Scientist James Hansen has been raised almost to sainthood for his early sounding of the climate-change alarm and for his adamance since. He testified before Congress Monday on the 20-year anniversary of his global climate change testimony, saying roughly what he has been saying all along.

... not a whit, and if you don't, this link will be of little use to you.

But apparently someone at Treehugger does. In this post, they say...

There's been plenty of anecdotal indications that Americans are driving less, but now the US DOT has provided some data.

Americans drove 20 billion miles less in April than in April of last year.

At a semi-indy movie theater chain I frequent, they use old-mode hand dryers in the bathrooms (well, in the men's room, at least), the ones that are ineffective but noisy. Signs on them attempt to blunt what must be a common plaint: "We don't like them either, but they're the best devices for the environment." Or something like that. I haven't done any of the math, but I'm willing to accept that the chain owners have — more willing, anyway, than if it was Sony or AMC or one of the other moo-vie conglomerates.

I think of the "still-president" (see: Jon Stewart) as one of the worst in our history, and like to think I was in the first million or two to think it. SPB says, of course, that history will treat him much more kindly than anyone outside the White House now expects. Not just good, but a visionary, even.

James Carville has a good idea (blogged about yesterday on Gristmill.com), and I-I-I know (that's me-me-me) because I had the same idea. In March. In writing.

From Grist Mill comes this tidbit, a gift for the environmental thinker who had any doubt whom to support in the presidential election. A supporter told John McCain that his energy policy could be summed up as "nuclear, drill wherever you find it," and McCain answered "you just gave my speech. Thank you, my friend."

Wow.

Three months ago, at a Northeast Sustainable Energy Association public forum in Boston, green PR guru Solitaire Townsend said the movement to overcome climate change needs to tell its equivalent of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, rather than what it’s has been doing, which she called, “I Have a Nightmare.”

Townsend has a good point. Environmentalists have been militating for decades for drastic changes from businesses and consumers, and for most of that time, all it really gained us was a reputation as do-gooder killjoys. Frickin’ treehuggers.

I don't seek to make some grand statement with these photos, but they were among the only things to catch my eye during an hour or two that I spent walking around the Esplanade. They do seem to go together, in a disconsonant kind of way.

The idea of getting energy from waste has been around at least 30 years, when I covered the periphery of a bid for a trash-burning plant in northeastern Ohio. But it was, at best, an immature plan at that time, and still today is a poor solution for resource efficiency.