Ok so we’re a family that seems to generate a lot of rubbish … there might only be two of us and we’re always careful about buying products that have the least amount of packaging and we recycle till our fingers bleed but somehow we just seem to produce a lot of rubbish.

I suppose that it has something to do with the fact that we work from home but whatever the reason the fact that we do produce a lot of trash has got me interested in ways of being environmentally friendly and recycling what may seem to be non-recyclable. So this post over on LifeGoggles got me interested.

It seems that Coskata Inc has developed a process that will allow it to produce what it calls ‘flex-ethanol’ and this fuel can be used in today’s cars and trucks. The source of the fuel is wood biomass, agricultural waste and even household garbage and old tires. The company says that basically anything that has carbon in it can be converted into ethanol so the amount of garbage a plant like this can chew up and recycle into some useful is enormous.

And the good news is that according to the company the cost of production is less than the cost of producing a gallon of gasoline. When you think that we can be recycling huge amounts of our non-recyclable garbage and turning it into fuel to burn in our cars and trucks there is certainly a chance that we can cure our waste landfill problems in a very dramatic way.

Perhaps there is a company that we could be investing some of our dollars in instead of wasting it on trying to get politicians to do something about the environment. It’s certainly worth considering … especially when the cost of a gallon of this fuel may cost less than a gallon of regular gas.

So the climate change talks in Copenhagen don’t see to be going anywhere. Poorer nations and trying to point fingers and play the blame game while wealthier nations are trying to tell the world that it’s not just them who should be bearing the burden of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Meanwhile off in the wings there are still people who are trying to tell the world that climate change just isn’t happening and it’s all a figment of our imagination. Instead of worrying about climate change and being environmentally friendly we should all be out polluting and using up the planet’s scare resources just as fast as we can.

And then there are those desperate people who are watching the sea levels rise and their small islands become even smaller. They know that climate change is real and they know that they’re going to be the ones who will suffer first.

So the chances of the Copenhagen climate change talks achieving anything positive for the environment and becoming less and less every day. Sure there are some experts who are remaining hopeful that something positive will come out of the meeting but most attendees at the conference are beginning to see it all as a bit of a waste of time.

I guess if you believe in the power of prayer it really is time to start praying. If you believe in the power of positive thinking then it’s time to start sending positive thoughts in the direction of the climate change conference and if you don’t believe in climate change then it’s time to pull your head out of the sand and get in touch with reality.

If nothing happens in Copenhagen then climate change is going to come and bite us on the ass and even the climate change skeptics will feel the pain of that.

It’s the global disaster that everyone is hearing about right now. It’s what some people … and unfortunately what lots of people in Congress … don’t believe is happening.

It’s what is threatening the very existence of some of the island nations in the Pacific and it’s destroying Bangladesh … a nation with a huge population that borders India to the east. And it’s the subject of a huge conference that’s looking at ways of halting it but may end up achieving absolutely nothing.

So climate change is obviously very important but just how much do you know about climate change? Have you ever stopped to think about the way climate change is affecting people’s lives at all levels?

Well here’s a chance for you to see exactly what is happening in Bangladesh where millions of very poor people are going to be made homeless as climate change continues to have an impact on sea levels. For them, when the sea levels rise to high, there are very few alternatives other than to pack up what they can carry on their back and try to cross the border into India and try to start a new life.

Of course India is already overcrowded and it’s going to have its own problems caused by climate change so it won’t want all those refugees from Bangladesh … just as no one wants the refugees from those island nations in the Pacific either.

So what’s going to happen to those Bangladeshi refugees? Are they going to be driven back into the submerged land that was once Bangladesh? Are they going to be resettled in other countries like the United States?

We as a planet need to address the root cause of the problem and for that we need everyone to believe in global warming and climate change so we need to start telling our congressmen and senators to wake up to the reality of climate change.

You’ll find videos of the way climate change is affecting Bangladesh here and I need to give a hat tip to Life Goggles for a link to the videos.

I heard some very scary numbers about the number of Republicans in the United States who believe that global warming is really happening.

The numbers are scary not just because they’re Republicans but because they indicate that there are a huge number of people in this country who just don’t believe anything bad is happening to the environment.

Perhaps it’s because all the news we ever seem to get on TV is focused on what happens within our own country and if you’ve never been overseas to countries like Britain or Australia you will probably think that I’m crazy … but it’s true.

Sit down and watch a news bulletin on TV in one of those countries and you will hear the important news from all over the world. Watch a TV news bulletin here and all you will see is news about what’s happening here. So I guess it’s no wonder that there are many people in this country who don’t believe that global warming is happening.

If all they ever hear is news about the United States then they wouldn’t have heard about several inhabited islands in the Torres Straight between Australia and Papua New Guinea where … within just a few years … the islands will be covered in water at high tide.

They have already experienced tides where the sea has come in and covered much of the island. Even at low tide the sea is now encroaching on parts of the islands and the cemetery on one island has been all but washed away.

It’s something that hasn’t happened in thousands of years yet now that global warming is upon us the sea level is rising and these people have no where to go.

Those two islands aren’t the only islands affected either. There are a large number of islands in the Pacific that will be heavily impacted by global warming. The island nation of Kirabiti will disappear all together in the next few years as sea levels rise and a whole nation will need to be relocated.

Tuvalu is another island nation in the Pacific that is in real danger of disappearing under the sea if nothing is done about global warming. So how can people truly believe that global warming is something that we don’t have to worry about?

Have Americans really reached the point where they just don’t care about anyone else on the planet?

If you really want to be environmentally friendly then we definitely have to think globally and not just think about what may or may not be happening in our county.

The world leaders are meeting in Copenhagen this week to try and reduce the amount of emissions that we’re pumping into the atmosphere. We desperately need to bring those emissions down to the point where the rate of global warming will be reduced and by the end of the century there will have only been an increase in temperatures of two degrees.

Some who are attending the conference believe that two degrees is a very achievable figure and industrialized countries around the world are already on track to achieve this target. But there are others who are not so sure and there are more than a few who believe that we’re not going to even come close to achieving the targets that have been set.

Already several major climate change groups have added up the promises made prior to the Copenhagen meeting and the numbers do not look good at all. Despite being quite different and quite separate two of the groups who have done the number crunching have come up with very similar results and if they’re right then the Copenhagen meeting is going to have to go way beyond what most observers are expecting.

Both groups believe that by the year 2100 temperatures will have risen beyond the 2 degree target and the world will be looking at problems that approach a nightmare scenario that will involve just about everything that we really don’t want to think about.

So as the world leaders are meeting in Copenhagen this week we need to start bombarding them with emails demanding that they take serious action and go beyond what they had originally promised. The planet and the future of our children’s children depend on it!

Sadly we here in the United States are deluged with news … it’s coming in on the television 24/7 and you can access it on the Net or on Twitter and it’s everywhere … but so often it’s just crap. It’s not the news that we really need to hear … I mean who cares that Tiger Woods and his wife had a domestic? Of what importance it that to people like you and me?

It’s of not importance to people like you and me … yet that’s the sort of news that we get day in and day out. Instead of delivering important news … news about the speeding up of global warming and possibility that in a few years we could be facing a world without ice is overlooked. It’s not newsworthy … people don’t want to hear it … so it’s not broadcast here in the United States.

Yet it definitely is happening. Huge glaciers that supply China with the water that keeps its rivers flowing, and have done so for thousands of years, are melting at a rate that absolutely scares the Chinese authorities.

The North Pole could be entirely ice-free in summer within just a few years … perhaps even as soon as next year … and a few years beyond that it could be ice-free in winter too.

It’s a very scary possibility and if we end up with no ice on the planet then places like then even the future of our big cities and the people who live in them are in doubt.

To find out more of what we might face in the future check out Amazon for a book called “A World Without Ice” by Henry N Pollack … it will give you a very clear perspective on what’s happening to us that you find mentioned in most news bulletins.

A ht tip to Life Googles for the story.

For quite some time now the major excuse that many climate change skeptics have put forward for not doing anything about reducing our emissions here in the United States has been the fact that China is doing nothing to reduce their emissions.

If China … the world’s number one polluter … isn’t doing anything about reducing emissions to try and combat climate change then why should the United States … the world’s number two polluter?

Well now those climate change skeptics who want to use that line of reasoning to excuse us from doing our part are going to have to come up with a new excuse for China has just announced a plan to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 45 percent by the year 2020.

I guess that some people thought that China didn’t believe in climate change and global warming because China hasn’t said a whole lot about it and we all saw just about the air quality was in Beijing during the Olympics.

But the Chinese leaders haven’t been burying their heads in the sand over climate change and global warming. They already know that China is going to be one of the countries that that will be most affected by global warming.

In China’s north-west there are some huge glaciers and the gradual melt from those glaciers feeds the major rivers in China but now those glaciers are melting at an ever increasing rate and if global warming isn’t stopped the glaciers will disappear … and so will the rivers.

So China intends to cut emissions by 45 percent over the next 10 years and make positive moves towards using renewable energy across the country. Now that leaves our climate change skeptics with one unanswered question … what excuse are they going to use now to justify their position?

Watching them run around in ever decreasing circles looking for an answer should be fun … and also very sad.

While we often think that being environmentally friendly involves recycling, conserving our dwindling natural resources and being eco-smart when it comes to the use of power and water there’s a whole other dimension that many of us don’t think about. That other dimension involves preserving and protecting the entire ecology of the planet and that goes way beyond what most of us have ever thought about.

It involves preserving every species of wildlife that in habits the planet with us and that means that we need to be protecting everything from tiny insects to giant whales. Each species plays an important part in balancing our environment and when a species becomes extinct then the whole suffers.

And right now there are many who would quite happily hunt some of our biggest whale species to the point of extinction. In fact right now, as you read this, there’s a Japanese whaling fleet heading south to Antarctic waters to hunt humpback whales. Of course, if you ask the Japanese they’re not hunting whales at all … they’re carrying out scientific research.

But what scientific research can be done on a lump of whale meat? And that’s all there is at the end of the hunting process … the whales are harpooned … dragged onto a factory ship and cut up on the spot. Any suggestion that the whaling fleet engages in scientific research is simply not true.

Over the past few years the number of whales taken by the Japanese has been reduced thanks to pressure from other countries and thanks to a few activists who are prepared to sail down to those same Antarctic waters and place themselves between the hunter/killer ships and the whales.

But that’s not enough … the hunting of whales needs to be stopped completely so if you want to get serious about the environment then it’s time to join the fight to stop whaling once and for all. A little more pressure and the Japanese just might give it up for good.

You’ll find some links to anti-whaling organizations that could use your help right here.

The World Wild Life Fund’s study into climate change suggested that we had five years at the very most to start turning thing around or climate change and all that entails would become irreversible and we would all suffer the consequences.

Next month world leaders are meeting in Copenhagen for the 2009 Environmental Summit and already the name calling has started with African leaders attacking Australia’s Prime Minister. As the Green Living Blog says … when it comes to Copenhagen get your pessimism in early.

Here in the United States last week a key environmental bill seemed on the verge of stalling in Congress simply because the Republicans wanted yet another survey by the Environmental Protection Agency after the last survey by the Environmental Protection Agency failed to agree with their blinkered view of climate change.

What do we have to do to get world leaders … and our elected representatives … off their collective bottoms and motivated to actually save the planet?

Of course we can do nothing about those people who are so out of touch with reality and just go on trying to save the planet by recycling and cutting back on consumption … that’s really the easy option and like all easy options it’s probably not much of an option at all.

Or we can get a little fired up and start writing to our representatives and giving them plenty of good reasons why they need to get in touch with reality and understand that we’re facing a global catastrophe if they don’t stop bickering and get on with passing legislation that has the teeth to protect the environment.

Sometimes all it will take is a hint that they may not get elected next time and history may remember them as the people in authority who sat around doing nothing while the environment began to come apart at the seams.

And is there really any hope? Of course there is just so long as we are prepared to fight for the planet!

I’ve just got back from the beach … even as the weather gets a little cooler down here it’s nice to be able to go for a walk on the beach as the sun sets and let the sounds of the surf clear my head.

I must admit that I try not to take any of the grandkids with me when I go down there … I love their chatter but that time is for me and for some introspection and that’s hard to do when you have little kids who are so in awe of everything that Nature wants to show them when they visit the beach.

This time I couldn’t avoid taking one of my grandsons with me and he wanted to know why we left such deep foot prints in the soft sand … he also wanted to know why I left such big foot prints. Fortunately for me he did become a little quiet as the walk went on and my thoughts began to kick in.

I guess all that talk about foot prints on the beach got me thinking about the foot prints we leave on this earth because, unlike the foot prints on the beach that will get washed away when the tide comes in, our ecological foot prints will still be here long after we’re dead and buried.

But what is an ecological foot print? Well these days our ecological foot print is seen as a gauge of how many of the Earth’s resources we use throughout our lives. People in less-developed countries than our own leave a much lighter foot print on the earth while those of us in countries like the United States tend to leave a very deep, very lasting and very unsightly foot print.

Leading environmentalists believe that more advanced countries … like the United States … should be striving mightily to reduce our ecological foot print by limiting much of the excess that we take for granted. But it’s not just the governments of western countries that should be limiting our ecological foot print … every single individual in the western world should be making a real effort to reduce their individual foot prints.

Surprisingly many experts suggest that individuals don’t have to do a lot to make a real difference with their ecological foot print. The more you’re committed to walking lightly on this earth and the more time and effort you’re prepared to put into being more environmentally friendly the impact you will have on your nation’s ecological foot print.

Many suggest that if you want to have the greatest impact then you need to change the ways that you use energy. Install energy efficient light bulbs , turn off electrical items when you’re not using them … and really turn them off by flicking the switch at the wall socket. See if there are some alternative energy sources that you can tap into around your home too.

Recycling is important too and you should reuse everything you possibly can. Don’t throw your aluminum cans or steel cans in the trash … recycle them instead. Cardboard and newspapers should go in the recycling crate too and don’t forget all the different types of plastic container that comes into the home … most of them can be recycled and you’re not serious about being environmentally friendly if you aren’t recycling them.

You can also reduce your ecological foot print outside of the home too. If you drive everywhere then think about some better planning for your trips so that you only make one trip a day instead of a whole bunch of short ones.

Hey, is that a bus I see down on the corner? Well so what if it doesn’t come up your street or pull up right outside your door? Use public transport whenever you can and leave your car at home or do two important things at once and save on greenhouse emissions and get some exercise by riding a bike or even walking … now there’s a radical concept!

If you really want to get serious and reduce your ecological foot print then maybe it’s time to get even more radical than walking to some of the places you have to go. Maybe it’s time to move to a smaller house. Do you really need all that extra space, three bathrooms, a spa, a three car garage, and a pool?

Consider the food you buy and think about growing as much of your own food as you can. Even if you live in an apartment you can have some vegetables growing in pots and if you live in a house there’s no reason why you can’t have an extensive vegetable garden.

The smaller ecological foot print you can leave behind the better it will be and while we’re thinking about our own ecological foot print we need to be teaching our kids and grandkids to think about their ecological foot print too. The planet is not going to survive unless we get serious about reducing the depth and size of our ecological foot print.