I spent part of today at the MIT Energy Conference, but before I get to any of that, I want to post on the three dozen hardy souls who turned out to protest at the Dominion power plant in Salem a week ago. I started to say "report on," but I don't have much more than photos to share...

Mindy Lubber, president of Ceres (and listed as a "green hero" to the right — follow those links to see how she got there), is one of the speakers at MIT's Sustainability Summit April 24.

According to a release, the point of the summit is to explore we can transition to a sustainable world.

Building Energy '09 is next week, but online registration ends tomorrow. The Northeast Sustainable Energy Association, which runs the show, is offering an enrollment deal: With six, you get discount. If you shared the savings, it would amount to 18 percent off for each of you, which is decent.

OK, so I'm practically a media whore for the Alliance for Climate Protection, but I can't imagine being someone's bitch in service of a better cause. The latest clip they're circulating, and that I'm sharing below, is the incredible — that's "incredible," as in "not credible" —  comment from King Coal mouthpiece Joe Lucas ... 

Many readers know that my "other" issue is food addiction, driven by my experience of being above 300 pounds for most of the time between ages 16 and 33, topping out at 365 in 1991. I am as sure I'm an addict (now in recovery) as I am sure that I'm alive.

You may well believe that there is no such thing as food addiction, if you're in the mainstream.

Sometimes, in my efforts at persuasion, I ask those I'm speaking with to just pause and imagine if it were true, to just allow for the possibility, nd then to take in what the implications might be.

A large-scale act of civil disobedience is planned for Monday in Washington, at the site of the coal-fired plant that powers Capitol Hill, and like you, I'm not going to get there.

But my friend Maggie Zhou of the Secure Green Future movement tells me there will be protests at three Mass. coal-fired plants on Sunday, the day before.

The previous post expressed pleasure at the latest anti-clean-coal ad released by the Alliance for Climate Protection, and semi-giggled over the prospect of "my" side having the cash to match an evil-industry group's ability to puts its view before a slack-jawed television nation.

This one will semi-giggle about "my" side having a firm-enough foothold in the zeitgeist that entertainment television can find profit in creating the same sort of energy-titan spoofs that the "Reality" ads are doing.

The Alliance for Climate Protection is out with another Reality ad about the utter dishonesty perpetrated by the coal industry every time it promotes the term "clean coal." This one has the added attraction of having been directed by Ethan and Joel Coen, creators of some of the funniest, darkest, most engrossing films ever (Raising Arizona, Miller's Crossing, Blood Simple, Fargo, No Country for Old Men, etc.).

The West Medford Community Center is hosting a recycling event on Saturday from 9 to noon. They have a list of stuff they'll take, ranging from $2 for a boom box to $15 for a hard drive/printer/monitor combo. TVs, fridges, and other appliances are $10.

111 Arlington St., Medford, 781-483-3042.

Well-read readers may recognize the headline as the title of Paul Hawken's 1993 book, which I recently read for a book group started by fellow members of Sustainable Arlington, a group committed to helping the town become more ... sustainable. We met to discuss it a week ago; here are some thoughts from my notes: