The climate change site, DeSmogBlog has found that Environmental Resources Management, the consulting firm behind the Keystone XL Pipeline environmental impact assessment, has been at the center of controversial pipeline projects in the past.

Activists working against the 2002 planned construction of British Petroleum’s Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline in Turkey, singled out Environmental Resources Management (ERM) for what they saw as ERM “grooming” the BP pipeline for construction. Like the Keystone XL pipeline assessment, ERM’s assessment of the Turkish pipeline was seen as flawed and drafted in a way that gave all but the green light for the pipeline to be constructed.

Two Sundays ago, I traveled to the nation’s capital to attend what was billed as “the largest climate rally in history” and I haven’t been able to get the experience — or a question that haunted me — out of my mind. Where was everybody?

First, though, the obvious weather irony: climate change didn’t exactly come out in support of that rally. In the midst of the warmest years and some of the warmest winters on record, the demonstration, which focused on stopping the Keystone XL Pipeline — it will bring tar-sands oil, some of the “dirtiest,” carbon-richest energy available from Alberta, Canada, to the U.S. Gulf Coast — was the coldest I’ve ever attended. I thought I’d lose a few fingers and toes while listening to the hour-plus of speakers, including Senator Sheldon Whitehouse from Rhode Island, who were theoretically warming the crowd up for its march around the (other) White House.

In his latest novel, Existence, David Brin takes on the Fermi Paradox – the apparent contradiction between high estimates of the probability of the existence of extraterrestrial civilization and humanity’s lack of contact with, or evidence for, such civilizations. Set in the 2050s, Existence is at once familiar and oh so alien even before the initial contact with an alien artifact occurs.

One really has to admire, in a sick and sad way, the straight out lack of scruple at FoxNews sometimes.

Tom Wilber’s book reads like a novel but is reported in the true spirit of an explanatory, investigative journalist. While detail-obsessed and leaving few stones unturned on the policy side of the shale oil and gas debate, Wilber – in somewhat masterful fashion – takes readers inside the lives of the Marcellus Shale’s stakeholders: citizens, citizen-journalists, oil and gas corporate executives, and activists. There is never a dull moment in the book, as Wilber seamlessly weaves fact-laden reportage into novel-like story-telling. I read the book in three sittings, as it is tough to put down once one opens it up.

Two of the more loaded words in contemporary politics are independence and freedom. Despite their similarities in meaning they get used in very different ways. Independence is used in a more national sense, which might be natural because of its prominence in what is arguably our founding document. It doesn’t seem like it is possible to disparage independence in our discourse. Even a word like patriotism, while generally well regarded, has qualifications. Independence is all good though, so anything you can attach to it is improved by the association.

This has played out for years now with the much-invoked phrase “energy independence.”

Three events collided this past week for me in the space of 36 hours, all revolving around climate change: Obama’s inaugural address, the death of John Chandley, and the decision of Nebraska’s governor to allow the Keystone XL pipeline to be built in his state. Three other events loom on the horizon: the ongoing drought, the Presidents Day protests in DC led by 350.org and Bill McKibben, and the eventual decision — one way or another — by President Obama on that pipeline.

At first, it was kept secret for months, cryptically referred to only as an “unidentified third-party contractor.”

Finally, in November 2012, Reuters revealed the name of the corporate consulting firm the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) hired to produce a study on the prospective economic impacts of liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports.

LNG is the super-chilled final product of gas obtained – predominatly in today’s context – via the controversial hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) process taking place within shale deposits located throughout the U.S. This “prize” is shipped from the multitude of domestic shale basins in pipelines to various coastal LNG terminals, and then sent on LNG tankers to the global market.

The firm: National Economic Research Associates (NERA) Economic Consulting, has a long history of pushing for deregulation. Its claim to fame: the deregulation “studies” it publishes on behalf of the nuclear, coal, and oil/gas industry – and as it turns out, Big Tobacco, too.

It appears that the Supreme Court is still of the opinion that the government has some necessary regulatory powers.

Last summer I wrote about the Sierra Club’s Water Sentinels program for testing water. Our town’s anti-fracking activists have been using it at their homes for a while now, but around the time of my post we also began free monthly water testing for the community. We are careful to emphasize several caveats, though. The most important is that the testing is not comprehensive or EPA certified; it is not meant to be a substitute for a certified test. It measures a handful of items and is only meant to give a basic idea of water quality. Similarly, the testing would almost certainly not be admissible in a court of law; anyone with an eye on future court cases should go with an EPA certified lab.

That said, the tests are a good way to look for changes.