Long time visitors are well versed in my support of Net Neutrality. From developments in the US Congress to Ted Stevens tubes, the issue is one of the single most important factors that will affect the future of public discourse and our democratic process.

The battle of Net Neutrality is now picking up speed in Canada, and the people at SaveOurNet.ca have put together an excellent video explaining the importance of this critical issue. President Obama has made an unambiguous commitment to the free and open accessibility of the Internet. It's time for Canada's leaders to do the same.

I planned a fuller update post regarding my recent absence and future plans, but the news of the day requires that I fast forward the plan a bit. I've been in transition for the past months, but I'm now in Toronto where I'll be in the Communications Director role at Ecojustice - Canada's leading environmental law non-profit - for the upcoming months.

Today was a major national media hit, as the federal government's disregard for the environment is finally getting the attention it deserves.

Earlier this year the Federal Government announced that 2,000 projects – including major works like bridges, highways and sewer systems – would be made exempt from environmental assessment. That number has now ballooned to 14,000, as the feds continue to be blind to the idea that the long-term health of our economy is linked to the health of our environment. The story received print coverage in the Globe and Mail and across the Canwest network.

Read my complete story at the Ecojustice Blog.

Over the coming months, we'll be revamping the entire online presence of Ecojustice, and I'll be posting there regularly in addition to returning to regular duty here at The Conscious Earth. Feel free to follow the work from the source as we take on Canada's polluters in the courts, or join our growing Twitter and Facebook communities. For those who are not familiar with our work, I encourage you to check it out. The results and impact of the organization was a major inspiration for beginning this blog, and over the coming months we'll be offering a range of new online content and ways to get involved.

More to come....

Today from No Impact Man, is a damning indictment against the "Global Climate Coalition" - a group of businesses tied to the use of fossil fuels. Documents filed during a recent lawsuit show that the coalition knowingly lied about global warming through "an aggressive lobbying and public relations campaign against the idea that emissions of heat-trapping gases could lead to global warming."

The document shows that their own scientists informed them that the science behind global warming was irrefutable as early as 1995.

“The scientific basis for the Greenhouse Effect and the potential impact of human emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2 on climate is well established and cannot be denied,” the experts wrote in an internal report compiled for the coalition in 1995.

The post references an April 23rd New York Times article by Andrew Revkin.

The Global Climate Coalition disbanded in 2002, but some of its like the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Petroleum Institute continue to actively lobby against action on climate change. For the record, here's the complete list of coalition members. The bailout ridden auto sector is particularly well represented. If only they had been using those resources to build real products:

• Air Transport Association
• Allegheny Power
• Aluminum Association, Inc.
• American Automobile Manufacturers Association
• American Commercial Barge Line Co.
• American Farm Bureau Federation
• American Forest & Paper Association
• American Highway Users Alliance
• American Iron and Steel Institute
• American Petroleum Institute
• American Portland Cement Alliance
• Amoco
• Association of American Railroads
• Association of International Automobile Manufacturers
• Atlantic Richfield Coal Company
• Baker Refineries
• Bethlehem Steel
• BHP Minerals
• Chamber of Shipping of America
• Chemical Manufacturers Association
• Chevron
• Chrysler Corporation
• Cinergy
• CONRAIL
• Consumers Energy
• Council of Industrial Boiler Owners
• CSX Transportation, Inc.
• Cyprus-Amax
• Dow Chemical Company
• Drummond Company
• Duke Power Company
• DuPont
• Eastman Chemical
• Edison Electric Institute
• ELCON
• ExxonMobil
• Fertilizer Institute
• Ford Motor Company
• General Motors
• Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.
• Greencool
• Hoechst Celanese Chemical Group
• Illinois Power Company
• Kaiser Aluminum and Chemical Corp.
• McDonnell-Douglas
• Mobil Corporation
• National Association of Manufacturers
• National Lime Association
• National Mining Association
• National Ocean Industries Association
• National Petrochemical and Refiners Association
• Natural Rural Electric Cooperative Association
• Norfolk Southern
• Northern Indiana Public Serv. Co.
• Ohio Edison
• Parker Drilling Company
• Process Gas Consumers
• Shell
• Society of the Plastic Industry
• Southern Company
• Steel Manufacturers Association
• TECO Energy Inc.
• Texaco
• U.S. Chamber of Commerce
• USX Corporation
• Union Carbide
• Union Pacific
• Virginia Power
• Western Fuels Association

Pass it on.....

With no political recourse left to him, Stephen Harper is spinning in every direction possible in an effort to halt his own demise.

Harper, ...told the House of Commons during Tuesday's fiery question period that Dion was about to make the "worst mistake the Liberal party has ever made in its history" by agreeing to support from the sovereigntist Bloc Québécois.

Conveniently ignored in this statement is that Harper himself sought the support of the Bloc in a 2004 coalition against Paul Martin's minority Liberal Government.

But the Liberals and NDP said those arguments were undercut by Mr. Harper's 2004 letter to then-governor-general Adrienne Clarkson, which requested that she turn to him if Paul Martin's newly elected government were defeated in the Commons.

"We respectfully point out that the opposition parties, who together constitute a majority in the House, have been in close consultation. We believe that, should a request for dissolution arise this should give you cause, as constitutional practice has determined, to consult the opposition leaders and consider all of your options before exercising your constitutional authority," the 2004 letter stated.

Equally of note is that the Bloc are not formally part of the coalition. They have pledged their support but will play a formal role in that government nor hold cabinet posts - a fact being strategically ignored by the Conservatives.

The opposition is not acting 'undemocratically'. They are acting in the best tradition of democracy by forging representative government for the people of Canada in the face of the failure of the Conservative minority. Harper has understood this principle well in past years. His comments today show that both his memory and his outlook are short-term.

Meanwhile, events in the years 2004 and 2008 and are proving similar on two fronts. 1) The same democratic options were legally and rightfully pursued by our opposition parties, and 2) history will have Harper on the losing side both times.

Thanks to Kevin Grandia and The Tyee.

I’m not one to pass along a straight regurg, but today's New York Times op-ed by Paul Krugman’s is superb. He asks the simple question, “Why do Republicans hate Al Gore?”. The simple answer is because he’s right, despite all right-wing attempts to convince people otherwise.

Today, being a good Republican means believing that taxes should always be cut, never raised. It also means believing that we should bomb and bully foreigners, not negotiate with them.

So if science says that we have a big problem that can’t be solved with tax cuts or bombs — well, the science must be rejected, and the scientists must be slimed.

Which brings us to the biggest reason the right hates Mr. Gore: in his case the smear campaign has failed. He’s taken everything they could throw at him, and emerged more respected, and more credible, than ever. And it drives them crazy.

Good stuff.

Ever wonder why the media ceaselessly singles out the airline industry as a global warming pariah when it accounts for just 2% of worldwide emissions? In what might be the most irrelevant alarm call of the year, Britons have been singled out as the "world's biggest emitters of CO2 from air travel" while Great Britain itself leads the world in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and compliance with the Kyoto Protocol.

So why the focus on air travel? As usual, follow the money and you'll find the answer.

Far and away the single largest source of greenhouse gases is the combustion of fossil fuels, a stat being driven largely by automobile use. By no coincidence the automobile industry is also the single largest spender in media advertising, while the airline industry doesn't even make it onto the pie chart (page 7 for those checking).

By keeping attention on airline emissions, mass media has framed a convenient scapegoat that distracts public attention from the real problem and avoided a significant threat to their bottom line. The greatest irony, is that worldwide travel may be one of the most significant social forces capable of driving action on global warming.

A true solution to global warming will start with a genuine world centric awareness that encompasses the needs of all people and the limits of our biosphere. And there is little that can drive this awareness faster and more effectively than the individual decision to get on an airplane and discover something about the rest of the world.

So go ahead and book your next flight, just bike to work when you get home.

At the APEC conference leaders of the Pacific Rim nations are huddled up in a well fortified section of Sydney where they have announced a sweeping new plan to address global warming in the form of "aspirational goals".

Recognizing the public's impatience and mistrust of voluntary measures to control greenhouse gases, world leaders like George Bush, Stephen Harper and conference host John Howard have given up on them. Aspirational goals, they assure us, will provide the effective solutions we need to tackle climate change.

So what is an aspirational goal? Clearly its a huge step forward for all nations. Now instead merely having industry set their own targets for reductions and ignore them, they will now have to "aspire" to reach them. For greater clarity here's YourDictionary's definition for aspire:

1. To have a great ambition or ultimate goal; desire strongly: aspired to stardom.

2. To strive toward an end: aspiring to great knowledge.

3. To soar.

Spirits are soaring now that leaders have endorsed an inspired plan to inspire industry to aspire towards the ultimate goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The move will clearly succeed in helping business take a leadership role in implementing real solutions by giving them the freedom and flexibility to leverage their past success ignoring voluntary targets and misrepresenting global warming science.

I'm feeling aspired...Aren't you?

The UK's Taxpayer Alliance (TA) has released a report calling for a stop to future green taxes, while accusing the government of exploiting climate change fears to justify tax hikes.

Citing their own analysis of what they consider to be green taxes, the TA alleges that the average UK household pays £400 extra each year because green taxes were set too high - despite the fact that the country is one of the few in the world on pace to meet its targets for greenhouse gas emissions. Meanwhile, the UK economy has enjoyed consistent long term growth.

So where does the real problem lie?

Bear in mind that taxpayer organizations have a peculiar but easily salable mission, namely to campaign for lower taxes. All of their recommendations go towards this one goal, with the assumption that it will translate into a better society and happier, healthier citizens. Anyone with a first year education in economics can tell you this assumption doesn't hold. More relevant here is that their report doesn't address reducing carbon (the real goal of climate change policy), but rather it analyzes something called "the social cost of carbon".

I have no idea what the social cost of carbon is, nor who is paying this (to whom) on behalf of co2. Climate change policy is about REDUCING CARBON. Costing of carbon is only a tactic in attaining this goal. The only true measure of climate change policy is whether or not it is in fact reducing greenhouse gases, in the amount needed, and in the most cost efficient way. That's not what this report is about.

Like most "taxpayer rights" rackets, the pencil pushers at the TA do a fine job playing games with numbers while managing to miss the point entirely. The UK is leading the developed world in revolutionizing the economy and tackling the greatest challenge of our day. Let's keep it that way.

The 11th Hour, the new environmental documentary by Leonardo DiCaprio, is now open in New York and LA and is going national tomorrow. The studio itself describes the film as

a feature length documentary concerning the environmental crises caused by human actions and their impact on the planet. "The 11th Hour" documents the cumulative impact of these actions upon the planet's life systems and calls for restorative action through a reshaping of human activity.

More importantly, The 11th Hour is one of the few efforts that place us in our true context. The Earth has survived countless calamities and will ultimately survive the damage we cause. What is far less certain is our own future, as "our consumerism, our mistaken emphasis on economic growth over quality of life, (and) our growing disconnect with the sources of our food and most other things in our lives" increasingly puts our survival as a species in danger. The film drives this point home, while the likes of Stephen Hawking, David Suzuki, Ray Anderson, and Paul Hawken deliver the solutions we have within our grasp.

Early reviews have been solid. Grab the densest knucklehead you know and drag them along to watch. Previews below. You'll need Flash 9 to view.

This week's cover story in Newsweek is leveled squarely at global warming deniers, outlining the concerted and well funded plan by certain industries to mislead the public and derail efforts to fight global warming.

Since the late 1980s, this well-coordinated, well-funded campaign by contrarian scientists, free-market think tanks and industry has created a paralyzing fog of doubt around climate change. Through advertisements, op-eds, lobbying and media attention, greenhouse doubters (they hate being called deniers) argued first that the world is not warming; measurements indicating otherwise are flawed, they said. Then they claimed that any warming is natural, not caused by human activities. Now they contend that the looming warming will be minuscule and harmless.

Critical thinking 101 - when you see remarks like these, all coming from the same source, know that the people making these claims do not have a real position based on evidence. They are arguing for a particular result, in this case to stop any action that reduces greenhouse gases. If they had a real position to defend, they use wouldn't change their argument on a monthly basis.

The good news is that the denial machine is slowly failing. Last year, polls found that 64 percent of Americans thought there was "a lot" of scientific disagreement on climate change. That figure has now fallen to 39%. However the real discrepancy lies between the opinions of Americans and the understanding of those living in other nations.

In Europe, Japan, Canada and Australia the public is fully aware of the scientific consensus on global warming. Despite the difference in understanding the polls reveal, the continued failure of US to join the world ranks says more about the workings of the country itself than it does about its people.

The fact is that the American people need to confront a very uncomfortable truth about their nation, one that goes far beyond the reality of global warming and touches the core of their culture and society. That is, that while laying claim to the title of the world's leader of democracy and freedom, the United States of America represents the modern world's most sophisticated machine for brainwashing their own populace and ensuring their continued ignorance - to the impacts of their lifestyles, to the loss of their own freedoms, and to the failings of their own democratic state.

Ultimately, the American people need to confront the real hoax being perpetrated by their elected officials, educational institutions, and media conglomerates on a daily basis - that they live in the world's freest country, despite all evidence to the contrary.


To read the scientific information behind the Newsweek article visit Grist.

To learn what you can do about deniers click here.

For months, global warming skeptics have been touting The Great Global Warming Swindle as a balanced and fair counterpart to those calling for urgent action on the issue of climate change. In reality, The Swindle is a misleading, dishonest and ill-conceived work of propaganda that is chock full of paid industry mouth pieces while being anorexically thin on genuine evidence.

Nowhere was this better revealed than in a recent interview conducted by ABC Australia's Tony Jones with the Martin Durkin, the film's director. Durkin lurches, sputters and sweats his way through the 10 minute grilling as Jones lines up example after example of omissions and lies that he presented in his film.

For those on the sane side of the spectrum, you are excused from debating this movie with anyone who insists on citing The Swindle as 'evidence' after watching this clip.





Rest in peace GGWS.

See part one of the interview at DeSmogBlog.

The discovery of a vast underground lake is offering the best hope yet for an end to the war in Darfur. At 30,750 km2 it is the size of Lake Erie and will provide much needed influx of water, and an opportunity for peace, to the Sudan's drought stricken north.

Since 2003, two hundred thousand people have died and a further 2 million have fled the north where water shortages and drought have fueled a human catastrophe of mass migrations and ethnic conflict. With the discovery of this new fresh water resource, plans are moving forward to drill 1000 wells in the area and bring relief to Darfur's people.

The conflict in the region, and the prospect of peace through water, underscores our reliance on the environment and the bigger risks that we're assuming in ignoring the environmental damage that is ongoing throughout the world.

Critics of that view point will point to the overpopulation in the region while turning a blind eye to the same pressures in the United States where the population has swelled to 300,000,000. Critics will downplay the role of environmental damage in bringing on the conflict while ignoring the fact that 12% of the Sudan's forests have been hacked down in past 15 years. Critics will also belligerently shout down the role of climate change in the drought, while embracing fictions and bedtime stories that allow them to ignore all evidence to the contrary and have an easy night's sleep.

Ultimately, it is all about responsibility.

The people of the developed world have built a civilization based on the ideal of personal responsibility. That ideal is the backbone of democracy and the foundation of the free market that drives our economy. What a fitting irony that we are facing unprecedented assaults on our democracy, spiraling debt, and growing environmental carnage while all we can throw up in our defence is litany of excuses.

"It's the Democrat's fault!"

"It's the Liberal's fault!"

"It's all China's fault!"

"It's single mothers' fault",

And the all time winner, "Al Gore's heating bill is too high".

The trend goes far beyond the issue of global warming, and now infects every aspect of our political culture. The reason is simple. We are fat, lazy and more interested in preserving our comforts than taking an honest look at our role in the world's problems. Doing that would mean real responsibility, and there is no time for that in a world of instant gratification and borrowed wealth.

America, and implicitly the modern western world, was built on "Life, Liberty and Freedom". Now the future holds a new American dream with a new call to battle - "Borrow, Spend and Forget"!

It's simple, comfy and easy next to that messy business of personal responsibility.

In a jaw dropping effort to get leaders to take action on global warming, endurance British explorer and endurance athlete Lewis Gordon Pugh has done the unthinkable - swim in the open waters at the North Pole.

Lewis Gordon Pugh swam Sunday for 18 minutes and 50 seconds in temperatures of –1.8 degrees in just a Speedo, cap and goggles.

“I am obviously ecstatic to have succeeded, but this swim is a triumph and a tragedy,” the 37-year-old British lawyer said after coming out of the water.

Are we gettting the message yet? In case the point needs to be belabored further, if Pugh was swimming in open water at the top of the planet, it means that a lot of ice is melting. That melt includes land base ice in Canada's North, in Greenland, Antarctica and alpine glaciers. It means the oceans are rising. It does not mean that selling swimming trips to the arctic is a new business opportunity, and it doesn't mean that global warming is a good thing.

In case anyone has been living off planet for the past couple months, Live Earth is here!

Live Earth is a 24-hour, 7-continent concert series taking place tomorrow (Saturday, July 7th) that will bring together more than 100 music artists and 2 billion people to trigger a global movement to solve the climate crisis, with concert footage flowing throughout the world over television, radio, Internet and wireless channels.

Here's a rundown of everything you'll need to tune in:


Streaming Online Footage

MSN will stream the Live Earth concerts LIVE from all seven continents starting from Sydney, Australia and continuing geographically and chronologically across the globe. Log on tonight -- Friday, July 6th -- at 9:15pm (ET) / 6:15pm (PT) (since it's tomorrow already in Australia) for the start of what is destined to be an incomparable 24 hours.

OFFICIAL CONCERTS AND SCHEDULE

CITY	LOCAL START TIME	USA START TIME (EDT)
Live Earth Sydney	11:10 a.m. 7/7	9:10 pm 7/6
Live Earth Tokyo	12:00 p.m. 7/7	11:00 p.m. 7/6
Live Earth Shanghai	7:00 p.m. 7/7	7:00 a.m. 7/7
Live Earth Hamburg	2:00 p.m. 7/7	8:00 a.m. 7/7
Live Earth London	1:30 p.m. 7/7	8:30 a.m. 7/7
Live Earth Johannesburg	6:00 p.m. 7/7	12:00 p.m. 7/7
Live Earth New York	2:30 p.m. 7/7	2:30 p.m. 7/7
Live Earth Rio de Janeiro	4:00 p.m. 7/7	3:00 p.m. 7/7

Check for the most current info at www.liveearth.msn.com.


TV Broadcast

Live Earth will be transmitted worldwide in standard and high definition across multiple media channels - TV, radio, Internet and wireless channels. In the US, highlights from all Live Earth concerts and events will air on NBC at 8:00p.m. on Saturday, 07.07.07. Visit www.liveearth.org for a more expansive list of International Broadcast Partners.


Radio Broadcast

Worldwide concerts will be broadcast on satellite radio through XM, Sirius, Worldspace, Premiere and Radio Express. Follow the links for more details.


The event is just the beginning of a a multi-year campaign led by the Alliance for Climate Protection, The Climate Group and other international organizations to drive individuals, corporations and governments to take action to solve global warming. Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore is the Chair of the Alliance and Partner of Live Earth.

Visit the Live Earth website for more information on the ongoing effort, and learn how you can get involved.

Renovations of Al Gore's home are almost complete, and the result will be a model of green design, technology and engineering that will put a final end to the latest round of ill-conceived and baseless smear campaign being waged by right wing pundits.

"This plan has been in the works for a long time," the former vice president said in an interview with The Associated Press. "The only thing that has changed is that we're more public about it because of the misleading attack by a global-warming denier group."

Gore's redesigned home is aiming to meet Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards and will include rooftop solar panels, a geothermal heating system, upgraded windows and ductwork, energy-efficient lighting and a rainwater collection system for irrigation and water management.

However, conservative groups and climate change deniers have been working hard over through this same time period to paint Al Gore as an environmental hypocrite who only talks green as a part of an elaborate ploy to enter the US presidential race. Like most spin jobs this one is slim on facts and long on hot air.

The initial assault on Gore's environmental reputation was a laundry list of outright lies that were thoroughly debunked here at TCE. Next came a gem of an effort from the Tennessee Center for Policy Research (TCPR), a right wing think-tank of marginal credibility that, among other things, "facilitates" a three ring circus of global warming deniers. In February, the TCPR dug Al Gore's utility bill out of the metaphorical trash bin and promptly launched a southern style swift boating of the former Vice President - an equally inaccurate attack that conveniently ignored the fact(s) that:

1. Gore pays a premium for green power options in his home,
2. that the environmentally friendly renos listed above had been in the works well before the time of their attack,
   
3. that the only reason solar panels were not installed already is because Gore has been knee deep in a municipal battle over bylaw restrictions, and most importantly
4. that the Gore "residence" is not only a home but also an office for both Al Gore, his wife and runs a commercial kitchen for events.

But it only takes five words to say "Al Gore is a hypocrite", whereas you need a few sentences and a 10 second Google search to reveal the motivation of the TCPR and the green leading designs of Mr. Gore. If the country can't expect that kind commitment to accuracy from their pseudo elected leader, then far be it for me to ask it of the conservative press.

Canadian readers, or those with satellite access, can watch a pair of global warming documentaries this Sunday June 3rd via the CBC.


Five Ways to Save the World runs at 10pm ET/PT on CBC Newsworld.

If global warming continues to escalate at the current rate, many fear the effects could be catastrophic. Five Ways to Save the World features five of the world's top scientists and the revolutionary scientific inventions they believe could stop global warming and prevent worldwide disaster. In Five Ways to Save the World, computer-generated imagery allows each scientist to fully describe his radical approach to a solution.
Discuss this film online.

The Denial Machine follows at at 11pm on CBC-TV (note the channel change)

In the past few years, a hurricane has engulfed the debate about global warming. This crucial scientific issue has become a rhetorical firestorm with science pitted against spin and inflammatory words on both sides. Bob McKeown investigates why a debate that some say could determine the very future of our planet has become a partisan battleground. The Denial Machine follows a small but powerful group of scientists who argue, among other claims, that global warming may be a good thing and it investigates their links to the oil and coal industries. Film also available for viewing online.

A feisty 85 year old grandmother from Colorado is finding herself in the middle of a David vs. Goliath media battle with oil sands giant Syncrude regarding a website she built to demonstrate the environmental impacts of the company's operations.

Last summer, Liz Moore took a tour of Syncrude's operations during which she photographed various standard sights such as big trucks, oily sand and bison grazing on reclaimed land. However, after seeing the devastation caused by oil sands extraction first hand, she became convinced that Americans needed to see what their thirst for oil was doing to the Canadian environment. Syncrude disagreed, and in April they responded with legal action stating that they owned the photos that Ms. Moore took and that she must be immediately remove them from her website. Ms. Moore complied.

Syncrude was quick to defend its actions, stating that Ms. Moore had signed a waiver that gave the company ownership over any photos she took. That's nice and tidy from the legal standpoint, but like most legal technicalities it completely misses the point. First of all, Syncrude's "private operations" are one of the most destructive industrial processes in the world, and affect people well beyond the borders of their sights. Impacts of Alberta's oil sands include:

• 359 million litres of water diversions authorized from the Athabasca River - twice the volume used by the city of Calgary in an single year.
• the return of less than 10% of that volume to the river. The rest remains contaminated and is stored in vast tailing ponds which already total 50 square kilometers in area.
• massive increases in rare cancers among the Fort Chipewyan First Nations near Syncrude's operations.
• greenhouse gas emissions that are currently the second highest in Canada.
• Syncrude is the 6th largest emitting company in Canada.
  
• oil production is expected to triple by 2015.

The second point is that the folks at Syncrude are acting like a bunch of wankers by thinking that they are actually accomplishing anything by launching legal action against senior citizens. To prove it, here's my own photo montage showing what's going on in Alberta's oil patch and its affects on Canadians and the environment.





Globe and Mail link courtesy of DeSmogBlog

Earlier this week, I posted a tongue-in-cheek article about certain people's ignorance about global warming. Given the results of this year's Political Knowledge Survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, that article should not have surprised anyone.

Pew has been using this survey to evaluate the political savvy of the American population for almost twenty years now. Questions include such doozies as "Can you name the current vice president?"

The results?....not good.

Despite the proliferation of news media and internet access, the average American is less likely to be able to name the VP, their state's governor or the President of Russia than they were in 1989 - by 5%, 8% and 11% respectively.

Other key info includes a breakdown of the educational value of different news sources. If you watch the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, the Colbert Report or read major newspaper websites, you probably know what you're talking about. If you like Fox News, or your various local/morning news shows, you'd be better served by turning off the tube and having a political discussion with your morning bagel.

On a positive note, this has given me an idea for a new anti-troll policy. Anyone wanting to post comments would first need to reach a minimum score on this survey. U.S. readers would be required to score above 50% to comment on global warming and other environmental political issues. Given that the survey is strictly American in subject matter, Canadian readers would only need to score 55%.

You can try your hand at the survey here.

Thanks to Karl Lindgren for giving The Conscious Earth the nod for the Thinking Blogger Award.


The award kicked off a couple months ago as a peer driven effort to weed through the fat of the blogosphere and deliver to readers the highest quality and most thought provoking content available. The winners, in turn, nominate five blogs that make them think, thus passing the torch throughout the online community and giving us all something to think about.

With heartfelt thanks to all of The CE's readers throughout the past 11 months, here are my own nominations for the Thinking Blogger Award. As the first rule of thinking is independence of thought, sharp readers will notice that not all of these are, strictly speaking, 'blogs'. My priority was in offering choices that genuinely made me think, regardless of the nature of the site.

Enjoy!

Desmogblog - Clearing the PR pollution that clouds the science of climate change. Begun here in my home town by local public relations professional Jim Hoggan, Desmogblog's mission is to counter the spin of global warming deniers with the facts about this critical issue. Included on the site is a database supplying background information on the top deniers, as well as critical resources outlining the genuine scientific consensus about the dangers of global warming.

Fireraven Tarot - A compatriot from down under, Fireraven is an environmentalist and Tarot card reader who, on every full moon, gives a reading for our planet Earth. Insightful and thought provoking, the site is a great reminder about the limits of scientific/rational thought, and how far we as westerners have been led away from the wisdom of the Earth.

Planetfesto - Simple and visionary, Planetfesto's mission is to build a virtual ribbon around the Earth, six inches at a time. Each visitor can add their own photo to the ribbon, alongside their words about the importance and beauty of the natural world.

The Alan Watts Library - Regular listening of mine, the wisdom of the late Alan Watts is as accessible and relevant today as it was throughout the 1950s, '60s and '70s. A host of books and lectures are available for order, as is a free weekly podcast.

Satan's Laundromat - A picture is worth a thousand thoughts. The Laundromat is a photolog of New York, with an emphasis on urban decay, strange signage, and general weirdness. There is nothing more thought provoking that the random expression of our fellow people.

Want to make real progress for the environment? Stop crapping on people who are doing something about it.

Over at the Daily Grist is an article titled Keep Your Eyes on the Size: The Impossibility of a green Wal-Mart. After recognizing Wal-Mart's outstanding commitments to greater efficiency - which include a 20% improvement in energy efficiency of all stores, the doubling of the fuel economy of their truck fleet, and the public reporting of their carbon footprint - the article's author, Stacy Mitchell, glibly dismisses the company's efforts because their carbon footprint does not take into account the SUVs that you, the consumer, drive to their stores.

Here's the key issue. Wal-Mart's carbon estimate omits a massive source of CO2 that is inherent to its operations and amounts to more than all of its other greenhouse-gas emissions combined: the CO2 produced by customers driving to its stores.

Let me be perfectly clear. I am not pro "big box" stores. I avoid all of them whenever possible, and I universally boycott Wal-Mart in particular for precisely the reasons Ms. Mitchell points out. However, credit where credit is due. Wal-Mart is making a more substantial commitment to green improvements than virtually any other major corporation, or government for that matter.

The real distraction taking place is the one occurring in the environmental community itself. While green leaders and publications like Grist continue to hunt their demons and dream of lofty ideals, they utterly fail to grasp the fact that long-term change towards sustainability and environmental responsibility is going to occur step-by-step, not by waving a magic wand and wishing for a perfect world.

Big box stores, oil companies and other destructive industries are with us and won't be disappearing anytime over the next several decades. However, with each year that passes they can be transformed, or slowly eliminated, through voluntary actions like Wal-Mart's and through strong government leadership that provides genuinely green rules and incentives. Wal-Mart's commitment to a 20% improvement in energy efficiency is something to be embraced. With that strong beginning taking place, it is now for governments to step in and get the ball rolling faster.

Want to stop Wal-Mart from transporting goods to heartland America from the far corners of the world? Double fuel taxes, cut taxes for local businesses and products, and levy taxes on imported goods. Want to stop the damage caused by consumers commuting to Wal-Mart? Double the fuel efficiency standards for automobiles, invest in urban planning and public transportation, and raise taxes at the gas pump so people won't burn fuel commuting to big box stores built on asphalt covered farmland. People will no longer go to Wal-Mart for 'cheap' products, because it will no longer be cheap to do so.

The responsibility for those changes is the province of government. To change government inaction we, the voters, need to start speaking up to this guy, and this guy, and insist that they stop denying global warming. We need to start talking to our neighbors who elected them in the first place and show them a better alternative, and for the 45% of you who don't bother going to the polls, you need to take a break from voting for the next American Idol and start making your voice heard in favour of the people who will make these changes.

Until that happens, Wal-Mart is making some of the world's biggest improvements towards greener operations. If you're criticizing that, then try planting some trees instead of barking up the wrong one. You'll be doing the environmental movement way more good.