It’s becoming increasingly clear that the American public has been had.

The Bush-Cheney administration has used China as its #1 excuse for not joining Kyoto and for all subsequent inaction on fighting global climate change. The world's top carbon polluter is not building a clean energy economy -- the US argument goes -- so why should we?

Now we can see how factually wrong that was, and how derelict. The Climate Group has released new data on China’s "Clean Revolution," and here's what the authors predict:

"In the move to a low carbon economy, we believe that China will no longer be a developing country following where others have led, but a pioneer leading the way."

Steve Howard, CEO, The Climate Group
Changhua Wu, Greater China Director, The Climate Group

The evidence, from the report:

The images of melting mountain glaciers speak loud and clear.

Evidence the Cordillera Blanca, aka the "Peruvian Switzerland."

The disappearing snow-topped northern mountain range -- a UNESCO-declared natural world heritage site -- topped the climate change agenda at last week's European Union-Latin America and Caribbean (EULAC) Summit, held in Lima, Peru.

And here's why.

Bush's speech on climate today generated an enormous amount of activity. If we could just bottle up the energy expended in paying attention to this latest presidential climate non-event, we'd be off Middle East oil in no time.

Just about everybody has issued a statement about what Bush had to say, but in the interest of promoting energy efficiency, I won't summarize any of it.

Instead, I'd like to call your attention to the headline that graced the front page of the Wall Street Journal -- just above the fold even.

When you want to quit smoking, do you call a tobacco company? That in essence is what civil society groups were wondering when they met last week to evaluate the climate-friendly announcements coming out of the World Bank.

World Bank leaders had convened in Washington DC -- abloom with cherry blossoms -- for their annual spring meeting, and announced plans to launch two new climate-change funds. One new pot of Bank money is focused on the development of clean technology, and the other pot earmarked for ‘resilience’—helping countries adapt to rising sea levels, increased intensity of storms, drought, and other economic harms resulting from climate change.

These two new funds are in addition to the Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF), launched last year to put a bounty on ‘avoided deforestation’ in tropical rainforest nations.

Sound like good ideas, right? Clean technology, adaptation funds, valuing standing forests—what’s not to like?

Plenty, as it turns out, because the Bank has another face – as an institution that simultaneously exacerbates the problem of global climate change. The Bank, you see, isn’t working to dampen rising temperatures; rather, it’s fanning the flames, despite these latest announcements.

This Saturday night - March 29th, 2008 - at 8 pm local time, turn off your lights for one hour.

It's Earth Hour, organized by the World Wildlife Fund, and millions of people are joining the effort to make a statement of solidarity in support of climate action.

Imagine if the entire earth went off the grid for an hour, returned to a state of primordial humlessness, and it never came back on.