By DON HOPEY, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

In one of its most significant initiatives in 20 years, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has announced final health-related rules for controlling mercury, acid gases and other air toxics from oil- and coal-burning power plants.

The "Sesame Street" sing-along song goes "Rubber Ducky, you're the one. You make bathtime lots of fun." But, according to a recently published book by Canadian environmental activists Rick Smith and Bruce Lourie, maybe not.

Make that definitely not.

These tips on "green" camping from the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources follow the basic principals embodied by the "leave no trace" ethic of outdoor recreation, basic courtesy and common sense.

The Sierra Club has proposed more-protective rules to regulate oil and gas drilling on federal lands across the country.

Apples and sweet corn, brook trout and smallmouth bass, fall foliage and winter snow cover will all disappear from Pennsylvania if emissions causing global warming continue at their current rates, according to a detailed, state-specific climate change report by the Union of Concerned Scientists.

A coalition of environmental and labor groups has proposed a national, $100 billion public and private investment program to jump-start a clean energy-based economic surge and create 2 million jobs over two years.

Pumped by consumer shock at gasoline prices flowing hard toward $5 a gallon, pressure is mounting to end the 1981 moratorium on offshore drilling, which was adopted to protect the environmental and tourism value of the nation's beaches.

People who live in counties where lots of coal is mined are much more likely to suffer from an array of chronic, life-threatening health problems, according to a new study published in April's American Journal of Public Health.