The older generation is partly to be blamed for this climate change mess we have gotten our self into. They sit on the power and the money. They decide yours, mine and your children’s future. And from the looks of their inaction it seems they have decided to make the future a real mess for everyone.

No wonder the kids, and their moms, are angry.

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In a move to attract consumers during Earth Day, Ritz Camera, the largest retail camera and photo chain in the United States, have started a partnership (PDF) with Carbonfund.org featuring the Nikon COOLPIX S52.

This partnership lets you buy a “special edition ECO-Green colored” Nikon COOLPIX S52 camera and thus become carbon neutral for a month.

Basically, each time a customer purchases this special “ECO-Green colored” camera Ritz Camera will make a donation to Carbonfund.org to help offset 1.91 tons of carbon dioxide, per camera sold. According to CarbonFun.org it costs, using their service, $5.50 to offset one ton of carbon dioxide.

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In light of the Clinton-McCain gas tax holiday proposal I think this statistic (shown after the jump) from the Economist and BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2005 should be highlighted.

The image shows gasoline consumption per day around the world. It shows that the USA is consuming more gasoline than 20 other countries do together, every day.

If there is anyone that should get tax cuts it’s the people who buy small and fuel-efficient vehicles. Or even better, the people who use public transportation instead.

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China is number one, in greenhouse gas emissions that is. A report from the University of California says that Chinas greenhouse gas emissions have been “underestimated” and that the country probably took the number one position from USA in 2006-2007.

According to the research “unchecked future growth will dwarf any emissions cuts made by rich nations under the Kyoto Protocol.”

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New York has decided to become greener and reduce their emissions by 30% by year 2030. The city has started an environmental campaign called GreeNYC to get the people engaged and active. So far so good.

But now the campaign has run into some problems. Apple, the computer company, doesn’t like the GreeNYC logo - which resembles an apple.

Apple has filed a formal opposition (.pdf) arguing that the GreeNYC logo will cause “mass confusion and ruining Apple’s good reputation.”

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“Emissions are growing much faster than we’d thought, the absorptive capacity of the planet is less than we’d thought, the risks of greenhouse gases are potentially bigger than more cautious estimates and the speed of climate change seems to be faster.”

“People who said I was scaremongering were profoundly wrong.”

Lord Stern of Brentford have realised, just like many other scientists are beginning to do, that the predictions in the IPCC reports have been too soft and that climate change will be “stronger than expected and sooner than expected.”

Stern is known for the Stern Review that showed it would be much cheaper to act on climate change than doing nothing.

Australia has just had a 2-day Ideas conference in Canberra called the “Australia 2020 Summit”. This exercise was brought on by the right wing, Bush-ite Rudd Labor Government, ostensibly to garner Ideas for a better Australia.. Unfortunately the Australia 2020 Summit was quickly revealed as a quite crudely “stacked” and biased gab-fest vehicle for endorsement of Bush-ite Rudd Labor Government policy. For details of the Australia 2020 Summit process, the 10 Topic Areas considered, submissions, participants and the Initial Report from the Summit see: http://australia2020.gov.au) .

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Today it’s Earth Day. You didn’t know? Oh, no need to feel so bad about it.

Earth Day was founded in USA in September 1969. At a conference in Seattle, Washington, the US senator Gaylord Nelson announced that in the spring of next year there would be a nationwide grassroots demonstration for the environment.

Gaylord Nelson wanted the nationwide environmental protests to trigger such massive feedback that the political and national agenda would take environmental issues more seriously. “It was a gamble,” he recalls, “but it worked.”

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We are already now starting to see riots and protests around the world that have been triggered by the lack of resources. And unfortunately this is a sight we will see more and more of in the future.

People are protesting in Haiti, Argentina, Cambodia, Indonesia, Egypt, Bolivia, Senegal and Yemen because of rising food costs or because they can’t even buy any food – cause there isn’t any.

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The Australia 2020 Summit Initial Report IGNORES the Climate Emergency and Sustainability Emergency facing the World with Australia being the world’s top Developed nation “annual per capita CO2 polluter” (and it also IGNORES horrendous Australian child abuse – one third of all Australian women are sexually abused as children).

According to top US climate scientist Dr James Hansen the world has passed a tipping point at which all Arctic summer sea ice may be totally gone by about 2015. He says that the world must REDUCE atmospheric CO2 to a safe and sustainable 300-350 parts per million (ppm).

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