Round-up 3/26: Champ vs. Denier, Obama vs. emissions, and more

This week's blog and news update has a nice variety for you. Climate champ Joe Romm goes head-to-head with Sen. Inhofe (R-Denialvania), the Obama Administration moves on car efficiency, and West Virginians are featured for their efforts to create their own clean energy future. Enviroknow passed along a chart showing how the world is investing in that future as well. Finally, a video for tomorrow's Earth Hour shows just how creative climate activism can be.

This week, U.S. News and World Report pitted climate champion, physicist, and Climate Progress blogger Jow Romm against climate denier Senator Inhofe in a debate titled, "Did Climategate expose global warming fears as unfounded?" Obviously, Romm represents the negative, arguing that climate change is, in fact, a very real and serious concern. He explained his participation on Climate Progress. The debate is at the U.S. News site and lets you vote on which position you agree with. Stop by and support Dr. Romm's effort to battle the forces of climate denialism.

Protecting the Clean Air Act from attacks in Congress is essential for many reasons related to reducing our global warming gas emissions. One of these is that it allows for making national fuel efficiency standards to make our cars more efficient (and less costly at the gas pump). As the Obama Administration promised last year, they are moving ahead with plans to establish such standards under the Clean Air Act authority next week! As E2-Wire reports, the rules don't go in effect until 2016 and could definitely be stronger, but this is a prime example of why it's important to keep protecting the Clean Air Act so it can protect our climate and air quality.

One of the most prominent stories of clean energy potential and dirty energy destruction is that of Coal River Mountain in West Virginia. On Monday, Good.is hosted a post about the people near Coal River Mountain who are fighting to protect their homes, their heritage, and to create a sustainable, clean energy future for their children. They are working tirelessly to stop the destructive mountaintop removal (MTR) practice and create a wind farm as part of Coal River Wind. Read the story, watch the video, and see why moving America to clean energy is right economically, ecologically, and morally.

The Infographic of the Week comes courtesy of Enviroknow. It is from a Pew study examining renewable energy investment worldwide that found that China put almost twice the amount of money the United States did into renewable energy and efficiency in 2009. Stopping climate change isn't about competing with one country or another, but clean energy and efficiency does offer a powerful way to strengthen the American economy while improving the future for our children. A strong climate bill will help spur this kind of investment, but we don't have to wait. The rest of the world won't.

Prepare to have your mind blown. Earth Hour, the one hour when the world joins together to shut off their lights in solidarity for climate action. As the World Wildlife Fund Earth Hour site says, "the movement symbolizes that by working together, each of us can make a positive impact in this fight, protecting our future and that of future generations." This year they came up with a truly amazing idea to promote the event – a video that is wildly different, yet fundamentally the same, with the "lights" turned off or on. Both versions are below, but to get the full effect, go to the "Lights Off" video page and hit the light switch as the video is playing.

When you're done watching, remember to take part in Earth Hour Saturday night at 8:30 local time. Just remember: it's not just about one hour.