As most of you (hopefully) know, yesterday marked the 5-year anniversary of the war in Iraq. Hundreds of people fanned out across Washington, D.C., among other cities nationwide, to let us know how they feel.

We can't shake the feeling that the protests lacked any real bite, and we aren't the only ones questioning the overall impact. We're still not sure about the point of people standing frozen for 10 minutes outside of Washington's Union Station. Sure, it was rush hour, and just a few blocks from the Senate office buildings, but we don't think most Senators hop on the subway to get home, let alone pay attention to conceptual performance art. Most of the craziness and arrests went down at the IRS building, where protesters expressed their displeasure over the allocation of their tax dollars.

What surprises us most is that only a few dozen protesters showed up in front of the American Petroleum Institute, Big Oil's lobbying group/trade association. After all, isn't this was really all about? Ever since FDR went to Saudi Arabia in 1943, where he was speculated to have ensured US access to the nation's abundant oil reserves in exchange for military support, the US has had a vested interest in the Middle East.

Even the BBC questioned the Administration's intentions for engaging Saddam Hussein and Iraq in our war against Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. Heck, Philip Carroll, the former CEO of Shell Oil's US division was chosen by the Bush Administration to develop "contingency plans" regarding oil if the US was to engage in war with Iraq in the fall of 2002, and then was installed as the head of the committee dealing with oil reconstruction after we had shocked and awed.

Data centers -- those large, nondescript, windowless rooms full of humming black boxes -- are a critical component for nearly every sector of the U.S. economy, from financial services to manufacturing. They also use an enormous amount of energy.

How much is a lot? According to an EPA report released last summer, data centers used 61 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity in 2006, putting a peak load on the power grid of about 7 gigawatts -- or roughly the equivalent of 15 power plants. That's twice as much energy usage as 2000, a pace that would require an additional 10 power plants by 2011 solely to support data center operations.

Who knew keeping track of your credit card balance could be so inefficient?

Given the enormous strain on electricity grids and increasing operating costs for industry and government -- not too mention the greenhouse gas emissions from power plants -- we're glad the EPA and the Energy Department have made this an issue, announcing plans this week to work on greening data centers.

As part of the National Data Center Energy Efficiency Information Program, the two agencies will coordinate a variety of initiatives from the DOE Industrial Technologies Program’s Save Energy Now initiative, the DOE Federal Energy Management Program and EPA’s Energy Star program.

Not only are recreational and commercial fishermen in California, Washington and Oregon no longer allowed to sink their hooks into salmon, but now in Idaho, Washington and Oregon, even the fish's natural predators, sea lions, are being denied access to the fish. Just how does one go about keeping an animal from eating another animal? By killing it, of course.

While sea lions are protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, they are allowed to be taken -- legal-speak for harassed, captured or killed -- if it is done to protect fish stocks. An adult sea lion can eat 5-7 salmon a day, and while the animals are suspected of eating about 5 percent of the country's entire salmon stock, they are blamed for consuming one-third of the endangered salmon in the West.

All sorts of measures have been implemented to protect the salmon as they scale the fish-ladder built on the Bonneville Dam -- where sea lions have easiest access to the fish -- including setting off fireworks to scare the mammals and shooting them with rubber bullets. Now, the National Marine Fisheries Service has decided that sea lions seen getting their eat on between Jan. 1 through May 31 can be killed.

Don't get too upset: The animals get a 48-hour window after capture during which officials try and find them a home in a no-kill shelter, like a zoo or aquarium. We still wouldn't want to be a sea lion captured on a Friday afternoon.

Andy Revkin of the New York Times said it best this morning in A Farewell to Ice: "Essentially, the mountain storehouses of frozen water that have shaped their history and culture, or that have provided a secure year-round source of water through modern times, are no longer secure."

It's a reference to a U.N. Environment Program report released early this week that found -- well, more like reiterated -- that glaciers are shrinking at record rates, and many could disappear within decades. The UN scientists studied 30 glaciers throughout the world and found that on average, each one shrank by 4.9 feet in 2006. Only one glacier, in Chile, experienced slight growth.

Most alarming is that the average rate of melting and thinning of the glacial ice almost tripled in 2006, up from 1.6 feet the year before. The report comes as countries prepare for the next round of UN meetings at the end of the month in Bangkok, where officials will work on a post-Kyoto treaty.

Now comes today's ice news, which unless you're in the oil exploration or marine shipping business, is equally disturbing. Federal scientists said that while the Arctic ice sheet experienced minor growth this winter, the recovery is something of an illusion. That's because not enough ice is freezing below sea level, which means we're likely to see a big summer melt similar to last year, when the fabled Northwest Passage connecting the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans became very much real.

Apparently President Bush and his merry men were too busy interfering with EPA ozone standards last week to notice that the agency approved new stringent pollution controls for marine and locomotive diesel engines.

Even most environmental groups praised the new rules, which will require that all diesel engines on new ships and locomotives produce 90 percent less soot and 80 percent less nitrogen oxide by 2015. The new standards will apply to all engines, regardless of age, by 2030.

Embattled EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson said the new rules could help prevent 1,400 premature deaths and 120,000 lost workdays annually by 2030, saving as much as $12 billion.

Despite the, uh, lengthy timeline afforded to industry with these regs, we give the EPA a thumbs up for addressing a serious problem. These engines emit more than 1 million tons of nitrogen oxide and find particulate matter each year. EPA even accelerated its original proposed deadline for cutting the pollutants by two years.

We should note, however, that these new rules only apply to ships traveling on inland waterways and between U.S. ports, including ferries and tugboats. The agency is expected to propose emissions standards for oceangoing ships next year.

Solar energy: It's clean, abundant, cheaper than carbon sequestration, and the technology is evolving at a breakneck pace.

But as with so many things in this endlessly connected world, even the greenest tech can have a sickly brown underbelly. In this case, it's silicon tetrachloride, a highly toxic byproduct of the synthesis of polysilicon, the primary component of a solar panel. Chinese polysilicon plants have been documented dumping the noxious, bubbling white liquid on agricultural land and in nearby villages without treatment or remediation.

The waste can be recycled and detoxified, but of course that comes with a price - a price that would hamper the manufacturers' ability to sell the valuable commodity at the lowest possible price. And, of course, China's environmental agencies are looking the other way, as they are wont to do.

In other words, we now live in a world where the phrase "solar pollution" exists.

The Washington Post relates eyewitness testimony of plant workers driving into the middle of a village, dumping the toxic waste into a tract of land between a cornfield and a school playground, and driving away without explanation. Company officials deny the allegation and insist that the waste is treated before it is released. Given that no Chinese plant has invested in the necessary technology to treat the waste, we're not sure how that's possible.

We sure do love keeping tabs on the EPA, especially when the public has a chance to get involved in its work, like commenting on an agency sea level rise report or debating the finer points of heroin use on the deputy administrator’s blog.

Last week, the agency released the draft of its annual greenhouse gas emissions report, and of course it wants to hear your thoughts on the 453-page document.

Believe it or not, the draft report states that we as a nation emitted less greenhouse gases in 2006 than 2005. It was still equivalent to some 7.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide, but hey, it’s a start.

This fits in nicely to the Bush administration’s plan to reduce greenhouse gas intensity by 18 percent by 2012 (though we’re pretty sure they won’t be administrating then). Just in case you’re not sure what greenhouse gas intensity is, the EPA defines it as “the ratio of greenhouse gas emissions to economic output.” Good to know they’re keeping things in perspective.

Maybe all this means the economy is on the rebound.

If you build it green, they will come. Even if it’s in Queens.

Last week, the New York Mets announced plans to green the construction of their new baseball stadium and employ sustainability practices once it’s open to the public next year. The Mets will consult with the EPA on the project, and plan to enroll in several of the agency’s voluntary programs like Energy Star and Waste Wise.

In building Citi Field, which is under construction in the old parking lot of the Mets’ current home, Shea Stadium, the Mets will also:

• Use recycled steel for 95 percent of the stadium’s structure

• Consider installing a green roof

• Use some 65,000 square feet of porous pavement to help abate storm water runoff with another 25,000 square feet designed to stay unpaved

• Use at least 2 million pounds of recycled coal ash in various construction methods

• Install energy- and water-conserving devices throughout the stadium

  The Mets aren’t the first sports team, or even baseball team to think green, though their efforts seem to be the most thorough we’ve seen to date. Here’s what some other teams have done:

• The San Francisco Giants (baseball) host 590 solar panels capable of producing 122 kilowatts at AT&T Stadium

• The New England Patriots (NFL) will buy renewable energy credits to offset Gillette Stadium’s power consumption

• Last year’s World Series participants, the Boston Red Sox and Colorado Rockies, each have green features at their parks.