AN EXCELLENT OPPORTUNITY TO DEFUND BIG OIL. There was a global-warming-inspired protest of the Capitol's coal-fired power plant today, which prompted the usual snarking from the usual quarters about Old Man Winter having a sense of humor.

I'd prefer to address the substance. Crude oil is currently cheap, mostly because of the worldwide recession. Periods of low prices are not the best time to talk about developing substitutes. On the other hand, getting the oil ministers of Venezuela and Saudi Arabia used to permanently low prices for their primary exports appeals.

As a short-term measure, import substitutions from our undeveloped reserves make sense. Without any stimulus money, an infrastructure improvement has kept DeKalb County construction workers busy and a refinery near the Illinois River will soon be receiving oil from Canadian tar sands.

That's insufficient benefit in some calculations.

Alberta's oil production ensures that Canada is trashing its own environment, and is further from meeting its Kyoto commitments than any other country that has ratified the treaty. Its government has no intention of closing the Alberta tar patch. Let's hope Obama jumps the right way when he meets Canadian PM Stephen Harper today, and ensures that this industry becomes impossible to sustain.

And the resources employed in tar-sand oil have opportunity costs.

Both the United States and Canada have a tremendous supply of clean, renewable energy sources - sources that won't contribute to global warming, harm public health or destroy the environment. An investment in clean energy would boost our economies and create much-needed lasting, sustainable jobs in both of our countries.

Perhaps so. There's a lot of capital looking for something to do. What do the financial markets know that the government doesn't?

But as bad as these folks think oil from tar sands is, coal is worse.

The trains carrying coal to power plants are death trains. Coal-fired power plants are factories of death. When I testified against the proposed Kingsnorth power plant, I estimated that in its lifetime it would be responsible for the extermination of about 400 species - its proportionate contribution to the number that would be committed to extinction if carbon dioxide rose another 100 ppm.

That article refers to Britain's relatively small merry-go-round trains. Heck, the Union Pacific probably kills that many species in a week of hauling low-sulfur Powder River coal. (Never mind that you really wouldn't want to farm the Powder River Basin, or the tar sands region, particularly if water is priced at its opportunity cost).

And Our President is part of the problem.

Sadly, President Obama may be part of the faith brigade. During the election campaign last year, he was quoted telling the people of Michigan that "you can't tell me we can't figure out how to burn coal that we mine right here in the USA and make it work."

We could get that electricity by splitting atoms.

You're right. Don't go there.

In a Dine Creation Story, the people were given a choice of two yellow powders. They chose the yellow dust of corn pollen, and were instructed to leave the other yellow powder-uranium-in the soil and never to dig it up. If it were taken from the ground, they were told, a great evil would come.

Let's return to those thrilling days of yesteryear, when that corn came up if the rain gods weren't displeased, and when a forty year old was a rare and venerable elder.

We deserve better than romanticism.

Ojibwe legends speak of a time when our people will have a choice between two paths: one path is well worn and scorched, but the second path is not well traveled and it is green.

And Gitchee Gumee never gives up her dead.

And while the greenies cavil, the oil ministers sit on their reserves, and wait to strike when the economic recovery comes, as it will.