As someone who’s going to be a father in a few months I’ve been developing a renewed interest in global warming caused by carbon dioxide emissions. A world in which hundreds of millions of people are displaced by rising ocean levels, where agriculture is disrupted, and where fresh water becomes such a commodity worth fighting over is not a world where stability and social progress is likely to hold sway. And that’s not a world I want my child to inherit.

At times the situation seems hopeless. The Bush administration “unsigned” the Kyoto treaty, which was a deeply flawed document but which at least acknowledged that there was a problem to address, and either denies that there is a problem or admits it and then does nothing. They’ve refused to create tougher standards for fuel efficiency in cars or domesic appliances, on the grounds that these would hurt the economy — ignoring the fact that if people saved money on fuel they’d spend it on other things anyway. The fact that many members of the administration have made fortunes in the oil industry and will soon be returning to lucrative positions on boards of companies in that industry is no doubt connected with their faux skepticism.

And the switch to a Democratic congress may not make any difference; I think we can safely assume that the generally spineless Dems may well impose more stringent fuel efficiency targets but are unlikely to take the radical steps necessary in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in a meaningful way. The reason? They’d be unwilling to ask the electorate to make changes in the way they live.

Of two articles published today in the New York Times, one reinforces my doubts while the other gives me hope. The first piece, Energy Use Can Be Cut by Efficiency, Survey Says, gives details from a report by the McKinsey Global Insitute, claiming that the growth energy use world-wide could be halved over the next 15 years by the implementation of greater efficiency standards. The report claims that these energy reductions can be achieved with current technology and would save money for consumers and companies.

But let’s get straight what this report is saying: the growth in energy use could, maybe, possibly, be slowed down to half its present levels. In other words, things would still get worse but not as fast. It’s like saying that we’re driving towards the edge of a cliff but if we try really hard we could do it at 50 miles per hour rather than 100. And that’s if every government in the world has the political will to impose new energy-efficiency standards that would save more money in the long term but push up prices right now. This doesn’t fill me with hope, although I’m still committed to buying compact fluorescent bulbs for the house, I’m driving less, and my next car will be a hybrid electric-gasoline model.

The other, more encouraging, report isn’t a grand plan for saving the world from global warming, but discusses one energy-efficient product; a cheap laptop computer that consumes just two watts of power, compared with the 25 to 45 watts consumed by a conventional laptop. The article, For $150, Third-World Laptop Stirs a Big Debate, details the translation from a dream to reality of Nicholas Negroponte’s vision of producing a $100 laptop for use by children in the developing world (OK, he missed the $100 target but $150 is still pretty good).

The project has been criticized by Microsoft (the computer runs on the free system, Linux) and the computer chip manufacturer, Intel (the computer, surprise, surprise, does not use Intel’s chips).

The nonprofit project, One Laptop Per Child, has produced a truly innovative product, with a new type of screen, no hard-drive (it uses flash memory), and an energy-saving processor that switches off when not in use. The computers are able to network with each other over distances of a third of a mile, allowing internet connections to reach remote areas. The battery can be recharged manually, using a foot-pump, and can be easily replaced.

Argentina, Brazil, Libya, Nigeria and Thailand have tentatively agreed to put the computers into the hands of millions of students and production in Taiwan is expected to begin by the middle of 2007.

But my main point is that energy consumption: two watts, versus 25 to 45 watts for a conventional laptop. If a nonprofit group can bring about such astonishing energy savings in a common household product, what else might be achieved?

Here’s a disturbing article about alleged abuses of the organic labeling system in the US. Ronnie Cummings, National Director of the Organic Consumers Association, claims that some of the largest producers of “organic” milk in the US do not in fact allow their cows out to pasture (except when camera crews are visiting), and that the USDA lets them get away with it.

Organic milk is supposed to come from cows that are grass-fed and that are not treated with hormones or antibiotics to boost their milk production. Most cows raised on non-organic farms rarely if ever get to go out to pasture, and spend their lives on concrete feedlots eating highly artificial feeds containing hormones, antibiotics, and animal proteins. Increasingly, as consumers become aware of what’s involved in conventional farming, they are turning to organic milk and other organic products. This trend is so well developed that there are actually shortages of organic milk. There’s therefore an enormous pressure for farms to game the system.

There are also allegations that Silk (the makers of organic soy milk found in virtually every major US supermarket) have been bought over by a large corporation and are now buying soy beans of questionable provenance from China and Brazil (where the rainforest is being cleared to make way for soy bean farms). As someone who regularly purchases Silk soy milk I’m concerned to hear this and I’ll be looking into this further.

The following book review was published in Wildmind’s latest newsletter.

8 Minute Meditation: Quiet Your Mind. Change Your Life, by Victor Davich (Perigee Trade, paperback, $12.95).

You can expect from Mr. Davich’s book a witty and engaging guide to some basic meditation techniques drawn from the world of Insight Meditation. The book outlines a systematic eight-week program of meditation, including the practices of simply following each breath, staying in the moment by “noting” thoughts as being about the past or future, paying attention to sounds, and some instructions on cultivating lovingkindness.

The guidance is clear and useful, but brief — probably totaling around a dozen pages out of almost 200. Most of the rest of the book deals with the common questions and misperceptions that teachers encounter — along the lines of meditation being the same as hypnotism, or meditation being a form of escapism — as well as some biographical material and a select list of resources.

Unfortunately you can’t, due to the unrelenting self-help-expert persona that Mr. Davich adopts, expect to be treated as an adult. We’re frequently reminded that the book contains no difficult words or complicated ideas. I don’t, it must be said, have any aversion to ideas that are expressed simply, but if you’re going to write that way just do it, and stop telling me you’re doing it! Keeping up his seventh-grade-level approach, the author even supplies us with a little “Certificate of Completion” that we can fill out ourselves. We’re also reminded that the author got an A in an exam and worked for two — not one, but two! — Fortune 500 companies, although what bearing this is meant to have on his abilities as a meditation instructor is not clear.

While I felt uncomfortable with the self-help presentation, I still thought that the guidance was apt and that the instructions, although simple, were effective. 8 Minute Meditations would certainly be useful for the readership at which it is clearly aimed — those who are seeking inspiration in the “self-help” section of their local bookstore and are completely new to meditation. More experienced meditators may gain some insights that could feed their practice, but I’d recommend that readers who fall into that category seek elsewhere for guidance.

Here’s a compelling one-minute film from Dove on the way that false images of female beauty are created for the media.

That last post was just because I was subscribing my blog to Technorati and I had to put a link to my profile to prove I owned the blog. But while I was there [Vanity alert!!!] I did a quick search for my name and was pleasantly surprised to see that I’ve been blogged fairly often.

One blogger had apparently retyped my entire book on vegetarianism, had a friend add cartoons, and posted the whole thing online. Can you say “copyright violation” anyone? Anyway, I’m really not too bothered since it’s good to get the message of non-harm out there, and in fact I’m a little disappointed that the e-book no longer seems to be available. I wonder what the cartoons looked like?

Here’s my Technorati profile: Technorati Profile