Remember when Earth Day was like this huge thing. Every school would have a big event, and you would see signs. It was cute, but it usually just ended with a bunch of school kids cleaning up a beach or something.  You know, there’s that whole climate change thing going on, polar bears are being stranded on the ice and all that. Now you just get an email from Al Gore and a quick mention on the evening news.

Despite our budget mess, California is still taking a lead in fighting climate change.  As we celebrate (or not) Earth Day, the California Air Resources Board is actually doing something about it.

The California Air Resources Board is expected to approve on Thursday a far-reaching rule called the Low Carbon Fuel Standard, the biggest step yet in the state’s campaign to slash greenhouse gas emissions.

Starting in 2011, the standard would steadily lower the allowable “carbon intensity” of fuels, the amount of greenhouse gases released for every unit of energy produced. By 2020, fuel refiners and distributors within the state would have to cut the carbon intensity of their fuels by 10 percent.(SF Chronicle 4/22/09

We should be enormously proud of our role as an environmental leader.  During the budget negotiations, the Republicans tried desperately to shut down the implementation of AB 32, our landmark global warming emissions act.

These regulations are not everything they could be.  In reality, the only regulation that would really make a big change is a serious, full-on carbon tax.  Until that day, however, this is a darn good start, and a signal that California will not let the environment be a victim of a recession.

According to an op-ed in the Ventura County-Star, apparently “even left-wingers are laughing at ‘global warming’ now.” Chuckle at this:

So-called “global warming” has shrunk from problem to punch line. And now, leftists are laughing, too. It’s hard not to chuckle at the idea of Earth boiling in a carbon cauldron when the news won’t cooperate: (Ventura County Star

He then goes on to a list a few data points on the cold side.  Congratulations, you are right, it snowed in the UAE, and you found a few occasional Democrats to criticize Al Gore.  Oh, and he found a University of Ottawa professor, Dennis Rancourt, to criticize global warming. Surely that’s a huge signal that global warming’s a mything:

“The most destructive force on the planet is power-driven financiers and profit-driven corporations and their cartels backed by military might,” University of Ottawa physics professor Dr. Denis Rancourt has written. “The global warming myth is a red herring that contributes to hiding this truth.”

Interersting thing about Rancourt, the dude was fired from U of Ottowa the other day and told to vacate the premises, stat. Apparently a third of the university faculty signed a letter asking administration to give him the boot in 2007.  I wonder how the other bright lights in this article are doing.

But, apparently the author didn’t bother to read the IPCC report. First, the term has been changed to “climate change” from global warming for a reason.  In some places, the climate will be changed for the colder. With a system as complicated as the weather, nothing is simple.

There will be idiots like this guy, and they do a real disservice to the nation and the world.  This guy is a writer for Scripps News Service, so this stuff goes out around the country.  He, and his fellow ostriches put us in grave danger. The longer we wait to act, the closer we approach the tipping point.  We aren’t a generation away, this is slamming down upon us. We ignore it at our own peril.

And by the by, if your dateline is San Francisco, did you notice that it was 80 degrees in January?