Thank goodness the graduation season is finally over. I witnessed pomp and circumstance at prep schools from Orlando to the Napa Valley and at colleges from Los Angeles to the Ivy League. The surprising topic at all of these cap-and-gown fests? Endowments divesting their holdings in fossil fuel companies.

Any American civics lesson includes the “balance of powers” of our government among its three branches: executive, legislative, and judicial. 

What do you get Mother Earth on her big day (reminder: it’s April 22nd!)? 

Overheard at the water cooler this week:

Tom: Sally, did you know we can solve climate change for as little as $35 per person?

Sally: I’m afraid that’s a waste of my money, Tom.

Ever hear of a reality show called “Snake Salvation?” 

Me neither, until one of the serpent-handling co-stars was bit last month by a snake during a church service and later died. 

As the confetti is swept away and the world gets back to work, will 2014 be a banner year or will we be singing that “old acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind” a year from now? 

Legend says that naughty kids get a lump of coal in their Christmas stocking, so do nice kids get clean energy in theirs, at least metaphorically speaking? 

Inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil predicts that before mid-century the exponential acceleration of information technologies, robotics, medical science, and artificial intelligence will result in a “singularity”, a point at which humans will essentially merge with their technology. 
 

Ten years ago this week, Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected governor of California and he appointed me to be the Secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency. 

Last year Americans spent $65billion on lottery tickets. In some games, the odds of winning have been compared to the probability of being struck by lightning while sinking a hole-in-one. 

Global population hit 7 billion well ahead of most predictions. The UN now forecasts that we will share the planet - - and its increasingly scarce natural resources - - with about 10 billion fellow humans by 2050. 

Last week Arnold Schwarzenegger, chairman of the R20 Regions of Climate Action, signed an agreement in Algeria to address waste and sustainable energy challenges in the Mediterranean and North Africa. At the same time, a meeting of officials in Bahrain examined technologies and strategies to help that nation evolve into one of the most energy and water efficient economies in the world. Are there lessons in those examples for the U.S. now that President Obama has reignited the debate over climate change policy?

When I was born in the 1950s, nuclear power was said to be “too cheap to meter.” Although few and far between, disasters at Fukushima and Chernobyl have laid waste to that claim and, for that matter, entire cities.  German Chancellor Angela Merkel, herself a nuclear physicist, led the charge to eliminate her nation’s nuclear power plants in the next few years based on a rational risk analysis. 

A few weeks ago, the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii recorded CO2 levels in the atmosphere at almost 400 parts per million. Many scientists predicted that in reaching this level, we would see more intense storms (like Hurricanes Irene and Sandy); droughts (like the one suffocating the middle of the US for the past year); and heat waves (the 12 hottest years on record have all been in the last 15). 

We wouldn’t be here without her. We’ll never fully appreciate the sacrifices she makes every day for our well-being. Yes, it will take a very special gift to really say “I love you, mom” to our Mother Earth. 

With Earth Day 2013 around the corner, it’s a good time to step back and see how we’ve been doing since the first Earth Day in 1970, when 20 million people took to the streets to protest rivers on fire, DDT-poisoned birds, sewage on beaches, and a devastating oil spill off the pristine Santa Barbara coast.

Last week in Wuxi, I noticed a newspaper headline about the bankruptcy of Suntech, one of China’s largest solar panel manufacturers. 

Below the fold was a story about the success of several local car companies and the dramatic rise in their stock values. Was there something that these stories had in common - - and something from them that could help the U.S. economic recovery?

Peak Oil is the concept that new discoveries of commercially exploitable oil resources do not keep pace with growing demand. By extrapolating the data, you can estimate when we will run out of it for all practical purposes. 

“The government can’t change the weather,” said Florida Senator Marco Rubio last week, describing his opposition to President Obama’s State of the Union call-to-action on climate change policy. Given the staggering costs of droughts, heat waves, and super storms, it would seem our political leaders would come quickly to some consensus on these seemingly urgent issues and take some kind of concerted action. So where do our political leaders get their information that has instead led to partisan gridlock?

In his inaugural address this week, President Obama committed us to get back to work on the challenge of a sustainable energy future.

“We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations,” he said. But will this reignite the debate on climate change or have three widely publicized stories already done that for us?