This is obviously off topic but an important issue nonetheless. This months’ issue of GQ (Hello Gisele!) has a fairly interesting feature, “You can’t save the planet”, that touches on a handful of issues surrounding the whole green movement and what we can do to help bring about change. The gist is that we’re basically screwed. One particular fact was astounding and made my jaw drop.

“…the best estimates claim that to contain global warming, the world’s emissions will need to be cut by 80 percent.”

Ted Nugent had a great quote that was both amusing and, well, you can draw your own conclusion:

“Ahh, the fuckin’ flavor of what you grow yourself. Here in Michigan, we consider the warm months another hunting season, because that’s when all the mushrooms and berries and wild asparagus come out. We just have an orgy on that stuff. In a war on terror, the only way we can beat our enemy is to be healthy both physically and spiritually. Good food you grow will make you physically strong, and a hands-on relationship with mother earth makes you spiritually strong.”

Sir Richard Branson, on the other hand, had a great quote that’s certainly geared towards our crowd:

“It’s up to businesses to come up with inventions that enable people to still enjoy a good lifestyle. If people feel like they’re going to have to make too big a sacrifice, they’re just not going to listen. So it’s up to people like me to make sure that consumers don’t stop flying on planes but are passengers on planes that use clean fuels. going green saves money. It’s bizarre that airlines aren’t making this their number one priority. They should be. I’m just finishing converting Necker Island, an island I won in the Caribbean. It’ll be 100 percent carbon-neutral. The cost of putting in windmills be paid back in four and a half years. And after that, we’ll have free fuel going forward for the next fifty years. Going green shouldn’t cost you.”

That’s great, Sir Richard, but we can’t all afford to convert our islands. The cheapest solar power units start around $25,000. I don’t even know what it costs to install a windmill.

Back to the headline.

The G8 summit is slated for July 7-9 summit in Hokkaido, Japan and US environmentalists say there will likely be no discussion on the issue of climate change.

Pew Environment Group Deputy Managing Director Philip Clapp had this to say,

“There has been a very little agreement on actual outcome from that process that will be announced on the final day of the G8 summit on July 9, coinciding with the conclusion of the summit itself,”

“What you are likely to see is a large rhetorical statement saying that everyone is committed to reduce their (carbon) emissions,”

“perhaps, a little more definition as to the levels nations should agree to, developed and developing nations, but nothing that is really a significant step forward at this moment in terms of framing the negotiations.”

What might be discussed at G8 is the “US proposal for a “clean technology fund at the World Bank” to help developing nations,” says Mark Helmke, environmental advisor to the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Richard Lugar. He goes on to say that the likelihood of the US Senate passing it this year “is extremelly remote.”

We’re screwed. Enjoy it while it lasts, folks. I grew up in Oregon, this kind of stuff bugs me, so sue me if it’s off topic.