Shopping causes global warming...

Here's a report from a British think tank that wants us to stop shopping....

Just as the conference in Bali on global warming wraps up with a middling agreement, consumers in the US and Europe are rushing to holiday stores, mostly unaware of how their Christmas consumerism affects global warming. The British independent think-tank, New Economics Foundation (NEF) has released a report highlighting the environmental cost of holiday shopping.

Many of the must-have presents this season are electronic gadgets, from Nintendo's super-popular Wii to digital photo frames to IPods. Such gifts come with great carbon costs. NEF reports that if one million digital photo frames are sold "their average CO2 emissions for a year would hit 11,000 tones - or the equivalent of over 14,000 one way flights from London to New York." While the conference in Bali focused much of its discussion on industrialized nations helping poorer nations adapt to global warming-since it is those nations that will be hit first and hardest-holiday shoppers in the West are in a frenzy over Nintendo's game system Wii. NEF estimates that "the CO2 emissions produced by each Wii games consol for example - just a single household electrical device - using its Wiiconnect24 stand-by facility, assuming a modest 14 hours playing per week, is over the course of a year greater than, or equal to, the annual carbon dioxide emissions per person in countries such as Burundi or Chad."

But, get this...this is what sounds so awful...

NEF describes itself as an organisation that desires to "expose the problems with the international finance and economic systems and create appropriate remedies", ultimately creating "a new economy that serves people and the planet" by redefining "wealth and progress."

I think we all know how they redefine 'wealth and progress'....I think it means we should all be equally poor in a pre-industrial setting.