Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Cool Earth

I like the way Blair is now talking about "urgent action" on climate change. Now he's no longer making the big decisions that could have started to make a difference before now, he's putting the pressure on his successor to deliver the goods. It's a bit like Bush's recent speech, except GW doesn't have the luxury of stepping down in the space of a month, hence his transparent attempts to stall for another 18 months.

Still, if Blair's words do result in action long overdue then we can only be grateful, while remembering to afford the politicians who actually made the tough decisions most of the credit.

One charity worth looking at is Cool Earth (click here). Not only is this attempting to protect the rainforests (a major source of carbon dioxide as they get felled), but it's trying to involve the local community by giving them stewardship of these forests and a means to make a living from preserving them.

The world does finally appear to be waking up to global warming in a big way - for all my ranting about those who still deny it, their voices are being drowned out by the bald facts of the situation we face. The question is, have we left it too late? I hope not, because our children and their children deserve the chance to live on this planet along with all the other species on it. If mankind fails to do its duty, its crime will overshadow the worst genocide committed - and if that offends any particular group, think about how the thousands of species and billions of individual lifeforms who will die because of human-fuelled climate change feel...

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