Geoengineering - the deliberate, large-scale manipulation of the earth's climate to offset global warming - is a nightmare fix for climate change.

Americans don't pay much attention to environmental issues, because they aren't sexy. I mean, cleaning up coal plants and reining in outlaw frackers is hugely important work, but it doesn't get anybody's pulse racing.

Coal boosters like to tout coal as cheap and plentiful - well, not anymore. At least not in China.

So if you want to know how Exxon Mobil can make $10 billion profit in 90 days, just look around. The whole world was built for them.

In the world of energy politics, the sudden vanishing of the word 'coal' is a remarkable and unprecedented event.

Bloomberg's $50 million is not going to revolutionize the electric power industry. But his willingness to fight is already inspiring others to see Big Coal differently.

Bloomberg is famously impatient with beltway politics and believes that to get anything done you need to work from the ground up.