NCSE expects this task to be much harder than fighting creationism. "The forces arrayed against climate science are more numerous and much better funded," Scott says, and are better able to get their message across in the mainstream media than creationism supporters. Organizations such as the Heartland Institute, which questions whether humans cause climate change, send out free educational materials to teachers and school boards. As Science reported in September, teachers who already struggle with small science budgets and little time for teaching have no time to fend off ideological attacks from students, parents, and administrators.

Most news outlets don't report on spills this "minor" because they happen quite literally all the time. About 20,0000 oil spills are reported to the U.S. government annually. Of those, approximately 300 are so bad that the Environmental Protection Agency either intervenes itself or oversees private cleanup contractors. In other words, that's about an oil spill per day.

Why Free Inhalers? Because COAL CARES.

Coal Cares™ is a brand-new initiative from James River Coal, one of America's proud family of coal companies, to reach out to American youngsters with asthma and to help them keep their heads high in the face of those who would treat them with less than full dignity. For kids who have no choice but to use an inhaler, Coal Cares™ lets them inhale with pride.

Puff-Puff™ inhalers are available free to any family living within 200 miles of a coal plant, and each inhaler comes with a $10 coupon towards the cost of the asthma medication itself.

We have to stand up and say, ‘Enough is enough,’ ” said Senator Al Franken, Democrat of Minnesota. “While oil prices are gouging the pocketbooks of American families, these companies are on a pace for a record profit this year.

The cost of Big Oil’s loopholes

• $4 billion: Cost of Big Oil tax breaks in 2011.
• $2 billion: Cost of Big Oil tax breaks eliminated by S. 940.
• $77 billion: Cost of Big Oil tax breaks from 2011 to 2021.

Big Oil profits pile up

• $902 billion: Total profits for the five biggest oil companies in the United States, 2001–2010 (in 2011 dollars).
• $32 billion: Total Big Oil earnings, first quarter of 2011. Exxon Mobil alone accounted for $10.7 billion of that figure.
• 38 percent: Big Oil’s first-quarter-2011 profit increase over the first quarter of 2010.
• 28 percent: Increase in gasoline prices compared to 2010.
• 53 percent: Portion of their profits that both Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips spent repurchasing stock to drive up their companies’ share values in the first quarter of 2011.
• $8 billion: The amount of first-quarter profits the big five companies spent on stock buybacks.

Low effective tax rates for Exxon Mobil

• 17.6 percent: Average effective federal corporate tax rate paid by Exxon Mobil, 2008–2010.
• 20.4 percent: Average American individual federal effective tax rate in 2007 (the last year of available data).

Oil campaign cash and votes to close loopholes

• $273,500: Big Oil campaign contributions to Republican senators and representatives in the first quarter of 2011.
• $7,000: Big Oil campaign contributions to Democratic senators and representatives in the first quarter of 2011.
• 2: House Republicans who voted to cut tax loopholes for Big Oil during debate on H.R. 1230.
• 147: House Democrats who voted to cut tax loopholes for Big Oil during debate on H.R. 1230.
• 0: House Democrats who voted for $30 billion in Medicare cuts in the FY 2012 budget resolution that was passed by the House on April 15.
• 4: Republicans who voted against $30 billion in Medicare cuts in the FY 2012 budget.
• 44: Senators who voted to close Big Oil tax loopholes and use savings to offset health care costs.

Public supports ending tax breaks

• 66 percent: The proportion of Americans who say gas prices are taking a toll on their personal finances, according to a recent CNN poll.
• 74 percent: The proportion of Americans who favor “eliminating tax credits for the oil and gas industry,” according to a NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey.
• 2-to-1: The margin by which “Republican voters support ending subsidies” for oil companies.

What oil tax dollars could buy

• $21 billion reduction in the federal budget deficit by enactment of the Close Big Oil Tax Loopholes Act (S. 940), which would close tax loopholes for the big five oil companies over the next 10 years.
• $30 billion for Medicare if tax loopholes were eliminated for all Big Oil companies. This would offset the Medicare cuts in the fiscal year 2012 budget resolution that was passed by the House on April 15.
• $1 billion could pay the salaries of 18,000 high school teachers earning an average of $55,000 per year.
• $1 billion could pay for 251,000 Pell Grants to aspiring college students. These grants are essential to help these scholars pay for tuition, and averaged $3,984 apiece in 2011.

I don’t think the oil executives would ever do this, but if I were one of them, I would be tempted to just shut off the spigots and go elsewhere and maybe America could run everything on solar power for the next decade or two and see what happens.

...the windmill-savvy Danes are the world's most ambitious country in clean tech development, with a full 3.1 percent of their GDP coming from renewable energy technology and energy efficiency.

In second place: China, an impressive feat considering how massive their GDP is compared to most of the world's nations. The United States lags at an embarrassing 17th place, with a mere 0.3 percent of GDP coming from the clean, renewable sector.

In one of most ironic flip-flops in environmental history, the oil and gas industry is beginning to adapt to climate change. And it's no wonder. The majority of industry's infrastructure is located in some of the most climate vulnerable regions on the planet. Nearly 75 percent of the Alaskan pipeline, for example, is built over increasingly unstable permafrost, which is now thawing under warmer temperatures. The Mackenzie Valley in Canada alone has recorded over 2,000 sink holes, rock slides, and large depressions from thawing permafrost.

a study commissioned by federal regulators found that only three of 14 newly built rigs had blowout preventers that could squeeze off and cut the pipe