Dear Umbra, Here in Texas, where it is very hot in the summer (granted, we deserve to be in hell for having produced George Bush), some of us have been enthusiastically switching our light bulbs to cooler compact fluorescents. Is this a bad thing due to the mercury they contain? Lisa Smithville, Texas Dearest Lisa, Thanks for your question, as it will allow me to keep shedding light on the compact fluorescent issue. Compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs) last far longer and use electricity more efficiently than conventional incandescent bulbs. Buy them if you can. They do contain a minuscule amount …

Dear Umbra, You'd be so proud of us! We just had an hour-long meeting about conservation and environmentalism here in our office. In the course of our discussion, the topic of leaving the lights on came up. I am a religious light-switcher, meaning I turn lights off in the bathroom or wherever they're left on. One of my colleagues was under the impression that it takes more energy to turn fluorescent lights on and off than it does to leave them on. I'm shocked! Is this true? And are there eco-sensitive alternatives to standard fluorescent tubes? In the dark, Matt …

The Texas legislature is under pressure to find a way to fund a plan to cut smog in the state's major urban areas. If the lawmakers can't come up with the money soon, the U.S. EPA has threatened to reject the plan and take over the state's pollution-control efforts. That would jeopardize federal highway money, which is contingent on meeting clean air standards. Under the Texas Emissions Reductions Plan, passed by the legislature in 2001, the state is supposed to collect taxes and fees to help offset the cost to businesses of voluntarily replacing old, smog-producing diesel equipment, as well …

In other news from the Golden State, California's two Democratic senators, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, have introduced legislation that would prevent energy companies in Mexico from using Californian natural gas in their plants near the California-Mexico border unless those plants complied with the state's strict air-quality standards. The legislation would apply to natural-gas-powered generators that produce more than 50 megawatts of electricity and are located within 50 miles of the border. Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) has introduced a similar bill in the House. The legislation would have its most immediate effect on two new plants planned for Mexicali, Mexico, …

The General Accounting Office, the investigative branch of the U.S. Congress, will meet with regulators from the Security and Exchange Commission next week to discuss whether companies sufficiently disclose environmental risks to shareholders. The meeting was prompted by concerns from Sens. Jim Jeffords (I-Vt.), Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.), and Jon Corzine (D-N.J.) about corporate liability for environmental problems, especially when it comes to energy companies. Such companies produce significant amounts of greenhouse gases, thereby contributing to global warming, an environmental problem that could cost the world $300 billion annually by the middle of the century, according to the German reinsurance giant …

The tropopause has risen by an average of 650 feet globally in the last 22 years because of global warming and ozone depletion, according to a study published in the latest issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research. For those of you who've forgotten your junior high school science, the tropopause is the atmospheric layer above the troposphere (which swaddles the Earth) and below the stratosphere (where commercial jets fly). According to the research, which was conducted by 12 experts from around the world, greenhouse gases created by the burning of fossil fuels warm the atmosphere and cause the troposphere …

Rain. Drought. Hailstorms. Tornadoes. Frost. You'd be hard-pressed to name a weather phenomenon that hasn't afflicted the African kingdom of Lesotho in recent times, destroying its crops and leaving one-third of its 2.1 million people on the brink of starvation. Now, many scientists are saying that those people, along with nearly 40 million other Africans facing famine, may be among the first human victims of climate change. Although experts are reluctant to blame any particular weather event on climate change, many concur that the weather patterns plaguing Lesotho and other African nations are eerily consistent with predictions of how weather …

Despite inevitable resistance from the Bush administration and fellow Congress members, Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) plan to unveil a proposal this week that would force all U.S. industries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. The legislation would require all industries to limit their emissions to 2000 levels by 2010 and 1990 levels by 2016. McCain has scheduled a hearing on the matter for tomorrow and plans to send a proposal to the Senate floor later this year, according to his aides. That proposal is bound to face stiff opposition from President Bush and from Sen. James …

  Look there, friend Sancho Panza, where 30 or more monstrous giants rise up, all of whom I mean to engage in battle and slay, and with whose spoils we shall begin to make our fortunes. For this is righteous warfare, and it is God's good service to sweep so evil a breed from off the face of the earth." "Look, your worship,'' said Sancho. "What we see there are not giants but windmills, and what seem to be their arms are the vanes that turned by the wind make the millstone go." It has been four centuries since Cervantes …

A Czech friend of mine sent me an email during the recent NATO summit in Prague as American fighter jets stood by and riot police filled the streets. "Sometimes," she wrote, "I feel as though the world has gone mad." Her words spoke my own thoughts so clearly it was as though I were reading a message I'd sent to myself. Quiet riot police. Do you sense it too -- the recklessness of this moment? How can people talk this way -- as though deep Earth penetrating nuclear weapons, unmanned drones, and stockpiles of smallpox virus are any more of …