While poking around online today, I came across this, the National Association of Manufacturers blog. An association of manufacturers sounds nice, but I guarantee you they are not a quilting circle. This organization spends millions on lobbying our elected officials on behalf of chemical companies like Alcoa.

While I think it's funny that NAM has a MySpace page (with zero friends), a Facebook page (12 friends), and a blog all in an effort to appear 'grassrootsy', it got me to thinking. What's the value of a dollar?

If you're like me, you give to a handful of organizations. Environmental, social justice, church groups and the like all depend largely on the kindness of strangers like us, so to speak. And for the most part those dollars go pretty far.

Recently, the environmental movement scored some big victories - first getting Sen. Obama to amend his stance on liquid coal, and then again when the Senate voted down offshore oil and gas drilling in Virginia's waters. And the list goes on. Despite what is probably the most anti-environmental presidential administration in history, we've managed to keep the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge protected. We've worked to keep President Bill Clinton's roadless rule alive, we generated the largest number of public comments ever on an endangered species listing for the polar bear, and we defeated President Bush's 'Clear Skies Initiative', a bill that would've allowed seven times as much mercury into our air as is currently allowed.

And what's been the cost? According to Open Secrets, the broadly defined 'environmental movement' spent $8,277,264 on lobbying expenses in 2006. ExxonMobil alone spent $14,500,000, and the entire oil and gas industry spent a whopping $73,520,544. For every dollar we spent, they spent $8.88. And we've kept them largely in check.

Pretty amazing when you think about it. We often invoke the David v. Goliath imagery, but the thing is, it's true. It's true to the point that anti-environmental members of Congress will rant on and on about how we've created the myth of global warming to line our pockets. Call me crazy, but if I wanted my pockets lined, I'd be consulting with BP-Amoco, not working with Environmental Action. Hell, they spend more on lobbying in four hours than I make in a year!

But the point here is that I'm fiercely proud of the work the movement has done over the last few years. Proud of our efficiency, proud of our frugalness, and proud of the fact that it's everyday folks like you and me that makes all of this happen, one small check at a time.

Holy cow, environmental laws work! Who knew? Well, I mean, who besides all of us. It was announced that the bald eagle will likely be removed from the endangered species list later this week. After hitting an all-time low of of just 417 nesting pairs back in 1963, the eagle's population today sits at 9,789 nesting pairs nationally. Good work bald eagle, and good work environmental laws.

So yes, it turns out that when we as a nation determine and environmental priority, turn that priority into a law, and enforce it we can actually save the environment.

Of course, this has been more difficult under the Bush Administration. As I pointed out last summer, in the six years that President Bush has been in office, 28 new species have been added to the list, which fares poorly in comparison to other presidents - 245 under President Reagan, 227 under the first President Bush, and a whopping 491 under President Clinton.

Oh, and two species went extinct while waiting to get on the list under our current president.

Of course, he did appoint Craig Manson as Undersecretary of the Department of the Interior, and as such was largely responsible for ESA oversight. Mr. Manson said this, in 2003.

"If we are saying that the loss of species in and of itself is inherently bad -- I don't think we know enough about how the world works to say that."

Thankfully the folks at Grist got the chance to interview Mr. Manson a little while later, with the following results.

Grist : You made a comment at a Santa Barbara conference that riled a lot of environmentalists, in which you called into question the inherent harm of species extinction: "If we are saying that the loss of species in and of itself is inherently bad," you said, "I don't think we know enough about how the world works to say that." Can you explain this comment and what you think may be the sunny side of species extinction?

Manson : The reaction to that comment illustrates something about the character of the science that some people would have us use -- which is, "Don't question the orthodoxy of anything." I mean, do we know? The orthodoxy is that every species has a place in the ecosystem and therefore the loss of any species diminishes us in some negative way. That's the orthodoxy. Now that certainly has validity with respect to most things, maybe almost everything. But it's a presumptuous thing to suggest that we know for sure that that is a fact. And it sort of flies in the face of Darwinian science.

Grist : How so?

Manson : Darwinian science suggests that some species are lost because they are unable to adapt to changing circumstances. And those changing circumstances may be natural circumstances, they may not be artificial or human-caused. If that's the case, then we don't know whether to label the loss of that species as good or bad as a scientific matter. That does not mean that we shouldn't enforce the Endangered Species Act. Some people made a leap in logic from that discussion to, "Let's not enforce the ESA." That's fallacious to make that sort of leap of logic.

Grist : There is vast and alarming evidence that the rate of extinction has escalated tremendously in the last several decades. We often hear statistics along the lines of: More species have been lost in the last several decades than have been lost cumulatively in the last several millennia. As the man responsible for species protection in the United States, can you explain why we "don't know enough" to deduce that this is linked to human activity and is an unnatural and potentially catastrophic trend?

Manson : There are statistics like that out there. I don't know what those statistics mean.

Grist : As in, you don't know whether they are well-founded?

Manson : Well, let's assume for a moment that you had a study that said more species have been lost in the last 50 years than in the preceding 10,000 years. And that's all the study tells us -- somehow we are able to figure that out. Well, what does that mean? I don't know what that means.

Grist : So you don't know whether the cause of that phenomenon is natural or human-made?

Manson : Right.

I feel the need to point out a couple of aspects of this discussion. First of all, someone in the Bush Administration is validating their environmental actions based on Darwinism? Can you just smell the irony?

Secondly, I have to point out that 'natural' and 'man-made' are ridiculous distinctions. Much as humans fight against it, we are a part of the natural world. We are effected by it, and our actions certainly impact it. It's not as if the natural world could cease to exist and humans would just be kicking it at a bar-b-q.

I know some of this is old hash, but I'm pointing it all out, because I'm sure that a number of departments in the Bush administration are going to be crowing about their great success in saving the bald eagle, when in fact they've done everything in the power to gut the Endangered Species Act, and refuse protections to the species who need it most.

For most of the summer, we've been working on and offline to get some of the 2008 presidential candidates to support doubling our national gas mileage standard, and I believe we may have a front-runner.

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson has an ambitious energy plan which, among other things states that America should:

Cut Oil Demand: 50% by 2020

That means reducing oil imports from around 65% to 10-15%. We can do this in part by getting the 100 mile per gallon (mpg) car into the marketplace. We must work to double the Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards, or CAFE, to 50 mpg by 2020.

We think that's a great start, and certainly hope other candidates begin to get the message.

Let's start by pointing out that there are 160,000 miles of roads in the National Highway system. Guess what? There are 400,000 miles of logging roads in our national forest system.

Recently, Congress has proposed decommissioning 25,000 of those logging roads because of the 10 billion dollar backlog in repairs and maintenance to be done to the roads. While, yes, we support that effort, but this is an insanely tiny first step.

Really, we need to enact real solutions. We need to stop subsidizing this industry to destroy our lands and we need to protect our remaining lands.

Unfortunately, under our current administration, these changes are highly unlikely to take place. But, this summer Environmental Action is going to take on the 2008 presidential candidates, and ask them to pledge to really protect our national forests. We hope you'll join us.

Sen. Stevens (R-AK), the Senator who helped secure funding for Alaska's 'Bridge to Nowhere', sought to end net neutrality (saying, 'the internet is not a truck, it's a series of tubes'), and has worked for years and years to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil and gas development, is suddenly supporting raising our fuel economy standard to 40mpg!

Don't get me wrong. I don't believe for a minute that Sen. Stevens suddenly sees the light on CAFE standards, or our addiction to oil. In fact, he voted against raising CAFE just two years ago.

So, why exactly is he putting this forward?

First of all, it's pretty unlikely that his bill will pass - there are a number of proposals out there to raise fuel economy, and frankly Sen. Stevens is probably too high for most Senators to get behind.

Secondly, he still wants to open up the Arctic Wildlife Refuge, and sees this as a good trade off. The writing is on the wall for increasing the national gas mileage standard. It's going to happen - so by getting on the bandwagon, he can claim to have supported the effort, and then argue that step #2 is using all available domestic oil supplies, like the Arctic Refuge.

Hopefully, his two-faced approach to the issue will be seen by his colleagues in the Senate.

Yesterday, two proposed amendments to the federal energy bill were soundly defeated.

The first, proposed by Sen Bunning (R-KY), would have set required the U.S. use six billion gallons of coal-derived fuel by 2022. This amendment went down 55-39 - click here to see how your Senator voted. A 'nay' vote is the vote for the environment, and I have to give credit where credit is due, Sen. Obama, long a proponent of liquid coal voted against this amendment.

The second amendment, proposed by Sen. Tester (D-MT), allowed for $10 billion in loan guarantees to produce liquid coal for uses beyond just transportation fuel. This one went down 61-33. You can check out the vote count here. Again, a 'nay' vote is the right vote, though here, Sen. Obama voted 'yea'. Admittedly, this amendment would be less horrible than the other, since it does offer some language on fighting global warming, but the simple reality is that with current technologies, any form of liquid coal is going to be dirtier than what we've got. And that doesn't even mention the insane cost inherent in getting liquid coal up and running.

Kudos to the Senate for shutting down these two amendments!

I heard about Climate Counts today, a website which scores company's commitment to fighting global warming. At first I was a little skeptical. My experience has been that a) a lot of folks are jumping on the GW bandwagon, and some are less than above board, and b) I generally feel that strong governmental action will do more to stop global warming than a handful of people changing their lifestyles will.

But, the sight seems pretty good. In the category of judging people by the company they keep, the Union of Concerned Scientists have plugged the sight, and the board of directors is made up of what seem like good people (folks from Stoneyfield farms, MusicMatters vs. Exxon).

Of course, the proof will be in the pudding. How do they evaluate companies, and what companies do they evaluate? I live in Colorado, so took a look at MolsonCoors.

They give MolsonCoors a score of 20/100. They rank as follows:

STARTING - A better choice for the climate-conscious consumer. This company is at an early stage in addressing climate change. Make sure they know you're watching their progress carefully.

Review: 7/22 points. Climate Counts has found that Molson Coors has estimated the impact that it has on global warming, and the company expects to further develop its review in the future.

Reduce: 14/56 points. Climate Counts has found that Molson Coors has established general goals to reduce the company's energy use, and has already initiated projects that have resulted in reductions. The company also encourages its employees to reduce their impact on global warming via their transportation choices.

Policy Stance: -5/10 points. Climate Counts has found public information to suggest that two Molson Coors board members support public policy that limits climate change action.

Report: 4/12 points. Climate Counts has found that Molson Coors has made some public information available on its efforts to address global warming.

My favorite piece is that they look at a company's policy stance (giving MC a negative five for their opposition to climate change laws). Secondly, they also provide a link to email the company directly, in order to let them know how you feel about their company's ranking.

Overall, I think it's a pretty cool idea. The only problems are that the number of companies ranked right now is pretty small - only three in the beer category, for instance, and when tooling around, I kept getting 'server error' messages. I imagine both, however, are brought about by being a new thing, and will get better with time.

While doing some research on our national parks, I came across a pretty amazing resource. The National Park Service has set up webcams in about 18 of the most famous and well traveled national parks in the system.

These cameras were set up largely to help monitor air quality in the parks, and sometimes, show a pretty disturbing picture:

That's Sequoia, taken this morning. What's a little freakier is when you look at the past week and discover that on three of the last 8 days the air has been, 'unhealthy for sensitive people'.

{green=good, yellow=moderate, orange=unhealthy for sensitive people, red=unhealthy, purple=very unhealthy}

I know it seems basic, but our parks need to be places of sanctuary, not where we will have to worry about choking on air pollution. Maybe if you're planning a trip to one of the parks, you should consult the webcams first.

First we got the news the Sen. Obama was altering his stance on liquid coal. Not forsaking it, as we would like (it's really just a bad idea, no matter what), but not fully embracing it with no conditions either.

But, yesterday, there was what we can plainly call a slam dunk. The Senate rejected the proposal to allow offhosre drilling in the waters around Virginia.

This was a central piece of our Dependence Day campaign - as you've heard me say a million times, we cannot drill our way to energy independence, and thankfully, the Senate may be starting to realize it.

Good work to all involved!

Hey, who knew? Grassroots organizing and pressure works! It was announced this week that Sen. Obama is moving away from liquid coal technology.

According to all reports, the Senator changed his position in response to intense pressure from activists who were kind enough to point out that liquid coal and combating global warming are at complete odds with each other.

From Obama's folks:

"Senator Obama supports research into all technologies to help solve our climate change and energy dependence problems, including shifting our energy use to renewable fuels and investing in technology that could make coal a clean-burning source of energy," the e-mail said. "However, unless and until this technology is perfected, Senator Obama will not support the development of any coal-to-liquid fuels unless they emit at least 20% less life-cycle carbon than conventional fuels."

Everyone for now seems to be in agreement that this is a good move forward, and that Obama seems pretty genuine in his statement. That is, except for the coal industry hack who said the senator's new statement was the result of a 'jihad' waged by some environmentalists against the coal industry.

I love it when an industry that makes it's living by alternately poisoning and bilking Americans calls l'il ole me a jihadist.

This week, the Senate will be voting on a national renewable portfolio standard, or RPS. States like California and Colorado have already adopted a state-level RPS, and it's time for the feds to do the same. The current legislation in the Senate would mandate that 15% of our energy come from renewables like wind, solar, and biomass by 2020.

This is coming up as an amendment introduced by Sen. Bingaman of New Mexico, and it's important that people call in today, and encourage their senators to vote for the amendment, and oppose any further amendments that refer to nukes, hydro, or liquid coal as 'alternative fuels'.

Call your Senators. The Senate switchboard number is (202) 224-3121, and you simply ask for your Senator's office.

Some talking points, courtesy of Environment Colorado:

What you can say on the call:

"Hi, my name is ____ and I am from ____. I am calling to ask the senator to vote in favor of renewable energy for our country. We have nearly unlimited potential to generate our energy from renewable sources such as wind and solar, and we need to be tapping in to that potential. I would also like to ask the senator not to support energy sources such as nuclear and liquid coal as renewable, as nuclear has not been proven to be a safe energy source and liquid coal actually increases the amount of global warming pollution. Thank you."

Background info:

Wind power could provide as much as 30 percent of America's electricity by 2025 and possibly more as new technologies and practices allow for us to successfully integrate more wind power into America's electricity mix.

Solar and geothermal power can combine to produce another 12 percent of America's electricity, while an assortment of other renewable technologies -- ranging from solar hot water heaters to geothermal heat pumps -- can also make an important contribution.

Yesterday, I talked about how MoveOn is sponsoring the virtual town hall with our presidential candidates. The idea is that MoveOn members have submitted questions to be asked of our presidential candidates via YouTube. Then, people can vote on the best questions, the winning questions being asked to the candidates during the town hall.

And yes, we were sly enough to get the questions, 'will you support doubling the gas mileage standard?' taped and up for voting. Now it needs support from everybody.

Click here to vote on the questions, and when ours comes around, give it high marks, if you don't mind.

This is an important question. For decades, our gas mileage standard has sat stagnant as other nations have zoomed up to 40+ mpg. When faced with a similar problem in the '70's, the US responded by doubling the gas mileage standard, and it's time to do so again. This one move would conserve 900 million barrels of oil a year.

If we're going to break free from oil, we need bold solutions, and strong goals. Not meager incremental change. The auto industry, of course, is saying that a gas mileage increase would cripple them. But, they said that about seatbelts and airbags too - not to mention the fact that what's really crippling the American auto industry is that their getting the pants beaten off them by foreign companies that make cars with better gas mileage.

Take a minute and vote. It could make a huge difference.

Some of you have probably heard that MoveOn.org is setting up a virtual town hall meeting with the 2008 presidential candidates on the issue of global climate change. Hey, what a great idea! Nice work, MoveOn.

The way it works is that MO members submit video questions on YouTube, which the MoveOn staff will review, and then put up for voting by the membership. The top vote getting questions will then be asked of the presidential candidates. The cool thing is that one of Environmental Action's goals around Dependence Day is have the question 'will you support doubling the fuel efficiency standard?' asked to all the candidates. I'm putting two and two together here, and coming up with four.

So far, a few dozen videos have been uploaded to YouTube, which are worth skimming through and commenting on.

Needless to say, I found a favorite, but I was filming it, so I'm a little biased.

G8 President Merkel announced that, believe it or not, the G8 leaders have come to the beginnings of an agreement on working towards fighting global warming.

Essentially, the leaders agreed to a commitment of keeping global temperature rise to 1.5-2.0 degrees Celsius, and they agreed to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2050, as compared to 1990 levels.

This may not seem like a lot, but it's the highest level of action on global warming since the Kyoto Protocol was signed.

Not surprisingly, President Bush is still refusing to include specific carbon caps for the US, but it seems that global opinion and world leader pressure may finally be catching up to him.

Congrats to Environment Florida, who yesterday helped to defeat plans to build a coal-fired power plant on the edge of the Everglades. You can check out that story here.

Basically, the state Public Service Commission unanimously rejected the proposal by Florida Power and Light to build a 5,000 acre, twin 980-megawatt plant on the edge of the Everglades. Environment Florida argued the plant would contribute greatly to global warming, and spew mercury pollution into this amazing park.

Kudos to the activists down in Florida who made this happen!

Remember when I said I wasn't hopeful about President Bush's commitment to stopping global warming at the G8 summit? Turns out I wasn't crazy to think that.

It was reported today that G8 President Angela Merkel of Germany had her hopes of tackling the problem dashed by President Bush. Her plan, which sets a goal of limiting the global temperature rise by 2 degrees Celsius, and capping carbon emissions by 50% by 2050, as compared to 1990 levels.

In what can only be astoundingly frustrating for Ms. Merkel, Bush has said he wants to set goals by the end of next year, and refuses to agree to the plan. So, he wants goals, just not ones that exist anywhere on the plane of reality the rest of us operate on.

Everybody knows that China stands to overtake the US as the world's leading emitter of CO2 in coming years. President Bush has hemmed and hawed for months about the United States taking action on global warming, and essentially refusing to do so unless China does too.

Hey, guess what? China released their plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. While I fully admit, it's not the plan we would have come up with, but it does set a goal of reducing energy use 20% by 2010, calls for raising the efficiency of coal fired power plants, and increasing their renewable energy output.

Now it's up to the President to follow through on his pledge/threat - since China's doing something, it would be nice to see goals for emission reduction coming from the White House, rather than hollow rhetoric.

As you know, I'm not super confident this will happen - but in a week where Bush finally admitted that something needs to be done about global warming, it's nice to see China step up and call the President's bluff.

By now, everybody has heard about President Bush's so-called 'call to action' on global warming.

"President Bush proposed for the first time on Thursday to set "a long-term global goal" for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, and he called on other high-polluting nations to join the United States in negotiations aimed at reaching an agreement by the end of next year."

There are many problems with this that need to be pointed out. First of all, he's interested in reaching an agreement by the end of the next year. Just in time for him to leave office.

Furthermore, he called for discussion, with no comment on actual emission caps, targets, or deadlines. A lot of people have suggested that perhaps Mr. Bush is actually attempting to steal the global warming thunder, so to speak.

The issue is not going away, and the President has to deal with it, at least on some level. His previous plan (deny, deny, deny) didn't work, so now he's on to plan b, co-opt, co-opt, co-opt.

The truth is that we know the Bush Administration is going to do nothing whatsoever on global warming during the last year of his presidency.

The danger, however, is that while he's at the G8 summit this week, the issue is going to be coming up a lot - and a lot of nations are quite upset with the United State's resistance to change. Of course, the President will continue to put off real action, only this time, he'll be paying lip service to the issue - a wolf in sheep's clothing, as it were.

We'll see how the week goes, but I'm not hopeful.