Texas state officials gave the nod today to the largest wind-power project in the country.

The project, to cost at least $3 billion, will include significant new transmission lines to get power from windy areas, where the turbines will be, to urban areas. Texas electric customers will pay about $4 more per month on their electric bills to help cover the costs of investment.

State officials aren’t just blowing hot air.

According to MSNBC: Texas is already the national leader in wind power, and wind supporters say Thursday’s move by the Public Utility Commission will make the Lone Star State a leader in moving energy to the urban areas that need electricity.

“We will add more wind than the 14 states following Texas combined,” said PUC Commissioner Paul Hudson. “I think that’s a very extraordinary achievement. Some think we haven’t gone far enough, some think we’ve pushed too far.”

Meantime, one town in Missouri is entirely powered by wind.

Not everyone is hot on wind. Some argue the giant turbines (not windmills anymore) are noisy and can kill birds. And one study suggested the drag o turbines could actually alter the climate.

• Whatever Happened to Wind Energy?

You likely saw some of the recent stories coming out of the UK that NASA chief, Mike Griffin, has spotlighted the prospect that China could possibly place people on the Moon, perhaps before the U.S. replants its own boots there.

“As a matter of technical capability, it absolutely can,” he told the BBC News in London.

But one little nugget of newness caught my eye from Griffin. That is, some early scientific partnerships between the two space powers are being eyed.

I contacted NASA public affairs officer, Mike Braukus, for a little more info.

Turns out that there’s been some recent NASA chat with China following Griffin’s September 2006 space trek to that country - the first time a NASA administrator had visited there.

Discussions between NASA and China National Space Administration (CNSA) leaders concern the establishment of Earth and space science working groups, Braukus advised.

“The areas of discussion centered on complementary measurements and data exchange on missions that are already being pursued in each country in the fields of Earth and space science,” Braukus said. “It could be beneficial to NASA to cooperate with CNSA in these areas to share data, reduce mission cost and duplication, and advance scientific knowledge,” he added.

This all reminds me of U.S.-Soviet Union Cold War thawing in the space arena - steps that led to an Apollo-Soyuz docking, shuttle visits to the Mir space station, and open airlock policy that led to the International Space Station.

Small science steps can lead to giant leaps of collaboration.

Former Apollo astronaut, Rusty Schweickart, is on the campaign trail today - leading the charge on getting threatening near-Earth objects (NEOs) on the radar screen of space scientists.

Schweickart is at the 37th Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) in Montreal, Canada giving a special luncheon talk today on the asteroid threat to Earth and international decisions that are forthcoming.

Speaking as Chairman of the Association of Space Explorers (ASE) Committee on Near-Earth Objects, Schweickart is spotlighting several items, such as:

– Presently, about 3,000 NEOs have been identified and are being tracked that are of a size capable of destroying a major city on impact.

– Within the next 10-15 years, the orbits of over 300,000 such objects will be tracked.

– Based on current data, 97 percent of these objects will have NO chance of impact over the next century. However, of the remaining three percent, there are likely to be many that will appear menacing enough to seriously consider deflection.

A key message from Schweickart is that, given adequate early warning, a NEO deflection campaign can be initiated using existing space technology. Furthermore, the international community will shortly be confronted with the decision of whether action should be taken, when it should be taken, and who should take such action.

It’s Schweickart’s view that for those pondering whether or not the threat of NEO impacts is “a real issue” and whether it needs to be dealt with now, the proper answer to both queries is “yes” and “yes.”

To move the NEO impact on Earth issue down the political and global court, ASE and its panel on Asteroid Threat Mitigation are wrapping up a two year effort - a decision program for asteroid threat mitigation to be submitted to the United Nations in 2009 labeled: “Asteroid Threats: A Call for Global Response.”

It’s no secret that environmentalism is fast going mainstream. But the reasons are worth pointing out again: Many people have no choice as they pinch pennies in the current recession/inflation age, and the planet is sometimes the beneficiary. Others who perhaps never leaned green and are flush with cash nonetheless see the national security benefits of reducing dependence on foreign oil.

The evidence can be seen in several ways the new energy crisis is changing American life, often with good side effects for the planet and the nation, at least in the long run: People are driving less, driving slower and shopping smarter (which means consuming less of stuff that’s often produced or shipped inefficiently or imported unnecessarily).

Three new developments this week suggest a broadening of the trends:

1. In Korea shoppers of appliances and electronics are asking about energy use. American shoppers will wake to this soon, too. Americans spend about $1 billion a year, by one estimate, on “vampire electricity,” powering devices even when they’re off; you’ve seen the orange “I’m ready to go” lights on stereo equipment, etc. (how you can save a buck).

The dawning awareness will have a trickle-up effect as smart manufactures ramp up investment and development of products that use less energy. The shift in computer displays from conventional cold cathode fluorescent lamps (CCFLs) to light emitting diode (LED) displays is one example already well underway, but now there’s incentive to build more energy efficient appliances, from clothes dryers to toasters.

2. Another interesting and long-awaited development, or at least rumor of it: The Toyota Prius will get an optional and not overly useful solar panel, because the car company thinks consumers demand even token efforts at solar as part of the overall package to wean ourselves from oil. One small step toward the 100 mpg car that’s going to sell like gangbusters soon as some car company makes the not-so-difficult leap.

3. Some politicians continue to push for smart, futuristic thinking where the White House won’t: New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said this week the city will spend $2.3 billion to cut greenhouse gas emissions from municipal buildings and operations by 30 percent in 30 years. “The city is doing its part, I hope the private sector follows our example and finds conservation savings of their own,” Bloomberg said. Interesting he had no advice for the federal government.

Meantime, the U.S. and global leaders vowed this week to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2050 in one of the most empty promises ever to come out of the political arena. The G8 meeting would have been better spent deciding to don eight Jimmy Carter sweaters this winter.

Point being: For now, natural economic pressures and personal decisions rooted in strong morals and economic necessity are the primary drivers of change in how we manage the planet’s resources.

Gotta toss this in: Time Magazine’s Joe Klein wrote an obvious yet illuminating piece on air conditioners, and how stupidly obsessed we’ve become with them. He bemoans those who cool homes and businesses to 75 and lower, especially on delightful spring days. I’m with him on this. We keep our AZ home at around 83 on summer days — not to save the world but because it’s quite pleasant. Not everyone has the same taste for warmth, but it’s insane that on a 110-degree day the movie theaters, restaurants and stores are so chilled I need a sweater.

Things change so quickly these days that backlashes to Next Big Thing occur before most of us even know about the Thing. I’m going to call them frontlashes.

Here’s one: Hypermilers fear a backlash as wannabies latch on to their most dangerous techniques such as drafting.

Huh?

Hypermilers are, as I learned today, people who try to squeeze every mile out of a gallon of gas. There are the sensible tricks: driving slower; coming off stop lights without laying rubber; and keeping your engine fit as a fiddle. Then there’s rolling through stop signs, driving way too slow, and drafting like Kyle Busch.

The classic hypermilers are worried that idiots picking up on their tactics (at sites like leanmpg.com, hypermiling.com and hypermilers.com) will take the dangerous ones to extreme, giving all hypermilers a bad name. “Now that the general public keeps hearing this falsehood that hypermiling is all about drafting, a lot of idiots are going to start trying it — and we’re going to get the blame.” Well, sure, now that we’ve exposed the frontlash, the backlash should go into high gear. I’m going to look for some of these idiots this afternoon when I hit the road, in fact.

I suspect the rapidly changing economy in America will set up all kinds of frontlashes (I don’t expect the term to catch on, however).

Another example: Hypermiling is to me today what stripping was a few weeks back. We learned of a backlash among local real estate agents to stripping, which we then learned is rampant in our town. People who are peeved that they’re losing their homes to foreclosure are taking everything with them, leaving the houses largely unsaleable. The backlash gained steam last week when a guy in Pennsylvania went to jail for stripping a $1.2 million home of everything AND the kitchen sink.

There’s been a (somewhat slowly) growing trend in recent years to revamp small things in our lives to make a little bit greener, for example, compact fluorescent bulbs are gradually replacing their more inefficient cousins, incandescent lights.

Companies are jumping on the band wagon as well. Poland Springs, for example, recently debuted their new “eco-shape” bottle that has 30 percent less plastic than the old bottle. Apparently, Sam’s Club is also getting in on the act with brand-new rectangular-shaped milk jugs, according to this article in today’s online version of The New York Times.

The jugs are easier to stack and therefore to ship, cheaper to make and ship (bringing down the cost of milk in the store) and more environmentally-friendly. But to change-resistant consumers, they’re also, well, different.

The new shape just isn’t want people are used to seeing in the diary section. And though the milk in these containers is fresher (because it ships out faster) and cheaper, it’s also apparently harder to pour. The tried-and-true “life, tip and pour” method doesn’t work these jugs, instead resulting in a lot of spilled milk. No need to cry though, because just resting the jug on a counter and tipping it will get all the milk into your glass, Sams Club employees say.

Such reinventions of basic parts of the American way of life are going to become more commonplace, according to experts quote in the article:

“This is a key strategy as a path forward,” said Anne Johnson, the director of the Sustainable Packaging Coalition, a project of the nonprofit group GreenBlue. “Re-examining, ‘What are the materials we are using? How are we using them? And where to they go ultimately?”

Sam’s Club is already expanding the number of stores that feature the new milk jugs and Wal-Mart is considering following suit.

Who knows what product will eco-ified next…

If you think gas prices are high in the United States, you have not looked at the rest of the world.

Bill Marsh, a visual reporter at the NY Times who has a flair for putting data and words into meaningful presentations, compares the price per gallon for various countries and analyzes what fuels the vastly differing costs.

While a handful of countries have very cheap gas because it is heavily subsidized (such as in Venezuela, were it’s $0.25 per gallon), most European countries apply heavy taxes so consumers pay much more than U.S. residents. Prices range from $7.30 per gallon in space to $10.05 in The Netherlands.

“Take away the taxes, and the remaining gas price is similar from place to place,” Marsh writes.

• Why Oil Prices Skyrocketed

Inflation (there, I said it) and the mortgage meltdown, worry about global warming and the overall glum economy (we’re not supposed to call it a recession until it’s over or a new person is in the White House or until inflation is clearly the greater worry, whichever comes first) are having profound effects on how Americans live.

You know best. You are driving less, driving slower, and being more careful at the grocery store. In the East where public transportation is not a dirty word, buses and subways are stuffed and Amtrak ridership is at an all-time high.

And no surprise, you are tightening your belts. A Bloomberg/L.A. Times survey this week finds seven in 10 “say higher gas prices have caused them ‘financial hardship.’ More than 1 in 3 respondents say they have cut back on their spending over the last six months as oil and food prices surged and unemployment rose.”

If you are a Baby Boomer, you’re whining like crazy. But you always have been.

Meanwhile, as your stocks plunged today and oil surged above $140 a barrel, here are a dozen less obvious signs of the times:

1. Government officials in a Minnesota county worrying how they’ll plow the snow next winter. They are struggling with budgets that were planned before fuel prices skyrocketed. “We’re looking at fuel efficiency, but it can only go so far,” said Don Theisen, who runs Washington County’s public works department. “The big equipment, like snowplows, have improved over time, but nothing that will make up for the rise in fuel costs.”

2. With diesel prices even higher than gas, thieves are siphoning big-rig fuel. “There’s quite a bit of theft going on,” said Dave Williams, vice president of equipment and maintenance for Phoenix-based Knight Transportation. “We’ve had to figure out how to track it and keep it from happening.”

3. The Caribbean tourism industry is sinking, and on many islands it’s pretty much all they have. That means, of course, that you and many others are planning staycations this summer.

4. An official in Madison, Wisconsin is advocating a ban on fast-food drive-thrus. “Given the concern about all the carbon going into the atmosphere, I’m not sure we should be building more places for people to sit idling in their cars,” says Eric Sundquist, appointed to a citizen panel by the mayor.

5. Suburban commuters, especially out West where the public transport options are as rare as hybrid cars on a showroom floor, know too well the disproportionate hit to the pocketbook they’re suffering now. And so, of course, there’s talk about the death of the suburbs and the exurbs.

6. Carpooling is nothing new, but now rodeo cowboys are saddling up together. They have to drive to the many stops on the rodeo circuit, often in diesel pickup trucks towing trailers weighted down by the animals. “It’s ridiculous, I mean it’s doubled my cost to go places,” said Monty Lewis, the 2004 world champion tie-down roper.

7. Cocoa Beach Florida is scrubbing its fireworks simply because the city can’t afford it this year.

8. Job productivity is declining as workers stress about pump prices, claims Wayne Hochwarter of Florida State University’s College of Business. There’s no firm data on this (in fact, I suspect a lot of people are working harder for fear they’ll be laid off). But Hochwarter did a survey earlier this year to see what’s on workers’ minds. “People concerned with the effects of gas prices were significantly less attentive on the job, less excited about going to work, less passionate and conscientious and more tense,” he concludes. “These people also reported more ‘blues’ on the job.” Sad.

9. Now we turn positive, Vint Cerf (the real Al Gore of the Internet) and now a Google mucky-muck, said “Although I’m not happy with increased oil prices, the Internet (industry) may actually benefit from that as people turn to it as an aid to improve their efficiency.” Indeed: Lisa Honan of U.K.-based Eyenetwork, which brokers videoconference facilities in 3,500 locations, says studio bookings have more than doubled in the past year. The No. 1 use: interviewing job candidates. Take note, ye who are blue an slacking (No. 6).

And, to reprise, there are these offbeat upsides:

10. Deaths are likely down. Fewer miles driven means safer roads. One study predicts nearly 2,000 fewer people will die because of the recent price hikes.

11. Less gas is being consumed (fewer SUVs, less driving, etc.). One economist estimates that each $1 rise in gas leads to 14 percent less fuel consumption over the long haul. Of course, as consumption falls, some analysts say prices at the pump could dip, stimulating demand.

12. Pollution is reduced. If we use less gas, logic dictates that smog will decrease (you’ll breath cleaner air) and we’ll pump lower amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Little if any research has quantified this potential outcome, but the traffic-death study also predicts 600 fewer pollution-related deaths. So maybe, just maybe, we’re on the, ahem, road to recovery.

There’s been lots of powerpoint talk and back of the envelop calculation regarding use of a “gravity tractor” to deflect an asteroid that might endanger Earth.

The physics behind the idea is that a spacecraft would position itself near a menacing asteroid and ever-so-slightly pull it off course thanks to the gravitational attraction between the two bodies.

But now a detailed study of the gravity tractor is underway, making use of an expert team at Jet Propulsion Laboratory and CalTech. That’s the word from former Apollo astronaut, Rusty Schweickart - now Chairman of the Board and Founder of the B612 Foundation which is dedicated to detecting, tracking and deflecting near Earth objects (NEOs).

Schweickart spotlighted that fact in a June 15 briefing to the Secure World Foundation (SWF) in Boulder, Colorado. Full-disclosure here from this writer as I’m a research associate with SWF, but also afraid of getting knocked in the planetary noggin by a falling space rock.

The B612 Foundation has inked a $50,000 contract for the work to be done - a detailed performance analysis on the gravity tractor idea. Details of this work-in-progress will be given during the upcoming 10th Asteroids, Comets, Meteors meeting to be held mid-July in Baltimore, Maryland, Schweickart told me.

The assessment is looking into numerous aspects of the gravity tractor, in terms of stability required, maneuvering capability needed and how much fuel is necessary….and just how close can you saunter up to a rotating, odd-shaped body and still maintain spacecraft control.

Man and Nature have always been at odds. Long ago, we sought caves to get out of the rain. It was human nature to do so. Now, stupidly, we build houses in locations we know will flood. We know they will. We’re essentially giving the game away, allowing Nature an advantage that assures it will win.

And the worst is yet to come.

In New Orleans, the levees failed years after engineers and hurricane experts told us they would. The disaster was, one could argue, extremely well planned. Officials said, “Nature, our levees are too short and we dare you to send a strong hurricane our way.” And then Nature just did what it naturally does.

This month’s Midwest floods remind us again how precarious it is to live where a river wants to flow. The Christian Science Monitor today explains that unlike the well-studied New Orleans levee system, the patchwork setup in the Midwest was an unwritten recipe for disaster.

“Little information is known about where levees exist, who maintains them, and what their condition is,” the article points out.

But we do know that the Midwest undergoes extensive flooding every few years [just look at the Great Flood of 1993]. This is not news. But it does get easily forgotten. As Gerald Galloway, a professor of engineering at the University of Maryland, put it a few months after Katrina: “The half-life of the memory of a flood is very short.”

To those who live in the flood plain and the lawmakers and planning officials and insurance companies that allow more homes to be built and rebuilt there, none of this week’s events should come as much of a surprise.

“To qualify for the National Flood Insurance Program [in the United States], structures simply need to be behind a levee built to a so-called 100-year standard, meaning there is a 1 percent chance in any given year that a flood will rise above the levee,” the Monitor article explains. This year, for many people, the odds are now at about 100 percent.

Seeing this week’s devastation, would you go for those odds? Would you build a home in the flood plain, with or without insurance? Apparently for many, the answer is yes.

Figuring out why people live in places they know could prove destructive is tricky. “We can’t underestimate the importance of place, weather and beauty to people,” says Paul Slovic, a psychology professor at the University of Oregon who studies risk behavior.

We need to think more like the Dutch, a good chunk of whom live below sea level:

“In the Netherlands, on the other hand, levees for ocean flooding are built to a 10,000-year standard, and inland levees are designed at least to a 250-year standard and usually in excess of 1,250 years,” according to the Monitor.

Not coincidentally, the Dutch are the least concerned of any nation about the rising seas expected from global warming. They’re planning for it.

What’s next? Oh, you don’t want to know.

More than 40 percent of the U.S. population lives in areas protected by levees, according to the Association of State Flood Plain Managers.

New Orleans will get slammed again, eventually. The whole city is sinking, which we’ve known for years, but now scientists say it’s sinking faster than expected. And in California, engineers have long warned of a disaster waiting for aging levees to give way in the vast Sacramento River delta.

“There are more people in the state of California in danger of catastrophic levee failure than in the states of Texas, Louisiana and Florida combined,” said Sandy Rosenthal, Founder of Levees.Org, a group that lobbies for the obvious: Build them taller and better.

If history is any guide, California is poised for an avoidable catastrophe you’ll be reading about one day. Bank on it.

• Natural Disasters: Top 10 U.S. Threats