About 30 years ago, after some prodding from environmental groups, Jimmy Carter had solar panels installed on the roof of the White House. He gave a ringing speech at the time, hoping that this gesture would help build a solar revolution. He established a Solar Energy Research Institute and put Denis Hayes, the director of the first and subsequent Earth Days in charge.

Several years later, Ronald Reagan ordered the panels taken down, having belittled Carter for worrying so much about the energy crisis. He replaced Hayes with a dentist, and SERI was soon abolished. If Carter's bold move had succeeded who knows how much better off we'd be now, but there's no point bemoaning the failures of the past.

Turns out the panels were donated to Unity College in Maine where they've been doing their bit to help the climate problem for most of three decades. Now Bill McKibben and his colleagues at the wonderful 350.org are returning a symbolic panel to where it started. They put one of the panels on a biodiesel-powered truck the day after Labor Day and will deliver it to the White House on Friday, September 10, after stopping for rallies in Boston and New York.

Mt. Rainier asks us to save the snow

On Saturday, July 17 at 7:30 a.m., four moms reached the peak of Washington's iconic Mt. Rainier in a healthy political statement about coal power and the future of children of the Northwest.

The four moms, all parents of children between the ages of 3-6 years old, climbed Rainier to call for the closing or conversion of the TransAlta coal plant near Centrailia by 2015. They are asking state leaders to get serious about converting the state to green energy to protect our National Parks, wildlife, and our global climate.

The TransAlta plant is already the target of a campaign to bring its pollution down to levels that comply with emerging federal standards.

Photo: Friends of the Earth

Nearly 200 journalists, environmental activists and representatives of public interest organizations (Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, Public Citizen, 350.org and others) gathered in front of BP's headquarters downtown today to stage a citizen's arrest of the oil giant for the Gulf of Mexico gusher that has been fouling coastlines, killing marine life and devastating Gulf coast communities.

The assembled crowd called for a clean energy future and one that doesn't put profits over people.

Rev. Lennox Yearwood, Jr., a resident of Shreveport, Louisiana who works with the Hip Hop Caucus said of BP, "Your greed is killing my people," and urged President Obama that "this is not the time to play politics."

If we have any hope of reversing global warming and breaking our addiction to fossil fuels, we will need to find and pay attention to geniuses who can discard traditional thinking and biases and find a way through the current mess to a future energy economy based on efficiency and renewables.

Oh wait. We've had one such person around for nearly 40 years, and his contributions are already legion. He is Amory Lovins and his Rocky Mountain Institute. They have been advising businesses and governments for years, to great effect. Now it's time to take the message global, and fast. To that end, the institute has just released a new six-minute video called "Reinventing Fire" that outlines the beginning of the vision. There's much work to do, but this little movie makes a compelling case that a solution is possible. Take a look.