As the G20 leaders start their deliberations in Cannes today some more famous names have been putting their weight behind the campaign to introduce some kind of financial transaction tax.  On Tuesday the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams,  joined Pope Benedict XVI in calling for the introduction of what he referred to in an article in the Financial Times as

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As we reported last week, the leaders of the G20 nations (plus a few others) are on a jaunt to the Mediterranean seaside in Cannes this week. Amongst other things they are scheduled to discuss the global financial crisis. As luck would have it another item will have added itself to their agenda this morning. According to Yahoo!

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The next summit meeting of the leaders of the G20 nations takes place next week in Cannes, and the global financial crisis is top of the agenda. A variety of people from around the world are pressuring the G20 leaders to introduce a "tax on bankers". Such a tax has been discussed over the years under a variety of aliases, including "Tobin Tax" and "Financial Transaction Tax". However here in the UK currently the most popular euphemism for the idea is "Robin Hood Tax". Here's a video in which the team of Richard Curtis and Bill Nighy (of Love Actually fame) present their interpretation of the concept:

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Yesterday Google and other members of The Climate Group sent an open letter to President Barack Obama urging him to:

Adopt the goal of giving every household and business access to timely, useful and actionable information on their energy use.

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This weeks edition of the Economist contains a long article on the suddenly hot topic of "Open Data". The subhead sums up the issue like this:

In several countries more official data are being issued in raw form so that anybody can use them. This forces bureaucrats and creative types to interact in new ways.

and the article points out that:

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Way back in May 2009 the Guardian reported that:

The Obama administration took on the powerful farming interests in America's heartland today, making clear it does not see corn-based ethanol as part of the long-term solution to climate change.

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Just over a week ago I found myself once again on EasyJet flight EZY6167 heading from Bristol to Amsterdam.  I asked the head of the cabin crew if he knew Dawn, who operated the camera on one of our previous internet videos.  He said he did.  I showed him one of our "Water Connects Us" leaflets, and I asked him if it would be OK if I handed some out to his passengers.  He said that would be fine as long as I didn't get in the way of the cabin crew as they went about their duties.

More on An Irony of the Financial Crisis – Action on Poverty Looks Utterly Achievable

Over the last few days T. Boone Pickens has held meetings with both John McCain and Barack Obama.

Yesterday Mr. Pickens was interviewed by Neil Cavuto of Fox News about those talks. Here's what he had to say:

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Barack Obama gave a speech on Monday in Lansing Michigan, an area very familiar with the decline in the US automobile industry. He took the opportunity to outline his current energy policy, and he started out by laying his cards on the table:

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In a speech at Constitution Hall in Washington yesterday former Vice President Al Gore put forward his new vision of how the climate change crisis has deteriorated to the point that:

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