Julie Walsh

On a wind-swept air base near the Missouri River, the Air Force has launched an ambitious plan to wean itself from foreign oil by turning to a new and unlikely source: coal. The Air Force wants to build at its Malmstrom base in central Montana the first piece of what it hopes will be a nationwide network of facilities that would convert domestic coal into cleaner-burning synthetic fuel.

The lights may soon go out in the Washington, DC metro area and other parts of the country due to environmental activist opposition to coal-fired power plants, energy analysts are warning.

The Washington Post recently ran a shocking above-the-fold article warning us of "Escalating Ice Loss Found in Antarctica." A new paper by Eric Rignot of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory shows a net loss of ice where most scientists thought the opposite would occur, the story noted.

The American Geophysical Union, the world's largest organization representing earth and space scientists, has issued a new statement on the causes and consequences of recent climate change and possible responses.

San Francisco-area air quality regulators are proposing to charge a fee to most businesses based on the amount of greenhouse gases they emit.

The fee–4.2 cents per metric ton of carbon dioxide–would affect everything from oil refineries to power plants and would include landfills, factories, and small businesses such as restaurants and bakeries.

TIME magazine warned that scientists had observed "bizarre and unpredictable weather patterns" which led them to believe the world was headed for "a global climatic upheaval." Fluctuations in temperature, rainfall and sea ice were all described as signs of impending doom.

In 1989 Stanford professor Stephen Schneider said in an interview in Discover magazine, "We (scientists) need to get broad-based support, to capture the public's imagination. That entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts we might have." In 2006 Al Gore told the radically environmentalist magazine Grist, "I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations."

ENERGY was one of the few issue areas in which David Paterson was allowed at least briefly to play a visible role during 14 months in the shadows as New York's lieutenant governor. But now that he has succeeded the disgraced Eliot Spitzer in the governor's office, Paterson needs to break with policies that have made energy increasingly expensive and potentially scarce in New York.

Students in Fairfax and Arlington counties will soon be selling toxic products as a PTA fundraiser … sort of.

On April 22, Earth Day, the Bright Futures Project of Fairfax and Arlington county schools launches a two-week drive to replace one incandescent bulb with one compact fluorescent light bulb for each child enrolled in those school systems — 167,000 bulbs in Fairfax County and 18,600 in Arlington.