A number of carbon trading schemes have been set up by governments and companies around the world in the last five years in an effort to curb climate change. The global carbon market was worth US$125 billion in 2008 and as you might imagine with the threat of climate change becoming ever so urgent, this value is sure to increase. Hence, it's important we all know what's carbon trading is and who's doing it.

Basically, a carbon market allows a polluter to buy the right to emit greenhouse gases (i.e. CO2). The carbon trading schemes incorporate a carbon limit by which companies and countries must not exceed. If they do exceed these limits they must do one of two things. Either buy allowances from other polluters who have not used all of their up or they can buy carbon offsets from projects outside the scheme (and often in developing countries) which avoid emissions (think reforestation projects in Nigeria).

The Kyoto Protocol is perhaps the most well known scheme. Launched in 2005 it includes 37 nations (not including the US) and covers all six major greenhouse gases. Its target was to reduce emissions by 5% by 2012. This expires in 2012 but countries are hoping to sign a new pact in December in Copenhagen.

The European Union Emissions Trading Scheme was also launched in 2005 and includes all 27 EU member states. This scheme's target was cut 21% below 2005 levels by 2020. Each country is given a quota of carbon emissions, which they allocate to industrial polluters.

The Voluntary Carbon Market in Japan was launched in 2008 and covers the countries energy producer's carbon emissions. Companies buy and sell allowances to stay within their voluntary targets.

The North-eastern U.S. states' Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) was launched in January 2009 and incorporated power plants in 10 US states. Its target is to cut emissions by 10% below 2009 levels by 2018.

Beyond these established carbon market there are a few trading schemes in proposal stage. The Australian Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme would aim to reduce greenhouse gases by 5-25% below 2000 levels before 2020. The U.S. federal climate change bill would aim to cut CO2 on 2005 levels by 17% by 2020. The U.S. and Canadian Western Climate Initiative aims to cut 2005 levels of greenhouse gases in the power plant and transport industries by 15% by 2020. The New Zealand scheme has yet to set a target by would include forestry, electricity, transport and agricultural waste.

Experts say the Australian scheme is the most promising yet, though it's still not been passed by government I'd have to agree but being an ozzie I'm somewhat biased. Needless to say the more progressive all nations become in the targets they put in place to fight climate change, the better off we'll all hopefully be.

You'll never look at dinner the same way again say the creators of the new movie Food Inc.

Filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the lid on the food industry. ‘There is an illusion of diversity in the supermarket'. The film highlight the fact that it's only a handful of corporations that control the food supply often putting profit ahead of consumer health, the environment and the livelihood of farmers.

Faster, fatter, bigger, cheaper - that's the attitude of the huge agricultural companies says Food Inc. Bigger breasted chickens and herbicide-resistant soybeans but at what cost? Food Inc examines how regulatory agencies in the US like the USDA and FDA are allowing the big organisations to conceal what's really going on with our food before it hits the dinner plate. The film also looks at what effect this is having on our health and planet.

‘We've never had food companies this powerful, ever, in our history,' points out Eric Scholosser (Fast Food Nation) one of the experts interviewed in the film. Michael Pollan who wrote ‘In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto', also features in Food Inc.

‘The average consumer does not feel very powerful. It's the exact opposite. When we run an item pass the supermarket scanner we're voting, for local or not, or organic or not.'

Too right we say. How do you vote?

Those of us in the (over)developed world could do with (re)learning some of the old stories of communities who use the traditional method for forecasting the weather (beats relying on a flaky weatherman to determine whether you take that trip to the beach tomorrow).

Let's look at the farmers and fisherman of Vietnam. For generations those that still follow the traditional ways have been predicting floods, storms and droughts by tracking nature. In the drought prone region of Ninh Thuan farmers take the dragonfly's opinion on such matters on overhead climatic conditions. If the dragonfly travels low to the ground, rain is sure to be on its way; if it travels high, the sunshine's will be out for that picnic.

This is just one example of what a group of aid agencies is taking note for a project to find out whether whether the indigenous knowledge passed down the generations through proverbs, folk songs and legends still hold true in this time of climate chaos.

The indigenous people know a lot about disaster adaptation and the aid agencies are looking to collect this information. This will be used to help them create programs to reduce the risk of natural disasters in Vietnam; it's coastal regions a sitting duck for rising sea levels which will be ruinous for rice production in the country as well as the tens of thousands of families residing there. Climate change is expected to hit Vietnam very hard.

There is strong evidence to support this research project. A UN report found nomads on the coast of Thailand were one of the communities spared during the 2004 tsunami because they used their passed down knowledge to see early changes to the environment and flee to higher ground.

Nature appears to be unleashing its wrath on us. But it's simply doing its thing, self-preservation and all that. We are fools if we overlook the hand it lends and the clues it gives for our preservation also.

Yes, you heard it first here folks, a new source of energy has been utilized from the cook's dinner staple - the humble onion. An onion processor in California which cuts the tops, tails and skins off onions has devised a unique electrical system that is powered by their waste onion. Gills Onions loses 35% of the onions or 300,000 pounds of waste each day in the process of dicing, slicing and pureeing onions which it sells on to wholesale and retail customers.

Gone are the days when Gills sends out its waste onions to fields to decompose naturally into the soil (which is a great idea if it weren't for the lack of fields around town and the insects that onions attract).

So, Gils has invented the AERS or Advanced Energy Recovery System. The AERS turns all their onion waste into electricity and cattle feed. Basically the system squashes out all the onion juice, which is then goes into an anaerobic digester to turn into methane gas. The gas is pumped into fuel cells and is used to form electricity. The onion solid is what is fed to the cattle.

Gills 300,000 pounds of daily onion waste makes about 600 kilowatts of electricity every day which is enough to run up to 40% of the companies factory. Gills says that it expects to take about US$700,000 off their electricity bills each year and save about US$400,000 in waste disposal costs. That's a lot of onion mula.

Apparently some of Gill's neighbours are keen to get in on the action - both a carrot producer and winery are apparently interested in learning more about the system. Everyone plays their part in looking after the earth.

These days we're not short of films focused on the state of the planet's environment. Movies like The Day After Tomorrow, An Inconvenient Truth, 11th Hour and the latest The Age of Stupid are indications that the film industry is hot to trot in terms of feeding people what they are most keen to digest at the moment. Green knowledge is good for us, if we want to survive the next century that is, and we're craving it like never before. The glamorous albeit money making machine that is Hollywood, is doing its best to get it to us - but at what cost?

A UCLA study in 2006 called Sustainability in the Motion Picture Industry found that the ecological impact of the Californian film and TV industry lay only behind the petroleum and aviation industries. The Age of Stupid confessed it's total carbon footprint in its closing credits at 94,270kg of CO2 which is about the amount created by eight Brits per year.

Huge lighting rigs, massive energy consumption from generators required on location, heavy diesel-guzzling trucks for transport and all the excesses that surround the charm of the industry; Hollywood doesn't tread lightly.

What are they doing about it? Warner Bros and 20th Century Fox are apparently on it. Green Power generators that run on ultra-low sulphur diesel and sustainably sourced soya bean; the world's first high powered low energy LED lighting system; and an eco digital cine camera that is film and tape free are just some of the ways Hollywood are hoping to green up.

The Best Practices Guide for Green Production created by the Motion Picture Association of America is another initiative that sees the film industry greening up. A new code for the UK film industry, Green Screen, is also aiming to reduce London's movie footprint by 60%. And it seems it's been working with Evan Almighty being the first carbon zero comedy.

Film is the perfect vehicle to get the eco message to a wide audience. The higher the standard of quality of production and the more poignant and captivating the script the more likely people will take notice... particularly if its own green credentials are modelling that message.

The more movies that get people to care to the point of acting upon their sensibilities, the healthier our planet will be.