To my mind the bottom line is the price of Oil and the future of the planet are linked. If we, as a world, stop buying oil the price will go down; stop using oil and the planet becomes healthier and our supplies will last a very long time. This in turn will ease the transition from an addiction to oil to simply using oil.

Climate change is a global problem and currently world leaders are in a holding pattern. This is the ultimate game of Texas Hold' em poker with the future of the planet and comparative standard of living as the prize. No one will do anything more than window dressing until everyone is 'all in'. The first to make the change will arguably be the first to 'lose' in the standard of living stakes.

With India and China on the rise and the USA and Europe on the decline do not expect Asia to move first or quickly. Such a monumental move is practically impossible this side of the elections in the US, and unlikely to happen anytime soon in China and India. When China steadfastly refuses to honour copyright laws and our standards of human rights what chance do global carbon emissions have?

Sorry Kevin, political correctness aside, Australia don't really matter; the US, India and China are the ones only ones that matter - everything else is window dressing.

Things may be getting worse rather than better, recently George W put it to congress that restrictions on off-shore USA oil prospecting and drilling should be lifted along with those on mining in the native forests in Alaska, all in the name of our lust for oil. What we can read from this is that he and his party believe oil at any cost is better than real change and more certainly more important than climate change.

Many of you will have seen the article on the mining of 'Sand Oil' in North America on 60 Minutes a fortnight ago and the Australian talking about mining shale oil here too; what these have in common is rely on destroying vast tracts of native forests. There is no change here ... apart from climate change.

Recently Russian scientists had to be rescued from a melting ice flow in the far north as ice melted faster than expected in sea water warmer than projected.

It seems time to act is shorter than many of the more educated among us believe - and yet still the wait for a change in the way we think goes on and our governments 'hold'. When I talk to people on the street almost all want to see change but I see precious little happening here in New South Wales anyway. We can only hope the Pope's visit will bring enlightenment where the Dalai Lama's visit did not.

How will we know when we are on the right track?

In the true 'back to the future' paradigm perhaps we need to look out for a few of these things:

1. A return to reusable bottles with refundable deposits - as well as giving kids pocket money it will also decrease the need for manufactured products and landfill.

2. Tariffs on the imports of all new products to force up prices to make 'fixing things' a viable business so we reduce consumption without the loss of jobs. The throwaway economy of the last few decades is clearly unsustainable.

3. Massive investment in rail and public transport as well as cycle lanes everywhere and large pedestrian only malls in all our business districts.

There is also a case presented in many quarters that it is the time to rewind the privatisation clock to protect vital public infrastructure from the profit requirement while the changes in technology are rolled out, I wonder if we will see QANTAS and Telstra in government hands in the next decade?

To see the Sixty Minutes story about new sources of oil <a href="http://sixtyminutes.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=578851">click
here.</a>
To read about George W Bush's plans for prospecting oil in the USA <a href="http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/11239/newsDate/
19-Jun-2001/story.htm">click here.</a>
To comment tell John you like or hate his views <a href="http://blog.jwgecko.com/archive/2008/07/keeping_it_real_on_climate
_change.cfm">click here!</a>