The problem here is the white stuff in the sky, not the white things on the ground.

Last night, fresh off a day crackling with one diplomatic success after another, Mitt Romney attended a fundraiser and said this:

"The EPA has an important responsibility, and that is to keep clean and make more clean our air and our water. ... My view is that the EPA, if it keeps to its mission and does not use its power to foster or further an anti-carbon energy agenda, would be a more effective department," Romney told the crowd when asked about the agency. "I believe the EPA has to see itself as being responsible for our air and water and not take action which can prevent us from taking advantage of the extraordinary energy resources we have, such as coal, oil, natural gas.”

Emphasis added.

Romney's absolutely correct. I mean, this is basically how doctors treat illnesses. You do absolutely nothing preventative nor even to treat the illness itself. All you do is clean up after symptoms. It's why all the best medical schools specialize in the proper use of vomit buckets and Band-Aid application.

Previously on this little soap opera: Shell arrives in the Arctic, almost losing a boat. The company's friends back in Washington worry whether Shell will have enough time to drill before the ice closes in later this year. And now, back to our story.

I have to say, it's kind of amazing that Shell is profitable. Beyond, you know, the fact that it sells ridiculous amounts of an artificially cheap product that is deliberately integrated tightly into the fabric of nearly every global society. You'd think that a company that made about $2 million an hour last quarter would have this drilling thing on lock.

But, no. Shell is having to scale back its drilling plans in Alaska, even as one of the state's senators scrambles to buy it more time.

Shell had originally hoped to drill five exploratory wells this season. But what with chasing loose boats and sea ice, it'll probably have to settle for two.

Unusually thick shorefast ice is keeping Shell from sending drillships into the Arctic waters and shortening an already brief window. Under federal regulations, Shell has to stop drilling in hydrocarbon zones by Oct. 31 in the Beaufort Sea; regulators are requiring that work to end 38 days earlier in the Chukchi Sea.

In the past five years, ice has encroached over the planned drill sites as early as Nov. 1, but this summer, the slow melt of multi-year ice at the season’s start means the water is colder and is a signal it could return even earlier.

Shell had planned to launch its Arctic drilling program in July; now, it is anticipating an early August start date, said spokeswoman Kelly op de Weegh.

(There's still ice in the Arctic? I thought Shell et al. had already taken care of that.)

Storm clouds move in over New York City during yesterday's derecho.

Remember that big hole in the ozone over the South Pole? Beginning in the 1980s, we plugged it up. And we often look to that success as a guide for how to save the environment. Identify the problem, develop a solution, enact international policies that address it. By severely limiting chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), we preserved the ozone layer, which is critical to blocking harmful ultraviolet radiation.

We didn't actually eliminate all CFCs from the atmosphere. There are still CFCs up there, combining with oxygen in the ozone layer and breaking it down. But the combination has generally been stable.

Until climate change came along. From The New York Times:

Strong summer thunderstorms that pump water high into the upper atmosphere pose a threat to the protective ozone layer over the United States, researchers said on Thursday, drawing one of the first links between climate change and ozone loss over populated areas.

Good thing there haven't been any strong summer thunderstorms lately!

A coal-powered electrical plant.

Three updates on the coal industry. If you can't be bothered to read the whole thing, here's a summary. Coal: Ugh.

Americans see more future in renewables.

A poll from Rasmussen Reports indicates that Americans see investment in renewables as a better plan than investment in fossil fuels like coal.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 55% say investing in renewable energy sources like solar and wind is a better long-term investment for the United States than investing in fossil fuels such as coal, gas and oil. Thirty-six percent (36%) think fossil fuels are a better long-term investment.

What's particularly remarkable about this finding is that Rasmussen is often considered to be more friendly to conservative issues. In fact, Nate Silver, the Times' polling wunderkind, wrote that the firm's 2010 election polling was "biased and inaccurate," "overestimating the standing of the Republican candidate by almost 4 points on average." He goes on: "The discrepancies between Rasmussen Reports polls and those issued by other companies were apparent from virtually the first day that Barack Obama took office."

If Rasmussen says that Americans prefer renewables, then you can take that to the bank.

"Laughing out loud!"

Mitt Romney is giving oil executives a good reason to vote for him. (Making, by our count, 465,361 such reasons.) From the Center for American Progress:

The world’s five biggest public oil companies—BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and Royal Dutch Shell—would keep special tax breaks worth $2.4 billion each year. And by cutting corporate tax rates, the Romney plan could lower the companies’ annual tax bill by another $2.3 billion, based on an analysis of the companies’ tax expense for 2011. The special tax breaks, supplemented by Gov. Romney’s lower corporate rates, could benefit the oil companies by more than $4 billion annually.

Ha ha. Perfect! Finally -- finally! -- oil companies will be able to make a buck or two!

Here's CAP's breakdown of what the five largest oil companies in the world -- half of the 10 largest corporations in America -- stand to get from Romney's tax proposals.

Click to embiggen.

Senate Republicans have released their energy (and, of course, jobs!) plan. It contains exactly what you expect.

Like, literally. Say it with me: More drilling! Less regulation! Attacks on the president! They claim this is leading on the issue, which I guess is leadership, in the insanity-means-doing-same-thing-and-expecting-different-result sense of leadership, which is not a sense of leadership.

Oh, by the way? They are literally calling this thing DEJA.

Photo by danie;.

They are calling it DEJA. As in, deja vu, the sense one gets when feeling one has lived a life event before. Are we experiencing DEJA vu here, America? Yes. That is what is happening.

In no particular order, and, despite the headline, certainly not everything:

• The Olympic Games' official sustainability site!
• How organizers plan to make the Games green!
• The top six green buildings at the Olympics!
• How the Games precipitated a green building boom!
• A U.N. guy, giving the London Games props!
• Action Sustainability, taking said props away!
• An article called: "London Olympics -- Green Olympics?”
• A video, from the BBC!
• All about toilets!

This drought, man.

Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) declared another 76 counties to be disaster areas as a result of the drought, bringing the total to 1,234. There are 3,033 counties in America. The map of declared disaster areas looks like this:

I mean, half of Hawaii is a disaster area.

Click to embiggen.

The drought is expected to lead to an increase in food prices (as we've noted previously). The New York Times has a big story on food prices this morning that's worth a look. And here's the USDA's preliminary prediction for what food price increases to expect. The expected drop in corn availability has already pushed at least one U.S. meat producer to import corn from Brazil as a hedge against a shortage this fall.

We can also expect an increase in insects, hooray. From Southern California Public Radio:

“Insects are cold-blooded, which means that their body temperatures are regulated by the temperature of their environment,” said Missy Henriksen, the vice president of public affairs for the [National Pest Management Association]. “In cold weather, insects’ internal temperatures drop, causing them to slow down. But in warm weather, they become more active. Larvae grow at a faster rate, reproduction cycles speed up and they move faster."

Which means perfect conditions for a host of pests including fleas, ticks, termites, mosquitoes, brown recluse and black widow spiders and scorpions to flourish in the coming weeks. What’s worse, the hot, dry temperatures will eventually drive those pests to seek out moisture and cool places to dwell -- like homes.

I repeat: hooray.

Scientists have largely pinned down the cause for the huge loss in Arctic ice volume over the past 40 years. And guess what? It's because of climate change.

I mean, you already knew that. But scientists like to be thorough.

Researchers from the National Center for Atmospheric Science at the University of Reading used a computer model to look at how much of the ice loss could be attributed to natural cycles (specifically, the "Atlantic multi-decadal oscillation," or AMO). From The Guardian:

"We could only attribute as much as 30% [of the Arctic ice loss] to the AMO," [the researcher] said. "Which implies that the rest is due to something else, and this is most likely going to be man-made global change."

Previous studies had indicated that around half of the loss was due to man-made climate change and that the other half was due to natural variability.

ExxonMobil earned almost $16 billion last quarter [PDF], up nearly 50 percent from the second quarter of 2011.

That's $5.3 billion a month. About $176 million a day. $7 million an hour -- almost three times as much as the average college grad earns in a lifetime. The company also very likely pays less in taxes than you do.