The sun is setting on USA TODAY's Green House blog after nearly three years. Yet this no farewell since I'll still be covering energy and environmental issues. This is really, as fellow blogger Cathy Lynn Grossman puts it, more of a "change of address" notice.

The change comes as USA TODAY celebrates its 30th anniversary with a website redesign that will simplify and expedite reader access to news. So my stories aren't going away; they'll just appear in new places online. You can also find them by following me on Twitter.

Green House has been a thrilling, and exhausting, experience. It started in Dec. 2009 as a personal tale of building my own eco-friendly home and expanded into coverage of broader environmental issues, including the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that drew more than one million monthly page views during the summer of 2010.

I've relished the time I've spent with you, dear readers, and part of me will miss this forum. I'm also looking forward, though, to improving my multimedia storytelling. (Check out two of my latest attempts to produce and edit videos -- one on the complexity of local recycling rules and another on the 10 most amazing green things I saw in Asia.)

Thank you for your ideas, your comments and your enthusiasm. Please keep in touch: wkoch@usatoday.com. As the English poet John Gay once said: "We only part to meet again."

President Obama embraced his environmental record Thursday and fought back at his GOP rival's recent mockery by telling the Democratic National Convention that "climate change is not a hoax."

In accepting the Democratic presidential nomination, Obama cited his efforts to boost cars' fuel efficiency, cut energy waste in buildings and expand solar and wind power. "My plan will continue to reduce the carbon pollution that is heating our planet, because climate change is not a hoax," he told the delegates in Charlotte, N.C., who cheered loudly. "More droughts and floods and wildfires are not a joke. They are a threat to our children's future."

His comments, welcomed by environmentalists who've urged him to take more of a campaign stand on climate change, were a rebuke to GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, who drew laughter and applause at the Republican National Convention last week by poking fun at Obama's environmental rhetoric.

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Romney, in his GOP nomination acceptance speech in Tampa, Fla, said that in 2008 "President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet." He then told the GOP delegates, many of whom are skeptical of climate change: "My promise...is to help you and your family."

The convention speeches reveal stark differences between the two candidates on environmental and energy issues. While Obama has endorsed an "all of the above" energy strategy that calls for -- with certain limits -- developing natural gas, oil and nuclear energy, he's also pushed hard for energy efficiency and renewable power.

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The 10 most amazing green sights on my five-nation trek across Asia this summer don't include massive wind farms or solar communities. Most are surprisingly basic.

The most fascinating is the creative and prolific use of bicycles and mopeds, cheap and less polluting (though not safer) alternatives to cars. They transport not only individuals but also huge amounts of cargo and entire families. We saw mopeds whipping by with up to five people -- two adults and three kids, mostly without helmets. Women often ride side saddle; one even nursed a baby as she rode.

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Why go to Asia? My family set out to visit my stepdaughter Madison, an English teacher in South Korea who got married there last year. Since it's so expensive to travel that far, and the dollar is still strong in many parts of Asia, we expanded the trip -- without too much extra cost -- to China, Malaysia, Cambodia and Thailand.

I had only been to Asia once before (I covered the British return of Hong Kong to China in 1997) so I was thrilled to eke out a month to travel -- my longest vacation since college. This wasn't an eco-odyssey, but since I cover environmental issues, even the air pollution didn't stop me from noticing things. So here's the rest of my top 10 list:

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President Obama, in another move this week to boost fossil fuel energy embraced by his GOP rival Mitt Romney, announced research funding Friday for a new source of natural gas -- methane hydrates.

Describing it as the "world's largest untapped fossil energy resource," his Department of Energy awarded 13 research projects across 11 states to help develop methane hydrates. DOE says these 3D ice-lattice structures, when melted, turn to liquid water and release methane molecules as gas. It says they're found onshore and offshore, in ocean sediments worldwide.

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The announcement comes as the Republican National Convention concludes in Tampa, Fla., after nominating Romney as its GOP presidential candidate. The former Massachusetts governor has called for policies that would do more to boost the production of fossil fuel sources -- coal, oil and gas -- than renewable energy.

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This summer's U.S. drought, the worst in decades, is damaging corn crops used to produce ethanol, disrupting energy deliveries and threatening thermoelectric power plants, according to federal data this week.

Less than a fourth, or 23%, of the nation's corn crop is now rated as good to excellent, down from 66% in June, reports the U.S. Department of Agriculture. A significant share of field corn (35% in the 2010 to 2011 harvest season) is used to make ethanol, which is blended into gasoline and accounts for about 10% of all motor gasoline.

Not surprisingly, the production of ethanol sank in July to its lowest level in two years and its prices rose. The USDA reports that 85% of the U.S. corn crop is located in drought areas of the Midwest and Great Plains, nearly half of which are suffering extreme or exceptional conditions.

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That's not all. The drought, considered the worst in decades as measured by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, is disrupting the deliveries of petroleum and coal that are carried by barges on the Mississippi River. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has reported groundings of traffic along the river because of low water depths.

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Climate change is already hurting seven national seashores on the Atlantic Coast and threatens to submerge some of their land within a century, according to a report Wednesday by environmental groups.

In five of the seven parks, more than half of the land lies low enough (less than 3.3 feet) to risk becoming submerged by the year 2100, says the report by the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization and the Natural Resources Defense Council. Those parks include Fire Island in New York, Assateague Island in Maryland and Virginia, Cape Hatteras and Cape Lookout in North Carolina and Canaveral in Florida.

The report says there are more immediate risks, too, as rising waters and stronger coastal storms destroy the park's bridges and roads as well as barrier islands. It says higher summer temperatures could make some less desirable, predicting that Florida's Canaveral could become as hot as Desert Rock, Nev.

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"These parks are already changing," said Stephen Saunders, president of the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization, a Colorado-based group that works to mitigate climate change. For example, he said higher temperatures are causing more sea turtles to hatch as females, which could lead to the species' extinction if the trend continues.

The seven seashores cited in the report attract 11 million visitors a year. They also include Massachusetts' Cape Cod, the most visited, and Georgia's Cumberland Island.

This Green House curator is escaping the summer heat in Washington to venture abroad in Asia for a few weeks. If I see a nifty, awe-inspiring or simply amusing green idea as my family travels, I'll put up a post. Who knows what I'll find? Stay cool and carry on. And, as always, thanks for reading.

Green-certified homes sell for 9% more than regular homes in California and their premium is highest in the hottest and most eco-minded areas, says a report today.

Single-family homes with green certifications sold for an average of $34,800 more than comparable homes from 2007 to 2012 when the average California home was priced at $400,000, according to the University of California research. The premium varied significantly within the state, showing spikes in areas with the most electric vehicles.

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"We observed a phenomenon we've termed the 'Prius effect' — a positive correlation between the value of green home labels and environmental ideology, as measured by the rate of hybrid registrations," said co-author Nils Kok, visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley. In these areas, he said residents may see green homes as "a point of pride or status symbol."

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Amid a summer of record-setting heat, a new survey finds that most of Generation X 's young and middle-age adults are uninformed and unconcerned about climate change.

Only about 5% of Gen Xers, now 32 to 52 years old, are "alarmed" and 18% "concerned" about climate change, reports the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research on Tuesday. Two-thirds, or 66%, of those surveyed last year said they aren't sure global warming is happening and 10% said they don't believe it's occurring.

"Most Generation Xers are surprisingly disengaged, dismissive or doubtful about whether global climate change is happening and they don't spend much time worrying about it," said author Jon D. Miller.

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The report comes as several Obama administration officials have recently linked extreme weather to climate change. In a report last week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration cited six weather events last year and said that atmospheric changes caused by the burning of fossil fuels made Texas' heat wave, for example, 20 times more likely than it would have been in the 1960s.

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Americans have long been known as the world's energy guzzlers for their supersized lifestyles. Their energy use per capita, however, has fallen in recent years as homes, appliances and cars become more efficient. So how does the United States compare now? Still not so well, says a scorecard released today.

The United States placed ninth out of 12 large economies, outranked by the top-scoring United Kingdom and also by Germany, Italy, Japan, France, Australia, the European Union and China, according to the report by the American Council for an Energy-Efficiency Economy, a Washington-based research group. It beat Brazil, Canada and Russia.

"We were surprised to find China outscore us significantly," says co-author Sara Hayes, noting China earned 56 out of a possible 100 points compared with 47 for the U.S. The U.K.earned 67 points, based on 27 measures such as a building's energy use per square foot and a vehicle's fuel economy.

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"Even though the U.K. won, nobody did that great," Hayes says. "There's a lot of room for improvement." She says her group, which argues that efficiency boosts a country's competitiveness and reduces its pollution, has done state-by-state scorecards before, but this is the first international one.

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