Like guilty spouses, we now confess -- we forgot our anniversary.

It was one year ago April 15, that The Thin Green Line bounded onto the Internet stage with a tiny little splash. A splash that we have cleverly managed to keep tiny by writing over-long entries that no one wants to read. (We cling to the illusion that the tiny splash will make big rippes into the world, it's not much, but it's all we've got.)

So, one year? And here we let it pass without so much as a card.

It's not that you don't mean the world to us dear reader, it's just that well, time gets away from you when you work at a place that used to employ nine reporters and now uses three to produce the same amount of copy.

That's no excuse we know, and we'll do better next year we promise.

As all guilty spouses know, the first anniversary is traditionally celebrated with paper.

But given that there is not much to celebrate at papers these days, and a card is just a waste of trees unless its made from recycled paper (and that's so hard to find at the last minute or, worse yet, when you're late).

So instead we bring you news about another kind of paper.

Specifically, toilet paper.

Yes, we know, you thought we had had our fun with this subject, with liberal applications of toilet humor spread tastelessly throughout a previous blog. But then, Kimberly-Clark, the giant Death Star of toilet paper companies, went and did what we told them to do.

Shamed, chagrined and no doubt intimidated by the dauntless reasoning and peerless prose of our March 12 post about the paucity of toilet paper made from recycled paper, Kimberly-Clark went ahead and, with dizzying corporate aplomb, launched a brand of paper products made from recycled paper.

It was with dumbfound amazement and then a misplaced sense of pride that we read this Reuters article, reporting this spectacular development.

"The launch this month of Scott Naturals makes Kimberly-Clark the first major paper products maker to have a full line that taps into the growing market for environmentally friendly products," the wire service reported.

We would beg to differ, as our beloved Marcal paper products have been made from recycled paper for years. But we don't quibble. We're all about the big picture here at The Thin Green Line.

Of course, still worried about our sensitive nether regions, Kimberly-Clark is only using 40 percent recycled material in its toilet paper, although paper towels will have 60 percent and napkins 80.

Perhaps we'll give them 40 percent of our business in exchange.

But hey, as big name polluters like Clorox see the light (green of course) we have to welcome the converts into the fold and allow them to see that light at their own pace.

In the meantime, we would just like to thank them for giving us another opportunity to use our toilet paper picture on the blog.

But then, you already know how easy we are to please. After all, we've been together for a whole year now.

With 16 years under my belt, I can definitely say that being married is better than not being married.

There are, of course, trade-offs, but on the whole, it's a definite plus.

Now, there's something new to add to the "plus" column -- nothing less than saving the world, at least that's what this Reuters article claims.

Apparently, "staying married is better for the planet because divorce leads the newly single to live more wasteful lifestyles," at least in the opinion of the Australian lawmaker quoted in the story.

"When couples separate, they needed more rooms, more electricity and more water. This increased their carbon footprint," Sen. Steve Fielding told a senate hearing.

"Such a 'resource-inefficient lifestyle' means it would be better for the planet if couples stayed married, he said."

I can't say I've ever heard of the mid-life crisis guy with the new hair plugs, new red sports car and new vapid trophy wife ever referred to as living a "resource-inefficient lifestyle," but Sen. Fielding calls 'em as he sees 'em.

At least there's finally something those on the far left and the far right can agree on. Marriage? Good for everybody.

By the way, this Fielding fellow? He leads Australia's "Family First" Party and he grew up in a family of 16 children and has been married for 22 years, so he knows a thing or two about his subject matter.

So don't just stay together "for the children" folks, do it for us all.

Hybrid, hybrid, hybrid.

That's all you ever hear from us snooty green-types.

Meanwhile one of The Thin Green Line's most loyal readers, Thomas Mounce of Birdsboro, has been the voice in the wilderness for clean diesels.

Every time I wax on (and on and on) about my Honda Civic Hybrid (46 m.p.h. until I got stuck in snow traffic in Reading Saturday, tanking my average) I would get a note or a comment from Tom about how his Volkswagen diesel gets as good or better.

We would smile in our superior "also ran" green way and mumble something patronizing like "I'm sure it does, but hybrids are the way of the future!" (trumpets peal and echo in the background).

Well in a tip of the hat to not knowing a good thing when its staring you in the face we announce, in case you missed it, that a clean-burning diesel Volkswagen Jetta was named the Green Car of the Year at the L.A. Auto Show.

You can read all about it in this Reuters article.

"The Jetta TDI beat out finalists including BMW's 335d diesel sport sedan, Ford Motor Co's Fusion Hybrid passenger sedan, General Motors Corp's crossover Saturn Vue 2 Mode Hybrid, and the smart fortwo mini car," according to the article.

We would tell you more, but we're too broken up by the destruction of our arrogant-but-apparently-misplaced sense of superiority.

Congratulations Mr. Mounce.

Now pardon us while we go weep in our carrot juice (made from locally grown carrots of course.)

So it turns out that people who hold nature in their heart have a good reason for doing so.

A recent major study announced in the British medical journal The Lancet, concludes that living near green space and open space can severely reduce the health gap exists between rich and poor people.

As noted in this article in Reuters, "parkland and open space make a difference by helping people get rid of stress and allowing more physical activity -- both of which reduce risk of heart disease.

"This is the first time we have demonstrated that aspects of the physical environment can have an impact in such a good way," one of the researchers said. "It is a combination of exercise and restoration."

I had long suspected that suburban sprawl have more negative effects than just on the physical end visual environment.

Now, I'll make my millions with a bumper sticker that reads "Sprawl Kills."

So remember how just one short blog ago, I was writing about how great it was that both the House and the Senate had passed bills that extended tax breaks for alternative energy?

Scratch that.

Apparently, should I ever again write a sentence that includes the words "House," "Senate" and "great" together, I should be strapped to a solar reflector until my skin crisps off.

For while it is true that they both passed bills ostensibly aimed at accomplishing the same thing, those bills are incompatible with each other and are unlikely to be signed into law before our fearless leaders come home to ask for you to send them back to Washington to continue to provide this most excellent leadership on crucial issues facing the nation.

According to this blog posting from The Wall Street Journal, even The White House hates the House version of the bill.

Maybe that's because the House bill insists "on actually paying for the tax credits with tax hikes elsewhere" the Journal reported in the blog, appropriately headlined "From the Dept. of Futile Gestures."

Or maybe it's because, as Kate Shepherd reported here in Grist Magazine's Muckraker, "the House version strips out tax incentives for oil shale and tar sands development, as well as provisions to support coal-to-liquid fuels."

Regardless, the end results is the same. Politics as usual kills something this country desperately needs. Sound familiar?

Is there any common sense left in Washington? Or is "drill baby drill" the nearest we can come to reasoned discourse in Washington?

The House vote marked the sixth time the House has passed these extensions. "The bill stalled repeatedly in the Senate, until a compromised version of the package passed earlier this week," Grist reported.

"At the time of passage, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) urged House members not to change the legislation, worrying that any changes to the package would bring about its demise. 'If the House doesn't pass this, the full responsibility of it not passing is theirs,' said Reid. 'It's not ours,.'" Grist reported.

Apparently, the Senate's previous five failures to pass a bill shouldn't count. Geez, how many strikes do they get?

Don't you just love a leadership more worried about blame then credit; political liability than energy sustainability?

"House Democrats are holding firm that theirs is the superior version," according to Grist. "'This legislation also holds true to our commitment to fiscal responsibility,' said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in a statement today. 'By closing loopholes that allow corporations and executives to avoid U.S. taxes by shipping jobs and investment overseas and curtailing unnecessary tax subsidies for big, multinational oil and gas companies, we are ensuring that future generations don't foot the bill for the progress we can make today.'"

Sounds reasonable to me, but hey, what do I know? Maybe continuing tax breaks for fossil fuels is a good way to prevent global warming.

In a quick Thin Green Line update on that issue by the way, we bring you this report from The New York Times' most excellent environmental reporter Andrew Revkin.

In this brief, he writes: "Worldwide emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide from fuel burning and cement production increased by 3.5 percent per year from 2000 to 2007, nearly four times the growth rate in the 1990s, according to a new report. The rapid rise is being driven primarily by economic growth in developing countries, which now produce more greenhouse gas than industrialized countries. The report was produced by the Global Carbon Project and is available online at globalcarbonproject.org."

On the positive side of this issue (who says we're all gloom and doom here at The Thin Green Line?), Reuters reported here last week that: "Rich nations' greenhouse gas emissions dipped for the first time in five years in 2006, easing 0.1 percent despite robust economic growth, a Reuters survey of the latest available information showed Friday.

For the record, we're one of those "rich nations."

The fact that we can lower emissions while increasing economic growth puts a stake in the heart of the old fossil axiom that reducing emissions will hurt the economy.

Quite the opposite, in fact.

According to this Reuters report, alternative energy has revived a moribund economy in, of all places, rural Texas.

A wind power boom there has generated millions of dollars in additional tax revenue which is being used to build schools and has fueled an economic revival there, Reuters reported.

Two years ago, the Blackwell School District there had a property tax roll totaled $324 million. "Now the total value has mushroomed to $1.2 billion due to the build-out of four nearby wind farms," according to the report.

Tell me Pottstown or Pottsgrove school districts wouldn't love to be able to take that much of a burden off local taxpayers here. But closed-minded, old-school (dare I say say "bitter") readers of The Mercury continue to call the paper's "Sound-Off" column poo-pooing the potential benefit of a solar park being championed for the former OxyChem site off Armand Hammer Boulevard.

"The hotels are full, the restaurants are full," said Karan Bergstrom of Sweetwater, ground-zero for the wind boom which now rivals the city's famous rattlesnake roundup. "There's not an empty house," Bergstrom said.

When is the last time we said that about Pottstown?

But the entrepreneurs who want to do similar things in other parts of the country (maybe even here?!) won't get any help from our representatives in Washington apparently.

"The legislative stalemate will just prolong the agony for America’s clean-energy sector," the Journal reports in its blog titled "Environmental Capital."

It seems even the Journal realizes that the economy of the next century will have to be based on something other than fossil fuels.

There was even some hope held out for the "little guy" in those bills with federal tax breaks upped from $2,000 to $12,000 for those installing solar arrays on their homes, an outlay that can reach $40,000, according to The Journal.

But now, the only hope for a bill this year seems to be a "lame-duck" session after the November elections.

As far as the country's energy policy is concerned, it doesn't seem we will have to wait until November to apply the word "lame."

There is no shortage of information out there about the effect high oil prices are having on everything from driving habits to foods costs. You may have seen some of that information right on this here blog.

Undoubtedly, it is yet another demonstration of how much our economy turns on the cost of energy.

But this story in Reuters demonstrates just how extreme those effects can be and raises a few questions for the greater Pottstown area.

The story, if you don't have time to read the link, talks about the rising value of plastic buried in landfills.

Most plastic is made from petroleum in some form or another, so as the cost of oil goes up, so too does the value of products made from oil.

The story, which comes out of Britain, notes that prices for high quality plastics such as high-density polyethelenes (HDP) have more than doubled to between $370-560 per ton, from just a year ago.

So it's time to ask the question.

Having just about finished the final closure plan for the Pottstown Landfill, and having just signed a contract to treat its leachate, is it time to think about opening it up again to dig up the plastic?

This idea would probably has almost as many ups as downs.

On the down side, who knows what's buried there, particularly in some of the old sections that were filled long before regulators paid any attention to what was buried in the ground. Mining it could cause exposure to those hazards.

On the other hand, having a way to make a profit by digging it up could provide a financial incentive to the landfill owners, Waste Management, to investigate what's in there and ensure it is disposed of properly, all while looking for plastic in landfill sections that were filled long before recycling programs became prevalent.

Seeing as much of the leachate (the contaminated water that percolates through the landfill's trash) comes from the section of the landfill that has no cap, having something of value inside could make if affordable to dig it up and re-cap it using modern standards. Of course, that's a decision only Waste Management can make. Their landfill, their call.

Certainly, as two Berks County landfills explore ways to get energy out of their facilities by pumping and exporting cumbustible landfill gas, mining a landfill for plastics is yet another avenue by which we can recover energy from our buried waste.

But before we rush into anything hastily, we should consider the effect on the atmosphere of returning all that plastic to burnable fuel and whether the harm it's resulting greenhouse gases and toxins could cause to the environment doesn't outweigh the benefit of taking it out of the landfill.

Due to unfortunate budget cuts, the once-vast research department at The Thin Green Line is severely depleted and we cannot yet conduct that anaylsis, but the "harms/benefit analysis," as the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection likes to call it, should be done nonetheless.

Of course, the best (and least expensive) way to capture the fossil fuel energy trapped in plastic is to not send the plastic to the landfill in the first place. Yes, I'm talking about recycling.

Jim Crater over at Recycling Services Inc. in North Coventry has become a master of matching recycled materials to markets that want them. But by its nature, his effort is limited in scale by how many people bring their recyclables to the center. (Count me among them).

(Equally masterful are his volunteer specialists whose sharp eyes and sharp wits allow recycling numbskulls such as myself to make sure the No. 6 plastic goes in the No. 6 bin.)

But a truly global market for used plastic offers an opportunity for truly large-scale recycling, particularly on a municipal level, because it would not be as hard to find buyers.

So perhaps its unexpectedly good timing that the Borough of Pottstown is embarking on an ambitious program to boost its recycling.

It's driven by simple municipal economics. It costs a lot to get rid of trash at a landfill, so the more trash you keep out of the landfill, the less it costs to collect the trash and the fewer people come to yell at you at borough council meetings.

Toward that end, borough council has voted to purchase new 65-gallon recycling bins to make recycling easier for residents, and to encourage less trash going to the landfill.

You'll be able to throw it all in, cans, plastic bottles, paper, junk mail. If you have any questions, a label right on the bin will tell you what can go in.

The borough intends to test the new bins in each of the borough's five wards and The Thin Green Line has offered, and the borough has agreed, to be one of the guinea pigs.

When the bins arrive, our staff of one will let you know how it works, how its working in my house, and perhaps help you avoid some of the unexpected pitfalls that often accompany any new venture.

In the meantime, start looking at those soda bottles as something other than just something to get rid of.

The answer to the above question, according to the World Meteorological Organization, is, well, summer.

Although July was brutal both to my anti-perspirant supply and my PECO bill, I think we can all agree that this August has been preternaturally pleasant -- and it hasn't even been calculated yet.

As this Reuters story highlights, the first half of 2008 was the coolest of the last five years.

We true believers of Global Warming are often, with some cause, labeled as alarmists. (Folks, we're just trying to get your attention.)

So it seems only fair to purvey the good news as well.

So yes, thanks to La Nina, which cyclically follows the warming trend known as El Nino, the first half of the year has been cooler than the previous five and is likely to stay that way until January.

The bad news, and you knew there had to be some, is that it will still be warmer than average. That's because the last five years are among the hottest in recorded history.

And guess what? Yep, more bad news.

In addition to this being a cool trough in an otherwise hot upswell, more extreme weather is accompanying it.

For the southwest, where impractical increases in population are being matched by equally alarming decreases in available water, that means less rain.

As this article in Scientific American outlines, a combination of man-made weather effects is drying out the parched southwest.

First, in the lower atmosphere, greenhouse gases are heating things up. Next, high up, holes in the ozone layer are cooling things off.

As any meteorologist worth his salt-spray can tell you, temperature and pressure differentials are what weather is all about.

The result of this particular dynamic is it pushes the jet streams toward the poles in both the northern and southern hemispheres.

Those jet streams are what carry Pacific Ocean moisture to the southwest deserts. Now, that rain is being pushed further north.

The cool chart that the magazine used to explain this is posted at the top of this blog.

"If we keep doing this, the climate response becomes more extreme," says atmospheric scientist Stephanie McAfee of the University of Arizona in Tucson, who led the research identifying the loss of rain.

Now that's the kind of downer that any gloom-and-doom Global Warming enthusiast would feel proud to end a blog entry with.