A Rasmussen Reports poll released Tuesday seems to confirm a point The Times made in an editorial last month on a California regulation that would ban large-screen TVs from being sold because they consume too much energy: Leave it up to the market to catch up on electricity-inefficient televisions. An excerpt from the Rasmussen summary:

Conservation-minded folks (this bike and bus commuter considers himself one) may be discouraged by the majority opinion that most people feel being able to buy whatever mega-screen television they darn well please is more important than saving energy. But the energy-unregulated TV market is working in conservation's favor: Nearly the same percentage of people -- 54% -- say efficiency is important enough to them that would pay more for televisions that use less electricity.

As The Times' editorial pointed out, the new regulation would actually hamper the innovation already underway in the industry. The Rasmussen poll adds another point: California's action may deprive consumers of the energy-efficient entertainment they'd pay a premium for.

Hat tip: Katherine Mangu-Ward and Reason's Hit and Run.

-- Paul Thornton

Photo credit: Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times

This won't take long to spell out. How long it'll take to fix, I don't know.

Spinning around the radio dial Wednesday, I alighted on a news story about the water deal reached in Sacramento. The announcer said something to the effect that the deal balances both ''human and environmental'' concerns.

What? Stop! When are we going to get it through our still-insufficiently evolved craniums [crania, if you like] that environmental concerns ARE human concerns, that we are only as healthy and as likely to survive as are our fellow species and the land and water and air on this planet?

For years, we've been shoved into accepting the false, manipulated choice of jobs versus the environment; now there's the insidious manufactured either-or of "us versus them,"'  the `"them'' being a balanced water system and the habitat and creatures that are part of it. Well, here's some breaking news that should be old news: We ARE them.

-- Patt Morrison

Comedian Craig Ferguson pretty much got it right Friday night at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, when he told the folks at the Jane Goodall Institute’s global leadership awards:

"It’s nice to be here with people who actually do things rather than just tell jokes on television."

Or who just throw dinners congratulating one another for being so darned swell.

I’ve been to a few dinners at the BW that fit the latter description; the Goodall event fell  into the "do things" category, certainly when it came to two particular honorees. They were sitting at my table, and they’re so young that they drank juice while everyone else drank wine.

Shadrach Meshach lives in Tanzania, where Goodall began her seminal work with chimpanzees. In grade school, he joined up with Goodall’s Roots and Shoots program, grassroots work for animals and the environment. Eventually he began bicycling to Tanzania’s refugee camps for Congolese, persuading hunters to stop killing endangered chimpanzees for meat and showing them how to raise chickens and vegetables instead. He has been breaking other cultural norms, too – he’s an African young man, a teenager, trying to improve women’s lot in life in the belief that that that will improve the world.

He sat quietly on my right, taking in the plush ballroom and the lavish table settings. He has been out of Tanzania twice, once to Orlando, Fla.,last year, for a Jane Goodall young people’s summit, and now here, to Beverly Hills -- not the average visitor’s experience of the United States.

Erica Fernandez came here from Michoacan with her farmworker family when she was a child. Now she’s a full-scholarship sophomore at Stanford; her family still works the fields in Oxnard, she told me, where, as a high school student, she campaigned to keep an LNG facility from being built there. She’s studying matters related to her commitment, environmental justice, and hopes to go to Harvard Law.

Among the grownups honored by Goodall was John Zavalney, already an award-winning LAUSD teacher and science advisor who became a kind of "stand and deliver" hands-on instructor, teaching biology, ecology and environmental science at Foshay Learning Center.

Working with wild creatures rescued by animal welfare workers or confiscated as they were being smuggled into the U.S., Zavalney introduced inner-city students who had never even visited the beach to the wider world of forests and jungles and tidelands and savannas, using these living classroom lessons.

Of course, such awards have to feature some celeb names among the winners – in this case, actress and animal lover Betty White and super-green guy and actor Ed Begley Jr., both of whom delivered the kind of funny remarks that everyone counts on to provide a bit of leavening to other speakers'  serious stuff. 

The public policy award went to mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, "the greenest mayor" L.A. has ever had, announced Begley, who is a big public transit user. Villaraigosa’s was to have been the evening’s first award, but the mayor evidently arrived late, and it was pushed down to later in the program. [Small-world department: The terrific waiter at my table had been a Cathedral High School classmate of Villaraigosa’s.]

The mayor, as I reported in July, met Goodall on his trip to Africa, accompanied by Lu Parker, his girlfriend, KTLA-TV anchor and former teacher and Miss USA pageant winner. On Friday evening, he arrived solo to accept his award. Parker, he said, wasn’t there because she was working.

If you’ve never been to one of these dinners, the silent auction is a regular pre-dinner fundraiser and curtain-raiser. This time, along with the usual wine and hit-DVD and spa packages being offered, guests bid for artwork by chimpanzees.

Later, once people had been softened up by the wine and the vegetarian meal – Goodall told me a few months ago that cutting back on meat eating is one of the most significant things humans can do to improve the globe’s health and survivability -- bidding opened on a one-off item.

For a bid of $25,000, Goodall Institute board member Addison Fischer won the right to name the next primate refugee to arrive at Goodall’s chimpanzee rehab center in Congo. He wasn’t spilling the beans on his choice, but the buzz in the ballroom was weighted heavily in favor of "Jane."

-- Patt Morrison

  In today's editorial and opinion pages, the Times editorial board gives former Assembly Speaker Fabuan Nuñez a shout-out for being cleared of ethics charges arising from his lavish spending, and then gives him a shout-down for the underlying actions. No, he's not a crook. But he still relied too heavily on the largesse of donors with issues to press in Sacramento.

And we pair a shout-down of Philadelphia Eagles player Michael Vick's dogfighting operation with a shout-out to Wayne Pacelle of the the Humane Society of the United States -- for going on a, pardon the expression, dog-and-pony tour with Vick to educate communities about stopping cruelty to animals.

And shoutouts and shout downs abound for the food industry's Smart Choices program.

Columnist Meghan Daum weighs in on farming-chic, and two folks sack Sacramento's recent move to waive environmental laws to hasten construction of a football stadium in Los Angeles or, rather, the City of Industry. Sen. Alan Lowenthal (D-Long Beach) worries that the Legislature "opened the floodgates" to future exemptions to the California Environmental Quality Act. And sports author Dave Zirin sees just the latest in a series of sweetheart deals between unwitting taxpayers and tycoon team owners.

Photo: AP/Nick Ut

Departing Police Chief William Bratton prods immigration culture warriors today with an op-ed explaining why the LAPD doesn't, and shouldn't, participate in the controversial 287(g) program, which gives local law enforcement officers the powers of federal immigration agents. Turning police into de facto Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents harms community policing and discourages witnesses who might be illegal immigrants from coming forward.

Also on the Op-Ed page, columnist Jonah Goldberg argues that trying to limit carbon emissions to fight global warming is a pointless waste of money because it can't solve the problem; better to invest in technological solutions and adjusting to a warmer world. And think tank scholars Leo Michel and Robert Hunter argue that U.S. allies are already doing plenty of heavy lifting as part of the NATO contingent in Afghanistan, so American officials should do less lecturing and more listening if they want more cooperation.

Speaking of Afghanistan, the Editorial page says the country can't be pacified simply by sending more troops. That has become abundantly clear in the face of increased suicide bombings in Iraq, which like Afghanistan has been slow to build a credible government.

We also send a rare love note to the California Legislature, pointing out two genuinely worthwhile bills that will help cities make better use of water, an increasingly precious resource in this dry and crowded state. And we weigh in on Operation Gatekeeper, the federal effort started in 1994 to tighten border security in a five-mile stretch from the Pacific Ocean to San Ysidro. Though the program has been successful in reducing crossings in that area, it has had an unintended consequence that must be addressed: Deaths of people trying to cross the desert farther to the east have skyrocketed.

Editorial cartoon by Tom Toles / Washington Post

This, apparently, is how to win a parks award: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger sided with the toll-road agency and against San Onofre State Beach, supporting plans to build a freeway through the length of the park.

Then as soon as the budget got incredibly bad, one of his first ideas was to close a couple hundred state parks, even though the savings were relatively paltry. He backed down on that only after an analysis showed that it could be more expensive to close the parks than to keep them open because of the potential for vandalism, fires and illegal use.

On Thursday, the governor will receive an award from the National Park Trust for his record of supporting and protecting parks. This is a little befuddling, to say the least. Oh, wait, there was that moment when he told the federal government that he wanted California's road-free areas in its national forests to remain road-free.

If this is how awards are given out, we could have fun imagining similar honors. Nadya "Octomom" Suleman for the Zero Population Growth Award? The possibilities are endless.

-- Karin Klein

Photo: Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

What's not to like about a proposed fee on California hospitals? The hospitals themselves support it, because it would bring in billions of dollars in federal funding to repay the hospitals and other health care providers for the medical care they give to poor people. The Times editorial board urges Gov. Schwarzenegger to see the logic and sign the bill to make it happen.

They call it overdraft protection, but there's little to protect the consumer from the multibillion-dollar flow of money to banks that charge a fee over and over and over again to debit-card users whose accounts can't cover their purchases. Often the fee is bigger than the purchase, but the customer simply doesn't realize the account is overdrawn. The Times calls on the Federal Reserve to fix this with rules that require better consumer information, a choice for customers who don't want the so-called protection and notification for the customer before that costly but unaffordable purchase is made.

And the board calls on Honduras to allow the return of President Manuel Zelaya -- with limited powers -- until the Nov. 29 election, though it also calls on the international community to make sure Zelaya understands he should not attempt to stay in power.

Let's admit this openly: Tuna aren't as awe-inspiring as whales. They don't spout in the middle of the ocean or do a slow dive that ends with the farewell wave of a giant tail. Nonetheless, they need protection after drastic overfishing, writes Joshua Reichert of the Pew Environment Group. On the Times Op-Ed page, Reichert argues that fishing caps haven't worked and that nothing but endangered-species status will save the Atlantic bluefin tuna.

Finally, energy journalist Richard Nemec writes that Los Angeles has been playing political musical chairs in determining leadership for the Department of Water and Power instead of hiring the experts it so desperately needs.

Photo: Gavin Newman / Greenpeace International / EPA

-- Karin Klein

Reports are in that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger isn't going to close 100 state parks or anything like that number. Closing parks isn't the big moneysaver the governor had expected; the Times editorial page warned him about that in early June.

There also were small towns whose financial lives depend depend on the tourism brought by state monuments or parks.

The Times will editorialize tomorrow on the reasons why the governor should have thought this out better before donning his parks-Terminator costume.

Photo of Pio Pico State Historic Park in Whittier. Credit: David McNew / Getty Images

--Karin Klein

The Opinion Manufacturing Division straddles the ideological divide today, offering red meat to both sides of the aisle. The Times editorial board blasts ACORN, the community organizers at the heart of conservative talk radio's favorite conspiracy theories, for failing to acknowledge and correct its serious internal problems in the wake of "devastating" hidden-camera exposes. And Op-Ed columnist Tim Rutten peers behind the newfound celebrity of Rep. Joe "You lie!" Wilson (R-S.C.) to find all sorts of fringe-group, umm, creativity. In particular, he examines the roots of the tea party movement and the intellectual underpinnings of the "10thers" -- anti-government conservatives who claim the 10th amendment gives state lawmakers authority to reject many acts of Congress and Supreme Court rulings.

Elsewhere on the Op-Ed page, David A. Lehrer, president of Los Angeles-based Community Advocates Inc., argues that anti-Semitic attacks are declining -- contrary to dire warnings from the Anti-Defamation League and the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Similarly, Richard Wexler, executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection, contends that tragedies such as those involving Dae'von Bailey and Lars Sanchez -- two children killed despite the supervision their families were given by county child-welfare officials -- are the exception, not the norm:

Back among the editorials, the board urges Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to sign AB 2, a bill by Assemblyman Hector De La Torre (D-South Gate) to limit the ability of health insurers to cancel policies retroactively. And while it praises the announcement that the Irvine Co. would transfer 20,000 acres to Orange County for parks, it calls on the county to reveal more about how it will manage the windfall:

Photo: Police in Nevada gather evidence from an ACORN office in 2008 as part of an investigation into voter fraud. Credit: AP Photo / Jae C. Hong

-- Jon Healey

With a hat tip to John Hodgman, who has pretty well cornered the market on ridiculous solutions to serious problems, I think I've got the answer to climate change: a cap-and-trade program for babies.

As related by the Washington Post, two recent studies have pointed out that the real culprit for global warming isn't cars or coal plants, it's us. There are too many humans on planet Earth, emitting too much carbon. The cheapest cure is contraception, according to a study released last week by the London School of Economics, which points out that each $7 spent on family planning over the next four decades would reduce carbon-dioxide emissions by more than a ton. Achieving the same result with low-carbon technologies would cost at least $32. What's more, a study from Oregon State University concluded that having children (especially American ones, because Americans use vast amounts of energy compared to people from other countries) is the most environmentally damaging decision you can make.

I can see the answer now: You place a cap of one child on every couple, but set up a market to trade child-bearing credits so low-income couples can sell them to those with the means to support big families. It's eugenic-tastic!

OK, maybe not. But the notion is only a little sillier than the solution being promoted by the London School and its study's sponsor, the British-based Optimum Population Trust. Their model for fighting climate change by promoting birth control in the Third World ignores the fact that such programs almost never work.

There are many reasons for the population explosion, but most of them come down to one factor: poverty. Women in poor countries have little education and almost no power over reproductive decisions, so they go from one pregnancy to the next. In places where infant mortality is high, women have a lot of children because some are expected to die. Agrarian societies need children to work the farm. Programs to promote condoms aren't going to change any of this; if you want to lower birth rates, as Jeffrey Sachs and other scholars have pointed out, you have to reduce poverty. That means investing in development for poor countries.

Of course, with development and industrialization come higher greenhouse gas emissions. There's a solution for that, too: Make sure these societies "grow green." To do that, the U.S. and other rich countries have to develop clean-energy technologies, and mass produce them until solar panels and windmills are cheaper for industrializing nations to install than coal-burning power plants.

As Hodgman would say, "Global warming, solved. You're Welcome."

-- Dan Turner

Photo by Bettmann/Corbis