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The biggest business lobby in the United States wants to hold a public hearing "to put the science of global warming on trial," The Los Angeles Times reports.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, trying to drive back major emission limits, wants the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to hold the hearing on evidence that climate change is man-made.

"Chamber officials say it would be 'the Scopes monkey trial of the 21st century' -- complete with witnesses, cross-examinations and a judge who would rule, essentially, on whether humans are warming the planet to dangerous effect," the newspaper reported.

"It would be evolution versus creationism," William Kovacs, the chamber's senior vice president for environment, technology and regulatory affairs, told the LA Times. "It would be the science of climate change on trial."

The EPA told the Times that a hearing would be "a waste of time" and called a lawsuit by the chamber "frivolous."

"The chamber proposal 'brings to mind for me the Salem witch trials, based on myth,' said Brenda Ekwurzel, a climate scientist for the environmental group Union of Concerned Scientists. 'In this case, it would be ignoring decades of publicly accessible evidence.'"

But if the EPA refuses to hold the hearing, the chamber is threatening to take the fight to federal court.

That would bring a modern replay of the famous 1925 Scopes trial. Then three-time presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan and attorney Clarence Darrow fought a courtroom battle over the case of a Tennessee teacher accused of teaching scientist illegally.

The teacher John Scopes, who purposefully tested the Tennessee law, was found guilty in the trial, a verdict that was upheld on appeal.

But, as the LA Times points out -- and as many elementary students can attest -- the scientists eventually won out in the end and evolution is taught in schools across the country.

(Writing by Laura Isensee)

Photo Credit: Reuters/Daniel Munoz (A woman holds a sign during a protest on climate change in central Sydney)

U.S. President Barack Obama has made climate change legislation one of his top goals and has pushed for more clean, renewable energy like solar and wind power.

But back in 1979, when another Democrat was in the White House, 32 solar panels graced the roof above the Oval Office.

Part of an initiative called "Solar America," the panels turned sunlight into electricity that heated water in the staff kitchen -- which President Jimmy Carter often used. They were removed during Ronald Reagan's administration in 1986.

Now, one of those presidential solar panels has joined the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in Washington, DC.

"The White House solar panel is evidence of an American president leading by example to promote his administration's agenda," Harry Rubenstein, chair of the museum's division of politics and reform, said in a statement. "It displays how President Carter reinforced his policies through a personal gesture taking place in his own home."

Unity College donated the panel to the museum this summer. The college in rural Maine got the panels in 1991. It refurbished some of them and installed them on top of the college cafeteria, and the panels heated water there until they maxed out their life span in 2005.

We were wondering if readers would like to see Obama install solar panels on top of the White House again?
It would certainly send a message -- similar to the example set by First Lady Michelle Obama when she planted a vegetable garden on the White House lawn to promote healthy eating.

-- Writing and reporting by Laura Isensee

(Photo Credit: United College and GreenBang/President Jimmy Carter inspects solar panels installed on top of the White House on June 30, 1979)

Southern California -- home to Disneyland, the mother of all amusement parks -- welcomed a new attraction this month. But this theme park has no Mickey Mouse or roller coasters and is housed inside a mall instead of spread out over a swath of space.

Called Environmentaland, it is more of an interactive museum that has taken the environment as its theme.

The goal is to show there are "no free rides in life," said Eric Ritz, executive director of Global Inheritance. The nonprofit opened the self-proclaimed first environmental theme park this month in Hollywood.

"We promote more along the lines of common sense rather than being green," Ritz said.

Visitors can ride a see-saw on an energy playground to power up their cell phone, putt on a desert mini golf course and fly airplanes from recycled paper. This past weekend, visitors could arm wrestle a polar bear in a climate change quiz challenge for a chance to win prizes.

Ritz, a 36-year-old former advertising executive and long-time activist, started Global Inheritance in 2002. The nonprofit has passion projects, like Environmentaland, but pays the bills through working with companies like Walt Disney's ESPN and on events like Fox's Teen Choice Awards.

Ritz admits the name Environmentaland is "kind of preposterous."

"But that's the point," he added.

He said that the name is a play on words that takes on the idea of theme parks, that are the "poster child of excessiveness," he said.

Visitors who show a bus or subway pass get free admission; otherwise, there is a suggested donation of $3.

Environmentaland is open at the Hollywood & Highland shopping center in Los Angeles through October 2009. In the spring, the nonprofit hopes to take the theme park on the road to malls in cities like Chicago, New York and Boise.

"When we're placed on the Earth, we have a certain responsibility to give back or evolve in a very positive way. People go and they take and take and take and they don't give. If that's what we do, we're going to be in a very bad shape very soon," Ritz said.

(Writing and reporting by Laura Isensee)

(Photo credit: Courtesy of Global Inheritance. The nonprofit displayed alternative energy golf carts at Coachella and Stagecoach festivals this year.)

The green industry prides itself on innovation, perhaps especially in California, one of the most environmentally progressive states.

So it should be no surprise that a company in California has made headlines with a new technology that converts onion juice into electricity. Read about it here.

The company, Oxnard, Calif.-based Gills Onions, has been working on the project for years. But Steven Gill, co-owner of the family-owned company, didn't set out with green energy as his goal. Gill just wanted to figure how to get rid of his onion waste in a sustainable, responsible way. Trucking excess onion tops, tails and skins out to the fields for composting was becoming a big hassle - and expensive.

In his research, and help from engineers at University of California at Davis and others, he discovered he could use the onion waste, especially the juice, in an anaerobic digester to create gas and then power up fuel cells. He ended up killing two birds with one stone. He got rid of his waste and created a clean energy source for his processing plant.

Gill said he's gotten a lot of interest from other companies, including a carrot grower and processor. Will more food growers follow suit? Will we soon have fuel from not just onions, but carrots and potatoes and other vegetables?

-- Reporting by Laura Isensee

(Photo Credit: REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth. A vendor holds a string of onions at his stall at the annual "Zibelemaerit" onion market in Bern, Switzerland.)

Sometimes, even electric vehicles aren't good enough for the die-hard green car set.

An electric car advocacy group on Tuesday criticized California's influential air quality regulator, the California Air Resources Board, for allowing BMW's one-year pilot program of electric Mini Coopers to earn the same credit towards the state's clean vehicle program as standard production cars.

California is requiring that automakers, collectively, put 7,500 zero-emissions vehicles, or ZEVs, on its roads.

But Plug In America on Tuesday said there is a "gaping loophole" in the program that "could deal a blow to the proliferation of plug-in vehicles."

Specifically, the group targeted BMW's leasing program of 500 electric Mini Coopers, which it calls MINI Es.

"CARB is allowing BMW to game the system by accruing the maximum number of ZEV credits with the least amount of effort," Plug In America legislative director Jay Friedland said in a statement. "In order to receive full credit, these vehicles must be offered for sale."

CARB plans to revisit the regulation next year and will be looking at ways to accelerate the commercialization of electric vehicles, according to spokesman Dimitri Stanich.

In the meantime, "we've urged BMW to consider extending that one-year lease," Stanich said.

BMW officials were not available for comment.

IBM's latest green venture is a highly efficient supercomputer that uses water to siphon off  waste heat, and then uses the excess energy to warm up a building.

High-tech giants from Microsoft to Google are eager to cut the huge amounts of power used to run their data centers, particularly now that the recession has companies leaving no stone unturned to slash costs and global warming is driving them to think green.

Developed by IBM jointly with the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) -- a sort of Swiss version of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology -- the new supercomputer's microchips avoid cooling with energy-sucking air conditioning.

Thanks to a network of water-carrying "micro-capillaries" that take water very close to the microchips, the system is cooled at a temperature of 60 degrees Celsius, rather than a "normal coolant" that requires a temperature of about 20 degrees Celsius, or air at around 6 to 12 degrees Celsius, according to IBM researcher Dr. Thomas Brunschwiler.

"Typically you would use air conditioning, which is very intensive, and this is eliminating that by using water to take the heat and transfer it away from the chips," Brunschwiler said.

According to IBM, the computer, dubbed Aquasar, will reduce overall energy consumption by 40 percent and save up to 30 tons of carbon dioxide a year, about the same as driving an average car around the world 10 times.

In addition, the excess heat from the computer will be piped into the building's heating. The 25 kilowatt system will account for just "a small fraction" of the building's overall energy demand, but researchers said future applications are promising.

"In a future system if you run an entire data center in this mode then it will be a large fraction of the energy demand of an entity like this," said Dr. Bruno Michel of IBM Research in Zurich.

It could be a while, however, before that happens. The ETH supercomputer won't start operation until 2010, and the company would not estimate how much it will cost to build except to say that it will be more than a supercomputer with a traditional cooling system. The return on investment, however, is within one year, IBM said, given the system's efficiency.

Photo Credit: IBM (A water-cooled blade used in IBM's Aquasar supercomputer. The two microchannel coolers at the center are attached directly to the processors.)

Shares of U.S. solar company First Solarhave dropped about 7 percent this week on concerns about a federal review of the company's recent acquisition of rival OptiSolar, which was first reported by the Los Angeles Times on Monday.

However, in a note to clients on Wednesday, Pacific Crest analyst Mark Bachman called the story "sensational, at best." A day earlier, Cowen and Company analyst Robert Stone said "the issue looks overdone." Both have "outperform" ratings on First Solar.

According to Bureau of Land Management spokeswoman Jan Bedrosian, the U.S. Department of the Interior's inspector general is probing whether OptiSolar's applications to develop 136,000 of public land were included in the value of the $400 million deal.In the event of an acquisition, applications can be transferred from one company to another, Bedrosian said, though no value can be attached to them.

"There is no value associated with a mere application, which could be rejected by us for a variety of reasons," Greg Miller, renewable energy program manager for the Bureau of Land Management office in Moreno Valley, told the Los Angeles Times, saying the agency was trying to weed out speculators who are snapping up land only to turn around and sell it for a quick profit.

In March, First Solar said it would buy OptiSolar's pipeline of solar projects, including a major installation for California utility Pacific Gas & Electric and other nascent deals. The move rapidly expanded the company's presence in the fast-growing market for utility-scale solar.

On Wednesday, Pacific Crest's Bachman said he expected the probe to "be remedied quickly in favor of First Solar."

"In our view, the value in the OptiSolar deal was based on the near-term project pipeline... and the 1.3 GW of short-listed projects, thus the BLM applications are upside to the deal," Bachman wrote, saying the review should not be weighing on the stock.

First Solar shares were down 3.5 percent at $177.94 in afternoon trade on the Nasdaq. They had closed at $190.29 on May 29, the last trading day before the Los Angeles Times story appeared.

Photo Credit: Reuters/Steve Marcus (A solar photovoltaic array at Nellis Air Force base near Las Vegas. Note: the panels were not made by either First Solar or OptiSolar)

"American Idol's" Adam Lambert surprised and awed fans all season with his unique brand of vocal gymnastics and dramatic flair, but nothing shocked "Glambert" followers more than when he placed second to low-key Kris Allen in the ultra-popular singing competition on Wednesday night.

Lambert himself, however, appeared unfazed by the loss of the "Idol" crown. Backstage after the show, he said he looks forward to making an album, and blew off the suggestion that his sexuality had anything to do with the season's outcome.

"First or second-- it doesn’t matter to me," Lambert, who was clad in a black Roberto Cavalli jacket with a flashy brooch, told reporters. "For me it’s not really about what happened tonight, it’s about tomorrow. It’s about next."

When one reporter suggested that the blogosphere would speculate about whether he lost because of questions about his sexuality, Lambert avoided confirming or denying that he is gay.

"Blogs have a lot of opinions, don’t they? I think that Kris won because he’s a great artist and I was happy to be a runner-up to that," he said, adding that he and Allen had found a lot of common ground despite their very different backgrounds and styles.

"If there's anything that can come from this experience, and I hope that all the fans out there can pick up on, is that even if you're really different there's a way to get along with each other," Lambert said. "And it's not about 'Oh, you beat me because of this,' or 'You, you're different.' It's about finding the common stuff that makes it work."

(Additional reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis)

Photo Credit: Fox/Ray Mickshaw (Adam Lambert performs at the "American Idol" finale)

"American Idol" on Tuesday entered the last week of competition before the finale, and we at "Fan Fare" had the good fortune to land second-row seats in the talent show's live studio audience. (For the record, this twist of fate had nothing to do with our coverage of the show -- it was good old-fashioned standing in line combined with almost two years of being on a waiting list.)

Watching "Idol" in its natural habitat revealed dozens of quirks imperceptible to the 25 million or so viewers who tune in at home. First off, the studio was smaller than expected -- even more intimate than watching a live show in a theater. One audience member in our row even remarked that it was smaller than her college lecture hall.

Also, the judges seemed to spend more time out of their seats than in them. Accompanied by massive bodyguards, they walked backstage at every commercial break, rushing back to their seats sometimes with two seconds to spare. Judge Paula Abdul at least spent some time greeting celebrity audience members such as Kim and Kourtney Kardashian and their mom, Kris Jenner, as well as "The Hills" star Audrina Partridge.

Many in the mostly young, female audience also appeared to be partial to one contestant -- supposed dark horse Kris Allen. There were more Kris-themed homemade signs ("Krazy 4 Kris", for instance) being waved than those for either of the other contestants. And, one young fan was overheard after the show gloating that she had waved to Allen -- and that he had smiled back!

So is "Idol"'s resident pretty boy Kris really a dark horse after all? His acoustic performance of Kanye West's "Heartless" received universal praise from the judges, with Randy Jackson deeming it "better than the original." His first song, "Apologize," however, was less well-received.

But Allen rival Danny Gokey's performances were by no means stellar, getting similar mixed reviews from the judges. They loved his version of "You Are So Beautiful" but were less enthused by his take on Terence Trent D'Arby's "Dance Little Sister," for which he was criticized for his dancing.

Golden child Adam Lambert, predictably, got rave reviews for both of his performances. Judge Simon Cowell, however, warned "Idol" viewers not to assume that Lambert would sail through to next week's finale and reminded them that they needed to vote.

So who will be sent packing tomorrow night? Host Ryan Seacrest, toward the end of the show, made a point of saying that he had no idea what would happen on Wednesday night.

Is Lambert really the juggernaut he has been made out to be, and does Allen have a stronger wind at his back than many expected? Gokey is the only contestant never to be placed among the show's bottom three vote-getters -- but has he finally run out of steam?

West Virginians who want to show off their pride in the state's coal industry can now do so via some catchy, coal-promoting ringtones put together by the West Virginia Coal Association.

Beware, however, that the ringtones have already drawn the ire of environmentalists.

The ringtones are jingles the West Virginia coal group has used for some time to promote the state's vast coal resources (and presumably to offset the bad rap coal gets for producing about 30 percent of the nation's greenhouse gases).

Below are some of the lyrics:

Coal is WestVirginia/ Coal is me and you/ Coal is West Virginia / We've got a job to do/ Coal is energy (coal is energy)/ We need energy (we need energy)/ Coal is West Virginia

And:

When we go down deep through the dark today/ We come up wth a light for America

For all the ringtones' optimism, however, they are taking heat from environmental group the Sierra Club, which put together a video called "Coal Was West Virginia" that denigrates coal as dirty and a threat to the environment while the mobile phone jingles play in the background.  You can check it out below:

Photo Credit: Reuters/Andrea Hopkins (Retired miner Chuck Nelson, 57, surveys a mountaintop removal coal mine on Kayford Mountain, West Virginia)