SUPERB animation on the climate position...

Wake Up, Freak Out - then Get a Grip from Leo Murray on Vimeo.

Coulda, Shoulda, Buddha Woulda

Canada's Globe & Mail reported recently on some dastardly goings on among the oil giants:

The world's largest publicly owned oil company announced yesterday the largest corporate profit ever, but news of its near $40-billion (U.S.) windfall in 2006 sparked an angry backlash, coming on the eve of a major report blaming the use of fossil fuels for wreaking devastation on the planet. Exxon shares have risen by about 20 per cent in the past year. Exxon wasn't alone in unprecedented oil earnings. Royal Dutch Shell PLC, an Anglo-Dutch company, and U.S.-run Marathon Oil and Valero Energy, also posted best-ever annual results yesterday. And ConocoPhillips Co., also American, last week posted its highest profits. Profits at the five companies together totalled $91.1-billion -- in a year when drivers paid record prices for gasoline. Both Democratic and Republican members of Congress have also urged Exxon to end its funding of organizations that deny the existence of -- or minimize the seriousness of -- human-made global warming. Scientists yesterday accused the conservative American Enterprise Institute, which receives funding from Exxon, of offering scientists up to $10,000 for articles that undercut a report to be released today from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Last month, the Union of Concerned Scientists ... said that Exxon has spent $16-million over the past 10 years financing organizations that deny the seriousness of climate change. Alden Meyer, a strategist with the group, compared Exxon's efforts to discredit the science of global warming to the tobacco companies' efforts to sow doubts about the link between smoking and lung cancer in order to protect their profits.

These guys' karma must be getting like black death bugs - if you work for any of these companies, GET THE DUCK OUT OF THERE...

You toadally MUST watch this...

(I sound more like my kids every day) BUT this is toadally superb. In fact there's a follow-up video in which he mops up a small flaw in his argument - but I prefer this one for its cleanliness. Perfect for dinner parties over Christmas when the fat wanker in tweed starts slurring about climate change all being a load of baloney anyway...cos there've always been climate cycles...and it's probably a lefty conspiracy to get slavery banned through the back door and why don't we bring back fagging and what's wrong with the KKK?

This Could Be Huuuuuuuuuuuuuge

I'd say this movie is perhaps (I haven't seen it yet but it comes VERY highly recommended) a breakthrough-maker - all reviews welcome :)

TRAGILARIOUS - Otto Shows His True Colours

This year's Frankfurt Auto Show (the presenter's American so it sounds as if he's saying it's 'Frankfurt Otto Show') has a theme: Green Cars, says our host. He then guides us through a range of supercharged dildos from Porsche (200 mph); Mercedes (an ingenious new eco-technology that allows the car to burn both petrol AND diesel); Jaguar (V6 engines ditched - you can now choose between two different V8s); a new V10 family saloon from Audi and a few others now upgraded with more powerful engines, the non-obscene gas-burners having been made extinct.

Ottoman then mentions that, despite the declared theme of the show, he has noticed that there isn't in fact much evidence of, erm, green vehicle technology.

Thank the gods the theme of the show wasn't high-octane wankwagons.

Truth Stranger Than Fiction

So the Russians discover that, thanks to global climate change and ice thinning, they can now take a sub all the way to the North Pole. Then everybody else with a 'claim' to this land gets uppity because in planting a flag there, the Russians might be laying claim to any oil that's found lying beneath. "Stop thief! We've burnt far more oil than you ever have. We're the ones who got that ice down to navigable proportions. If it hadn't been for us you could never have got the sub down there in the first place. If anybody has a right to extract and burn the Arctic oil as well, it's US. Fair's fair, comrades."

Time to Trim the Hedges?

I seem to recall that Abraham was called upon to sacrifice his first-born son Isaac but he and God sorted it all out and Isaac lived. It was close though. I hope we can negotiate our way through the next few years so that our children come through. However, things are not looking good at this stage.

If it's not enough that we're selling off the family silver to fund our oiled-up partying, it seems that now, as dusk settles over the old mansion, we're setting fire to the furniture and wrecking the Rembrandts as well.

Food, shelter, security, health and freedom from poverty are among the basics of life. All are threatened by our profligacy and denial.

As the confused and betrayed children look over the parapet of the smoking home, what do they see? They see Mummy and Daddy haggling with strange men in suits.

It was recently announced that investment bankers UBS had launched the world's first Global Warming Index. By means of this ingenious device, they suggest, purveyors of winter clothing or ice cream can hedge against climate-related damage to their profits.

Cool. But isn't this a little like taking out insurance on the life of a once-wealthy, sick but long-ignored aunt whose trust fund we've already drained? One might not be able to resist the temptation to forget to feed the old dear - or even to slip a little caustic soda into her morning muesli.

Surely, if I stand to gain from negative impacts on the world's climate, I'm doing myself a favour if I drive around all day in a gas-guzzler and start commuting by air to a job on a different continent? Perhaps I might start investing in coal-fired power stations - or even move out of fur coats and into selling Hummers.

There's a fortune to be made here - I can't see why we're not all piling in to make a killing.

But it's our kids we're killing.

Still, prospects were looking pretty dire for the poor little buggers anyway...