Euro Wars

The French minister hits back, as an anti-Europe tone breaks out again in Britain

The trashing of Dominique Voynet, France’s environment minister, by Prescott and sections of the British press was astonishing. She was said to head a team of “French wreckers” who “sandbagged” Prescott. Or she was “too tired” to hammer out details of a compromise at the Hague implying she’d behaved “irrationally” before. What would you expect; French, a woman and an environmentalist – she might just as well have a couple of horns and a forked tail.

Full article: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2000/nov/28/comment.climatechange

How to go green

As world leaders meet to talk (and talk) about global warming, Ros Coward offers 10 practical steps we can all take to help save the planet

Today, world leaders are meeting in the Hague to discuss climate change and what – if anything – can be done to combat global warming. Their discussions will be full of abstractions about “carbon trading” and “flexible mechanisms”. But for many us here, the issue has suddenly become far from abstract. Extreme weather conditions have brought home the fact that our climate is changing – and changing fast. It may be easy to be fatalistic about it, but the truth is that although we humans have caused the problem, we also have the solution. “Think global and act local,” said Friends of the Earth founder David Bower, who died last week. In many small but important ways we can make a difference. Here are my top tips for how to begin:

Full article: http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2000/nov/13/shopping

The feel bad factor

The public’s intimate relationship with their car as a ‘second skin’ is what drives their irrational fuel protests

The fuel protests are a ragbag of different interests. Their cause – “cheaper fuel” – is actively unpopular with people concerned about the environment. This is not the stuff of popular revolution. It has only become so because it has tapped into something potent; the feel bad factor.

Full article: http://www.theguardian.com/business/2000/nov/07/oil.roscoward