I like to think of myself as a supporter of environmental change, i.e. greener solutions.

I think climate change, and the general reduction of supply of fossil fuels means energy costs are only going to go one way, and there is an ever improving financial reason therefore to utilise produce our own electric, so I’m honestly looking at solar and wind power for home energy, and have considered an electric car (though it doesn’t suit my current needs, and I’m keen to see which technology becomes the future standard before making such an investment).

This weeks Global Climate Talks have been something I was really looking forward to, as it takes real global effort to move us all towards a greener way of living. I have however been shocked by the complete waste of money of sending a load of highly paid people to a conference where all they seemed to agree to, was to come to an agreement in the future!

Am I missing something here, or did we just miss an opportunity to actually MAKE that agreement?

Trade Barriers
If I’m brutally honest, I think countries will never all agree. The easiest way forward is for a country to set the example, and place trade barriers (a thing of the past these days) on imports from countries deemed less green than a set figure. Tough as this may seem, so long as it was backed up using formal stats on the output of countries, it would quickly apply pressure to those “on the fence”, and give financial benefit to nations moving towards a more environmental position.

Of course Trade Barriers have been long fought against because they discrimate, and remove the benefits of free trade. I’m not silly enough to realise that such a move would be strongly opposed by many, and with good reason. I just struggle to see how the world can really all agree on a matter like environment change, when the costs of imposing changes are so high on governments. Democracy is a great thing, but it does bring a short term perspective from governments, keen to look good and stay in power for another term. This flies in the face of environment change which is all about thinking 50-100 years in the future if the maths is to add up in any way.

I’d certainly like to see a country try with some basic low trade barriers to the most polluting nations, to see the impact this might have on viewpoints, and the motivation this might give to other nations, and particularly to those with high polluting habits.

What do I really want to see?
It’s not too unreasonable a question to ask what I really expected from the global climate talks then. The answer is pretty simple really, investment in technologies that will bring about change. It isn’t about banning petrol cars etc… it’s about supporting the industry that makes these technologies, to make them a real potential option for people.

When it comes to cars, I fell for The Lightening Car from the moment I first saw it. Styled like an Aston Martin, and with the speed of a super car (0-60mph in 4 seconds), this isn’t the milkfloat that people think of when they think of electric powered vehicles.

The trouble with green technologies is that they are still relatively expensive given low volume of sales, and therefore no mass manufacturing. They are also early products, and won’t all survive. In fact, my personal view is that hydrogen is far more likely to succeed as a fuel of the future, as you can “fill up” your vehicle quickly rather than charging heavy batteries all the time. These industries need global investment and effort to find the best options for the future, enable mass manufacturing of them, and then people will naturally head in a greener direction. It does however require investment, something this weeks Global Climate talk sadly missed.

Yes it really does seem that we’ve lost the plot as far as privacy goes. I’m not just talking about security breaches at companies, or government personnel losing sensitive information…. I’m talking about you and I sharing far more data than ever we surely should.

I’ve not been a huge fan personally of the massive fashion of social networking, and obsessive Twitter type behaviour, and a new site hitting the news at the moment just goes to underline my concerns.

The site is pleaserobme.com … and yes, it very simply uses a Twitter API to capture a list of people using Twitter and foursquare, and who are declaring themselves to be away from home at the moment. The result is a list of addresses that are currently ripe for a robbing! A scary use of the geo-location information that social networking sites just love us to share.

I’m glad to say from my own perspective that I’m not on Twitter or FourSquare, and even those close to me have no idea whether or not I’m at home or not, until they ring and find out… and frankly, I prefer to keep it that way!

So being serious for just one moment, we do seriously need to take a look at our activities these days, particularly on the Internet, and realise that we all share a lot of information online. The important question is, of course, whether the information we provide can be pieced together to provide more information than we would wish to provide.

Thanks to the guys behind pleaserobme.com, the general public maybe getting a slightly rude awakening to the consquences of social networking habits. Time will of course tell as to whether this site changes habits or simply provides a few minutes comedy for people.

Disasters are part of our world. I’m lucky enough to live in a country which tends not to suffer issues of the severity of some other parts of the world. I am therefore “used” enough to seeing a news story like the Haiti earthquake break, and the appeals come in to support charities in their efforts to help the victims, and recover the dead. In parallel with this, there is always a rush around by governments to put money and resources into action to support the situation.

It’s as a result of this precedence, that I feel completely angered by constant reports from the media who seem to land in Haiti, and see no signs of support being given to this country. Dead people lying in roads for days on end seems to be a standard over there now, this is not hours after the event, but days. “We’re” obviously there, and we’re obviously doing “everything we can” with the available resources, but this country is not inaccessible to the world, I refuse to believe that it is that difficult to get people and resources into the country. How come we don’t send military resources in from the america’s, and other parts of the world? Military personnel are used to tough conditions, and could split the country into sections to each “control” from a recovery perspective, recovering and burying the dead, getting power back online for hospitals etc… I’m absolutely shocked at our lack of ability to handle this situation better.

I’ve actually not donated specifically to this cause as yet, which may come as a surprise reading the above. I do give a regular donation to several charities which will no doubt be involved, but I would usually in such a situation give a specific donation to the DEC or a specific charity fund for the situation. The reason is simple, the media portray of this disaster gives me no confidence that it is money that is needed, the people of Haiti need people. People to mend their electricity supplies so hospitals can support them, they also need more doctors, nurses and people to mend the general infrastructure of their country. I can’t help but therefore be irritated by the appeals for money, feeling that it almost suggests that we have the wrong end of the stick, and that someone is going to go over to Haiti and say “don’t worry, we’ve got some money to help you”, I obviously don’t believe this is true, but the lack of action on the ground, and suffering is difficult to watch, knowing that the world pulls together on these things, and that somehow we just don’t seem to be getting it right this time, and that is clearly causing suffering, and resulting in the loss of lives of people who could perfectly well have survived this disaster.

I don’t know about you, but I’m a bit of an eco-fan myself, and I get really mad reading these constant reports that suggest world leaders won’t come up with a satisfactory way forward at the Copenhagen conference in early December.

It’s great to see world leaders making pledges before the conference, but nobody seems to be taking the size of step that scientists are saying we need to… it all seems politically driven, leaders striving to look good within their country, and within the wider community. Already it seems to be clear that they’re going to come away from the negotiations with a non-legal agreement at best.

I’d really like to see a country have the guts to stand up and signup to cuts of at least the size estimated by scientists, and be done with it. Sod the wider world, and trying to get the agreement of every leader in the world to tidy up their own acts… just take the step forward and lead by example. There seems to be far too much worry about some countries not pulling their weight, and then getting a commercial advantage over greener countries. Well at least from an imports perspective, there’s a very simple answer… bring back trade barriers. They were abolished in most countries to allow for “free” trade, but in my view, if some countries aren’t pulling their weight, this is an easy answer… add a trade barrier to imports of goods from countiries based on their “population per head” type of stats. Fair enough, this doesn’t help exports, but there are a lot of countries that want to make positive change; such a bold step would give a commercial benefit to countries who bought into large scale change.

Here’s hoping the EU, US, or another big player takes such a large step, to put pressure on others to follow suit.

For a long time now I’ve broadcast that the “secret” to making easy money online is to be dishonest. Sadly there are those out there who have no ethics, and scamming for them is a way of life.

The UK Government is now seeking to take these scammers on at their own game. Looking primarily at “miracle” health product, the government is seeking to educate Internet users by catching their attention with sites similar to that of real scams.

Read more on the Guardian news site:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/feb/20/internet-diet-scams