See US energy usage for a treasure chest full of US energy geek goodies, in the form of gobs of state-level stats and rankings.

Sun launches community for measuring, comparing GHG emissions:

In an effort to help organizations get a handle on their swelling carbon footprints, Sun today is launching OpenEco.org, an online community providing free tools and resources for calculating, tracking, and comparing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

With OpenEco.org, organizations can calculate on a granular level the GHGs related to their facilities and vehicle fleets, based on standard, approved carbon accounting standards. They also can track trends and their progress, and compile reports suitable under programs such as the EPA Climate Leaders, according to Sun.

Scientists hopeful despite climate signs:

Climate scientists say mankind is on the path for soaring temperatures that will melt polar ice sheets, raise seas to dangerous levels, and trigger mass extinctions. But they say the most catastrophic of consequences can and will be avoided.

They have hope. So should you, Mann said.

“Sometimes we fear that we are delivering too morose a message and not conveying enough that there is reason for optimism,” Mann said.

Mann is not alone in laughing, even though the news he delivers could make people cry.

“It’s hard at times,” said University of Victoria climate scientist Andrew Weaver. “You can’t give up hope because what else is there in life if you give up hope? When you give up hope, that’s quitting and scientists don’t like to quit.”

That optimism is based on science and faith.

The science, Mann said, is because climate researchers are sure of one thing that the public isn’t: The numbers show that there is still time to avert the worst.

NASA’s James Hansen, who forecasts some of the bleakest outlooks on global warming, said in an e-mail: “I am always surprised when people get depressed rather than energized to do something. It’s not too late to stabilize climate.”

“I am not about to give up,” Hansen wrote. He has hope, he says, because he has grandchildren.

The views of these scientists perfectly encapsulate my current thinking. It’s not too late, we can make a difference, and because the stakes are so stupefyingly high, we will find ways to fix the situation.

And yes, it’s the oldest cliche in such circles, but it really is about the children. I’m of an age where, if I had children, they would quite possibly be parents themselves. This is an eerie realization, to say the least–I’ve never thought of myself as a father, let alone a (gasp!) grandfather. But I suddenly have these inexplicable feelings, which I refer to as “the grandfather gene kicking in”, in which I desperately want to do what I can to help fix this staggering mess we’ve created. I feel it when I’m around our neighbors kids or our own three nieces or the middle school kids I presented to last year or even the small group of college kids in the audience last week.

It is a moral imperative, nothing less.

And that is precisely why I hate both the cornucopians/deniers and the Apocalypticons. We don’t have the luxury of wasting time while the mainstream public is given wildly false information. The cornucopians are delaying the much needed responses to peak oil and global warming, while the Apocalypticons are scaring people into either giving up or doing the wrong things.

The battle is just getting under way, and I, for one, ain’t goin’ without a fight.

Record sea ice melt this summer larger than Texas and Alaska:

Shattering previous records, the sea ice in the Arctic shrank 1 million square miles more this summer than the average melt over 25 years, an area larger than Alaska and Texas combined, according to NASA satellite data released Thursday.

Scientists at the federally financed National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado attributed the big melt to a global increase in ocean and air temperatures. The melting was made worse by a cloudless summer in the Arctic, the researchers said.

“The Arctic sea ice is the first signal, and the biggest signal, of the effects of rising global temperatures,” said Walt Meier, a research scientist at the center.

…

Melting sea ice doesn’t raise ocean levels as do melting glaciers and other land-based ice. But what happens in the Arctic affects the globe as a whole, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an international body of experts preparing studies of Earth’s physical functions as well as effects on humans and the economy.

The Arctic melt is expected to amplify the Earth’s warming, as there is less sea ice to reflect sunlight back into space and more dark ocean to absorb solar energy. Warmer water flowing from the Pacific Ocean through the Bering Strait into the Arctic Ocean and fresher water flowing into the North Atlantic from the Arctic also will change ocean temperatures and currents.

ACCESS TO OIL IS BEDROCK OF OUR MIDDLE EAST POLICY:

Should the United States invade a foreign country for its oil?

If that question were posed in a poll, the vast majority of Americans would no doubt answer with a resounding “no.” We’re the good guys in the world, spreading democracy, freeing the oppressed, opposing tyrants. We wouldn’t invade a sovereign country strictly out of a selfish lust for its resources, would we?

Of course we would. We’ve already supported coups, sent armies and invaded at least one country to protect our access to petroleum. In his newly published memoirs, Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, put that uncomfortable truth front and center with his thoughts on the invasion of Iraq.

“I’m saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows — the Iraq war is largely about oil,” he wrote.

…

Think about it. What other reason does the United States have for its deep involvement in the Middle East, an unstable region full of despots, hostile to democracy and friendly to jihadists? That’s why the United States pushed Saddam out of Kuwait in 1991 — to prevent a subsequent invasion of oil-rich Saudi Arabia. While several agendas converged to drive the war wagon to Baghdad in 2003, the critical factor — indeed the cause that underpinned all others — was protecting U.S. access to Middle East oil reserves.

The author (Cynthia Tucker, of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution) makes some excellent points beyond those quoted above. Go read it all.