Stop pointing to China as the world’s biggest polluter George. Of course it’s big - it’s an enormous country. America is nearly six times as bad when you discount the size difference.

We ALL need to make changes.  Squabbling over who does what first is just a childish waste of time.

On 27 September, George Bush - a man who has consistently opposed all attempts to get US emissions reduced - will host a conference in Washington at which he is widely expected to call for the imposition of cuts in emissions in developing nations. 

His call will ignore three key facts:

* Emissions per head of population in developing nations are way below those of developed countries.

* Large chunks of their emissions are due to the fact that they are now producing goods for the West. We’ve effectively shifted our own manufacturing abroad, because it saves us money.

* We have no right to demand that foreigners continue to live in poverty. We had our industrial revolution; now they are having theirs.  

The original Kyoto treaty - from which Bush withdrew - exempted developing nations for these very reasons.

As the Spectator article points out, since 1997, Western efforts to cut carbon emissions have come to almost naught. US carbon emissions are now 15% higher than they were in 1990 - the baseline used for all Kyoto targets. Japan’s emissions have risen by 11%. While EU carbon emissions have fallen by 2.9%, overall greenhouse gas emissions have risen.

In spite of this record of non-achievement, the West is increasingly hectoring the developing world on its carbon emissions.

But look at the facts:

Per head of population, in 2003 the Chinese emitted 3.2 tonnes of carbon and India 1.9 tonnes. The US, on the other hand, emitted 19.8 tonnes of carbon per capita. The UK emitted 9.4 tonnes, Germany 9.8 tonnes and France 6.4 tonnes. And, of course, these figures would have been even higher, had we not outsourced much of our manufacturing to countries such as China. 

I’d encorage you to read the Spectator article. It’s an illuminating and somewhat depressing piece of journalism that points out the utter hypocrisy of Western governments.

In mainland Europe, temperatures are soaring way above normal levels in a number of countries, causing devastating firestorms and� consequent loss of crops through drought. Similar stories are unfolding in many other nations, with drought, desertification� and fire affecting regions as diverse as Africa and the USA.

Meanwhile, in the UK we have been enduring rain storms for weeks on end and it looks like we’re headed for the wettest summer on record. Large parts of the country are flooded. We’ve had giant hail stones in the middle of London (interesting, but shovelling six inches of ice off my kitchen roof is not really my idea of fun).� Parts of London have been flooded, and in other areas of the country whole villages have been cut off, resulting in a number of deaths. Floods have inundated water treatment plants. The army is� helping to deliver water to people whose supplies are now polluted.� Meanwhile, flood water and sewage flows through their living rooms.� What a great summer.

Whilst it may be� debatable to link� all these events� directly to climate change,� the evidence is certainly strong. Either way, scientific research has now conclusively proven that human emissions of greenhouse� gases are� bringing about changes in the world’s climate� that are leading to erratic and more devastating weather patterns, coupled with a gradual increase in average global temperatures.�

And now, a scientific� report published in� Nature yesterday states� that� increases in both rainfall and drought are� being caused by human activity.� Ironic, perhaps, that some people are drowning whilst others are dying of thirst, but that’s the way things are going.�

Global warming doesn’t simply mean that it’s getting hotter. It also means that we’re in for much greater devastation from floods, tornados and� mudslides� in many areas.

Anyone want help me build an ark?

Claims that increased solar activity is the cause of global warming – rather than man-made greenhouse gases – have now been comprehensively disproved by a scientific study.

The study was undertaken by Mike Lockwood, a physicist at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Chilton, UK, and Claus Frolich of the World Radiation Centre in Davos, Switzerland.

It shows that, since the mid-80s, solar activity has been moving in the opposite direction to that which would be required to explain global warming. This means that the world should have been cooling over the past 20 years, if the sun were the cause. It hasn’t, of course - in fact the six hottest years ever recorded have all been within the last 10 years. 

Stefan Rahmstorf, a climate scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, described the paper as: “The final nail in the coffin for people who would like to make the Sun responsible for present global warming.”

The Study was reported in Nature on 5 July and made it to mainstream media on 11 July with this report in one of UK’s national newspapers, The Independent.

Here’s Sarah - with Trevor and Ed - looking kind of Earthy in her new t-shirt, plus a few more happy t-shirt wearers and a few air tattoos, the money for which went straight into the charity budget for expanding awareness of climate change issues. Thanks to everyone!

In the UK, attention was drawn to the story by Tuesday’s front page lead article in the Independent newspaper. The scientists’ paper, “Climate Change and Trace Gases” was originally published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.

Some of the more important points raised by the report are that:

* Sea levels rises may be as high as several metres by the end of this century.

* We have only around 10 years in which to implement draconian measures to curb CO2 emissions before we reach the dreaded “tipping point”, beyond which events will be beyond our control.

 * The additional heat from global warming may trigger an “albedo flip” - when the sunlight which is normally reflected by white ice is subsequently absorbed by the dark surface of the open ocean, once the ice has melted.

The researchers, from Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, the University of California, Santa Barbera, and the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University in New York, were led by James Hansen, the director of the Goddard Institute, who was the first scientist to warn the US Congress about global warming.

This isn’t some trumped up media story, written by a bunch of loony environmentalists with their own agenda. It’s a densely referenced paper from a group of respected scientists who have a real understanding of how we are ruining this planet. And it’s bloody scary.