This news is very troubling:

It sounded like a joke when the news first hit in 2000: Giant Burmese pythons were invading the Everglades. Now scientists have measured the real impact of the arrival of this voracious species, and the news is troubling.

In areas where the pythons have established themselves, marsh rabbits and foxes can no longer be found. Sightings of raccoons are down 99.3%, opossums 98.9% and white-tailed deer 94.1%, according to a paper out Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

This is an example of how regulation is critical for preserving the environment.

The US economy is definitely coming back and it will be interesting to see how that affects environmental issues. The unemployment rate is coming down and we see things like new car sales steadily improving. In November, the automakers reported great sales results, and that was particularly true of the Big Three. With GM, Ford and Chrysler doing well, that has a ripple effect throughout the entire economy. Suppliers get busy, more workers work, and then that translates into more consumer activity.

For environmentalists, this will change the conversation if it continues. During a recession, it becomes harder to deal with issues like global warming, pollution and conservation as people are worried about jobs. Green energy investments should be a priority, but some fight them and argue we should focus on things like oil pipelines. If the economy improves, it makes it easier to argue for longer term investments that can help the environment.

The car industry offers an interesting example. Surprisingly, the Obama administration was able to push through tougher fuel economy standards even during a recession. High gas prices definitely helped. But car sales were slow as people flocked to used cars, as you can see from high used car prices in 2011 that were also tied to tight supplies. And that’s one reason new car sales are now doing well. The economy is getting better so more people are looking, but new cars are more competitive with high used car prices. Also, people get more for their trade-ins, so that used Peugeot 206 can get a great price on a trade-in.

The auto recovery is leading a broader economic rebound, so get ready to reset the environmental discussions.

Chevy Volt sales have been sluggish this year and have not met expectations. This is disappointing for those of us who want to see plug-in hybrids take off.

That may be changing as GM finally starts to promote the Volt more heavily with a commercial advertising campaign. Sales increased substantially in October, so perhaps the tide is turning. That said, one month means little and we’ll have to see if this continues.

We’re definitely seeing a transformation as electronic communications replace things we’ve been used to our entire lives. eBooks are becoming more and more popular, so we’re seeing fewer paper books sold. Amazon is driving the change, and it’s one of the reasons that Borders is a thing of the past.

Email has been around for a long time. Combine that with texting, Tweeting and Facebook, and most of our communications are now done electronically. The Post Office is struggling for many reasons, but one is that personal mail correspondence has been replaced by electronic correspondence.

We’re also seeing these changes with promotional materials. Go to things like car shows, and you’ll see that the handouts to the press are now done with flash drives as opposed to printed brochures. That said, printing services are still popular as having a brochure in hand with great photos and relevant information is still a very effective tool. So when the public is at a car show, you see printed brochures still used to promote the vehicles.

So things are changing, and that can be good for the environment, but that doesn’t mean old methods go away completely.

Many companies are going green because it makes sense financially. GM is a great example, as they are installing fields of solar panels at various location.

General Motors broke ground Wednesday on a six-acre field of solar panels in front of its Detroit-Hamtramck plant as part of an effort to green the production of its Chevrolet Volt extended-range electric car.

DTE Energy will own and operate the 516-kilowatt system as part of its Solar Currents program, which is installing photovoltaic systems at sites such as Monroe County Community College and a Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan parking structure in downtown Detroit.

DTE will lower GM’s energy bill because of the solar panels, which were first reported by the Free Press. That savings, about $15,000 a year, will combine with more efficient lighting and equipment updates to lower Detroit-Hamtramck’s energy costs by nearly $3 million annually.

With the large investment GM is making in US auto plants, hopefully we’ll see this kind of progress from them on green energy around the country.

This is just one of many examples of corporate American being ahead of the curve compared to those who view alternative energy in a skeptical light. This is our future . . .

This article from Time is fascinating on several fronts. It highlights the potential for a green movement in Africa, where the expansion of deserts can be halted and reversed with green initiatives. It also addresses how carbon credits can be used to great effect.

Two global agreements aim to put that right. The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) allows developed-world businesses that need to offset their pollution to buy certified emission reductions, or carbon credits, to fund the reduction or sequestering of carbon dioxide in the developing world. The Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation program (UN-REDD), launched in 2008, allows polluters to pay developing-world farmers to keep their trees, which store carbon dioxide as they grow. UNEP is working with scientists in Kenya, China, Niger and Nigeria to quantify how much carbon each ecosystem swallows — comparing the appetite of a rain forest with, say, that of a mangrove swamp — and when completed in 2012, those formulas will determine how much to pay each landowner. The UNEP’s Steiner says “farming carbon” this way is far cheaper than new technology to capture and store carbon dioxide emissions at their source.

Estimates of how much the new market is worth vary wildly. The World Bank says carbon sequestration could be worth $1.5 billion a year to Africa, while Sukhdev reckons UN-REDD will be worth an eventual $30 billion to $110 billion a year globally. Manfred Kern of agritechnology company Bayer CropScience argues that the potential for monetizing natural assets is almost infinite. There is no reason, he says, that what works for trees should not also work for earth. “For the urbanized world, soil is just dirt, mud,” Kern told a U.N. conference in Bonn in May 2008. “But soil is the source of our food, the very future of humanity. We must recognize that soil has a value higher than gold.” What is clear is the potential. “It is essential that climate change be viewed as a major development opportunity for Africa,” World Bank managing director Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said last year.

Carbon credits and trading are very controversial, but the impact on places like Africa cannot be discounted.

In his speech today about energy independence, President Obama made it clear he would not abandon nuclear energy. This may be controversial for many in light of the tragedy in Japan, but Obama pointed out the fact the nuclear energy does not emit carbon, so it’s critical if we are concerned about climate change, along with its importance for energy independence.

The key is safety. Just as with offshore drilling, the key is learning from mistakes and having a commitment to sensible regulation and safety.

It will be interesting to see how this sells to the left. On the right, this was probably necessary to get Republicans like Lindsay Graham back to the negotiating table on an energy bill.

This is good news regarding conservation and our push for energy independence.

U.S. homeowners will be able to get low-cost energy audits that rank a home’s efficiency on a scale of one to 10 and get federally insured loans for upgrades, under an Obama administration plan to be announced today.

With the new Home Energy Score, consumers will find out how their home compares with others and how much money they could save by adding insulation, sealing air leaks or doing other upgrades. Nine U.S. communities will test the score, similar to a miles-per-gallon label for cars, before it’s rolled out nationally next summer.

Information is power, and now consumers will be more informed about the energy efficiency of current homes and home they intend to purchase. This will breath more life into the market for green building materials and upgrades, and along the way our housing stock will become more energy efficient.

It will also be interesting to see how this affects the real estate market. Buyers will begin to insist on a Home Energy Score so they know how efficient their new home might be. I suspect sellers will be have an incentive to make the modest investments necessary to improve the score.

It’s fascinating to see how Chinese officials are becoming obsessed with energy efficiency and global warming. It worries some in America, as we see China making the investments in clean energy we should be making. In a competitive world, America should be leading the green revolution and thus creating new jobs. While the Obama administration has made great progress, Republicans and Midwest Senators are standing in the way of a new energy bill.

Meanwhile, climate activists fear the impact of China, but have to be somewhat please that Chinese officials are being proactive.

Premier Wen Jiabao has promised to use an “iron hand” this summer to make his nation more energy efficient. The central government has ordered cities to close inefficient factories by September, like the vast Guangzhou Steel mill here, where most of the 6,000 workers will be laid off or pushed into early retirement.

Already, in the last three years, China has shut down more than a thousand older coal-fired power plants that used technology of the sort still common in the United States. China has also surpassed the rest of the world as the biggest investor in wind turbines and other clean energy technology. And it has dictated tough new energy standards for lighting and gas mileage for cars.

That said, China may be fighting a losing battle. As millions of Chinese citizens become real consumers, they will gobble up even more energy. It’s great for the world economy, but terrible from a climate perspective.

Aspiring to a more Western standard of living, in many cases with the government’s encouragement, China’s population, 1.3 billion strong, is clamoring for more and bigger cars, for electricity-dependent home appliances and for more creature comforts like air-conditioned shopping malls.

As a result, China is actually becoming even less energy efficient. And because most of its energy is still produced by burning fossil fuels, China’s emission of carbon dioxide — a so-called greenhouse gas — is growing worse. This past winter and spring showed the largest six-month increase in tonnage ever by a single country.

It’s a real dilemma, but perhaps it will motivate the Chinese, and hopefully the American government, to do even more. Green energy can be the fuel that the world economy needs. It can also ease world security in the long run by making all of us less dependent on sending billions to volatile regions of the world. So it’s good to see the Chinese get religion on green energy. Let’s hope it helps fuel a worldwide movement.

Photo from fOTOGLIF

Here’s a striking photo of an environmental activist dressed as a whale killed by a harpoon performs during a rally to commemorate World Environment Day in Vina del Mar city near Santiago.