In short, Klein talks about how our societies have become addicted to extreme reckless risk-taking from an interesting gender perspective. Her examples are the BP oil spill catastrophe in the Mexico Gulf, the invasion of Iraq, the collapse of the financial sectors and the ever more pressing case of climate change. Klein says that the hottest and poorest countries are the ones who are being hit first and hardest by the effects of climate change. And that the rich nations, who mainly bear the historical responsibility for global warming, roll the dice on the risks because they think they can handle and control the devastating effects of climate change. According to Klein the challenges we face today can be traced back to the deep inequality in the world that separates the powerful from the ones who have to suffer the effects of their actions.

And before you start to foolishly criticize her gender perspective:

Now be sure to check out Klein’s interesting talk!

“The Baltic nation of Latvia is blessed with some of the most beautiful forests in the world, millions of square kilometres of pristine woodland that support a complex biodiversity of rare species of animals and plants. [...] As the UK aims to become one of the greenest countries in Europe, we expose its role in the deforestation of Latvia.”

The clear cutting, which is a total loss not only for biological diversity but also for social and economic reasons, is the result of the current economic crisis in Latvia. It is being fueled by the demand from overseas markets, particularly the UK which has been Latvia’s main export market for over 300 years. Al Jazeera shows how corporations and the Latvian government ignores EU habitat directives, laws and nature reserves to be able to satisfy the market demand for timber. They also question the validation of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certificate which is said to only label timber that is sustainable produced.

“Many of the products of the trade from furniture to wood pulp and paper are sold in the UK under a labelling scheme run by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), an international NGO that certifies timber is being sustainably produced. Is that really true?”

This episode shows not just the world’s ecological unequal exchange but also how unattainable sustainability is in today’s capitalistic system which is based on a never-ending growth rate.

Here are two videos from Streetfilms and the BBC which shows two cities in Scandinavia where bicycles dominate. You have probably already heard about Copenhagen and the city’s great reputation as a bicycle city. But you might not have heard about Lund, a Swedish town where around 60% of the population use bicycles and public transportation.

"The Politics Show East has been to a town in Sweden where 60 per cent of people leave their car at home. In the town of Lund the majority of the population use bicycles and public transport."

The second video, from Streetfilms, shows Copenhagen "through North American eyes":

"While Streetfilms was in Copenhagen for the Velo-City 2010 conference, of course we wanted to showcase its biking greatness. But we were also looking to take a different perspective then all the myriad other videos out there. Since there were an abundance of advocates, planners, and city transportation officials attending from the U.S. and Canada, we thought it’d be awesome to get their reactions to the city’s built environment and compare to bicycling conditions in their own cities.

If you’ve never seen footage of the Copenhagen people riding bikes during rush hour – get ready – it’s quite a site, as nearly 38% of all transportation trips in Copenhagen are done by bike. With plenty of safe, bicycle infrastructure (including hundreds of miles of physically separated cycletracks) its no wonder that you see all kinds of people on bikes everywhere. 55% of all riders are female, and you see kids as young as 3 or 4 riding with packs of adults."

And while I am at it I might as well share some of my own favourite cycling blogs.

The first one out is Carbuster’s editorial blog where they discuss all topics related to the "carfree movement". If you are interested in transportation issues I can highly recommend you to start subscribing to both the blog feed and the actual Carbuster magazine.

The Guardian has a good biking blog where they post about “all things cycling – in the UK and around the world”.

Crap Cycling & Walking in Waltham Forest is a good cycling blog. Just beware, you can get really depressed from reading their posts. Another similar blog is Bristol Traffic. If you are even more interested in biking topics in and around London you should also check out Real Cycling.

If fashion is your thing you might want to check out Cycle Chic from Copenhagen.

Other cycling blogs worth subscribing to are A view from the cycle path, Bike Hugger, EcoVelo and Planka.nu which is a Swedish network of commuter organisations working for free public transport.

Do you know about other great cities where bicycles has a dominated role in the traffic? Do you know about any other interesting cycling blogs? If yes please share them with the rest of us in the comment section below. Thanks!

“There is no debate here — just scientists vs. non-scientists, and since the topic is science, the non-scientists don’t get a vote. We shouldn’t decide everything by polling the masses. Just because most people believe something doesn’t make it true. This is the fallacy called argumentum ad numeram: the idea that something is true because great numbers believe it. As in: Eat shit, 20 trillion flies can’t be wrong.

Or take this recent headline: "TV weathercasters divided on global warming." Who gives a shit? My TV weathercaster is a bimbo with big tits who used to be on a soap opera on Telemundo. Media, could you please stop pitting the ignorant vs. the educated and framing it as a "debate." The other day, I saw a professor from the Union of Concerned Scientists face off against a distinguished expert on Tea Partying, whose brilliant analysis, recently published in the New England Journal of Grasping at Straws, was that we shouldn’t teach climate science in schools because kids find it scary. As they should. I hope they’re peeing in their pants.”

During a visit to Henderson Nevada, President Obama explained basic climate science for the people who had gathered to listen to him at the town hall.

“First of all, we just got five feet of snow in Washington and so everybody is like — a lot of the people who are opponents of climate change, they say, see, look at that, there’s all this snow on the ground, this doesn’t mean anything. I want to just be clear that the science of climate change doesn’t mean that every place is getting warmer; it means the planet as a whole is getting warmer. But what it may mean is, for example, Vancouver, which is supposed to be getting snow during the Olympics, suddenly is at 55 degrees, and Dallas suddenly is getting seven inches of snow.

The idea is, is that as the planet as a whole gets warmer, you start seeing changing weather patterns, and that creates more violent storm systems, more unpredictable weather. So any single place might end up being warmer; another place might end up being a little bit cooler; there might end up being more precipitation in the air, more monsoons, more hurricanes, more tornadoes, more drought in some places, floods in other places.”

You should also take a moment to read George Monbiot’s article on why Britain’s cold snap does not prove climate science wrong.

“AMY GOODMAN: What level of emissions are you willing to support reductions of emissions?

PRESIDENT HUGO CHAVEZ: [translated] One hundred percent. One hundred percent. We must reduce the emissions 100 percent. In Venezuela, the emissions are currently insignificant compared to the emissions of the developed countries. We are in agreement. We must reduce all the emissions that are destroying the planet. However, that requires a change in lifestyle, a change in the economic model: we must go from capitalism to socialism. That’s the real solution.”

You can read a rush transcript of the interview here. Amy Goodman and Democracy Now had a great coverage of the Copenhagen climate conference which is worth a look if you missed it.

Today I walked around and asked a number of young people what they expect of Copenhagen and the climate conference. What strikes me is how important young people are. It is we who will take over the world afterwards.

Those who I talk with here in Copenhagen really cares about what happens here on our planet. And they all agree that something must be done about the climate and environmental crisis we are facing as soon as possible. When the world has its eyes focused on the Copenhagen climate conference, it is far too good an opportunity to let it slip out of one’’s hands. It is now we must act for ourselves when we grow older, for our children and our grandchildren. For all farmers, all women, for everyone who are already facing water shortages, for all who live below sea level.

We must not only act, we can act, and if we’ll act we will make a big success!

Obama will abandon complex policies on emissions, clean coal and refocus on achievable goals like applying deodorant daily, learning what to say when you burp.

Don’t worry! It’s just some good’ol satire. Or is it?