I’m a net-activism fiend. Check out my “action” for renewable energy at Change.org, as well as this week’s Media Mayhem column on the Mother Nature Network:

One afternoon last week, I joined seven different environmental communities, signed four petitions, sent letters to both my senators, let hundreds of friends in on a new way to fight climate change, agreed to reduce my family’s carbon output by .94 tons a year, and founded a campaign calling for all electric utilities to get at least 20 percent of their power from renewable sources.

Oh, yeah. I learned a little later that I’d raised a whole penny on behalf of the cause “Stop Global Warming.”

John Muir, eat your heart out.

Muir spent most of his life (which lasted from 1838 to 1914) crusading for wilderness conservation. He climbed peaks above the Yosemite Valley, camped out with Teddy Roosevelt and founded the Sierra Club.

Nowadays, anybody can go to sierraclub.org and, in about minute, fire off a personalized letter on one of about 30 environmental issues to his or her congressperson.

My own orgy of activism was prompted by a decision to figure out how to effectively use 50 or so interactive communities and social media websites that focus either exclusively or to a great extent on the environment. I found that the sites can be fun and feel empowering — in the same way, say, that blazing through an easy crossword puzzle might be exhilarating.

Read on at Mother Nature Network …

7 green stories that ought to cheer you up

Last week’s Media Mayhem column from the Mother Nature Network:

Climate change looks as if it’s coming quicker than previously imagined. The strongest response that our politicians can manage may actually be worse than taking no action. And a huge chunk of one state is expected simply to disappear — even if we do manage to take effective action against global warming.

Here are seven developments that may play a role in solving climate change and other burning problems of the future — and that may never get the headlines they deserve.

For the rest of Media Mayhem, go to the  Mother Nature Network.

Fox and foreign press find fault but climate bill is progress

This week’s Media Mayhem column from the Mother Nature network.

I was so proud of the House of Representatives for its recent passage of legislation to tackle climate change. Finally.

Ingrid Newkirk on PETA’s buzz

This week’s Media Mayhem column at the Mother Nature Network:

A fly. Seven days after President Obama swatted the sucker, I googled “PETA” and “fly” together. One-thousand-one-hundred-and-eighteen news articles showed up. The first wave of mentions was speculative, as in: “The Onion ought to write that PETA’s upset at Obama.” The next wave was disbelieving, as in: “This may sound to you like a headline from the Onion: PETA’s upset at Obama.”

A handful of writers got past the visceral reaction: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals again displayed its unerring talent for drawing attention to the cause of animal rights. In this case, PETA didn’t even mean to draw the attention. A staff blogger happened to mention in a short post about “flygate” that “human beings have a long way to go before they think before they act.”

Al Gore texts me about his finances

Al Gore in still shot from An Inconvenient Truth

Al Gore seems to have a target on his back. The former vice president is the symbol of “global warming alarmism” to those who want to block the U.S. from taking effective action on climate change.

Whether it’s Bill O’Reilly or the Heartland Institute or a backbench Republican congresswoman or a blog run by a guy who cut his teeth by swift-boating John Kerry, Gore is the bogeyman. They want answers, I tell you! Yeah, we know — he’s a private citizen. But what has he got to hide?

OK, then. I sent him some questions — mostly questions that the right-wing journal Human Events said somebody ought to ask him. I think he was about as candid as one could expect from a private citizen. What do you think?

(For a fuller discussion bogeyman/hero status, check out this week’s Media Mayhem column, by yours truly, on the Mother Nature Network.)

Ken Edelstein: You are a partner in the venture capital firm of Kleiner Perkins and a co-founder of the United Kingdom-based investment firm of Generation Investment Management, each of which stands to gain financially from greenhouse gas regulation. Please describe any other financial interests that you have in any other businesses that stand to profit from greenhouse gas regulation.
Al Gore: As a supporter of “sustainable capitalism” (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122584367114799137.html) I have made long-term investments in “sustainable” companies in Europe, Asia, North America and South America, the vast majority of which are not directly involved with efforts to solve the climate crisis. I have also invested in some companies that have attempted and will continue to help solve the climate crisis.

Ken Edelstein: In October 2008, the New York Times Magazine featured a cover story on how Kleiner Perkins had invested $1 billion in 40 companies that would profit from new environmental and energy laws and regulations. What will be your share of any profits from these ventures? Read more

Media Mayhem: A plague of ‘think tanks’

I write the Media Mayhem column every week for the Mother Nature Network. Here’s this week’s:

The Goliaths are crazed environmentalists, corrupt scientists and secret socialists, on a mission to manufacture a crisis so they can implement a stealth agenda of government control, toy-sized automobiles and pork-barrel grants — grants the scientists can then use to live off the hard-earned money of taxpayers forever.

Cue evil laugh track: Hah-hah-hah-hah-hah!

The Davids are the few brave souls who dare counter that juggernaut — that hoax — by pointing out that science is a complex endeavor, rife with unfulfilled hypotheses, and whose reputations have suffered because of their independence.

You may not see the debate that way. I sure don’t.

Whatever you and I think, though, the David/Goliath storyline, or something like it, will have more to do with the outcome of Congress’ current climate debate than will another dozen studies firming up the actual consensus that climate change is happening, is caused by humans, and is on a trajectory to lay a big whammy on civilization.

The Davids played their role in a Washington hotel last week at the Heartland Institute’s grandly named Third International Conference on Climate Change.

Read the rest of this column on the Mother Nature Network.

Fox News turns a red herring into red meat

My first “Media Mayhem” column for the Mother Nature Network:

OK. Take a few deep breaths. Don’t get as worked up about these things as I do: This is how cable news coverage of the climate change bill that’s working its way through Congress will go for the next two months — at least in some media quarters.

Story continued on Mother Nature Network