This is going to be an interesting story to follow. On Monday the Supreme Court agreed to hear a case that will determine if the government must regulate green house gas emissions under the clean air act.

The case was brought by Friends of the Earth US, numerous state (including my home state of California) and city authorities and NGOs. It’s just one of the latest tactics by those who care to chip away at all of the environmental protections that have been undone by the current administration.

The fact that the court is hearing the case at all is good news, because the lower appeals court sided with the current administration saying that the EPA should not regulate green house gasses. So there is something about the decision that they are not happy with.

The key questions being considered by the top court are as follows: First, does the EPA have the authority under the law to limit greenhouse gases? And if it has the authority to regulate, is it obligated to do so in light of growing evidence of the effect of greenhouse gases on climate?

The case is not expected to be argued to sometime this fall with a decision arriving in the spring. Stay tuned! For more check out the SF Chronicle Top court gets case on global warming California’s key law on auto emissions at stake in ruling.

You would think I’ve had enough of this global warming debate that is raging right now, but I just can’t get enough. On Tuesday the AP put out a story entitled “Scientists OK Gore’s Movie for Accuracy” that describes the results of a poll they took of over a hundred climate scientist including skeptics. Only 19 scientists polled actually saw the movie, but those gave it good marks.

Then today we see the Senate Committee on Environment & Public works issuing a press release entitled “AP Incorrectly Claims Scientists Praise Gore’s Movie” in which they blast the AP and go on to quote the usual skeptics who are on the payroll of large corporations trying to cast doubt on the science behind global warming.

This is getting out of hand. Why is the Senate wasting my tax dollars doing movie reviews? It’s important to note that is was a majority (republicans) press release by the committee – the minority (democrats) were busy introducing green building legislation while this was going on. I’m beginning to think this back and forth ping pong match has little to do with Global Warming and everything to do with politics.

Although with Exxon-Mobile footing the bill to the tune of $8 Million and other big-oil companies chipping in – I guess it’s possible to buy off a senator or two. James Inhofe is the majority leader of the committee that issued the press release, and it’s no surprise that the Oil and Gas industry is his top contributor.

It’s crazy to see them still bringing up this “hockey stick” argument again because this has long been laid to rest scientifically. (not necessarily politically) Even a National Academies Synthesis Report reafirms that the current warming trend is caused by human activity. The Real Climate web site summarizes it nicely.

“Despite the attempts of some commentators to attempt conflate the evidence for the existence of human influences on climate with the validity of a single reconstruction (e.g. that of Mann et al) it is quite clear that the evidence for anthropogenic impacts on climate is quite strong irrespective of whether or not the original “hockey stick” is correct.”

Even so, Inhofe has tried to co-opt this report and twist it to his own means and ends. But you can separate the Myth from Fact on the Real Climate web site. Inhofe is really starting to irk me.

A friend sent me a link to the article “The Least Convenient Truth” posted on Whiskey and Gunpowder by Jim Amrhein. It’s interesting to read his take on global warming and his misguided proposal about what to do about it. If it’s not already clear, let me state for the record that I definitely disagree with him.

Mr. Amrhein is one of many people drawing political lines around the issue of global warming – lining the left up on one side of the field and the right on the other. I guess it’s inevitable that this happen with Al Gore as the messenger, and the country so deeply divided across political lines. In any case it’s important to remember that whatever the long term effects of global warming end up being, they will affect all of us, our children, and our children’s children with little respect for political affiliation.

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If you’re like me you’ve caught some of warnings in the news about being careful not to eat too much fish because of high mercury levels. If you track them back, you would find that in March 2004, the FDA and EPA issued a joint warning to pregnant women, women who may become pregnant, and nursing mothers against eating certain types of mercury-laden fish.

These reports tell us that one out of every six American women have so much mercury in their wombs that their children are at risk for a grim inventory of diseases, autism, blindness, mental retardation, heart, liver, kidney disease. That means that 630,000 infants are born in the U.S. every year with unsafe mercury levels. Not surprising when 48 states have issued fish consumption warnings because of unsafe levels of mercury in their waters, and the remaining states don’t have warnings, don’t because they haven’t coughed up the money to test the fish.

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Greg Palast the BBC’s top investigative reporter has just published a new book entitled “Armed Madhouse: Who’s Afraid of Osama Wolf? China Floats, Bush Sinks, The Scheme to Steal ’08, No Child’s Behind Left, & Other Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Class War.”

The book links a broad array of information ranging from foreign policy, campaign shenanigans, and class warfare in a disturbing vision of what is currently happening here in the United States. His critics brand him as a conspiracy theorists, he simply calls himself a reporter.

I heard him interviewed on the Forum radio show and found his insights and the evidence that support them very intriguing. You should take a listen and decide for yourself. I’ve bought the book and will post more once I’ve read it.

Check out Daryl Hannah’s video blog to see why she has been tree sitting for the last two weeks in the middle of South Central Los Angeles. I definitely appreciate what she is doing to save this small urban farm in LA that currently feeds 350 low-income families. It’s a unique concept that is being threatened by urban developers. They are trying to create awareness and raise money so that the farmers can buy the land and continue to farm it. Please check it out at dhlovelife.com.

The documentary An Inconvenient Truth offers the most articulate and disconcerting depiction of climate change I’ve ever seen, but I doubt it will make a difference.

Americans are busy with work, families, television, shopping and hobbies. Our culture encourages us to have a full life, yet we long for more free time. In contrast, consider the negative connotations associated with the idea of an empty life. If we have nothing, we are nothing. Thoughts and contemplation are not valued equally with activities and possessions. As a result we consume, schedule, and plan filling every minute of every day until there is no time left for anything else.

Making the issue of climate change relevant and raising it above other competing messages is a difficult task. It’s good to see that 100,000 people have pledged to see An Inconvenient Truth on opening weekend. But compare that to the 30 million people who watched the finale of American Idol airing the same day and we begin to see a different picture. It’s understandable in a way. Which story would you rather see? One person’s dream fulfilled today, or a hundred million dreams destroyed in the future?

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