Non-profits

The more sharp-eyed among you may have noticed a new item in DeSmogBlog's sidebar. It's our big donation button!

There is no doubt that we have caught the attention of US think tanks and well-known climate change deniers like Steve "the Junkman" Milloy, the Heartland Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute and Senator James Inhofe.

But now we're ready to take our US operations to the next level. Our goals are to increase our research capabilities, hire a Washington insider and enhance our US political and media monitoring.

It seems that the American Association of Petroleum Geologists is softening its former hard-line stance on global warming.

A new proposed position paper on their site contains a lukewarm acknowledgment of the role human activity and greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels plays in the present warming. They state:

Humans, simply by virtue of the size of the world's population, represent a new agent of change through our significant modifications related to land use, urbanization, industrial activity, and through changes in atmospheric composition related to fuel combustion and deforestation."

A group called the Children's Clean Air Network, comprised of Halifax elementary school students, has inspired one car dealership to stop their daily idling habits.

Ron Zima, of the CCAN has a mission to make idling in Halifax a thing of the past, hoping to make it as socially unacceptable as cigarettes.

His group’s video inspired Volkswagen dealership owner Mike Velemirovich to stop the practice of starting and running every car on his lot on cold days. Not only is he inspired by the environmental benefit but his annual savings from eliminating that practice alone, which even he acknowledges as useless, is $3000! Unlike your typical Idol contests - everybody wins here.

The labeling scheme , operated by the Carbon Trust, will show shoppers how much carbon was emitted in the manufacture and transportation of goods. Participating companies will have to agree to slash the product’s “carbon footprint” to stay in the program.