In what is emerging as a battle royale within the environmental movement, several noted greens have taken sides over the issue of whether or not to allow one of the world’s largest off-shore windmill developments to proceed off Cape Cod near the Massachusetts coastline. In an op-ed piece in the San Francisco Chronicle last week, noted environmental attorney Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. defended his position in opposition to the proposed Cape Wind Project.

Government officials from the U.S. and Australia agreed publicly last week at the opening of a two-day climate change summit among Asia Pacific nations that the world’s industrial leaders could be counted on to voluntarily reduce emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) widely thought to be exacerbating global warming.

Following the final hearing of a 20-member bi-partisan Congressional task force charged with assessing the effectiveness of the nation’s most far-reaching environmental law, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), House Republicans are calling for a series of fixes that would streamline permitting and reduce red tape on environmental assessments required on federal construction projects.

As if people need another reason to switch over to hybrid gasoline-electric automobiles, Travelers, the country’s fourth largest property and casualty insurer, will begin next month offering its customers who drive hybrids a 10 percent discount on their auto insurance.