Finance from Memphis State University in 1981.

I'm sure Mr. Stone's a good guy, and it's great to see a businessman in this position. But it strikes me that someone with little background in physical oceanography or climatology can be christened a "certified" Climate Change Ambassador after a three day business meeting with Al Gore.

First it was indulgences.  Now, it seems, come the knights templar.

Certified indeed.

Shelby County Reporter:

Although Helena’s Boy Scout Troop 2, also known as “The Deuce,” has only been in existence for a year and a half, its members are quickly making up for lost time.

The troop recently won the Boy Scouts of America Green Unit Award, a new award geared towards rewarding troops for environmental awareness.

The award was presented to Scoutmaster Jerry Pate May 7 at the monthly Roundtable meeting of all the troops in the Shelby County district.

“I’m extremely proud. When we go camping and hiking, we try to be just like American Indians and leave the land like we found it or better than we found it,” Pate said. “We’re really proud of that award.”

Pate said the members of the troop are committed to continue caring for the environment.

Update your green business portfolio with today's lowdown from Cleantech Blog, which includes this:

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce just released a study performed by Charles River Associates estimating 3 million jobs to lost in the U.S. by 2030 as a result of climate change legislation. Last year, the Chamber commissioned a similar study announcing a similar doom-and-gloom result. I’m not saying there won’t be job losses as a result of cap-and-trade – there certainly will – but I don’t think it’s going to be apocalyptic either....

Yey!  Something associated with climate change that isn't apocalyptic.

(Until it's his job of course.)

UPDATE: From a RIIPL email today:

The Waxman-Markey Bill is The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACES) and it has 4 goals: promote renewable sources of energy (including a new Smart Grid which is necessary to transmit clean, renewable energy to population centers), enact energy efficiency measures that will save consumers money, put limits on planet-warming emissions from large-scale industries; and create millions of new American jobs in clean energy technology.

Are these folks looking at the same bill?  Heh.  Healthy political debate's indeed a good thing...

Beware.

David Neff live-blogged the Flourish Conference in Georgia last week. If anybody has more links, shoot them to me or post a comment.

UPDATE: Conference quotes in the news (and my 2 cents):

“Evangelicals have been the taillight, not the headlight of the environmental movement,” said Robert Parham of the Baptist Center for Ethics in Nashville, a moderate organization not affiliated with Southern Baptists. 

We're gonna be driving with the brake on if climate change becomes a litmus test for evangelical environmentalism.

"A lot of pastors feel like they are two bad sermons from, 'Do you want fries with that?'" Hunter told evangelical leaders meeting May 13-15 at Cross Pointe Church in Duluth, Ga. "So we stay away from controversial subjects unless we see them as necessary for spiritual maturity for our people and unless we know facts."

Ouch. Fast food is honest work, ain't it?

"You know, whether you believe in human-induced global warming or whether you're like me, really skeptical about that, there is one thing we can agree on, and that is the earth is the Lord's and everything in it," Barrett Duke, vice president for public policy and research at the ERLC's Washington office...

If only all our Christian climatist bretheren were more irenic, like, say, Rusty:

Pritchard. "That is the thesis of this conference. We have to start somewhere other than climate politics. There is nothing more divisive."

$900K for an eco-tech house that doesn't work. The comments pretty much cover my thoughts on this.

Cris Bisch reports on a $6.4 billion House bill to green up our schools.

I hope they don't use the same contractor.

Changes in the sun's activity can affect Earth in other ways, too. For example, ultraviolet (UV) light from the sun is not bottoming out the same way it did during the past few visual minima. "The visible light doesn't vary that much, but UV varies 20 percent, [and] x-rays can vary by a factor of ten," Hall said. "What we don't understand so well is the impact of that differing spectral irradiance."

Solar UV light, for example, affects mostly the upper layers of Earth's atmosphere, where the effects are not as noticeable to humans. But some researchers suspect those effects could trickle down into the lower layers, where weather happens. 

In general, recent research has been building a case that the sun has a slightly bigger influence on Earth's climate than most theories have predicted.

Propaganda from right-wing climate deniers? Heh - try National Geographic. (Of course, these are the same folks that give you flies that "zombifie" ants from the inside, eat the brains, then hatch from within the hollowed-out head...)

UPDATE:  Ken Tapping - One year into the solar minimum. I was wondering why this isn't getting more press coverage too.  Well, ok, not really.

UPDATE: SOHO's got the latest sunspot pics and predictions. Pretty quiet indeed.

Sweden's Carl Gustav Boberg penned the timeless hymn we translate today as "How Great Thou Art." Based on Psalms 8, it's a wonderful testimony of how creation reveals not only God's majesty but His matchless grace and love as well.

According to the wiki Boberg wrote the poem "O Store Gud" in 1885 with nine verses, including these:

När tryckt av synd och skuld jag faller neder,
Vid Herrens fot och ber om nåd och frid.
Och han min själ på rätta vägen leder,
Och frälsar mig från all min synd och strid.

(When burdens press, and seem beyond endurance,
Bowed down with grief, to Him I lift my face;
And then in love He brings me sweet assurance:
'My child! for thee sufficient is my grace'.)

När jag hör dårar i sin dårskaps dimma
Förneka Gud och håna hvad han sagt,
Men ser likväl, att de hans hjälp förnimma
Och uppehållas af hans nåd och makt.

(O when I see ungrateful man defiling
This bounteous earth, God's gifts so good and great;
In foolish pride, God's holy Name reviling,
And yet, in grace, His wrath and judgment wait.)

The inspiration for the poem came when Boberg was walking home from church near Kronobäck, Sweden, and listening to church bells. A sudden awe-inspiring storm gripped Boberg’s attention, and then just as suddenly as it had made its violent entrance, it subsided to a peaceful calm which Boberg observed over Mönsterås Bay. "From the woods on the other side of the bay, he heard the song of a thrush…the church bells were tolling in the quiet evening. It was this series of sights, sounds, and experiences that inspired the writing of the song..."

He wrote this in 1885 by the way, in those dark ages before the creation care movement or the NCC's eco-justice program. How did he ever manage it?

When we hear the name Jonah, what immediately pops into our heads is some old guy sitting in a whale. What we don't usually do is chew on how he got there.

Jonah's problem was thinking God's power was limited to the Tabernacle.  It was sort of an Old Testament version of Jason and the Argonauts.  God was somebody you could outrun if you tried.  When the old prophet got word God wanted him up in Nineveh, Jonah figured that by hustling himself to Tarshish, clear on the other side of Gibralter and about 2,800 miles in the opposite direction God wanted him to go, he'd be well clear of God's reach.  Jonah was looking for that place on the map that had pictures of sea monsters.  You know the place.

Well, not only was God not hindered by distance, but He met Jonah out at sea, sort of the same way Jesus would meet His disciples almost a thousand years later. 

Peter got Jesus' outstreched arm.  Jonah got a fish.

The point here is to ask how we think about ourselves and how we go about God's business on the planet.  My hunch is a lot of us think we come to church to meet with God, get ouselves spiritually filled up, get all wisdomed-up, get all worshipped-up, and then we take leave of God to go fix what's wrong with the world. Sure, God's right there behind the pulpit somewhere, between the altar and the choir director.  But once we leave the building we're pretty much on our own to do God's work as we see fit, whether that is tackling climate change or mountain top mining or improving recycling rates or improving the lives of shelter animals. Right?

Nope.  As Paul wrote, there's no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus who walk not according to the flesh, but to the Spirit. As the pastor said today we look at life through a fleshly microscope when we should be looking through God's panoramic lens.  When we see things that way it makes our vision narrow. 

What's your microscope - Government?  Greenpeace?  Your local save the planet non-profit creation-care gig?  Are you out there doing your thing with what you hope is enough of God that you stuffed into your pockets before you left last Sunday morning?

The truth is God's Spirit is everywhere.  His power is unlimited.  God's love is infinite.  He sees everything, knows everything, and can do anything.  In your heart do you really think you can just check in with Him once a week and flee from Him the rest of the time?  Do you really want to think God's just giving you a load of stuff to do and then booting you out the door to struggle through it on your own? 

Or would you rather run headlong into His arms and join Him in the work that He is ready to share with you in the great outdoors?  He is a carpenter.  Expect Him to have you hold one end of the board while He holds the other.  He is a yoke-sharer, whose yoke is easy and burden is light. He is the one whose cross was not erected in the back of a cathedral, but on a hillside at the edge of town for all to see.

You and I were never meant to do alone the work that the Father intends to share with us, wherever that work requires us to be.

Sun News:

SMART meters that tell you exactly how much power you are using will be installed in every home in Britain, ministers announced yesterday.

They will replace 48million gas and electricity meters in the next decade — meaning an end to estimated bills and visits by meter readers.

Power companies will be able to read meters remotely via the mobile phone network.

The cost of the plan, expected to be completed by 2020, will be £7billion — or up to £350 per home — with householders paying a third.

Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said they would cut carbon emissions and could save each householder up to £35 a year.

Smart meters — now being tried out in parts of London — can even tell how much power EACH appliance is using.

Networked meters for your house, networked gas management for your car. Seems like the only folks who like these gadgets are the ones that don't mind the government running the rest of our lives.

Add big brotherism to climate change religion as reasons environmentalism is getting, well, less popular. But we're beyond the point where submission to greeness is a popularity contest, aren't we.

Cogent analysis on tax-exempt pulpits at Touchstone today - some obvious ramifications toward churches and partisan environmental lobbying...

Speaking strictly for myself, I personally think that the current standard is basically sound (there is definitely room for clarification and other improvements) and one based on common sense.  I likewise think that nothing could be more disastrous to the integrity of the Christian faith and churches than to embroil them into secular politics to the extent of endorsing particular candidates or parties, as so many adherents on both sides evidently desire.  Theological conservatives or traditionalists cannot rightly complain about the NCC being in effect a political action committee for the Left if they seeking to debase their own churches into political handmaidens for the Right.  But the central underlying questions which this IRS ruling brings to the fore -- the relations between church and state; how the Church can and should be in but not of the world; how it can and should present a faithful witness without succumbing to worldly means and blandishments -- have long been debated, and are worthy of thoughtful, intense, but civil discourse here.

Joel Serface:

I just spent an amazing year at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), but have no start-ups to show for it (yet).

Joel's experience shows how difficult a green economy is to build.  Or how an inefficient life-in-a-plastic-bubble government can be at building it, anyway.

Associated Baptist Press:

Hunter said there is both good news and bad news for supporters of creation care.

"The bad news is that this movement honestly is going very slowly in the church," he said. "By now we would have hoped to be meeting with multitudes, and you see what's here. There's a gathering of leaders."

Despite that, Hunter said "the time is growing in its ripeness from several aspects," so environmentally conscious evangelicals should not be discouraged.

Along with new technologies that allow humans to cultivate the earth in new ways, Hunter said "there is a ripeness in the church" in form of an expanding moral agenda.

"There is now an unstoppable expansion of what it means to be an evangelical Christian," he said. "We are no longer going to be stuck on one or two major issues."

Hunter added that evangelicals must not abandon concern for the unborn in order to embrace a broader agenda. "Frankly, if you cannot protect a baby in its mother's womb, that is the paradigm of all vulnerable life," he said. "If we don't continue to lift that up as central, then woe be unto us."

But Hunter said evangelicals need to understand "that 'pro-life' means a whole lot of things."

"It's not just inside the womb, it's outside the womb," he said. "Life outside the womb is just as important as life inside the womb to God."

Take on social issues, yes. But don't supplant the Great Commission. Always concerns me that winning souls for Jesus Christ never seems to get a hearing in these interviews, especially when rescuing babies and the planet are both acts of love which could transform lives if Jesus got the credit.

Governor Daniels of Indiana speaks out on Waxman-Markey in the Journal today:

The largest scientific and economic questions are being addressed by others, so I will confine myself to reporting about how all this looks from the receiving end of the taxes, restrictions and mandates Congress is now proposing. Quite simply, it looks like imperialism. This bill would impose enormous taxes and restrictions on free commerce by wealthy but faltering powers -- California, Massachusetts and New York -- seeking to exploit politically weaker colonies in order to prop up their own decaying economies. Because proceeds from their new taxes, levied mostly on us, will be spent on their social programs while negatively impacting our economy, we Hoosiers decline to submit meekly.

Old Testament Ecology:

Instead of condemning anyone who doesn’t take caring for God’s creation as seriously as you would like, remember that people respond more to positive encouragement. After all, Christ didn’t come to condemn, but to seek and save the lost. Similarly, we can take a positive attitude in encouraging those around us to find new, creative, and inspirational ways to care for God’s creation, and worship Him as the Creator, instead of blasting someone for using too much gasoline (in your opinion).

Well, yeh.

Found OTE via this week's Christian Carnival. Another good one for the blogroll...

BUMPED/UPDATED...

AFP Blog on House Ag Chairman Collin Peterson (D-Minn.):

It just hit the wire services that the Democratic Chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, a very powerful committee stacked with 23 members of the Blue Dog caucus, slammed the Obama-Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill because it would give too much power to EPA bureaucrats.

"I will not support any kind of climate change bill... I don't care. Even if you fix this. I don't trust anybody anymore." 

[photo: Politico.com]

UPDATE: Iain Murray compiles the latest reasons the White House will soon pull its top cover off the cap-trade-tax agenda.

There are signs that the administration might have realized what it has done with all its talk of regulating greenhouse gases. First, there was the surprising decision last Friday not to reverse the Bush administration's rules surrounding its listing of the Polar Bear under the Endangered Species Act, causing the Center for Biological Diversity to call the rule an "extinction plan" which the administration had "made its own."

Second, there surfaced an interagency memo circulated by OMB which said that the EPA's finding that greenhouse gases endanger human health and welfare could inflict severe harm on the U.S. economy while itself being based on shaky grounds. [snip]

This is pretty strong stuff, but of course it's exactly the same sort of warnings that were presented in the Bush administration, but were decried as part of a "war on science."

Now, today, confronted with the memo by Senator Barroso, EPA administrator Lisa Jackson somehow managed to say that an endangerment finding "does not mean regulation." The EPA was unable to clarify what that meant, probably because it is is nonsense under the clear meaning of the Clean Air Act and its interpretation by the Supreme Court in Mass. v EPA. A coalition of free-market groups pointed this all out in its submission to EPA on the finding.

What this all suggests is that sober voices somewhere in the administration have realized just what an economic disaster regulating greenhouse gases will be. The timing of these remarks also suggests that the White House is withdrawing cover from the extremists pushing the Waxman-Markey bill. It also means that the well-funded CBD's $17 million* that they have for litigation is going to be well-used as they tie up the administration with legal challenges.

Murray suggests Obama should walk away from the whole greenhouse regulation issue. Can the Dems really do that?  If the president is looking at recent polling on the issue (and you can bet he is), the answer is YES WE CAN!

I feel most sorry for Ms. Jackson who, as Norris McDonald notes, is an extremely talented individual, but who looks to be hung out to dry before too long.

Congrats to SouthWood Golf Club in Tallahassee, FL.

"Environmental conservation and education are key components to golf course operations and maintenance at SouthWood," says Eddie Snipes, head superintendent and chief environmental steward. "The St. Joe Company, Billy Casper Golf and SouthWood Golf Club are committed to creating sustainable places to live, work and play."

US News & World Report:

Who would you guess is behind a political ad that speaks of "evildoers" who "operate in dark places, hiding their deeds"? That warns of "an army of lobbyists to fight the faith community"? That is airing on Christian and country radio throughout the Deep South?

The George W. Bush-era Republican National Committee, perhaps?

No, it's the work of a new, progressive faith-based advocacy group that is taking on the energy conglomerate Southern Co.mpany for opposing the climate change bill in Congress. The group was founded by Hillary Clinton's former faith outreach director. The ad is up on radio in the company's service region.

Got three and a half minutes? TreeHugger has a quick vid that 'splains everything to the other 76%.

Guys, guys.  Cap and trade isn't complicated at all.  Add a tax code full of CO2 loopholes and only 800 EPA/IRS agents to answer questions.  Then it gets hard.

Science Daily:  Good news and bad on the UICN's global endangered bird list.

eat bugs?  LOL!

I asked the Vegi-Daughter the question, and she answered "NO" without hesitation - and a quick hair flip.

I asked why she was so sure.  Her answer: Bugs are consumers, not producers. 

Sharp kid!  Hey, vegetarianism made these guys braniacs, after all...

World Vision diverts its attention from impoverished children to climate change.  Donors walk.

I’ve been a donor to World Vision for more than a decade. I’ve helped to publicise its work and urged you to support it, praising above all its commitment to giving the poor the direct help they need. That’s now over. When my current sponsorships end, I will not renew. I will not donate a dollar more than I’ve already promised. An organisation I once admired for pragmatism has now fallen for the giddiest ideology of all. Under Tim Costello, so ignorant and alarmist thathe blames global warming even for tsunamis, donors’ money is now being wasted on a great sham. A once-Christian organisation is now switching its focus from saving people to saving Nature, as it follows a neo-pagan gospel.

Betty Dotson-Lewis posts at The Daily Yonder:

The Preacher, Rob Fuquay, announced that Williamson United Methodist Church would be conducting a three-week experimental series called “Church without Walls.”  The first sermon of this series was delivered Sunday.  I was sure the Rev. Fuquay had West Virginia, mountaintop removal, and me in mind when he began quoting scripture. It didn’t seem a problem that I had not met the Preacher personally, that he didn’t know my name, or even that I was a Southern Baptist. I had talked to God about mountaintop removal.  I had also written to our new President. I didn’t know who would answer first.

One of the first Bible verses the Preacher quoted was from Numbers 35:34: “Don’t desecrate the land in which you live. I, God, live in the same neighborhood with the People of Israel.” The Preacher said that according to Biblical teachings we are in charge of the earth.**

We do not own it, but it is our responsibility to care for our environment. Again he quoted scripture, Psalm 24:1, “The earth is the LORD’S, and everything in it, the world and all who live in it.”

Following hymns, taking up the offering and introducing a new church member, the Preacher told us he was deviating from the sermon as originally planned. Instead, Michael Lindsey, a church member and member of the church’s Green Team, joined the Preacher on the pulpit for discussion of the environment.

Read the whole thing.  The Daily Yonder's environmental page is going on my feed reader today...

** [PS: I recommend you read this particular passage in context. While often used as a reference to protecting the environment, "defiling the land" refers not to pollution but to shedding innocent blood, and Levitical laws related to cities of refuge. The fact that God dwells with His people is, however, a good reminder to consider how we live our lives.]

CBN Blog: The Poor and the Environment: We Get It? Gailon Totheroh checks out the We Get It! website -- a group trying to balance environmental stewardship and caring for the poor by applying Biblical standards.

The World Council of Churches message during Pentecost 2009: REPENT! and YES WE CAN!  Well, ok.

Sea urchins dig themselves hiding holes in the limestone of the ocean floor using teeth that don’t go blunt. Weizmann Institute scientists have now revealed their secrets, which might give engineers insights into creating ever-sharp tools or mechanical parts.  As far as sea urchin hole digging determination goes, there's probably a sermon topic here too. :-)

Sad - Kermit killed by swine flu.

It's a sunny day!  One of those rare mornings when even the teens seem to be up and ready to hit the day. 

We were sitting around over coffee and breakfast this morning and I was scanning through Drudge:

Taxes up, Cheerios at risk, media and bank bailouts - the whole world of politics and media gets to be sort of funny after a while, and the family was having a good laugh over it.

Sometimes you have to laugh.

One of them remembered a book we bought for them years ago, called Help! Mom! There Are Liberals Under My Bed by Katharine DeBrecht and Jim Hummel.

With the nation's libraries and classrooms filled with overtly liberal children's books advocating everything from gay marriage to marijuana use, kids everywhere are being deluged with left-wing propaganda. Help! Mom! There Are Liberals Under My Bed! is the book conservative parents have been seeking.

Traditional messages - self-reliance, hard work, charity, and faith come through in a funny and straightforward way that even 50% of adults can understand. Maybe it's time to dust it off and get it into circulation again.

UPDATE:  Good discussion on The Story of Stuff here.

Thanks to Cris Bisch and Ed Brown for the tip.

UPDATE: Speaking of stuff, the Eco-Boy recommended this over breakfast:

NASA TV has live coverage of our great Americans out there sprucing up the Hubble Telescope.

UPDATE: Instapundit suggests the risk is still fairly low, despite the we're-trashing-our-space-ecosystem meme running through the media this week. 

The good folks at Rhode Island Interfaith Power and Light are hosting a Cool Congregations Workshop.

Help your congregation shrink their carbon footprint at home. Become a Cool Congregations trainer for your congregation! Come to our train-the-trainer workshop on May 19. Read about the Cool Congregations program here. Help your faith community understand and reduce their households' carbon footprint. Become better stewards of Creation by understanding your own household's energy usage and learning practical steps to increased energy efficiency. Limited enrollment!

The next workshop will be held at St. Bernard's parish house, Tuesday May 19, 6:30-9:30 pm. (There will be pizza.) Click here by May 15, or call 401-267-0029, to enroll. There is a suggested $10 donation but no one will be turned away.

There will be pizza!  I hope they aren't planning on hiring Obama's pizza guy for that. They'll be paying for those CO2 offsets for years...

If you read history you will find that the Christians who did the most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next.   It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this.

-- C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

~

But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

-- Jesus Christ, Matthew 6:33

Religious folks, mostly from progressive walks of life, see environmentalism as a great uniting force. 

Apparently the world is being united by environmentalism, but not in the way you'd first think:

Actor and comedian Paul Rodriguez is the perfect example of how the threat of extreme environmentalism can bring together Democrat Hispanics and Republicans. Rodriguez owns a small family farm in California’s agriculture-rich Central Valley. This is the same area that has been radically affected by a judge’s ruling shutting off Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta water pumps that send water south. Why would a judge cut off the most essential nutrient for farming? Environmentalists claim the pumps could threaten the tiny smelt fish in the delta water. Under the federal Endangered Species Act, if an animal is “threatened,” the well-being of unfortunate humans in the area takes a back seat.

Rodriguez witnessed firsthand the devastating consequences of placing a greater priority on the safety of a fish than the livelihood of his family and neighbors and decided to speak out. At a speech delivered last week to the conservative California Republican Assembly annual convention, Rodriguez described the travesty of the government’s decision: “It is tragic that in the most fertile soil that God has ever placed on this blue marble that we should have a desert where there should be a garden. We are truly blessed to live in a land that’s just like Canaan: everything that you drop on there will grow. We have everything we need except resolve.”

Once again I ask "what are the Hispanic Catholics thinking?"  I bet Pew would get a stunner of an answer if they asked the question.

The 2009 Index of Leading Environmental Indicators is on the street. Here are some bits you won't find in the NY Times:

• Growing evidence that tropical rainforests may now be expanding faster than they are being cut down, though more data are needed to determine the nature and extent of reforestation trends.

• The world’s most severe environmental problems, as ranked by the Blacksmith Institute and Green Cross Switzerland, are overwhelmingly problems of poverty in developing nations.

• Stratospheric ozone, the “good” kind of ozone—akin to “good” cholesterol in blood—appears to have reversed its long-term decline and is now increasing over the United States. The level of ozonedestroying chemical compounds in the atmosphere declined 12 percent from 1995 through 2006.

• Water quality monitoring efforts are picking up steam, though it will still be several more years before we have enough data to draw a clear picture of water quality trends on a national basis. However

— The U.S. Geological Survey sampling of drinking water drawn from surface waters in 17 areas around the continental United States found very low (nonhazardous) or no presence of 258 different man-made chemicals.

— Long-term monitoring of Lake Tahoe on the California–Nevada border has detected an improving trend in the clarity of the lake’s water over the last seven years, reversing decades of slow decline.

• The health of U.S. ocean fisheries has improved substantially over the last few years, according to the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service’s “Fish Stock Sustainability Index.”

• Flat or declining global average temperatures in 2008 have ignited new controversy over climate change. The data show that 2008 was the coolest year since 2000, and there has been no discernible warming for the last decade, after two decades of steady warming between 1978 and 1998.

• Public opinion data on advertising and marketing suggest growing public weariness with “green” messages in general and messages on global warming in particular. In recent polls, 58 percent of Americans declined to identify themselves as environmentalists; 78 percent so identified themselves as recently as 1991.

And a few tables:

Break Point founder (and former Nixon employee) Chuck Colson interviewed Nancy Sleeth last month on her new book Go Green Save Green. Didn't know he was blogging on green stuff, yet here's a post on CO2 regulation, and the planet and the poor.

He doesn't do much on his initial review of Nancy's book, but some thoughts seemed to finally emerge over the weekend:

A recent discussion on our blog, The Point, demonstrated how uneasy many Christians feel about environmentalism. The subject was the book Go Green, $ave Green by Nancy Sleeth (who founded the organization Blessed Earth along with her husband, Matthew). Some of our commenters were bothered by our bringing up a subject that’s largely considered to belong to the left wing.

I can see where they’re coming from. I’ve said before on BreakPoint how appalled I am at the apocalyptic language some people are using to scare us into the green agenda. And Christians ought to oppose any environmentalist agenda that would ignore or even scoff at the plight of the poor and the sanctity of human life.

But Christians don’t have to let concern for the environment—that is, concern for God’s creation—be hijacked by those who are hostile to our beliefs. [snip]

In the end, Sleeth shows us that environmentalism doesn’t need to be about a radical political agenda. It can be about our own behavior, informed by values like good stewardship, protecting family time, self-restraint, and helping others. That’s not radical. It is common sense and, most important, thoroughly Christian.

One more time: There are more progressive/secularists who think evangelicals believe in a God-given right to destroy the world than there are evangelicals who actually believe in it.

But I have never seen a liberal say we should skip the whole group completely. Until now, that is.

Seeking support from Evangelicals for climate change legislation is a bit like asking Rush Limbaugh to campaign for Arlen Specter. The attempt is ill-advised. We should not be reframing the debate to make the issue tolerable to Evangelicals. That type of accommodation is the dangerous first step onto a slippery slope, and soon we'll be compromising on teaching Intelligent Design next to or in place of Darwin's "theory."

Um, OK. On the other hand, given that a large majority of the country bends toward Christianity and away from climate change, ignoring their concerns is just going to marginalize climatists further.

For some that's not such a bad thing. For those advocating national concensus on climate change it's a mistake.

It would be an interesting study, wouldn't it?  Digging into the history of zoos, circuses and other wild animal shows over the past couple hundred years. 

Kisling chronicles the arrival of menageries in America and Europe in the 1700-1800s.  A cool site called CircusHistory.org has some interesting facts on The Ringling Bros.' Monster Show that included a stable of camels and elephants along side a dozen trained horses. 

In that study I'd also love to see how our understanding of animals - and a deeper concern for nature in general - paralleled Disney's humanizing of a mouse or a duck or a great dane or a cricket or a deer.  I can't help thinking that one of the reasons we became more aware of animal "rights" was the personalities he gave them in movies. Animals ceased being oddities or mere entertainment.  For the Disney generation, animals had emotions and personalities and romantic notions and dreams. Animals helped princesses with their dresses and adopted orphaned man cubs. They became our friends.

And then there was Disney's association with animal adventures and conservation.  I'll always remember Sunday evenings for two things: The Wonderful World of Disney, which immediately followed Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom.  Cynthia Chris notes that Disney was behind much of modern wildlife films. In as much as Disney began to be associated with other naturalists like Cousteau, she's certainly right.

Disneyland wasn't a step in the direction of ecology.  It was an utterly transformational leap.  Zoos in New York and Chicago and elsewhere already had cages of animals you could visit.  Disney transcended this by putting bears in music reviews, submarines full of people in an undersea world, and elephants and hippos and elephants as stars in a life-size jungle adventure cruise.  I'll never forget my first visit as a kid.  For the first time a wild animal wasn't in some far-off place on TV, or a strange visitor to my world surrounded by a cage.  I was now the stranger, a visitor to the animal's world, at least in my own fertile imagination. 

Despite the fact that the animals are not animatrons, places like the San Diego Zoo's Wild Animal Park seem like a copy of Disney's vision to draw us into the animals' world, not the other way around.  Even Disney resisted a foray into live animals, only building its Animal Kingdom park in the past decade.

Beyond all the magical animal imagery, one ride in particular drove home the notion of the need for conservation better than any other.  No, it wasn't Dumbo, or Pirates, or the Haunted House.  It was that boat ride that even today drives people crazy and yet strangely seduces: It's a Small World. 

If you thought you could just come to an amusement park and forget your troubles, or avoid the message that the world was a system of living things, or ignore overpopulation, Walt Disney rocks your world with the indelible notion that the human species is part of the greater whole, and the whole isn't as huge as you thought it was.  It's one thing to see tigers from India and rabbits from Wonderland.  Quite another to see hundreds of mechanical kids from every corner of the globe all singing the same, haunting song.

it's a world of laughter, a world or tears
its a world of hopes, its a world of fear
theres so much that we share
that its time we're aware
its a small world after all

CHORUS:
its a small world after all
its a small world after all
its a small world after all
its a small, small world

There is just one moon and one golden sun
And a smile means friendship to everyone.
Though the mountains divide
And the oceans are wide
It's a small small world

Like the Hebrew poets who, lacking punctuation, simply repeated thoughts for emphasis, Disney's world isn't just small.  It's small small.  If parents don't know what small small means, I can tell ya that a kid sure does.

People will look at Disney's empire now and its green credentialing and debate whether or not it is truly an environmental leader or whether it's as good at greenwashing as it is at imagineering. 

But in my mind there's no doubt that generations of children had seeds of ecology planted in their fertile brains clutching a Mickey head balloon, watching fireworks over Cinderella's castle.

More at:

Growing Up Disney, Growing Up Green

Disney's Conservation Hero 2008

Disney Sets Colossal Environmental Plans For The Future

Shaping Youth Teen Team Reflects On Disneynature EARTH Premiere

Disney And Al Gore Help Mobilize Teens To Fight Climate Change

Dr. John Mark Reynolds: (emphasis added)

Most youth voters I meet, even from conservative families, have never heard an intellectual case for conservative economics or social policy that is also sensitive to the poor and to the environment. This does not require so much a new conservatism as new educational approach. The initial success of Mike Huckabee shows that young voters, and he did very well with Republican young voters, are waiting for someone who can explain our views.

Too often conservatives have looked for quick fix solutions that ignore the years of educational effort that will be required to solve this problem. This will begin by strengthening conservative schools and media institutions we already have. Why don’t conservative donors endow chairs in conservatism at more schools? Many middle-sized Christian colleges and universities, while non-partisan, are sensitive enough to their overwhelmingly conservative constituencies to accept such gifts.

Imagine scores of conservative scholars freed to educate and mentor the next generation of conservative leaders. One student once said to me, “I wish conservative leaders did not keep embarrassing me.” The student was no coward, but leaders, particularly on the religious right, were not helping but harming him.

Read the whole thing. Perhaps the best hope to restore a conservative environmental ethic is through Christian schools and universities, something already in the works.

Rod Dreher offers interesting thoughts about a "mere housewife" who poured a great deal of energy into home gardening. Makes me wonder if giving up one salary to live a simpler life would yield more by way of ecological living in general.

And Seattle's healthy food examiner Kristen Rezabek serves up a Christian perspective on meat-eating. 

My younger daughter's a vegetarian.  We chuckle at the story of her sitting in her booster seat at about 4 years of age while the rest of us were pouring through a pile of peel and eat shrimp.  The Eco-Wife noticed a very quiet "ow" coming from her end of the table.  She was grousing at the thought of our pulling the skin off those critters and then eating them.  Just didn't sit well with her.

So I think her being a vegetarian has more to do with her sense of personal taste than her faith, but it certainly has impacted our family's view on how much/often we eat meat, and on how the animals we raise for food are treated and prepared.

UPDATE: Interesting bit in the LA Times on sustainable kosher. It's not just for Jewish folks anymore.

Michelle Malkin says the national CO2 tax is in jeopardy:

The NRCC sent out a helpful fact sheet outlining why the radical green plan is really in trouble. You can thank opposition from Democrats in manufacturing and energy-producing states.

Don't care much for Paul's by-line, but this bit of reporting is pretty disturbing if true:

Those of us who post to this blog and others in the global warming debunkification (okay, I made that word up) movement are used to being ignored — or (usually) politely being humored first, and then ignored — but this experience from last week I thought was worth noting in the blogosphere.

Last week the Heartland folks referred a reporter to me from a Midwestern weekly newspaper, who had some questions about a greenhouse gas inventory her county was compiling and where she could expect public policy to go next. I had no idea where her sentiments were on the issue, but I gave her straight feedback based upon examples I’d seen elsewhere. What she did with it after that was up to her, and I did not care much either way what she did, given my past experience with environmentalist journalists.

Turns out she sought to do a balanced article, but her editor would have none of it. I usually like to name names with things like this, but I assume the reporter wants to keep her job so I will refrain. This is what she emailed me:

Paul:
Thank you so much for your responses. I did a story, but my editor removed all references to debate about climate change, global warming or whatever they are calling it now. He didn’t tell me, which is unusual when removing such a huge chunk of  a story, but I just discovered it today after it didn’t appear in our print edition.

It is online, but is not as I wrote it. I’m so sorry. I will still try to get both sides of all issues out. That’s all I can do. Thank you, and again, I apologize.

I dropped a note to him to see if he'd divulge the name of the paper.  Any scientific issue ought to be up for reasonable debate, especially one that has such significant impacts on the planet. Any any press that isn't willing to provide both sides of an issue should already be suspect in my book.

BBC:

An expedition team which set sail from Plymouth on a 5,000-mile carbon emission-free trip to Greenland have been rescued by an oil tanker.

Andrew's not laughing (so he sez) but I'm ROTFL! 

And glad they're safe, of course.

UPDATE:  A colleague of mine sez: "There is a God."  Right on both counts.

National Review lifts this from US News:

"It's Al Gore's greatest frustration," says Newport. "We seem less concerned than more about global warming over the years. . . . Despite the movies and publicity and all that, we're just not seeing it take off with the American public. And that was occurring even before the latest economic recession."

Greg quotes Al's old boss ("It's the economy, stupid"). The reality of the cost of regulating and taxing CO2 certainly hurts the climate change cause.  But I agree with that last sentence in the quote. I said a year ago that this issue was on the wane. Live Earth and Earth Hour were both enormous flops. I didn't even see a lot of hype (outside green circles) for this year's Earth Day beyond the normal trash pickups and such.

Question now is what can a frustrated Al accomplish with a majority Democrat Capitol Hill?

Answer:  Your wallet's not out of the woods just yet.

If a Mercedes hybrid is not your cup of tea, join Glenn Reynolds for a tour of the new Lexus.

I explained that this was a bit out of my price range, but I have to say it was a very nice car. Seemed like a car for someone with a driver anyway, though, as the cavernous back seat (it reclines!) was the nicest part. Not my idiom, I’m afraid, but it does let you drive a really expensive car that gets not-very-great mileage while smugly proclaiming “it’s a hybrid!”

Says you could get it off the lot for a hundred grand. Not my idiom indeed. 

Meanwhile, Honda's set to clobber ToMoCo with a stable of hybrids for the rest of us.

How much of the debate on global warming is already tainted by money in the system? Great question that IDPI debates on four different posts entitled "Ethics and Lobbying."  The first one is here, with links to the others at the top-right of each post. 

Scroll down for more on lobbyists from yours truly earlier this week.

Sorry it took so long for me to get over to visit April's Christian Nature blog. Such a great idea for a blog!  Tons of great links to other Christian nature blogs too.

Don't make the same mistake I did - go over there NOW!

:-)

The Obama Administration's new "regulatory czar" says animals should be able to bring lawsuits with human legal representation.

Martin LeBar comes along side this issue from the perspective of whether animals even have moral agency.  It's a fair point.  I'm an armchair lawyer with only a masters-level civil law course, but I'd assume that without standing to sue or the moral agency to obtain "judicial relief" it would be tough for a critter to bring its case to court.

And is there any biblical law concerning such a thing?  If there were a precedence for God allowing critters to have their day in court it would probably be in Scripture. 

The only thing I can find is the story of Balaam's donkey.  Now there's a critter who would have had a case against his owner if there ever was.  This Yahoo poster summarizes what happened:

After beating the donkey three times, Balaam's eyes are opened to the Angel, and he falls down facedown. The Angel chastises Balaam for beating his donkey, and tells him to say only what God instructs him to say-- not what Balak or the Moabites want him to say.

Is the Angel ruling in favor of Donkey's rights here?  Will let you be the judge of that.

Virtue Online interviews Baylor's Susan Bratton (who, by the way, has a new book coming out):

If evangelicals are skeptical of global warming, Bratton says, environmental groups bear some blame. Many of them have written off evangelicals. "I think environmental groups should get off their high horse and talk to people," she said.

Good advice for the lot of us.

CMI:

But because he was about to accept a plastic bag from the check out girl, he’s not as good a man as he should be. Until he weighs his every mundane action for its environmental impact, he’s immoral. Unless he actively seeks to reduce his carbon footprint, he’s a sinner.

Here's the vid. See what you think. 

Taiwan Church News:

Yuji Miyata is a Japanese youth who will spend three months walking across Taiwan to raise awareness on environmental issues so that people will know there aren’t any national boundaries when it comes to protecting our environment. It goes on to explain that since he does not understand Mandarin or Taiwanese, if he should present this letter to churches and seek their assistance, churches must try to help him and offer him food and shelter. Miyata saw a news report describing a hole in the ozone layer when he was merely 6 years old and became very interested in environmental preservation ever since.

By the way, the lovely feet thing refers to this.

Huff Post: "Bible and Guns: Why Soldiers Who Proselytize Strengthen Our Enemies"

Yes, calling it ridiculous is an ad hominem attack. But that doesn't mean it's not ridiculous.

If you don't believe me, read it.

Glenn Reynolds once wrote a book called An Army of Davids.  Now there are an army of climate change lobbyists. 

Treehugger:

Everyone loves to hate lobbyists —after all, they seem to embody the special interests and shady dealings that underline the modern perception of politics. A lobbyist for Big Tobacco is about as loved as a killer of puppy dogs. But his station as 'most despicable political figure' could soon be supplanted—by the Climate Lobbyist. This newish breed lobbies against measures to fight climate change on behalf of the likes of oil, electricity, and coal firms. And their numbers are growing. There are now estimated to be around 2,340 climate lobbyists in Washington—more than one for every four members of Congress.

LOL - never heard the climate changers compared to Big Tobacco! 

Anyway, all you evangelical climate deniers out there take heart - you have your own lobbyist.

As Congress debates clean-energy legislation, a conservative Christian group is ramping up lobbying efforts to raise questions about the science of climate change.

The Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation Committee recently hired Shannon Royce, a 25-year veteran of conservative organizations including the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, as executive director.

"If you listen to the hype that you will hear in the media, you will hear that evangelicals really feel strongly about global warming, and the impression is that all evangelicals have bought into this global-warming bandwagon, and it simply is not true," Royce said in an interview on a Christian radio station in Chicago.

By the way, my sister and her husband have been lobbyists in state government for years.  I really do get that such folks have their place in influencing policy.

UPDATE: WaTimes:

Democratic lawmakers who spent much of the Bush administration blasting officials for letting energy lobbyists write national policy have turned to a coalition of business and environmental groups to help draft their own sweeping climate bill.

And one little-noticed provision of the draft bill would give one of the coalition's co-founders a lucrative exemption on a coal-fired project it is building.

Hope, change, yada yada...

Lightning strikes a wind turbine at over 30,000 degrees Celcius.  With all of the turbines popping up around the country, especially in areas prone to thunderstorms, folks are creating interesting ways to protect them:

“Protecting wind turbine blades against lightning is not about avoiding strikes, but attracting them,” states LM Glasfiber, a global blade manufacturer, on a section of its Web site devoted to lightning. “This makes it possible to direct the flow of the lightning and ensure that the components exposed to its effects can withstand the forces involved.”

Wouldn't have thought of that.  Sorta reminds me of how we protect aircraft wings and systems with static wicks.

NY Times this weekend says the words progressive environmentalists are using to press their human-caused climate change agenda aren't working: (via)

The research directly parallels marketing studies conducted by oil companies, utilities and coal mining concerns that are trying to “green” their images with consumers and sway public policy.

Environmental issues consistently rate near the bottom of public worry, according to many public opinion polls. A Pew Research Center poll released in January found global warming last among 20 voter concerns; it trailed issues like addressing moral decline and decreasing the influence of lobbyists. “We know why it’s lowest,” said Mr. Perkowitz, a marketer of outdoor clothing and home furnishings before he started ecoAmerica, whose activities are financed by corporations, foundations and individuals. “When someone thinks of global warming, they think of a politicized, polarized argument. When you say ‘global warming,’ a certain group of Americans think that’s a code word for progressive liberals, gay marriage and other such issues.”

Certain groups like, say, evangelicals, conservatives, independents, and the like? More:

The answer, Mr. Perkowitz said in his presentation at the briefing, is to reframe the issue using different language. “Energy efficiency” makes people think of shivering in the dark. Instead, it is more effective to speak of “saving money for a more prosperous future.” In fact, the group’s surveys and focus groups found, it is time to drop the term “the environment” and talk about “the air we breathe, the water our children drink.”

“Another key finding: remember to speak in TALKING POINTS aspirational language about shared American ideals, like freedom, prosperity, independence and self-sufficiency while avoiding jargon and details about policy, science, economics or technology,” said the e-mail account of the group’s study.

Well, the whole energy/environment discussion SHOULD be about freedom, prosperity, costs and a cleaner future for our kids. 

Too bad it's just words to them.

Nuclear weapons are not only unacceptable, they are un-Christian. As followers of Jesus we serve a God that abhors the shedding of innocent blood.

Jonathan Merritt, national spokesperson for the Southern Baptist Environment and Climate Initiative

MSNBC Headline:

Antarctic ice nearly size of N.Y. City breaks up

Icebergs calve off after ice bridge stabilizing shelf collapsed in early April

Sounds horrible, doesn't it?  I mean, New York City is HUUUUUGE. It's the center of the world! 

Imagine if they had said "three times the size of Yuma AZ" or something like that?  And here's some context:

Antarctica is the coldest, windiest and driest continent. Since all but 2.4% of Antarctica is covered by ice that averages 7,870 feet (2,160 meters) thick, it is also the highest continent. Antarctica is about 4.5 million square miles (14 million square kilometers) in area, which is about the size of the contiguous 48 U.S. states plus about half of Mexico.

So the fraction of that calved represents about .00000006% of Antarctica's 4,500,000 square miiles of ice that is over a mile thick on average.

As Paul notes, calving is a pretty normal process, something echoed by climatologists

Referencing a paper in the scientific journal Nature last month, New Zealand Climate Science Coalition member Dr Willem De Lange, of the Earth Sciences faculty at Waikato University, explains that, in the vicinity of the Wilkins Ice Shelf that has so concerned Greenpeace, “there was a rapid rise in air temperature 40-50 years ago [but] it has been fairly stable since then.  “There are many factors involved in the destabilization of an ice shelf,” said Dr De Lange. “Warmer ocean waters circulating underneath (moving water melts ice faster than warm air), tidal rises and falls, and wave action all contribute to the fracture and eventually breakup of the ice. Now that the ice shelf is breaking up, it will be possible to sample the underlying sediments and determine the history of the shelf. We do not know if the shelf has undergone cycles of expansion and contraction during the last 10,000 years or has been shrinking since the last glacial period. One thing we do know however is that the break up of this shelf is not solely a consequence of current, or even recent weather changes. It is the consequence of changes over long periods, perhaps 1,000-10,000 years in this case, although we can't tell for certain until the necessary data are collected.

Well, at least MSNBC didn't recycle their photos (this time).

Al Gore won't, but fortunately others will debate climate change science tomorrow in Columbus OH:

Dave, from Ridin The Wave, has worked to put together a World Class Event for the We Surround Them/912 Project and all interested citizens.

The Global Warming controversy is now at our doorstep. The ultimate question: Is it real, or is it a hoax?

The show will feature a presentation by world renowned Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Climate Researcher, Professor Jason E. Box of the Byrd Polar Research Center and Dr. Robert Wagner, also known as the Internet Skeptic. Local celebrities and/or politicians may also be included as details emerge.

This event is open to the public and is free, but requires your immediate RSVP as we expect above capacity response.

Patrick Poole has tons more.  Wish I could be there, but I guarantee that if he podcasts it, Glen Beck's coverage on this will go viral faster than swine flu.

UPDATE;  So far all there is is this video (audio is terrible).  Some comments from those who attended are here, though.  Scroll down to 2 May...

Celcius.com:

Recent reports have labeled sulfuryl fluoride (SF) and nitrogen trifluoride (NT) as greenhouse gases. The fumigant SF is 4,000 times better at trapping heat than carbon dioxide. It was previously estimated that SF stays in the atmosphere for about five years.

However, new research shows it lasts for a few decades. NT is thousands of times more effective at warming the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. It is used in the electronics industry as a replacement for perfluorocarbons.

Emphasis added, well, to emphasize that the smart folks we are trusting to solve the climate change problem substituted a potential "global warming" gas with one that's a thousand times worse.

Just sayin'.