Trying to plug in the stimulus | Lynchburg News Advance

The GridWise Alliance is, however, just one of a swarm of bugs in the ear of the incoming Obama administration, and Hamilton has been working hard to push her group’s agenda to the forefront. On the morning I reached her by cell phone she was trudging through sub-freezing temperatures to her downtown office.

“I can’t feel my fingers,” she said.

On Monday night, though, Hamilton will be schmoozing with members of Congress, policymakers and Obama’s nominee for head of the Environmental Protection Agency (Lisa Jackson) at the Environmental Ball. She’ll attend with her husband, Dave Hamilton, who is the director of global warming education for the Sierra Club, and parents Gail and Frank Morrison of Lynchburg.

The Hamiltons met, predictably, at an environmental meeting.

“They were breaking into small groups, and I got into his group mainly so I could get to talk to him,” Katherine said.

They’ve been talking ever since, although she insists that her husband’s focus on global warming does not make him depressing to be around.

Cold turns deadly Livingston man's body found outside his home - MLive.com

The severe cold is being blamed for at least one death in the area. The body of a 50-year-old Livingston County man was discovered outside his Hamburg Township home this morning by a co-worker. Police are still investigating but said the man, who was found with his coat nearby, may have fallen on or near his deck and hit his head, then died from exposure.

Can you guess where it's located?: A museum that shouts climate change

The museum's tiered rainforest with butterflies that flit about your head, its walk-through aquarium, its Galapagos and Madagascar exhibits, and its 38,000 live animals, from neon-hued geckos to African penguins--altogether, it is a 412,000-square-foot natural history extravaganza. But for all its theatricality, what makes the academy even more unusual is its uncompromising stance on climate change. This is a museum with a point of view.

"Altered State," the bold, 10,000-square-foot exhibit designed by the Los Angeles production firm Cinnabar, tells in lively graphics and easy-to-understand illustrations how the Earth is warming from heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions, how species are disappearing, how glaciers are melting, and how oceans are acidifying. But beyond that, the interactive nature of the exhibit all but shouts at the visitor: Do something about it!

In "Polar Ice: Critical Zone," a big-screen simulation, people can use their bodies to block the rays of the sun, slow the melting of icebergs, and help a baby polar bear reach its mother. The "Carbon Cafe" exhibit features plates-full of various meals, with pull-outs showing how much more, for instance, a beefsteak contributes to global warming than does a serving of vegetables. And the "Carbon Counter," a giant scale with movable weights, allows visitors to calculate their carbon footprint. You drive an SUV? Oops, slide on that weight! You take a lot of airplane trips? Uh oh.