I spent the past weekend at National Hunting and Fishing Day in West Virginia.  While I have only been to West Virginia a handful of times, it's where my grandmother is from and that branch of my genealogy I can trace back  almost 200 years in and around Charleston.  So a little piece of me  deeply loves the area.  And the slogan is no lie, West Virginia  is wild and wonderful.

West Virginia is also at the heart of the global warming debate.  It's coal-country, and coal, as it's currently being used, is the most greenhouse gas polluting source of energy we have.  So I had very tempered expectations on how West Virginia hunters and anglers would react to the message that we need to reduce the pollution that causes global warming.

I needn't have worried.  West Virginians are just as concerned as everyone else about what the burning of fossil fuels is doing to wildlife and wildlife habitat.  While the coal industry still provides a lot of union jobs, no one could begrudge the 500 lbs of coal that is saved for every florescent light bulb that is switched to a compact fluorescent.  And the reality is that West Virginia could create thousands of new jobs with a strong investment in  non-polluting wind power.

Finally, congratulations to Tom Ditty, West Virginia Wildlife Federation's vice-president, who  this week is  being trained on how to do Al Gore's slide show to class rooms across West Virginia.