Set it to 1080p, maximize the vid window, turn up the volume, and marvel at our Earth.

On Wednesday March 21st I'll be presenting Antarctica: The Frozen Continent at 12pm at Toronto's Centre for Social Innovation (720 Bathurst Street).

I'll share with you the story of my trip there, my pictures, and discuss with you the Story of Antarctica, why it's such an important place and what we can do to protect it.

Come meet me on Wednesday, March 21st at noon. You'll never forget what you see!

Image from NASA

Russian researchers at the heart of Antarctica are about to complete a 20-year attempt to reach a lake deep under heart of the continent.

Vostok (which happens to be the source of the ice core that tells us that atmospheric levels of CO2 are the highest in 420,000 years) consists of several lakes trapped under Antarctica's permanent ice cap. Some of these lakes were formed when the Southern continent was still attached to Australia!

With 4 kilometers of ice acting as an insulating blanket, heat from the Earth has kept the lakes in liquid form. It's liquid form is why scientists expect to find life trapped in this pristine environment that hasn't seen the light of day for 14 megayears. They will literally have a glimpse of prehistory!

Read the article in Wired here.

I just returned from a trip to Antarctica with Students on Ice, chaperoning high school students and educating them on climate, the environment and the green economy.

And even though Antarctica's natural beauty was evident, I may have been more inspired by the people I went with. Along with 60 of the brightest young people I have ever met, the staff included explorers, as well as artists, writers, marine biologists, and glaciologists. All told, there were about 100 people on the voyage. Each was unique. And each was brilliant in his or her own way.

In addition to their January Antarctic expedition, Students on Ice runs an Arctic expedition during the Northern summer. If you know of an excellent high school student, I can't recommend enough this experience.

Image by TechCocktail

Every year the world's largest tech show takes place in Las Vegas at about this time, where new gadgets and gizmos are displayed in ever-brighter booths, with flashier video panels and louder and louder music. Celebrities come to sell whatever gadget they've been paid to promote. And the world's media eats it up.

As one of the most-read gadget blogs, Gizmodo sends people to the event every year. This year, Mat Honan posted a stream-of-thought diatribe of the whole event.

And it is fantastic:

There is a hole in my heart dug deep by advertising and envy and a desire to see a thing that is new and different and beautiful. A place within me that is empty, and that I want to fill up. The hole makes me think electronics can help. And of course, they can.

They make the world easier and more enjoyable. They boost productivity and provide entertainment and information and sometimes even status. At least for a while. At least until they are obsolete. At least until they are garbage.

Electronics are our talismans that ward off the spiritual vacuum of modernity; gilt in Gorilla Glass and cadmium. And in them we find entertainment in lieu of happiness, and exchanges in lieu of actual connections.

So enjoy your tech gadgets, one and all. But don't forget that true fulfillment usually lies elsewhere.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

But as the result of the Durban talks show, the increased public awareness of this important annual meeting isn't igniting enough political urgency for an outcome that will reduce humanity's carbon footprint. So here's small suggestion that might help: Change the starting date of the annual UN Climate Conference.

The current timing of the annual event – late November to early December – might be the worst possible time of year to have a major climate change meeting. It's the time of year when the average person is thinking the least about climate change. The conference starts right around American Thanksgiving – which I'm told is a very big deal – and ends well into the Christmas season. On the same weekend the Durban talks began, headlines across the Americas were talking about shoppers trampled to death on Black Friday. What a sad indication of the media's priorities.

If the climate conference were moved closer to the summer – say September – it will be more likely that nations would be meeting at the same time politicians are fielding phone calls from constituents suffering from droughts, wildfires and storms. Hurricane Katrina, Russian wildfires, Somolian famines – Most of the catastrophes that people associate with global warming occur during the Northern Hemisphere's summer. So what is the logic of having a world climate change meeting start when those nations are entering their coldest season? Instead, why don't we time the conference so that climate change is more likely to be top of mind?

Changing the date of the conference might help focus politicians on the problem. And if it doesn't, I doubt it will make the climate negotiations any worse off.

You know the message about overconsumption is getting through when it's being used to sell cars.

A map representing the HDI rank changes when per capita carbon emissions are accounted. Red represents countries that have dropped the most, Green, those who've risen the most

Once upon a time the United States was the most advanced country in the world. But that was when 'advanced' meant that you had a larger GDP than your neighbours. Today we have a more complete ranking: the Human Development Index (HDI) factors life expectancy, education, literacy and purchasing power and other indices. So instead of the United States (which ranks fourth), best country in the world to live in 2011 is Norway. Canada, incidentally, ranks sixth.

Not so fast, says Mongolian academic Chuluun Togtokh. How advanced can a country be if it continuously spews out enormous amounts of greenhouse gases?

In a recent article in Nature, Togtokh has proposed an even more complete means to measuring development. He has factored per capita carbon emissions into the HDI, creating the Human Sustainable Development Index. There are two reasons why this is important. Firstly it rewards countries for reducing their own carbon emissions (decreasing the disruption it makes to its developing neighbours); and second, it creates an incentive for countries to develop on a low-carbon pathway.

A comparison of the 2011 HDI vs. HDSI country rankings (Chuluun Togtokh & Owen Gaffney)

Once recalculated for greenhouse gases, the results are startling. Australia, Canada and the United States plummet right out of the top ten. Austrlia drops from 2nd to 26th. The United States from 4th to 28th. Canada from 6th to 24th. Countries with heavy oil development and oil use also drop, including Luxembourg, a Western European country that drops completely out of the top 25%, 'Very High Human Development' group.

"The HDI has shifted the target of development beyond the almighty dollar; the proposed HSDI would go one step further, and change the role models for development," says Togtokh. "We need such a change because, if the UN continues to encourage countries such as Mongolia to aspire to the US lifestyle, we will all be in serious trouble."

(via Planetsave, Wired and UN University)