A recent Greenpeace investigation found that dirty energy companies have been financing a prominent climate change denier. Photo courtesy of L.C.Nøttaasen.

Climate change skeptic awash in oily money
A Greenpeace investigation has found that climate change denier Dr. Willie Soon, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics, has received more than $1 million in payment from major U.S. oil and coal companies over the past decade, reports the Guardian. Though Dr. Soon denies that any group influenced his studies, the fact that every new grant he has received since 2002 has been from oil or coal interests has raised more than a few eyebrows. Kert Davies, a research director at Greenpeace, summed it up well by saying, "A campaign of climate change denial has been waged for over 20 years by big oil and big coal. Scientists like Dr. Soon, who take fossil fuel money and pretend to be independent scientists, are pawns."

So who are some of the benefactors shoving money into the good doctor's coffer? None other than ExxonMobil, the American Petroleum Institute and the Koch brothers. That's right. In addition to doing some behind-the-scenes fundraising for a number of Republicans who sit on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, many of whom have vowed to restrict the reach of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Charles G Koch Foundation gave Soon two grants that ran about $175,000 in 2005/2006 and again in 2010, according to the Guardian. Apparently when it comes to pushing an anti-environmental agenda, the Koch brothers are going all in.

America’s pocketbook weathered by climate change
It’s no doubt that 2011 has been a year of extreme weather (and the year’s barely half over). All of those tornadoes, floods and droughts have taken an emotional toll on all Americans, especially those hardest hit by these events. Not surprisingly, this flood of record bad weather has also take a significant economic toll, reports Time. According to the National Center for Atmospheric Research, extreme weather costs the U.S. about $485 billion per year, which adds up to almost 4 percent of the country’s GDP. And, as we continue to release more carbon emissions into the atmosphere, the weather will only get worse and the cost to repair more steep. As the author notes, “If a broken planet isn't enough to mobilize us, a flat-broke country ought to be.” Find out how Earthjustice is encouraging the use of the cleanest, cheapest and most available source of energy to help weather this inevitable storm.

Hummingbird at larkspur. David Inouye photo.

One of the great joys of living in the Rockies is taking a summer stroll in a high meadow, surrounded by wildflowers - violet lupines, deep red skyrockets, purple larkspur, penstemons, 6-foot gentians, and many others.

Some of these diplays may be changing, however, according to a scientific article written up recently in the LA Times.  The study shows that the previous "peak" of flowers in the mid-summer is being stretched out.  As the biology geeks put it in the article:

Americans are worried about their government. We imagine backroom deals are cut, fates are foretold and the little guy always gets shafted because powerful interests own the cops.

Recent events in Kansas prove these fears can be spot-on.

The Kansas City Star has unearthed emails showing the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE), the agency responsible for enforcing the federal Clean Air Act, had an “improper relationship” with an air permit applicant.

The Fresno, California, Board of Supervisors has decided not to endorse a proposal by the Fresno Nuclear Energy Group to build a “Clean Energy Park,” outside town. The park would boast two big, 1,600-megawatt, French-made reactors, a solar-thermal plant, and a water desalination facility.

The account in the Fresno Business Journal doesn’t mention Japan or Fukushima explicitly, but the shadow in the background is unmistakable. And it must send shivers down the backs of people promoting a nuclear renaissance as the cure for global warming—especially as Germany has recently decided to stop building new reactors and to retire existing plants as replacement power comes on-line. Japan is clearly rethinking its commitment to nuclear power as well.