Following on the heels of legislation introduced earlier this summer in Congress calling for significant reductions in U.S. global warming emissions, the nonprofit U.S. Public Interest Research Group (U.S. PIRG) last week issued a new report entitled "Rising to the Challenge" that lays out a roadmap for achieving the proposed cuts.

Last Friday, in honor of the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina slamming into the U.S. coastline, an estimated 2,500 bicyclists took to the streets of 30 North American cities to raise awareness of the links between extreme weather and global warming. Activists from Critical Mass and Rising Tide North America organized the ride.

Seven northeastern states announced last week that they would participate in the nation’s first carbon dioxide emissions trading program in order to limit greenhouse gases from power plants. Analysts point out that the new agreement is relatively weak in comparison to a similar plan already underway in Europe, but agreed that it is a step in the right direction nonetheless.

The California Fish and Game Commission announced last week that it was creating the nation’s second largest network of marine reserves off that state’s central coast in order to protect and help restore depleted fisheries there. The new network encompasses 29 marine protected areas from Santa Barbara to Santa Cruz. Commercial and most sport fishing will be banned in an area covering about 200 square miles of coastal waters.

I"m writing this column in longhand with a pen Connecticut Governor Jodi Rell used to sign a pioneering clean car bill. In a measure previously taken only in California that provides a model for the entire nation, Connecticut will now require cars sold in the state to display a window label disclosing how much global warming gas (primarily carbon dioxide, or CO2) they emit. It’s a measure we may see echoed soon in other states that follow California emission laws, including New York, Maine, Vermont, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts.