This 38-year old-video which shows a lion being reunited with his two childhood owners has already been seen by millions on video sites like YouTube. And now it has come to Green Blog (Yes, we are suckers for cute movies).

The lion named Christian was bought from an exotic animals department in Harrods in 1969 by the two Australians John Rendall and Anthony Bourke for 250 guineas. They took him home and raised him in their flat.

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The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, one of the largest labor unions in USA, has announced that they no longer support President Bush’s platform for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

During a summit in California on “good jobs and clean air” Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa announced that their labor union is leaving the ANWR coalition.

“We are not going to drill our way out of the energy problems we are facing—not here and not in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. We must find a long-term approach that breaks our dependence on foreign oil by investing in the development of alternate energy sources like solar, wind and geothermal power.”

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The statistics are in for the first half of 2008 and they show that USA, for the first time, generated more wind energy than Germany. This “milestone” wasn’t expected to be reached until late 2009.

Germany still has more wind turbines than USA and is able to generate 22,000 - 23,000 megawatts of power compared to USA’s capacity of about 18,000 megawatts.

But Randall Swisher, the executive director of the American Wind Energy Association, said that “the difference is that because the winds are so much stronger here in the U.S. we are actually providing more wind-generated electricity than Germany.” He also said that the US “wind energy capacity is growing faster than anyplace else.”

This is great news but USA is still far behind everyone else in terms of green renewable energy, especially wind energy.

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Today the Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama spoke in front of over 200 000 people in Berlin. In the speech he talked about everything from human rights to free markets, nuclear weapons and global citizenship, and of course about the climate crisis:

“As we speak, cars in Boston and factories in Beijing are melting the ice caps in the Arctic, shrinking coastlines in the Atlantic, and bringing drought to farms from Kansas to Kenya.

[...]

This is the moment when we must come together to save this planet. Let us resolve that we will not leave our children a world where the oceans rise and famine spreads and terrible storms devastate our lands. Let us resolve that all nations - including my own - will act with the same seriousness of purpose as has your nation, and reduce the carbon we send into our atmosphere. This is the moment to give our children back their future. This is the moment to stand as one.”

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We are familiar with the notion of getting an expert second opinion when an expert medical specialist has diagnosed life threatening circumstances. However a second opinion that is a bit more optimistic simply decreases the perceived odds of death somewhat – the dire initial prediction remains.

Leading world climate experts offer the expert diagnosis that the World faces a life-threatening Climate Emergency requiring urgent action to stop carbon pollution and indeed to reduce existing atmosphere greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution.

However such expert advice is countermanded by inexpert, non-scientist politicians and corporate spokespersons with vested interests in fossil fuel burning and their inexpert climate sceptic supporters. These climate sceptics and “business as usual” advocates are merely expressing inexpert partisan opinions that would be seen as dishonest and dangerously irresponsible in the context of expert medical specialist diagnosis of life threatening circumstances.

Below are about 2 dozen recent, Web-documented, expert statements from outstanding, world-leading climate change experts, other eminent scientific experts and top scientific organizations with expertise to make authoritative comments about the Climate Emergency and related matters.

These 2 dozen statements can be regarded as expert specialist diagnoses on the environmental health of the Planet’s biosphere. We can seek expert second opinions by all means but these statements represent dire warnings that cannot be ignored.

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As you might have noticed by now, the summer has finally arrived for us here on Green Blog. That means the posting level will be low for another couple of days, until its starts to rain, of course. Instead of making just a dull and uninteresting post about our wonderful summer holiday I want to share with you two interesting emails we’ve received during the past days:

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Somebody pointed out something that at first seemed very obvious to me today, and it’s something that most environmentalists miss — something very important to the whole “green” movement.

She pointed out that people aren’t going to change if they don’t have good jobs, access to health care, and enough to eat.

But then I thought of all the wealthy people in the world who aren’t about to change either and her point — though a great one — started to lose its ability to hold water.

I wonder: what is the difference between people willing to sacrifice a little to do their part in terms of climate change and those who refuse to believe there is even a problem, much less one worth doing anything about?

That leads me to wonder about the people I know who claim to be environmentalists and still drive a car to work…two miles away…by themselves.

The disconnect is utterly breathtaking: where does it come from?

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Just in time for Al Gore’s major renewable energy challenge Florida’s Public Service Commission has “unanimously and enthusiastically” approved plans to build USA’s largest commercial solar-power plant (so far, we hope). Two other facilities also got the green light by the committee and are due to go online around 2009.

SunPower has been chosen to construct the three solar plants in the state of Florida. Howard Wenger, senior vice president, global business units for SunPower, said that “these agreements confirm the growing trend in the U.S. to build solar power plants at a scale rivaling those in market-leading countries such as Germany and Spain.”

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Today Al Gore issued a “major challenge” for USA where he said that Americans must abandon electricity generated by fossil fuels within 10 years and instead move over to green renewable energy. He called it “A Generational Challenge to Repower America.”

“Today I challenge our nation to commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years.

This goal is achievable, affordable and transformative. It represents a challenge to all Americans - in every walk of life: to our political leaders, entrepreneurs, innovators, engineers, and to every citizen.

A few years ago, it would not have been possible to issue such a challenge. But here’s what’s changed: the sharp cost reductions now beginning to take place in solar, wind, and geothermal power - coupled with the recent dramatic price increases for oil and coal - have radically changed the economics of energy.”

If the challenge is not accepted “the survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk,” Al Gore said.

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Here are some of the best Green videos of the week, collected by the Ecolive.TV community.

What is the Solar Energy?

This video is an amazing guide, to understand the source of the Solar energy.

So why are we using fossil fuel… big oil money? yes you may use it in class.

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