I was riding my bike up the street towards a housewares shop - Super Savers - that I was looking for. As I rode up, a girl rounded the corner onto the street and put something pink down next to a stop sign. "Did she just non-chalantly place some trash on the street corner?" I asked. As I came up behind her it was in fact a juice box. I rode by, disgusted, but then, disgusted a bit at myself, I turned around and picked it up.

The girl, you she, who had headed up the street and disappeared, was wearing a yellow Super Savers jacket. I parked my bike, put the drinkbox into my shopping bag and entered the shop. What was I going to do? Confront her directly? Say "wasuremono" (forgotten thing) and hand it back to her?

I found the pot I needed and then spotted her down an aisle, stocking shelves. What to do? I slunk around the corner and watched her from behind as she took stock from a box and put it on the shelves. My chance! She turned away and I lightly tossed her trash into the box of new merchandise. Heart pounding with glee, I managed to negotiate buying a pot and I dashed out of the store. Victory!

Before you go anywhere near the next drink machine, read this, notes from the "debate" about the toxicity of Bisphenol A, a petroleum product used to make tin cans and plastic drink bottles. I like how newspapers continue to call any discussion with more than one side a debate. "Environmentalists and ExxonMobil CEOs square off: What causes global warming, burning petroleum products or hippy love vibes?" "The debate rages: should a ten-time convicted rapist go free? Hear from disinterested street idiots and the rapist himself."

The article in question does pretty much the same thing. The Globe writer points out that there are several studies linking Bisphenol A to breast and prostate cancer, as well as hormone imbalance and developmental problems in children. Representatives of responsible companies call the scientists crazy, discount the type of rats used. Scientists go on record saying they are removing every ounce of plastic from their own homes; the PR man nods thoughtfully and then points over our shoulders, shouting, "Hey look, an eagle!"

Why do we have to keep listening to the other side when we know it is all bullshit? Why does anyone even go to a "Press Conference" when Tony Snow is giving out answers? Why do the 98% of scientists that agree that global warming is true and dire get the same coverage as a nutjob with a fat cheque from Exxon?

Democracy and free-speech. With the magnifying effect of the internet, we are not only at the mercy of the idiocy of the majority, but also the victims of every minority adding a new opinion to the pile for us to consider and weigh equally against all the rest. The scientific community may be in 99% consensus, but the variety and time spent on other opinions by the press, even when we know they are wrought with unadulterated bullshit, makes the issue at hand seem like a debate to the average Joe who has barely noticed what is going on.

So then what? Should newspapers do our thinking for us? Should we turn to news sources that we know are biased in alignment with our own ways of thinking? No, I don't think so. But for crying out loud, point out the lies and bullshit. Add a skeptical footnote, like "by the way, Mr. Suit A actually works for the tobacco companies in question." "Today, Tony Snow said something that was confirmed as true."

"Bush delivered another speech filled with abstract notions today, attempting to appeal to his middle-age evangelical idiot support base. Cheney spouted unrepeatable lies and the braying of a ass was heard. End dispatch."

Still have any doubt about the absolute certainty of catastrophic climate crisis? "The Denial Machine" Thanks to the CBC.

I'm not going to pin it on a family member, because that would be absolving myself of any responsibility, and thereby crippling the ability to act for change, but somewhere along the line I picked up the world view called "pessimism-fatalism-egotism". My last bitter post came out as result of having a moment of optimism, green in it's vulnerability, squashed by a singular act of environmental disregard.

Thinking over the last couple of days and watching a few good TED talks, I realized that being negative and superior to those who haven't come to understand that we are in deep shit actually accomplishes jack shit. There are people out there that see pollution as merely a problem: something with handles and gears, something that can be solved. These amazing world leaders in thought, among other things, don't spend evenings brooding over the stupidity of humanity - they grab a textbook and educate. They don't bemoan environmental abuses - they broadside corporations in court. Conclusion - blogbitching on my part contributes very little, if anything.

One reason for this is that the world is generally insensitive to screaming environmentalists such as myself. From a media perspective, it is all they seem to do (though you'd have to scream to get anyone's attention). Hearing that the world is in a shitty place AND we all have to sacrifice greatly AND that may not even be enough to spare the looming doom... well I suspect most people just change the channel on that sort of news. The current thinking is that environmentalism has to be decoupled from granola, hippies, and that guy in hemp who spraypainted your fake fur coat last year. Because frankly, if you dig that culture, you are already on board. It is the bigwigs on the golf course that need to be persuaded, not browbeaten, that buying carbon credits in order to be a carbon neutral company actually makes financial sense. It is the conservative Christians who figure the world is about to end anyway who need to be convinced that mass transit is not only cheaper but more relaxing that driving (in addition to being lower in CO2).

Lastly, it is the educated pessimists that understand the situation but think nothing can be done who need to be re-educated, because something can be done -- IS being done. But you'd never know that from navel-gazing.

I was riding my bicycle to work on friday and reflecting on the passing scenery. The sun split the clouds overhead and lit the ruddy maple leaves, the city and the river lay to my left, a bank of trees to my right. My thoughts ran something like, "You know, the city is beautiful, set here against the mountains, the river is mostly clean and full of life, the air is clean today, the trees change colour as though nothing is amiss on the planet. Maybe we'll be ok -- maybe humanity will survive it's own stupidity and vice. Maybe it'll all work out somehow." One really couldn't be but optimistic in such weather. I turned off the river path, up a bike ramp and onto the sidewalk next to the street above. As I rolled down the bumpy cobbles I watched a middled-aged man pick up with a plastic bag what I can only imagine was dogshit, as his little white dog was standing next to him. "That's nice," I thought. The man proceeded to wad the bag into a ball, cock back his arm, and, with the casualness of tossing a ball to his son in a park, throw the bag of dogshit into the river.

I rolled past in disbelief. Twenty feet past him I hit the brakes, turned around and looked at him, trying to express what wouldn't have come out in Japanese or English - shock, rage, confusion. I looked at the little white bag, now sitting in the shallows of the river and glared at him again. He was looking at me, but I wasn't able to make out his facial expression. Unable to decide what to say or do, I started to ride off again, but then stopped and turned around to look at him again. By this time he was looking around: at the ground, the street - certainly not at the foreigner seething with rage 30 feet in front of him. "Fuck!" was all I could manage as I rolled off to work.

Shock subsided, optimism was shredded, and what was left was depression and bitterness. Here, in a 30 second vignette were all of humanity's problems boiled down. A man feels some social pressures but not others (picks up shit, disposes of it incorrectly), is lazy (tossing it instead of carrying it to the can), is self-centered and unable to cope with the slight discomfort of warm shit in close proximity, and is stupid, as throwing it in the river - in a plastic bag - is far worse than the cosmetic problem of leaving it on the sidewalk in the first place. Then, on the opposite end, a proponent of saving the planet froths and howls incomprehensibly at his offended principles, alternates between sadness and violent impulse. I walk the city and see it's vices, yet know some of the reasons. The smokestacks are industry, the shoppingmalls - jobs, the cars and planes a necessity of travel. But to catch someone innocently going about his daily stupidity hits harder than any grim scientist, spells trouble for humanity more than any foreboding report.

I not worried about future generations, nor am I worried about my unborn grandchildren -- they may not exist.

I'm worried about my future kids, I'm worried about me.

Reading Gore's books is like getting hit in the face by a prize-fighter in slow motion. You can see it coming, you can understand the footsteps - it's simple even! - but it doesn't fail to complete crush your skull. Want a summary of Gore's book? We are screwed. No, that's too passive. We've screwed ourselves.

In the course of my short life I have met people who say - oh global warming, it is just a warm year; pfff, that's just a hoax made by leftists to get votes; global warming? sounds good - I hate winter. First, there is zero doubt among scientists that the planet is warming up. Second, the only people that doubt it are those that have been duped by the hitman scientists hired by oil companies to spread disinformation. Before I read this book I knew the planet was warming up, I knew sea levels were rising, but I didn't know how much, how fast, and most importantly, what the corollary effects would be. So here we go:

Greenland's ice cap, which is melting rapidly, breaks up and slides into the sea. The massive increase in water raises global sea levels by 7m - that's 20ft. Do you live in Richmond? Better move. How about Bangladesh, Florida, Manhattan? Your house is going to be underwater. Holland, which has always been under sea level, will lose 3/4 of its landmass.

Think for a moment about 60m poor and homeless Bangladese trying to find a home. Where do they go? India. Is India going to be happy about 60m refugees? Where do all of the people in Miami move to? Do you think, if the death of 3000 people in 9/11 is enough for war, 60million people looking for a home might have a similar effect?

"But I live inland - that's no concern of mine." Really, well here are the corollary effects of a warmer planet:

--Desertification - parts of the US could lose as much as 60% of their soil moisture, which means - forest fires, crop failures and higher prices.
--Fires - shifts in climate cause drought in some places and floods elsewhere. Higher temperatures makes lightning more common, resulting in more fires, resulting in more CO2.
--Storm strength - Warmer seas and air means stronger storms. Last year the strongest hurricane ever recorded occurred - Hurricane Wilma. Katrina, not nearly as strong, crippled the whole Mississippi area and destroyed a city.
--No clean water - as the glaciers, particularly in the Himalayas, melt, the 40% of humanity in Asia could face a severe shortage of potable water.
--Permafrost melting - the arctic, much of which is in Canada, is accessible due to frozen roads. The number of days with frozen roads has dropped from 210 a year to less than 80 since 1960. Any structure built on the solidity of permafrost will suffer severe structural damage from it's shifting foundations.
--Forest destruction - Pine beetle, the scourge of BC? Cold winters are needed to kill it. Instead, they are killing trees, which then makes forest fires more likely, which increases CO2 and raises the temperature even further.
--Disruption of the Gulf Stream - there is a river of warm currents in the Atlantic that flows from South America to Europe, making Madrid much warmer than New York, despite the same latitude. A large dump of cold water as is coming from Greenland could totally stop the Gulf Stream, resulting, counter-intuitively in an Ice Age. It happened once 10,000 years ago when the last big Glacial lake suddenly dumped from the Great Lakes area into the Atlantic. The world suffered 1000 years of cold temperatures as a result.
--Warmer temperatures also mean an increase in disease, as well as disease bearing insects able to survive in places that were once too cold. Add a pile of corpses from floods and disease increases.
--Ocean acidification -- CO2 makes the ocean acidic. This kills coral reefs. Coral reefs are an important home for thousands of organisms. Goodluck getting sushi when we have made the ocean a wasteland.

Perhaps what will make most people take notice the most will be the economic effects. Insurance companies will no longer be able to predict potential weather damage and may either increase insurance premiums or refuse to insure certain homes or people. This would essentially make a house unsalable. Imagine row upon row of seaside home, slowly being approached by the ocean, with mortgages in the millions and no buyers. What happens to financial institutions when thousands of people declare bankruptcy at once, and also try to make an insurance claim? What then happens to global stock markets and the money you have squirreled away preciously?

Gore's website www.climatecrisis.net has information on what we can do individually to cut our CO2 emissions. Unfortunately, these are "lessen the blow" measures, as scientists are now saying that we are past the tipping point and the large changes are unpreventable. Gore asserts, however, that by making the transition NOW, not when the shit hits the fan, we can bear the hardship we have caused ourselves more ably.

A final note on the book: this book has really affected me, so far as to reconsider my career path. I received the book openly however. A critical problem for this book, despite its simple and graphics heavy design, is that it was written by a former Democratic Vice President. This means that in the polarized US, where the majority of change needs to happen, a large chunk of the populace will dismiss it as "liberal lies". It is hard not to be totally pessimistic about this, but I have tried to be proactive - I used my AC only for half of July and August, I installed compact fluorescent lights which I have been turning off as much as possible and I've been trying to cut my shower length to shorter than 10 minutes. I've been avoiding buying imported food as much as I can. I have been a real "I don't need a bag" nazi.

Despair is defeat, so go to that website!