Saturday Morning 'Toon: Climate Change Edition

A little animation on how the climate tipping point works.

Pick of the Day: Bright Star

Directed by Jane Campion (The Piano), this biopic details a brief love affair between British poet John Keats (Ben Whishaw) and his neighbour Fanny Brawne (Abby Cornish). Considering Keats, a leading figure along with Byron and Shelley of the Romantic period who was born in central London in 1795, died at age 25 (likely from tuberculosis in Rome) pretty much everything about his life would qualify as brief. In Campion's film, we see him through the eyes of the pragmatic Fanny -- a dressmaker who defied convention to fall in love with the penniless poet. Author of such classic works as Ode to a Nightengale and Ode on a Grecian Urn, Keats, in his short life, epitomized the romantic ideal of the impoverished artist. That ideal still operates, of course. Pretty much the only reason we have art in our money-grubbing society is because a small segment of the population, similar to Keats in his day, is willing to sacrifice virtually everything -- their financial well-being, their social standing, even their health, in order to create. If you see this film, please keep that in mind. Here's the trailer. (YouTube)

Toronto Mayor Accepts Fossil Award

Canada took home two Fossil of the Day awards in Copenhagen today, taking the first and second prize for promoting inaction on climate change. This means we've six in total now, more than any other nation -- we're even decisively out ahead of the Ukraine. (Er... yay?)

We scored our twofer first thanks to a declaration from our cheif negotiator that Canada's carbon emission reduction target of minus 3% over 1990 level is "science based" (real scientists say developed countries should be shooting for minus 25 to 40% over 1990 levels), and second for our environment minister saying that the Kyoto Protocol should not be extended and something new put in place.

Toronto mayor, David Miller was on hand to collect our "prize", saying that, like most Canadians, he's ashamed of our government's appalling record on climate change.