one.point.zero - Colin O'Brien's weblog

“1970 is the same distance in time away from us now as 2050: that's how close the future is”

“We don't have any idea how to stop this,”

“Let us save the planet, by all means. But let's also admit to ourselves that we have a natural propensity toward guilt and indignation, and let that fact temper our fervor to more reasonable levels.”

“the average American would do less for the planet by switching to a totally local diet than by going vegetarian one day a week”

“70 percent of Vauban's families do not own cars, and 57 percent sold a car to move here”

“How clean does the pizza box have to be for it to be recyclable?”

“Some scientists think climate change needs a more radical approach. As well as trying to curb greenhouse-gas emissions, they have plans to re-engineer the Earth”

“What we are seeing in this desperate horse-trading is the endgame of the oil age”

“It doesn't take a student of psychology to tell us that if you keep moving the goal posts and offer little in the way of hope, then most people will simply give up trying”

“if it's clear that the risk is high, people will work together to reach a common goal. But if it's in the balance, then selfishness takes over”

“a litre bottle of Evian or Volvic generates up to 600 times more CO2 than a litre of tap water”

“When you only look at the raw materials to ask if something is really green, you are like the blind person holding the tail of the elephant”

“if you care about climate change forget about saving the planet”

“If a gadget is made in China by an American company and exported and used by consumers from Stockholm to Sao Paulo, Brazil, should the Chinese government be held responsible for the carbon released in manufacturing it?”

“There is simply no other measure as effective in quickly reducing traffic as congestion charging.”

“Every year, Americans throw away some 100 billion plastic bags after they've been used to transport a prescription home from the drugstore or a quart of milk from the grocery store. It's equivalent to dumping nearly 12 million barrels of oil.”

“The Live Earth concerts played strongly to people's denial strategies by promoting tokenistic activities and encouraging a bystander mentality”

“There is a very common mind-set right now which holds that all that we're going to need to do to avert the large-scale planetary catastrophes upon us is make slightly different shopping decisions”

“Companies that are polluting in China are owned by American, European, Japanese and others. They are benefiting from the cheap labour, from the resources and at the same time accusing China of pollution.”

“the focus on food miles is missing the bigger picture and may be counter-productive”

“We fly anywhere at the slightest opportunity, 10 times and upwards a year. This needs to be addressed with the greatest urgency”

“Mankind's appetite for the plastic bag is deeply daunting. It is estimated that one million are used every minute - their average working life just 12 minutes before they are discarded”

“The travelling circus between the European Parliament's two homes pumps the same amount of C02 into the atmosphere as 4,000 London homes”

“Air pollution in major cities may be more damaging to health than the radiation exposure suffered by survivors of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster”

“The governments using biofuel to tackle global warming know that it causes more harm than good. But they plough on regardless.”

“Tropical diseases like malaria will spread. By 2050, polar bears will mostly be found in zoos, their habitats gone. Pests like fire ants will thrive.”

“People, like animals, do not generally foul their own nests. But they feel free to throw rubbish around for much the same reason morons feel entitled to vandalise bus shelters, smash park benches or use telephone boxes as urinals: they do not feel the public realm is theirs.”

“The technology exists, perhaps, but the political will and the economic reality doesn't. That reality dictates that stopping climate change is nigh on impossible”

“A nightclub uses 150 times the energy of an average household and produces around 12,000 litres of glass to recycle from bottles and glasses each weekend”

“When a scientist talks about reducing greenhouse gas emissions ... he or she means just that; actually reducing them. But what it is coming to mean in the political lexicon is something very different”

“Telling people to plant trees to prevent global warming is like telling them to drink more water to keep down rising sea levels. The water - or gas - will come out in the end”

“From now on, if a restaurant does not offer me tap water, politely, unsarcastically, and before they offer mineral water, then they will be penalised.”

“Texas-based Exxon is trying to influence opinion-makers in Brussels because Europe - rather than the US - is the driving force for action on climate change.”

“Pork plus NutraSweet? That was definitely our last date”

“I am still in Beijing as I write this. It is going to be a long walk home.”

“Just as in the 15th and 16th centuries you could sleep with your sister and kill and lie without fear of eternal damnation, today you can live exactly as you please as long as you give your ducats to one of the companies selling indulgences”

“the day when we use more than our fair share of the Earth - when 'humanity starts eating the planet' is October 9”

“This business as usual approach is clearly unacceptable”

“By 2020, 2025, you will be able to sail a sailboat to the North Pole. The Amazon will become a desert, and the forests of Siberia will burn and release more methane and plagues will return”

“I deeply question the morality of responding to a crisis by running in the opposite direction and leaving everyone else to stew.”

“We used to think that it would take 10,000 years for melting at the surface of an ice sheet to penetrate down to the bottom. Now we know it doesn't take 10,000 years; it takes 10 seconds”

“the great droughts which had devastated the Sahel region of Africa had been caused in part by sulphate pollution in Europe and North America.”

“It was pure luck that there was not a meltdown. Since the electricity supply from the network didn't work as it should have, it could have been a catastrophe”

“Global warming is showing the limits of nuclear power plants, and nuclear power is destroying our environment”

“you don't make a new mess until you have cleared up the old one”

“We have more than enough oil, not to mention coal, to completely destroy the habitability of the planet. The real constraint on oil and coal is not supply, but global warming.”

“We do not have the luxury of time to allow individuals to save the world”

“we face a clear choice: reduce aviation's expansion, or give up on tackling climate change altogether”

“Pull your head out of the last century and make a real choice”

“The answer appears to be a clear no. Not by a long shot.”

“We know that our elected leaders and the corporate interests they represent are not going to lead the way to the change we need; they are in fact our main obstacles. Despite being in full possession of the facts, they want to carry on making it worse.”