You got your fight. You and your enemy are in the streets, everyone's got their fists up and you ... wanna talk?!

That's not going to cut it.

Here's a little cheer any high school sports fan can teach you: Be aggressive. B.E. Aggressive.

Try it with me now: Be aggressive. B.E. Aggressive.

The oil lobby was sponsoring rallies with free lunches, free concerts and speeches warning that a climate-change bill could ravage the U.S. economy.

Professional "campaigners" hired by the coal industry were giving away T-shirts praising coal-fired power.

But when environmentalists showed up in this college town -- closer than ever to congressional passage of a climate-change bill, in the middle of the green movement's biggest political test in a generation -- they provided . . . a sedate panel discussion.

And they gave away stickers.

Even now, these groups differ on whether to scare the public with predictions of heat waves or woo it with promises of green jobs. And they are facing an opposition with tycoon money and a gift for political stagecraft.

"Progressives and clean-energy types . . . made a mistake and slacked off" after the House of Representatives passed its version of a climate-change bill in June, said Joseph Romm, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress who blogs on climate issues. "And the other side really kept making its case."

Read more from The Washington Post.

Here are a couple of environmentalists who aren't happy with the Obama administration's progress:

Builders and companies love to shout about their LEED status, but is it bunkus?

LEED, by the way, actually stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.

Here's more on the topic from The New York Times:

The Federal Building in downtown Youngstown, Ohio, features an extensive use of natural light to illuminate offices and a white roof to reflect heat.

It has LEED certification, the country’s most recognized seal of approval for green buildings.

But the building is hardly a model of energy efficiency. According to an environmental assessment last year, it did not score high enough to qualify for the Energy Star label granted by the Environmental Protection Agency, which ranks buildings after looking at a year’s worth of utility bills.

The building’s cooling system, a major gas guzzler, was one culprit. Another was its design: to get its LEED label, it racked up points for things like native landscaping rather than structural energy-saving features, according to a study by the General Services Administration, which owns the building.

Read the rest of this article here.

Want to know more about LEED ratings?

Got an opinion? Great!

County officials want you to share it with the community Thursday night at University Park Baptist Church, near Hornet's Nest Park. The meeting starts at 7 p.m. Here's a map.

Among the questions to be considered, she says: “Do we need a coordinated plan for the delivery of human services? What is currently under way? How do we connect the dots? Who do we look to for leadership?”

Scheduled panelists are Taylor Batten, the Observer's editorial page editor; Brett Loftis, executive director of the Council for Children's Rights; Dana McDonald of University Park Baptist Church; Pat Mumford, director of Neighborhood and & Business Services for the city of Charlotte; and Mary Wilson, director of the Mecklenburg County Department of Social Services.

To sign up for the meeting or for more details, contact Renee Thompson at 704-336-2424 or RThompson@ci.charlotte .nc.us.

Read more at Charlotte.com.

From ProPublica.org:

To curb the lobbying feeding frenzy surrounding the nearly $800 billion stimulus package [1], in March the Obama administration imposed unprecedented restrictions [2] on lobbyists: All lobbyist communications regarding specific projects were to be submitted in writing, and general conversations between government officials and lobbyists about stimulus policies had to be noted in disclosures posted online.

We decided to track this promise with a clock [3]—so far it’s at 94 days and counting—and there is no sign it will be stopping any time soon.

As we noted in May, though more than 800 lobbyists had registered [4] to lobby on stimulus issues, only a handful actually appeared in lobbying disclosures [5] on agency Web sites. Instead, lobbying firms were sending junior employees who were not registered lobbyists, or arranging direct meetings between government officials and clients.

After pressure from lobbyists and First Amendment groups, the Obama Administration later revised the rules [6] so that all oral communications had to be disclosed, not just those with registered lobbyists.  Under the revised rules, the disclosures are only required for lobbying around just $88 billion worth of stimulus funding to be distributed through competitive grants.

Outside of the competitive grants, the old rules still apply: Government employees only have to disclose oral communications with registered lobbyists.

But as the Associated Press recently reported, the rule change hasn’t resulted in any spike of disclosures [7]: In August there were a grand total of eight contacts disclosed.

White House Office of Management and Budget Spokesman Tom Gavin told the AP the dearth of disclosures was due to the fact that agencies were still adjusting to the new process.