Don't blame me for the polar bears

Smugly declaring - my CO2 footprint is 3 tonnes below the national average.

Well, OK, this is the UK national average, and we're not exactly the lightest treading nation in the world. And this was using the UK government's carbon calculator, which kindly does not include business travel in my travel footprint, allowing me to ignore every flight I've ever taken. And I don't own a car. So that's pretty much my entire contribution to saving the planet.

I'm still 0.3 tonnes above the target footprint, though, since all my household power is from fossil energy. I suppose the cycling does actually contribute a bit, as it means I'm using the washing machine more often as well. As for the green-ness of the home, well I'm renting. If I owned my house, I may well have put solar panels on by now.

The green face of greed

Well, the free market economy may not be quite the purely rapacious planet eating beast that many people would like to claim it is. Although news that China has become the world's largest producer of greenhouse gases (thanks in part to the West offshoring all its dirty industries) shows the downside of the free market, the rush of investments into renewable energy resources is a good sign.

The Guardian reports that the forward to the Global Trends in Sustainable Development annual review states:

bankers and other fund managers have ignored government dithering over climate change and started to shift the whole balance of the sector by pumping money into technologies that tackle global warming.

Greenpeace have, of course, pointed out that even these much increased numbers are peanuts compared to the annual investments in fossil fuel technology.