UPS has announced a carbon-neutral shipping option, and I suppose it's a good thing, but I thought it would be worthwhile to check in briefly on why that is. (Before proceeding, I want to be clear that this isn't about UPS any more than tangentially.)

Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, speaks at an MIT Energy Initiative event on Wednesday, Oct. 7, at 4:15. 

The topic will be Copenhagen, but she'll also talk about the prospect for climate-change legislation in Congress. For many of us, the question has become, is the bill good enough. Or rather, is "any" bill worth supporting, at the potential expense of getting nothing at all. I have read on the topic, but yet have a satisfying answer, and hope she'll be able to help on that question.

I have neither the time nor the means to attend this event, but I'd sure like to — Chu, Gore, Pickens, Podesta, and others. The National Clean Energy Summit 2.0 is at UNLV  on Aug. 10.

Climate Ark has a pair of stories from the past couple of days boosting CCS (carbon capture and sequestration), showing again that bad ideas don't always go away on their own.

Most recent, from Reuters, is a report that Europe intends to invest heavily to help China, then India and others, to develop CCS technology.

A couple of dozen participants in the Energy Smackdown gathered for pizza, veggies, soda, and celebration last night at the Regent Theatre in Arlington to cap off the energy-saving competition's second season.

About 30 families from Arlington, Medford, and Cambridge vied for team and individual honors in the yearlong effort, whose larger purpose was to explore, experience, and model strategies for reducing humankind's impact on the planet.

The Energy Smackdown, a high-spirited, good-natured competition among teams of energy-conscious households will mark the end of the most recent campaign — and look forward to its next — Wednesday evening at the Regent Theatre in Arlington Center.

Thanks to my friend Jeremy Marin, I attended the annual Earth Night fundraiser put on by the Environmental League of Massachusetts on Wednesday. After the year that environmental governance enjoyed in the state, it was a night to celebrate, and perhaps to crow a bit, and they did.

The VIP reception beforehand was supposed to feature climate champ Ed Markey, but he was off in China, discussing global warming policy with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other colleagues. That guy has to work on priorities.

I have written previously (perhaps approaching cliche by now; you decide) about having two blogs and wanting to have one — not by jettisoning one by having them merge organically. Here's another post that fits in both places — about sustainable living (no link; you're reading it) and food issues, at fisherblue.com/blog; in fact, I starting writing this at the other one.

I have finally found a legitimate use for coal, which I've consistently derided as evil crap whose only supporters are coerced by direct economic benefit. I don't claim much cleverness in my "discovery," since others have understood it for a while:

Coal is a bargaining chip, or, as Kenneth Green, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, puts it, "a universal fig leaf."

In a story in Scientific American, he is quoted as saying,

From 10-2 on Saturday, green partisans will gather at Somerville High School for demonstrations, giveaways, and fellowship with their own kind.

Byggmeister, the Newton energy efficiency buidling contractor, will have a representative to evaluate your energy bills for what you might save, there'll be recycled kids crafts and recycled fashions (and you can bring clothing donations to do some recycling yourself), free basic bike tune-ups for people who ride over, and plenty more.

The event is free; maybe I'll see you there.