Ireland has decided to ban all energy wasting incandescent light bulbs by year 2009.

By switching over to Compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) Irelands carbon emissions will be reduced with about 700.000 tons every year. But this move is not only positive for the climate but also for the households in Ireland that is expected to save the impressive amount of €185 million in energy costs.

Ireland is also planning to tax all new and imported cars accordingly to how much they pollute. The more carbon emissions a car releases the higher it tax will be.

Image credit: Napalm filled tires. Image licensed under a
Creative-Commons Attribution-Share Alike license.

Watch a video (summary) of Al Gore’s rather passionate speech at the United Nations climate change conference in Bali.

“You can make a path that goes around that blank spot…”

Video after the jump. (more…)

It started as a big balloon that was constantly being filled with hot air. Everyone seemed to agree that strong guidelines and goals had to be decided to be able to slow down the effects of climate change and possibly stop global temperatures from rising above the 2 degrees threshold and into a future of death and climate chaos. You could constantly hear that this was the only chance we had, and if we didn’t fully grab this opportunity we wouldn’t have a second chance.

Over 15000 people from all over the world attended the climate conference in Bali. Every respectable news media had someone reporting from the meetings. Environment organisations, trade unions and even fossil fuel companies where there to influence the end result.

So how did it all end? Well, at least they agreed on something. That’s better than nothing, right? But the agreement is far from enough. It’s not even close.

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Prepare to be shocked this Christmas by the new documentary from Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth about Christmas. Video after the jump:

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A new Australian Government under PM Rudd was sworn in on Monday 3 December, 2007 – Day 1 of Rudd Australia. PM Kevin Rudd has made it clear that he favors “measurement-based policy” and “evidence-based policy” and has further asked his colleagues to give him Report Cards on progress.

I applaud this approach as a senior scientist committed to rational risk management that successively involves (a) accurate data, (b) scientific analysis and (c) systemic change to minimize risk (for a detailed, expert exposition see Professor James Reason, “Human error: models and management”, British Medical Journal, vol. 320, 768-770, 2000: http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/320/7237/768 ). Indeed as a responsible pubIic service I have committed a lot of time and effort to informing governments, media and fellow citizens about important matters, of which Australia’s involvement in the ongoing Aboriginal Genocide, Iraqi Genocide, Afghan Genocide and Climate Genocide are the most critically important.

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Image speaks for itself, higher resolution over at Adsoftheworld.com.

Advertising Agency: Republic of Everyone/Happy Soldiers, Sydney, Australia
Creative Director / Art Director / Copywriter: Happy Soldiers
Photographer: Adrian Lander
Retoucher: Electric Art
Released: December 2007

While the USA, Canada and Japan are doing their best to wreck the climate conference in Bali scientists from the UK’s Hadley Centre and University of East Anglia has concluded that this year (2007) has been one of the warmest since 1850.

“However, since the end of April, the La Nina event has taken some of the heat out of what could have been an even warmer year”, Phil Jones, director of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia (UEA), said. So even that La Nina has been around this year with it’s cooling effects the temperatures have kept rising.

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On a per capita basis and including our fossil fuel exports, Australia is the developed country with the highest greenhouse gas pollution. Thus 2004 data from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) reveal that “annual per capita fossil fuel-derived CO2 pollution” in tonnes CO2/person is 19.2 (for Australia; 40 if you include Australia’s coal exports), 19.7 (the US), 18.4 (Canada), 9.9 (Japan), 4.2 (the World), 3.6 (China), 1.0 ( India) and 0.25 (for Bangladesh).

The Rudd Labor commitment to “20% renewables by 2020″, “60% reduction on 2000 greenhouse gas pollution by 2050″ and no constraint on fossil fuel extraction for export ACTUALLY means (based on EIA data, assuming current constant coal, gas and CO2 pollution growth rates, constant population and including Australia’s fossil fuel EXPORTS) “annual per capita fossil fuel-derived CO2 emission in tonnes per person per year” of 43 (2007), 56 (2020) and 65 (2050).

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