George W. Bush’s EPA didn’t want to do it.  They didn’t want to hurt businesses with higher costs.

Even Senator John McCain, former candidate for the Presidency, said today, “Let me be clear: I am a supporter of a strong cap-and-trade system, but I will not and cannot align myself with a giant government slush fund that will further burden our businesses and consumers.”

What the Senator Doesn’t Understand

Global warming is a pretty big deal.  Imagine our coastal areas (including New York, Washington, D.C., and other major cities) where so many businesses are located being permanently flooded.  Imagine other areas with droughts and stronger, more frequent tornadoes and hurricanes.  Life on our planet would be fundamentally different if global warming plays out as it most likely would (according to scientists) if we take no action.

Then how will our businesses fare?  The point is, changes in policy come slowly, but we don’t have much time to react to this crisis.  Bold action is needed and regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant is just a start.

Green Point Positive and Green Point Negative is a back-and-forth, temporary mode of publishing here on Earthascope to highlight the reality of big challenges combined with people beginning to make changes to improve the environment.

Why would our government ignore the consensus of the scientific community that global warming is indeed occurring as a result of human activities?

I could offer up several answers including Republicans’ ideological stance against taxing even negative activities (in this case, polluting), ignorance of the mass of evidence showing that we are responsible for the heating of the global temperatures, ignorance that the temperature is actually rising, and of course, people who want to make money off of carbon-intensive industries, namely the coal and oil industries.  We also have our fair share of fools.

Marc Morano

But let’s focus on a story from the New York Times last week, which focused on Marc Morano, who is a former spokesman for Senator James Imhoffe of Oklahoma and is a major climate change skeptic — believe me, I wanted to say that he’s a major ________ (choose your own fun word!) but we’ll keep this pretty clean (scroll down, I only call Mr. Morano by his name).

Green Point Positive and Green Point Negative is a back-and-forth, temporary mode of publishing here on Earthascope to highlight the reality of big challenges combined with people beginning to make changes to improve the environment.

If all the stories we keep hearing about gardening are true, Americans are rediscovering the concept of an at-home, “Victory Garden,” a la World War II.

Except, this time, we’re talking about victory against economic hardship, and even more important, our unsustainable fuel-consuming agricultural system, which contributes largely to global warming and environmental degradation.

Some of the latest news and happenings in the green world our readers should know about:

1. Oil Giants Loath to Follow Obama’s Green Lead: Here’s a story about oil companies spending so very little on green energy development it looks as if they will be left behind as the economy switches to renewable, carbon-free sources of energy.  They don’t seem to be changing course, despite having a President with a green agenda.

They seem to be missing the boat.  Check it out:

The oil companies have frequently run advertisements expressing their interest in new forms of energy, but their actual investments have belied the marketing claims. The great bulk of their investments goes to traditional petroleum resources, including carbon-intensive energy sources like tar sands and natural gas from shale, while alternative investments account for a tiny fraction of their spending.

And:

In the last 15 years, the top five oil companies have spent around $5 billion to develop sources of renewable energy, according to Michael Eckhart, president of the American Council on Renewable Energy, an industry trade group. This represents only 10 percent of the roughly $50 billion funneled into the clean-energy sector by venture capital funds and corporate investors during that period, he said.

Scandal?  You bet!  And you may be the perpetrator!  Yeah, you!

By now, you’ve likely heard all about Earth Hour, whether in the news, your employer, or your friends, most of us have an idea of what it is about.  (If you don’t know, it’s one hour of turning off your lights on March 28 starting at 8:30 p.m. your local time).

What’s the scandal?

But there is a dark (or should I say, “light”?) secret some of us are hiding.  Despite hearing about this worldwide movement in an effort

Whether you're drinking red or white wine, time to make your wine consumption a bit greener!

Did you know that you can recycle wine  and champagne corks through a company we have discussed on Earthascope before, TerraCycle?  You might also try to sell them on Ebay or make them into something useful!  Check out the step-by-step process for collecting and recycling (along with photos) below!

How do you recycle wine corks?  Wine cork recycling can be easy!

I used TerraCycle for sending off my wine corks.  You can check out handmade sites like Etsy to see if there are any projects you might want to take on yourself to use, give as a gift, or sell.  Or make it up yourself!  I’ve seen trivets, wreaths, baskets, and bulletin boards made from spent wine corks.  What ideas do you have for reusing wine corks?   Comment below!

You have to register with TerraCycle in order to send them corks.  So, if you are an avid wine lover

We ran a story earlier this weekend that featured a video of various diapers decomposing over the course of one year.  While the regular plastic-based diapers looked virtually identical after one year compared to when they started, one diaper had completely disappeared!

That magical, disappearing diaper was the gDiaper!  Demand for more information on this super-diaper quickly led to us posting a follow-up article that solely focused on the gDiaper so here it is!

First, I found out about gDiapers through my wife who is a neo-natal intensive care nurse at one of the premiere children’s hospitals in the United States.  While we don’t have any children yet, she works with babies on a daily basis — changing diapers, feeding, cleaning, and other care — many on premature babies.

She comes home and says “Hey have you heard about gDiapers?  They’re an earth-friendly, disposable diaper that fits into these really cute, cloth exteriors.”

Did you know? Every day, Americans send 50 million dirty diapers to landfills.  That’s right, 50 million every day.  That’s approximately 20 Billion each year!  Guess how many years it takes for each one of those 20 Billion turd receptacles to decompose? <answer at bottom of post>

Check out the following video which comes to us from gDiapers, which makes eco-friendly plastic-free baby diapers (no adult versions that I could find LOLZ).  Basically, it shows 3 different types of diapers decomposing over the course of one year.  The results: truly eye-opening!

Green Life Project is a weekly series of posts highlighting one change for readers to make in their life in order to gradually green their lives.

||Week Three||

This week’s Green Life Project action item is to purchase and begin using reusable grocery bags.

We’re in week three of a year-long quest toward a greener lifestyle.  If you’re just joining us, it’ll be easy to catch up — and you can do so at your own pace!

This week, we have another simple step you can take toward more sustainable living!  The next time you’re at the grocery store, be it your Jewel, Trader Joe’s, Wal-Mart, Whole Foods — no matter what your typical place for groceries, buy one or two reusable grocery bags and begin using them!  We’ve discussed this before, and now it’s part of your year-long journey toward a more sustainable you!

We've indexed ten great ways to be greener without spending much of your hard-earned green!

You may be watching as the economy threatens to turn its, “recession,” moniker into, “depression,” all while reports about the dire circumstances our environment is in continue to mount.

Need a couple of examples?  Try here and here.  Below, you can find ten great ways to green your life on the cheap and save money while you do it!

While the economy plummets, you may be asking yourself, “can I really afford to be, ‘green,’ during these economic times?”

I’m here to tell you, “Absolutely you can!”

Here I have compiled a list of ten articles from Earthascope that outline different ways to improve your envirohuman impact while saving money.  You don’t have to stop your efforts to pollute less just because of bad economic times!

Think of it as turning the recession into your own, “green session”!