This is not the 'Top 10' necessarily, or even the best 10.

But it's 10 more than John McCain will bring.

So looking past for a moment the hysterics Obama has thrust upon many via his "move to the center," take heed:

Fighting Global Climate Change is not just about saving the planet. It is first and foremost about saving ourselves.

But the way things have been going with regards to the Kyoto Protocols and Environmental summits over the last year or so, it looks like we keep running in circles around the matter of fighting Global Climate Change - while we keep on screwing up the planet's climate cycle.

Wilkins Ice Shelf in Antarctic break-up!  (2008.03.25)

copyright © 2008 Betsy L. Angert.  BeThink.org

It was a day late in March.  The month roared in like a lion and in some regions, the last days of this turbulent time were gentle as a lamb.  A twister tore through the town of Atlanta, Georgia in mid-March.  However, the winds died down, and the later hours were calmer, at least in America.  

This is hard to believe.  

Two unlikely subjects joined together in headline harmony over the weekend, when Agence France-Presse reported that the Iraqi government had decided to go ahead and approve the Kyoto Protocol, the global warming treaty:

“The presidential council ratified in its session on January 23 a law according to which the Republic of Iraq will join the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Kyoto Protocol,” the statement said.

That's right, in Iraq - where even something as mundane as the redesign of the flag sparks controversy and rancor - ratifying Kyoto is uncontroversial and expected.

Originally, I wanted to write a diary today about the upcoming House vote on the 2007 Energy Bill.  Then I saw a number of related news items that help provide some context for this bill.  A large number of folks have been working hard all year to make sure our energy policies moving forward contain good, solid changes.

Discussed below is the CO ski industry, some Energy bill details, the conference in Bali to discuss post-Kyoto Treaty policies and targets, and recent developments regarding long-term goals.

From No Right Turn - New Zealand's liberal blog:

During the election campaign, Australia's then-opposition leader made ratifying Kyoto the top of his list of things he would do if elected.  He was elected - and he has been true to his word:

Australian Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd has been sworn in as prime minister, following a landslide victory in parliamentary elections last week.

Immediately after the ceremony, Mr Rudd signed documents to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, reversing the previous administration's policy.

"This is the first official act of the new Australian government," he said.

The US is now totally isolated as the only developed nation opposed to taking real action on climate change.  So, is there a chance of seeing a change in policy any time soon?

Global Warming—it’s bad for polar bears, bad for wine, and really just bad all around. With the exception of those land-locked entities already plotting blueprints for their soon-to-come seaside resorts, most people in the world stand pretty firmly against a global phenomenon that causes extinction, desertification, and trillions in economic losses.

If you've seen the movie Bonnie and Clyde, you'll remember the stylish Faye Dunaway as Bonnie Parker and Warren Beatty as the roguish Clyde Barrow.  Parker and Barrow were Depression-era bank robbers in the American heartland who captured the attention of many around the country with their daring exploits in the 1930's.  You also know how the movie ended.  

Upon arriving in Sydney, Australia yesterday, Al Gore blasted the environmental policies of both Australia and the United States.  Will the AU-US partnership in blocking meaningful change to combat the problems posed by Climate Change hold up and for how long?

Gore is trying to cause a split between 'Bonnie' (Australia) and 'Clyde' (United States) and explicitly suggesting that being an outlaw can, ultimately, be harmful to your environmental health.

Royal Royal Philips Electronics was a major sponsor of the Live Earth Concert. Phillips is also promoting a ban on incandescent light bulbs under color of improving energy efficiency.

We were recently delighted to find full-spectrum CFLs at a nearby store, and they promised to pay for themselves several times over. We bought a couple, with plans to buy more if they worked out.

Unfortunately, they didn't. Their "full-spectrum" light is not as good as the light we get from ordinary incandescent bulbs. We cannot use these CFLs for reading or computer work, although they are adequate for incidental lighting (and we will continue to buy them for that purpose). This underscores our original suspicion: if Philips and other manufacturers were up to the job of making a CFL whose light is as good as that of an incandescent bulb, Philips would not need to agitate for Congress to ban competing products. CFLs would displace incandescent bulbs the way incandescent bulbs displaced the gas lamp.

Some progress on the Bush administration front has moved from asking just how much human activities contribute to global warming to agreeing to work with other wealthy nations to come up with international, emissions reduction goals.

But the fact that Bush wants the talks that emerge from an upcoming U.N. organized summit beginning September 27 2007 –- one of the four planned for the year -- to be the start of a process to end by late 2008 –- days before the end of Bush's second and final term -- make the meeting appear superfluous in the eyes of major U.S. environmental groups.

Still, a glimmer of hope exists that the Bush team has the clout to get other pivotal countries that plan to arrive at the climate change talks this September -- including Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, China, Canada, India, Brazil, South Korea and Australia -- to put the aims set forth in the U.N. climate change treaty into tangible action.

A critical move, especially as the Kyoto pact expires in less than five years - by 2012.

A DeSmogBlog Dispatch

Do you remember back in high school when someone had painstakingly planned a social get-together, only to have some debutante decide at the last minute that she wanted to also have a party on the same night? Of course it was petty, selfish and narcissistic, but everything's fair in love, war and popularity contests, right?

While it doesn't surprise me that our silver spoon-fed Executive would think along these petty lines, especially in light of the exclusivity he and his administration have operated under from day one, there are some get-togethers that need to be attended by all, and not watered down in one-upmanship.

Follow me down below the digital fold for a minute. You can go to the other party later.

(Updated below) (Update II)

No, the title of this entry does not allude to the rock band of Woodstock fame.

Rather, this entry aims at a post-mortem analysis of the Kyoto Protocol, agreed upon in December 11, 1997, and which was effectively interred after the last G8 summit of this month of June, 2007 - thanks in large part to the continued (neo)con games and double-talk of the Bush (a.k.a. The Leader) administration and the Harper (a.k.a. The Mini Leader) government ...

Environmental News to USE.

More ethanol means more corn -- and more water pollution. American farmers intend to plant more corn this year than at any time since the food-shortage years of World War II — 90.5 million acres. And nitrogen and phosphorus are washing off the fields. St. Louis Post-Dispatch

The wrath of 2007: America's great drought. America is facing its worst summer drought since the Dust Bowl years of the Great Depression. London Independent

Well well well, seems like the 98% of the scientific world was right after all. Global warming is real and is a threat.

Now our President is all up and excited about getting 15 major countries involved in solving this crisis.

Sorry Buster but this attempt at making your pitiful administration relevant is not going to work.

It isn’t as sexy as the paternity test results in the Anna Nicole Smith baby saga or as scandalous as the debate over whether Don Imus is a bigot or just plain dumb, but the current Newsweek cover story is still something everyone should see.

Imagine my surprise when someone actually talked about it in a more-or-less national blog! We tecnofantasists here are DailyKos, and pretty much all over the blogosphere, always carefully avoid the hard truth that there aren't five more earths out there to raise the standard of living of six billion people to the material levels that the First World enjoys. So this is welcome:

I won't go so far as to say that, to stabilize the climate, we're going to have to contrive a global new deal. But I will say that, soon, there's going to have to be a global accord, and that this accord will have to be consistent with a global new deal, one in which not only the international climate regime, but the international trade regime, the international property-rights regime, the international governance regime and a whole lot of other international regimes are bent, if not broken, to accommodate the realities of the climate challenge. And I will say that today's defining silence about this overarching challenge is inconsistent with any true crash program.

(This is part 4 on the element found in "dangerous nuclear waste," Technetium.)

(Immediate disclaimer for anyone not familiar with my position:  This is a pro-nuclear diary.)

I live in New Jersey.   When people think of New Jersey, often the first thing that comes to their minds is the New Jersey Turnpike, which is a pathway for self-propelled vehicles that are propelled by burning dangerous fossil fuels and dumping dangerous fossil fuel wastes into the atmosphere.    The New Jersey Turnpike - which was built in the early 1950's in two years - was once conceived as being extremely modern and was considered to represent the "transportation future."  

People who predicted that - that the turnpike would represent "the future" proved to be right.    Self propelled vehicles that burned dangerous fossil fuels and released dangerous fossil fuel waste, vehicles that had been growing in popularity for decades, became the primary transport for the vast majority of New Jersyans, in particular, and Americans in general.    

Republican politics in the 21st century involves telling and selling stories.

But to keep control of the narrative on lots and lots of issues where Republican positions just don't mesh with the facts, Republicans have to tell lots and lots of stories.  So, instead of creating a brand new story from scratch every single time, they often rely on formulas, similar to those that 19th century fairy tale writers might have used to churn out lots and lots of stories. I'll identify one such formula and give you an example of how it is used, after the fold.