The Bush administration has had a strange way of uniting folks in the West.  In particular, hunters, sportsmen, local communities, local businesses and enviros have come together to fight back when the "drill it all" mentality of the oil businessman president ran into treasured publc lands.

And in surprising places, this coalition has staved off the onslaught.  On the Rocky Mountain Front in Montana - home to the nation's second largest elk herd, bighorn sheep and grizzlies - the coalition won a ban on new oil and gas leases from Congress. 

Far to the south, at Otero Mesa in New Mexico - a desert grassland wilderness - a hunter-enviro coalition with huge support from Governor Bill Richardson has worked for years to slow the BLM's plan to lease the area.  Earthjustice has worked with this coalition, filing a lawsuit pending in appeals court to protect the area.  Years after the fight over Otero began, the area still hasn't been drilled.

As the average price of a gallon of gas tops $4 for the first time this week, TV pundits are having a field day. There's nothing like bad economic news that everyone can understand to bring out the blather.

This morning's "Today" show gave us Jim Cramer, the Screamin' Jay Hawkins of TV stock jocks, on what we need to do to bring the price back down: "Drill more." On all coasts, in the Gulf of Mexico, in the Arctic. "And enough," he said, putting a spell on the nation of morning-show watchers, "with halting drilling for a few months for the sake of endangered animals. I'm a conservationist, but hey, enough is enough."

In my last post I told you about using Freecycle, Craigslist, and eBay to reduce-reuse-and-recycle my way through a total refurnishing of my new, post-divorce life. It was a lot more fun and I found better quality things than shopping at garage sales and second-hand stores. There's really great stuff out there if you follow the ads.

A major benefit is that by not buying new, I wasn't contributing more climate-changing carbon emissions. Another benefit was the interactions I had with the sellers. Every piece has its own story.

Q: What do forests, water, wildlife, and agriculture have in common?

A: They’re all being reshaped, redistributed, and otherwise readjusted by climate change. Now, in real time.

That's the conclusion of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program, which just released a long-delayed government-commissioned report on how climate change is affecting the American landscape.

This is so much on my mind that I've been looking for every way to do something about it I can find.