There's a lot of buzz right now about the potential for "green" economic stimulus - policies and investments that grow the economy, create jobs, and protect the planet at the same time.

• Treehugger reports that energy efficiency investment in California has led to 1.5 million new jobs and $56 billion in savings between 1972 and 2006.
• An editorial in the Seattle Times explains how heavy investment in green infrastructure can put people back to work as well as solve the climate crisis.
• A post on Gristmill cites Paul Krugman's argument that federal spending is the only way out of our economic woes, and suggests that this spending should include a Green Jobs program.

Investing in projects to repair and update our aging infrastructure would pay off in new jobs and a more efficient America. But where will the money come from? Stuck between pay-as-you-go rules and no new middle-class taxes, Congress doesn't have a lot of options. One could be the auction of pollution allowances under a national greenhouse gas emissions cap. Estimates are that an auction could generate somewhere in the neighborhood of $150 billion per year.

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A few weeks ago we posted about our video design competition - $10,000 to the winner  - for depicting how a cap on greenhouse gases can solve our addiction to oil. Joe Romm on Climate Progress had a problem with this - said we were asking the impossible since a cap wouldn't do this.

I responded to Romm's objection on the Environmental Economics blog with a post titled "Bizarre"? No. Tough? Yes. But that wasn't the end of it. Romm fired back, accusing EDF of "magical thinking". Our exchange is also cross-posted on Grist (Romm's first post, my response, Romm's answer).

Stay tuned - I'll be posting a response to Romm's second post this week.

This post is by Gernot Wagner, Ph.D., an economist in the Climate and Air program at Environmental Defense Fund.

The State of Florida just issued a final report on energy and climate change with some hopeful findings. Its policy recommendations would not only reduce Florida's greenhouse gas emissions 50 percent below 2005 levels by 2025, but also save the state $28 billion:

The total net cost savings of all Action Team recommendations combined is more than $28 billion from 2009 to 2025. Additionally, the recommendations would increase Florida’s energy security by reducing our dependence on fossil fuels resulting in a total fuel savings of 53.5 billion gallons of petroleum, 200.2 million short tons of coal, and 6.394 billion ft.³ of natural gas during the period of 2009 through 2025.

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There's been a lot of buzz lately about the financial meltdown making lawmakers think that climate change legislation is less urgent. But while we worry about the financial markets, global warming marches relentlessly on. The science knows nothing of credit markets and there will be no pause in the march towards catastrophe while we work that out.

In fact, climate change legislation could well solve both problems. David Roberts talked about this at length in a post this week on Gristmill. Here's an excerpt:

Greens and economists need to be making the point that these green investments are not something we need to do in spite of economic woes, or in conjunction with measures to turn the economy around. They are the measures to turn the economy around. Kudos to Cathy Zoi of We for making the case, but she could use some backup.

There won't be much time to do something serious on climate. The news from scientists looks worse and worse every day.

This post is by Sheryl Canter, an online writer and editorial manager at Environmental Defense Fund.

We've been getting some good reactions to our new Fight Global Warming Toolbar. Treehugger describes it as "a very easy way to be green". GoodCleanTech says "If only fighting global warming were as easy as surfing the web, surely our ailing blue planet would be on a fast track to recovery. If you think nothing is that easy, you better hold on to your browsers."

Our free toolbar lets you raise money to stop global warming simply by using the search box, get our latest action alerts, share environmental news, and quickly access tips and tools for reducing your carbon footprint. We have versions for Internet Explorer and Firefox. Try it out and tell us what you think!

This post is by Sheryl Canter, an online writer and editorial manager at Environmental Defense Fund.

In March 2007, we blogged about the dire situation of the South Pacific islands Kiribati and Tuvalu. The sea is rising due to global warming, and two uninhabited islands nearby have already sunk. Now Kiribati is preparing for extinction:

The leader of the South Pacific island nation of Kiribati laid out an extraordinary plan Monday (Sept. 22) that would scatter his people through the nations of the world as rising sea levels submerge the islands they have called home for centuries.

Rising sea levels are submerging the land. Land not yet submerged is being rendered uninhabitable by salty ground water.

This post is by Sheryl Canter, an online writer and editorial manager at Environmental Defense Fund.

What has the federal government done over the last eight years to stop global warming? Sadly, not much, despite numerous, dire warnings. Our new interactive timeline gives an at-a-glance overview of the scientific reports, lost policy opportunities, and environmental impacts over the last eight years. Click the forward and backward arrows to move through time, and click on a color-coded event box to learn more about it.

Besides giving a succinct summary of the last eight years, the timeline is fun to click around - lots of interesting information all in one place. And it makes it very clear what we need to do when the new administration comes in. There's no time to waste.

This post is by Sheryl Canter, an online writer and editorial manager at Environmental Defense Fund.

What if, instead of reducing the greenhouse gas concentrations that hold excess heat in our atmosphere, we injected something in the atmosphere to reflect sunlight back into space? That's the idea behind sulfate geo-engineering. As Bill wrote in his post "Can we engineer our way out?", there are a plethora of problems with geo-engineering, but scientists still study it as an option of last resort.

The idea of injecting sulfates into the atmosphere is based on the observation that large volcanic eruptions can cause short-term global cooling. But in addition to the usual problems with geo-engineering (for example, it does nothing to stop ocean acidification from excess CO₂), scientists have found a new one. Sulfate geo-engineering could endanger food and water supplies for billions of people in Africa and Asia, according to a recent paper in the Journal of Geophysical Research [PDF].

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We frequently mention the IPCC reports on Climate 411 - often referencing them as the most trustworthy authority on global warming science. In fact, our very first blog post was titled "What is the IPCC, anyway?" But for non-scientists, these rather technical reports are a challenge to read.

Climate scientists Michael Mann and Lee Kump published the book Dire Predictions to make the IPCC's crucially important findings accessible to the layperson. For the most part, they succeed admirably. Mann and Kump did a remarkable job of simplifying complex ideas. But it still gets a little dense in places.

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This Sunday's New York Times Magazine had a cover story on green investment titled "Capitalism to the Rescue". We've mentioned in other posts that venture capital investment in clean energy is on the rise. This article was interesting in that it profiled one particular venture capital firm, Kleiner Perkins. The author interviewed the firm's partners about why they see clean energy as such a good investment.

To start with, explained partner Randy Komisar, the current energy market is so large and outdated that "green-tech" is a huge and relatively low-risk opportunity. And we're not, as many think, waiting for the new inventions to come. We're waiting for federal policy to give private investment incentive. That is, we're waiting for a mandatory carbon cap.

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