Contrary to hopes, the outlook for American environmental leadership remains dim. In his acceptance speech last night, the democratic contender only made a passing reference to climate change, even as he undermined it by uttering the oxymoron “clean coal“. Meanwhile, a climate denialist (with effected consituents, no less) was tapped as running mate for the republicans’ presumptive oil-driller.

A conflicted relationship with the government is nothing new for American environmentalists, as exemplified by the career of James Hansen. At least one federal institution, however, seems to be pointing in the right direction. The Smithsonsian’s cover story this month is entitled “Our Imperiled Oceans: Victory at Sea“. But this war in the Pacific is not being fought by American GIs. Tiny Kiribati, threatened with extinction by the likes of “clean coal”, unmentioned by many and unheard of by more, is leading the charge. Check it out.