142 Days to Copenhagen - I Have an Idea for All the Deniers!

Climate change deniers give me the creeps, especially when I meet them in person. My most recent up close encounter was with a purportedly intelligent and "spiritual" fellow who confided that we don't have to worry about climate change, because we'll all be able to teleport to another planet.

Not in my lifetime, Dude! Not enough spiritual people on this planet to make it happen, I'm afraid.

What I'm reading online these days is a new line that hints at desperation on the part of deniers: that global warming is a hoax perpetrated by governments so that they can tax us to death. How I wish that governments were actually in on this with us. No, dear deniers, governments are not "taxing us to death" over climate change. (Now, that illegal invasion of Iraq and the trillions of dollars in American debt - that might be a different story.)

So, calling all deniers. I have an idea for you. Why don't you take a nice long vacation in the exotic Pacific island nation of Kiribati ... perhaps on lovely Tebua Tarawa Island, or Abanuea Island.

Oh, sorry. Those islands have disappeared! How about the village of Lateu in Vanuatu? Nope, gone. How about Tuvalu? Sorry, it's disappearing, too. How about the Cook Islands, Micronesia, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, the Marshall Islands ... nope, sorry, all going the same way.

How about Zanzibar then? Or a nice trip to the Arctic? Disappearing.

I invite you to visit these beautiful places (the ones not yet entirely lost to the sea) and tell the people whose homelands are disappearing that global warming is a hoax perpetrated by the government so that they can tax us to death.

And be sure to look them right in the eyes when you're telling them that.

143 Days Until the Big "C" - Introducing CO2 Now

I would like to share with you the dedicated work of a wonderful young father I am privileged to know. Michael McGee holds down a full-time job and cares so much for his two sons and their future that he spends his spare time working on CO2 Now.org and creating Atmosphere Monthly, an online newsletter that tracks and educates about the level of CO2 in our atmosphere.

You will learn something each month by reading (or even just skimming) through Michael's newsletter.

I got all excited this month when I saw that the level of CO2 in the atmosphere had dropped, but then I realized that (and read that) there is always a seasonal drop in the summer, as the very green and leafy northern hemisphere absorbs more CO2 than during the bare-treed winter. However, this past June's CO2 was the highest it's been in over 2 million years.

That's not something to celebrate, but Michael's dedication and his newsletter are. Check them out!

144 Days to Go - Let's Do Some Compassion Math

If you watched the David Suzuki speech on the 145 Days post, you'll have heard some sad statistics.

The world's 50 least developed countries (LDCs) have contributed less than 1 one percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, but are reaping over 95 per cent of the impacts.

Here are those numbers are again:

50 LDCs + <1% ghgs =" ">95% of impacts

And here are those countries (in alphabetical order):

1. Afghanistan
2. Angola
3. Bangladesh
4. Benin
5. Bhutan
6. Burkina Faso
7. Burundi
8. Cambodia
9. Cape Verde
10. Central African Republic
11. Chad
12. Comoros
13. Democratic Republic of the Congo
14. Djibouti
15. Equatorial Guinea
16. Eritrea
17. Ethiopia
18. Gambia
19. Guinea
20. Guinea-Bissau
21. Haiti
22. Kiribati
23. Lao People's Democratic Republic
24. Lesotho
25. Liberia
26. Madagascar
27. Malawi
28. Maldives
29. Mali
30. Mauritania
31. Mozambique
32. Myanmar
33. Nepal
34. Niger
35. Rwanda
36. Samoa
37. Sao Tome and Principe
38. Senegal
39. Sierra Leone
40. Solomon Islands
41. Somalia
42. Sudan
43. Timor-Leste
44. Togo
45. Tuvalu
46. Uganda
47. United Republic of Tanzania
48. Vanuatu
49. Yemen
50. Zambia

Check this UN webpage for the list of criteria for inclusion. Note the recommendation that the Maldives "graduate" from LDC status — I wonder if the fact that their country is disappearing due to global climate disruption and sea level rise will influence that decision.

Please visit Global Islands Network for information on all the small island nations that are disappearing.

My heart goes out to these countries and these people. Imagine this kind of poverty and lack of development exacerbated by the impacts of global warming. Once again, there but for the grace of the Universe go I.

145 Days Until Copenhagen - Apology from an Ashamed Canadian

It seems I live in a country that has decided that money is more important than life. We (collectively ... no one that I know personally!) voted in a prime minister who has no regard for his children's future, let alone the future of all the children, of all species. He is, however, quite interested in the future of Alberta tar sands investments.

(They just don't get that we can leave the oil in the ground, as a carbon sink, and not worry about it - it's not going anywhere! It will still be there when we've worked out viable carbon sequestration technology. Call it a long-term investment!)

Although I suspect our prime minister has agreed to be the fall guy, the bad cop to Barack Obama's good cop (guess which country is getting most of our tar sands oil?), that does not excuse his behaviour on the world stage as The Great Obfuscator. It is certainly because of our prime minister and his policies that Canada keeps winning the Fossil Award at international climate meetings.

So right here, right now, I would like to apologize and say that I am sorry for my country's uncompassionate behaviour, increasing greenhouse gases, and stonewalling strategies on climate change.

And here, to say it even better, is Canada's best known environmentalist, Dr. David Suzuki, speaking at the Vancouver send-off of the Pedal for the Planet participants, who are bicycling across this vast country to take a message about the urgency of climate change to our prime minister.

Watch to the very end and you'll see our young friend, Nadia, who is one of the people cycling across the country.