Going (red) and green...

Most of the green you will see this month belongs to wreaths, fir trees and the money spent in pursuit of this year's It gift. The trees are bare, grass soon will be covered by snow, and the flowers are asleep until April. But on Monday, all environmental eyes will be on Copenhagen, Denmark, as world leaders gather to debate what to do about our depletion of the planet.

Previous protocols and decrees have not worked, so once again presidents, prime ministers and other leader-type people will show up in Denmark to try again. ABC News in Australia posted an article on a new Google app that might help save the world instead of just shrinking it. Google Innovationist (cool job title, guy) Justin Baird has developed an international ballot box to let the people of the world have a say in the actions taken at the climate summit. Everyday people will be able to see maps of who is doing what in what country, and the votes will be aggregated to show the strength of public support for the initiatives.

If you can ignore the slightly militant tone to the following website, you can get a top 10 list meant to whet your appetite for learning more about those behind the move to stop climate change. It has been said that well-behaved women rarely change the world; whether any of the 10 women on the Pacific Free Press website are/were well-behaved is not for me to say, but they have done their share (and more) to save the planet.

A lot of focus these days in the media is on how everyone can do their part to be kind to the earth. The Christian Science Monitor "green" blog is giving an option for holiday decorating beyond the usual brightly lit reindeer and roof-top Santas. Apparently there are such things as solar-powered LED Christmas lights, which save electricity and the fossil fuels burned to produce it as well as money on your bill. If I had my own house, I'd look into it.

(Photo courtesy of the Christian Science Monitor)

What is the one most important thing our society needs? ...

"That would be...harsher punishment for parole violators, Stan...and world peace!"

That line from "Miss Congeniality" gets me every time. It is such a pageant cliche. But I suppose every cliche has its root in truth. Peace in the world is definitely something worth aspiring to.

The United Nations has stated its goals are to facilitate cooperation on international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and the achieving of that oh-so-important world peace.

The second week of December (Dec. 7-18) marks the start of its Climate Change Conference 2009, held in Copenhagen, Denmark. In advance of this hopefully productive conference, I found a spate of stories recently on the UN.

This past Saturday was the UN's 64th birthday. Founded in 1945 to replace the League of Nations, the UN has spent the last six decades working toward its goals. On Saturday, peacekeepers and staff participated in events from Darfur, Sudan to Timor-Leste in Southeast Asia designed to celebrate the UN and commemorate its work.

The UN website was the source of another story for today. In the hope of promoting environmental awareness among children before the climate change conference, the UN has nominated Disney's Tinker Bell as an Honorary Ambassador of Green. I'm sorry, but I would have a hard time announcing that with a straight face.

This past weekend, coinciding with its birthday, the UN held the fourth-annual "Stand Up, Take Action, End Poverty Now" campaign. A record-breaking 173 million people from around the world - including the 50,000 who quite literally stood up during a U2 concert - joined forces with the UN to call on world leaders to meet their Millennium Development Goals by the deadline of 2015. Over 3000 events in 120 countries brought out 60 million more people than last year, demolishing a Guinness Book of World Records mark, according to Xinhua News.

(Image courtesy of www.moviemart.in)