"We face a planetary emergency"

Gore in Movie Campaign to Protect Earth

"My whole objective here is to try to move the country past a tipping point, beyond which politicians in both parties compete with each other for genuinely meaningful solutions ... and to change the minds of the American people to the point where people in both parties demand action," he said.

So, let me ask people a question. When I was in Ireland last summer (for academic purposes only, of course), one of my professors, in what I thought of as reasonably casual conversation, alluded to the possibility of changes in the Gulf Stream due to climate change that would then have dramatic negative effects on Irish weather.

I don't seem to have those kinds of casual conversations with people here in the US, unless they're already people who care about climate change as a 'specialized' issue rather than a general one that every man-woman-child-pet-on-the-street should care about.

So, how close are we to this tipping point Al Gore wants to get us past? And is the rest of the world well past it?

Another Woburn

Massachusetts Town Shudders after Study Details Cancer Risk

Back then, children and many adults in Ashland did not worry much about the brightly colored blue, purple and red water in and around the 35-acre site owned by Nyanza Inc., which released manufacturing waste containing such substances as mercury, chromium, lead and cadmium into unlined lagoons and nearby streams.

Maybe its time for a cultural change to a new philosophy: if you don't *know* its safe, assume it's not?

Texas Plans Nation's Largest Offshore Wind Farm

Texas Plans Nation's Largest Offshore Wind Farm

"The wind rush is on," Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson said. "We want to be No. 1. We want to attract the businesses that build the turbines, that build the blades."

So, I have to ask the obvious question, given this is the Gulf of Mexico we're talking about -- how will a wind farm stand up to hurricane force winds?

Environmentalism in China

China's Pearl River smells, but mayor vows to swim: China begins to tackle pollution out of concern over local discontent

After decades of rapid industrial growth, China has reached a moment akin to America in the 1970s: Pollution has become too obvious to ignore, sprouting a new environmental consciousness and official efforts to start cleaning up.

What are the chances of seeing China's SEPA (State Environment Protection Agency) get some real teeth?

IUCN Red List of Threatened Species for 2006

Natural world on red alert The article discusses threats to polar bear habitats, and a "dramatic fall in numbers" of hippos in the Democratic Republic of Congo, primarily due to unregulated hunting for both meat and ivory.

RELEASE OF THE 2006 IUCN RED LIST OF THREATENED SPECIES

Main Redlist page. The list itself is available online as a searchable database.

What do we do? Do we tell people to not eat? Not to have children?

(I'm having a "want to adopt greener habits, but...believe individual action is futile" moment, I suppose.)

I guess the answer is: keeping doing the little stuff, because it really does add up.