There's a great video just out from National Geographic which is a must watch for anybody working in the life sciences, including vets and others working in agriculture. It uses NASA data demonstrating how both carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide move around the globe.

The highlights are that most of the carbon dioxide is, unsurprisingly, produced in the northern hemisphere; it also shows large amounts of carbon monoxide being produced in the southern hemisphere in the summer months due to fires. The video is a must watch and well worth a watch as it really brings all those dry climate-change-statistics to life.

If you're an optimist you've got to notice how although CO2 levels are rising they swirl around the globe and plant activity also absorbs large amounts of CO2. You've got to wonder what the effect would be if there were larger areas of plant life in the northern hemisphere but the video demonstrates very well just how important areas like the Amazon basin are to us.

The Kyoto agreement seems to have fizzled out with a whiff of air miles as we've drifted into recession and economic uncertainty; it certainly changes priorities. It's difficult to hear politicians from relatively well developed nations pontificating about climate change when we lost so much of our forest cover in the last century, we lost our last wolf about four centuries ago and bears are a dim and distant memory. We don't do badly in britain recognising pockets of ancient woodland but aside from the fact that these small areas tend to be relatively bio-diverse, in the scheme of things they don't make much difference.

It would take a real enthusiast to believe that the mad dash of the politicians towards wind energy in the years running up to the recession will also make much difference. Those wind farms don't generate that much energy relative to our requirements, they are expensive to install, and the bearings and other components of our modern wind-generators are still not really up to the job. The real reason they've been a success is because the politicians have subsidised them to try and meet energy emission targets.

Even Gordon Brown understood that the UK economy in the years of boom leading up to the last bust was driven by the housing market; having thrown all that money about and not got much of a return it's interesting now to see the drive towards relaxing planning rules, making it easier for developers to develop and attempting to get lenders to lend in order that house companies can build. Almost every party seems to want builders to build...there's plenty of talk in the media about how councils and others supposed to increase the amount of housing stock are not meeting the necessary 'targets'.

At a time of pressure to build and with talk of targets for building it would be nice if everybody could watch that video and maybe think about what targets we should set for how much forestry there should be in every part of the UK. It's kind of difficult for our politicians to be lecturing other nations on their environments when we are still busy destroying our own. Properly managed forestry doesn't just provide you with a place to walk your dog or ride your mountain bike; it absorbs carbon dioxide and supports a diverse animal population. Efficiently managed farms, an increasing number of whom now have anaerobic digesters, also have a positive impact on reducing climate emissions.

Maybe if we had targets for how much forestry there should be for every county there'd be a bit more pressure to counterbalance the drive to build on greenfield sites. Even if you forested the entire UK land mass we still wouldn't absorb all that CO2 being produced from China, but at least if we did more to recognise the value of our own forests we'd actually be doing someting to lead the way..

Wouldn't it be great if our political leaders recognised it's not just what you emit, it's what you absorb...