98 months to save the planet...

When the campaign One Hundred Months (to save the planet) was launched two months ago, I signed up for the monthly action emails. But with so many websites urging us to sign up to get tips on greening our lifestyle I thought I'd wait a bit before recommending it to friends - is it more than just a good slogan to jolt people out of complacency? Two months in, and they say they've got 130,000 people signed up in 148 countries. And, what's more, the actions to do have been pretty sensible:

• changing to a renewable energy supplier (Good Energy)
• emailing MEPs deciding the EU's climate and energy package
• emailing Ed Milliband, the new Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change
• going to the Climate Rush on Monday 13 October outside Parliament
• emailing the US presidential candidates to ask them to to attend the critical United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change meeting in Poland this December

So I'd say go and sign up and tell your friends about it too.

They're also promoting this book, which is as nifty a piece of design as I ever saw. I will probably buy it, and hope it cheers me up in the face of the news that the government has just approved 23,000 extra flights a year at Stansted airport.

Reshuffle brings hope

Two weeks is a long time in politics. Two weeks ago Ruth Kelly, evangelist for a third runway at Heathrow, departed. No tears shed there. With the reshuffle imminent, I was hoping that John Hutton would find himself also shuffled elsewhere. He made no friends among those concerned about climate change by his single-minded determination to build a new coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth, apparently battling his cabinet colleagues to do so.

So, reshuffle day today, and it's excellent news. Not only has Hutton been moved from Business to Defence (I hope he doesn't continue with the same carefree attitude to risk when in charge of weapons), but a whole new department has been created: the Department for Climate Change and Energy. This sudden attack of joined up thinking has taken everyone by surprise.

There's a nice article on the BusinessGreen blog about it all by the way