Rallies nationwide urge Congress: Step it up on climate

"Americans worried about climate change gathered Saturday on ski slopes and in cities for a nationwide day of demonstrations aimed at drawing attention to globalwarming.

More than 1,300 events were organized in every state under the banner Step It Up 2007 to push Congress to require an 80 percent cut in carbon dioxide emissions by 2050.

"When it comes to globalwarming, I don't exactly think President Bush is doing such a hot job," said 12-year-old New Yorker Tiffany Cordero. "A lot of people are thinking just of now. But we won't have a 'now' if we don't focus on the future."

Tiffany delivered a speech for a rally in lower Manhattan's Battery Park, overlooking New York Harbor, where people dressed in blue -- some equipped with scuba gear and beach balls -- gathered to form a Sea of People human line to symbolically mark New York's future coastline.

Scientists say melting polar ice caps and glaciers will cause ocean levels to rise, although estimates vary. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has projected that ocean levels will rise 7 to 23 inches this century, but other scientists warn the sea level could rise 10 feet or more, enough to flood Lower Manhattan and other low-lying coastal areas.

The threatened rise in the ocean also was dramatized by a New Coast Parade in Portland, Maine, one of more than 30 observances in that state."

Source: CNN

The US public is finally waking up, and now the children are voicing their opinion as well. I don't see how the Bush administration can resist this.

Ethanol tops U.S.-Brazil talks

"President Bush and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Saturday discussed globalwarming, ethanol and trade, as well as poverty, hunger, disease and peace in the Middle East, the leaders said.

Lula da Silva was a guest at Camp David in Maryland. It was Bush's second meeting with the Brazilian leader in less than a month. They met three weeks ago when Bush stopped in Sao Paulo during his five-nation tour of Latin America.

At the top of Saturday's agenda was ethanol.

"For me, the biofuel issue is almost like an obsession," Lula da Silva told reporters through an interpreter.

During the past four years, Brazil has been able to reduce the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest by 52 percent, saving some 2 million hectares (5 million acres), he said. Through the use of ethanol, carbon gas emissions have been reduced by some 400 million tons.

"Either we take care of planet Earth very carefully ... or we regret that in the future," Lula da Silva said."

Source: CNN.com

We all have a lot to learn from Brazil when it comes to ethanol. I read somewhere that about 95% of all new cars sold in Brazil are fueled by ethanol. The perhaps most dominant brand of cars is Ford with its Flexifuel system. Most of Brazil's ethanol comes from sugar canes, of which the rest product is used as furtilizer. Therefore nothing is wasted.