In the United States, we do a pretty good job of protecting iconic landscapes and postcard views, but the ocean gets no respect.

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.

In reality, Republicans have long been at war with clean energy. They have ridiculed investments in solar and wind power, bashed energy-efficiency standards, attacked state moves to promote renewable energy and championed laws that would enshrine taxpayer subsidies for fossil fuels while stripping them from wind and solar.

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

President Obama is in no danger of being judged by history as an eco-radical.

Extracting oil from the tar sands is a nasty, polluting, energy-intensive business.

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