Some quick updates from Sustainable Future.

Greenpeace has released their 2007 Global Energy Report. It's a great source of research data on the decentralisation of energy supply resources. Wonderful to see substantial projections of our possibilities.

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"But now, four and a half billion years after the formation of the planet, nearly four billion years since the emergence of life on Earth, after five major extinction events, a single species is responsible for much of planet’s destiny. A species that through the power of its technology, the sheer size of its biomass, its ever-expanding energy and resource requirements, has changed the course of our planet’s history forever. And that species is, of course, us. The choices that we make now and in the future will have an effect on life on Earth just as great as that asteroid 65 million years ago. "

"Some of the measures needed to combat climate change may be incompatible with the WTO. For example the European Union is currently looking at introducing a border tax against energy intensive goods coming from countries that have not made commitments to reduce their greenhouse emissions. After all why should European companies internalise the cost of greenhouse emissions while American companies continue to pollute for free? If American companies can get away with polluting the planet for free then what’s to stop European companies moving to the US and simply exporting their products into Europe? Hence they need a climate protecting border tax to even up the playing field. But such a climate border tax may be against the rules of the WTO, as a restriction on trade. "

Excerpts from Courage and Climate Change by Russel Norman, Green Party Co-Leader. Third Annual State of the Planet Speech