The Cool Biz initiative asked businessmen to not wear suits, and asked the offices to maintain a temperature of at least 28 degrees Celsius, or about 82 degrees Fahrenheit.

So office workers are a little warmer these days, and look a little funny. For those feeling lost without a suit, the government published guidelines with suggestions for how to dress. And if they still felt they looked awkward, they could wear government-issued stickers stating something akin to "Excuse my attire, I'm doing Cool Biz."

Not a bad idea. Granted, business folks in the United States can get away without suits in many areas, but in big cities where suits are still the norm this may be something to look into. I'd bet almost every office in America could withstand increased temperatures of at least a few degrees.

The new homes use SunPower SunTile solar power that is integrated with the roof instead of being a free-standing array. The homes also include radiant barrier roof sheathing to reduce cooling costs and energy efficient windows and frames. Lennar opened its first solar community in February.

Now, the bad news: The company had its worst quarter ever (53 years) in Q3 of this year, losing more than half a billion dollars. Lennar has laid off more than a third of its workforce. If that weren't enough, a group of new standard Lennar homeowners in Austin, Texas have set up a website highlighting the shoddy construction, including cracked foundations, mold, and nails popping out of ceilings.

Lennar is caught up in a nationwide home buying crunch that is causing many builders' profits to collapse. Sales of new homes dropped 8.3 percent between July and August, according to the U.S. Commerce Department, and median sales prices dropped during the last year by 7.5 percent, the biggest fall off since Lyndon Johnson was president.

It is encouraging to see a builder standardizing on solar energy in its new developments, but cutting corners because of financial stress is obviously unacceptable.

Reading about the Sacramento development made me think about the conflict for home buyers who want to live sustainably. You can buy a new home with solar, energy efficient windows etc. and live in a planned community that more than likely is several miles from shopping and public transit. Or, you can buy an older house that is not as efficient, but is located in a more urban area where you don't have to drive very often and can get a broader cultural experience. It is a hassle to retrofit an existing home with new windows, water and heating and cooling systems, so there is appeal to buying a ready-made efficient home. But getting the car to run every errand contrasts the sustainable ideal. What's a sustainable-minded person to do?

The Energy Detective (TED) provides a real-time reading of your energy usage. That means, turn on a light, look at the reading; unplug your phone charger, check the reading. It even has alerts for when you're using too much energy. It can also show how much solar power you're generating, or if you have two monitors you could determine how much electricity you're giving back to the grid. The little monitor costs $140.

The PowerCost Monitor, available for $135, shows your total electricity costs in dollars and in kilowatt hours, and displays the time and outside temperature.

Another cool monitor, currently available in the United Kingdom, is the OWL. It displays your cost of electricity, your greenhouse gas emissions, and the temperature and humidity. It can also provide alerts when you consume too much energy.

Most of these companies claim the units can cut electricity costs by at least 20 percent, when read regularly.

I didn't really think there was a difference. So imagine my surprise when I begin to read a blog post about an F1 hybrid and carbon dioxide and immediately think of some new Ford hybrid pickup truck, only to find out it's actually a hybrid tree that captures much more carbon dioxide than other trees.

The Hokkaido Forest Research Institute and Hokkaido Forest Products Research Institute researched on the Dahurian Larch tree family and found that the F1 hybrid of the tree can store 30 percent more than regular larches. It comes from pairing Dahurian Larch as seed trees and larch trees as pollen providers, and is more resistant to mice and weather, and even grows faster than regular larches.

Hokkaido plans to plant about 20,000 trees a year until April, and then will hike it up to about 300,000 a year.

Most tree planting and carbon offsetting organizations I've seen don't specifically state which trees are being planted. Of course trees must be planted in proper environments to ensure they can live in certain soils and weather conditions, and so as not to invade other species' turf, so to speak. But I'm reassured by research like this that will hopefully maximize the efficacy of the trees we pay to plant.

The Kyoto treaty allows countries to plant trees to help meet their carbon dioxide emission reduction targets. According to the study's authors, this encourages countries that continue deforestation to plant new trees for carbon credit, but does nothing for countries that actually preserve their forests. The authors worry that countries may want to cap and trade, or put a cap on deforestation and trade in that piece that hasn't been deforested.

While this does stand out as a major flaw in the protocol, this also seems like quite a stretch. Yet, maybe it would be a good idea to establish a system in which countries could get credits for maintaining forests. Ideas such as these will probably be debated at a series of international meetings on climate change this year at the United Nations in Washington and Bali.

Before the Bali meeting in December, Indonesia – the country with the fastest pace of deforestation between 2000 and 2005, according to Greenpeace – plans to plant 79 million trees in one day. That's a lot of trees, and a situation that I could see the study's authors worrying about.

Southeast Asia as a whole is one of the world's top greenhouse gas emitters due to deforestation, peatland degradation and forest fires. Destruction of tropical forests accounts for 20 to 25 percent of world carbon emissions, acting as a major force for climate change.

But we can't completely blame the developing nations – isn't it the developed nations that buy up that wood? Figuring out a better way to curb the complex problem of deforestation and justly reward smart forestry could potentially slow climate change in one fell swoop.

Our culture doesn't want to do without - we want to have the latest and greatest. Most Americans would rather buy alternative fuels than ride their bikes to work, or heat their homes with renewable energy rather than put on a sweater. So if you can't fight 'em, join 'em?

The governor thinks we shouldn't have to make sacrifices to limit climate change and reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. Why do without life's amenities when we can have them if chosen wisely? His example? Rather than swimming in a non-heated pool, Crist chose to heat his with solar power.

He's pushing the sunshine state to produce more sugar cane for ethanol and citrus waste. And he called for state utilities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2025, which would use California's stricter auto emission standards. In a partnership with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, the two states also hope to sign international climate treaties with foreign countries soon.

The governor certainly understands American culture, which is the first step in convincing the public to change its ways.

But I have two concerns. It's great to use alternative fuels and renewable sources of energy - but sometimes these are more expensive and harder to come by for the average American. And without cutting our levels of consumption, will we actually decrease our emissions of greenhouse gases? I could drive the same amount with biofuel, but that wouldn't necessarily mean I'd be eliminating emissions because many alternative fuels still produce harmful greenhouse gases. Although Crist's choice of biofuel – ethanol from sugar cane – is a much cleaner biofuel than corn-based ethanol.

When it comes down to it, there is no easy way out. We should make our energy choices wisely, but we should still cut back whenever possible.

Here's a rundown, beginning with what does indeed seem to be the world's first wave farm.

The "world's first commercial wave farm" in Portugal awaits its launch day, which could be anytime this month, depending on the weather. The engineers need calm seas to haul their equipment offshore. Officials estimate that the project could power 350,000 homes with the use of hundreds of Pelamis Wave Power machines, developed by a Scottish company and named so because they look like sea snakes resting on the waters. For the moment though, they have three.

Another one claiming to be the "world's first large scale wave farm" will be built off the coast of Cornwall and is expected to operate by 2009. It could generate enough electricity for 7,500 homes and save 300,000 tons of carbon dioxide over 25 years.

In Scotland, the "world's biggest wave farm" may power up to 2,000 homes by next year. The prime minister just granted permission for four Pelamis wave energy machines to be moored off Orkney.

Plus a handful of other projects are in the works, just trailing these three big ones.

Wave farms really don't need to compete for some grandiose title or place. The fact that we can harness power from the ocean is cool. Knowing that a wave is allowing you to turn on your lights is pretty rad in and of itself. Forget the contest.

Asking banks to stop financing coal projects is an unrealistic expectation given today's energy needs and the lack of utility-grade renewable energy. Coal power plants are being built because of the growing need for electricity, and today there aren't enough wind farms and concentrated solar farms to handle the load. That will change over time, but we have to deal with today's reality.

Should financial institutions embrace the cleaner alternatives - absolutely. But these energy projects -- clean or not -- are years in the making because of permits, expensive equipment, and obtaining the funding, so we can't expect a termination of all coal plant projects.

Also, there are laws preventing financial institutions from discriminating against businesses. A coal plant that meets all of the requirements for controlling emissions has the same right to borrow money as a wind farm. Coal mining and power generation need to be done responsibly, and banks should make sure that projects are in compliance as part of their risk analysis.

Like it or not, we will continue to use coal and natural gas for some time because we'll need the power when the wind isn't blowing or the sun isn't shining. Financial institutions need to be more open, however, to financing clean energy as legislators and regulators will make it more of a risky business in the future to stay with "proven" fossil fuel technologies.

Its line of files, wallets, dividers and cups are comparable in cost to regular, non-degradable plastic office supplies.

BCW claims to use a specially formulated additive that works with existing polypropylene and causes the plastic to fully degrade within eight to 12 months when placed in a typical landfill. There, the product ends up as a biomass that feeds natural bacteria into the soil.

Currently, about 80 percent of post-consumer waste plastic fills up landfills for hundreds of years while it slowly breaks down and releases toxic fumes.

Because BCW's plastic is made of polypropylene, it still comes from petroleum. But it could lessen the burden of plastics in overflowing landfills.

So how does it compare to plastics made from plant-based materials, such as corn, that have increasingly shown up in fast food restaurants and coffee shops? Many of those types of plastics require excessive amounts of water and fertilizer for corn crops, increasing costs of all corn products. And most require special processing procedures in order to be composted correctly – they won't just biodegrade automatically if you toss them in the garbage. However, they don't rely on petroleum.

Until the perfect product emerges or we learn to rely less on plastic, perhaps these are all better alternatives to the permanent plastics filling stores and landfills everywhere.

I though that the more energy dense diesel fuels (along with more efficient diesel engines) would emit less CO2 per gallon consumed, but that's not the case, according to the U.S. EPA:

CO2 emissions from a gallon of gasoline = 2,421 grams x 0.99 x (44/12) = 8,788 grams = 8.8 kg/gallon = 19.4 pounds/gallon

CO2 emissions from a gallon of diesel = 2,778 grams x 0.99 x (44/12) = 10,084 grams = 10.1 kg/gallon = 22.2 pounds/gallon

So while the amount of CO2 emissions per mile driven is likely less with diesel fuel/engines, the tax is appropriate per fuel consumed.

What this calculation doesn't consider, however, is the amount of CO2 emissions generated in refining the different fuel types. It historically has required less energy to refine diesel than CO2, although perhaps extracting the sulfur for the cleaner fuel evens that out a bit.

At the other end of the spectrum we have Michigan Congressman John Dingell proposing a 50 cent per gallon tax on gasoline while nothing on diesel. Obvious that unfairly gives diesel car/truck operators a free ride. A slight difference in the fuel tax relative to diesel's approximately 15 percent better fuel efficiency is more appropriate.

The U.N. Environment Program, the World Meteorological Organization and the World Tourism Organization said concerns about extreme weather conditions and pushes to reduce air-travel emissions would persuade tourists to travel less in the future.

Officials believe vacationers from Europe, Canada, the United States and Japan will stay in their home countries to take advantage of longer summers, and that travel from cooler climates to warmer climates will become less frequent as temperatures increase globally. In particular, people will travel less between Europe and the Mediterranean, between North America and the Caribbean, and between northeast Asia and southeast Asia.

Even with the expected decrease in long-distance travel, overall travel demand is still expected to grow between 4 and 5 percent a year.

But the decrease in tourism in warm, tropical areas could drastically affect local economies, where tourism accounts for as much as 40 percent of the economic output - not to mention the change in weather and land from rising temps and seas.

In the last five years, the number of organizations supplying carbon credits into the market has doubled. While finding a vendor to offset your emissions may be easy, differentiating the companies can be difficult.

The CarbonTracker Network hopes to change that by partnering four organizations to build a reliable set of options for individuals or businesses hoping to offset the emissions they just can't avoid. CarbonTracker.com, Sustainable Travel International, co2balance and Offsetters Climate Neutral Society are the first vendors to sign up.

Other vendors can join for free, but they must provide third-party certification that their offsets are created in accordance with certain standards, or they must pass a review by CarbonTracker.com staff.

This seems like a smart move for carbon vendors if they wish to garner buyers' trust and money. Plus it couldn't hurt to provide a little certification for carbon offsetting.

But Ian Brown, senior analyst at Ovum, a consulting firm with clients such as Hewlett Packard, IMB, Sun Microsystems and Microsoft, critiques Dell's challenge by calling it a marketing ploy.

"While we're sure Dell is very sincere in his belief that carbon offsetting is needed to slow down climate change, this is all about marketing," said Brown. "Dell is engaged in a battle with HP, IBM, Sun and others to prove how green it is."

He said he'd prefer Dell to offer "practical assistance for customers on how to reduce energy wastage and improve resource efficiency in their data centers. Data centers are notoriously inefficient in their use of resources, particularly computer resources – most have too many servers running too few workloads.

"Dell may be ahead on the offsetting, but it needs to catch up on services and its ability to help customers reuse and share resources, reduce costs and maybe, just maybe, help the planet a little too."

But might those words seem a little funny, coming from someone who consults Dell's competing computer manufacturers?

Nonetheless, the some other computer companies are doing their part as well. And whether the changes are for marketing or reducing energy, they're good steps.

Earlier this week, Sun Microsystems released OpenEco.org, an open-source software program that allows companies to track their carbon emissions. In the past five years Sun reduced its energy output by 20 percent and last June, reduced the energy used in one of its data centers by 93 percent by switching out older models for its new Niagara servers.

Intel developed an online project Lesswatts.org, which hosts a group of software developers working to build Linux operating system upgrades that will more efficiently use server hardware and save energy.

And HP joined Bell Micro to launch an initiative called "Going Green," a green package for Bell's resellers that will focus on datacenters and offer a datacenter assessment service.