It is our duty to protect the rights of the next generation. Climate change is a threat and we must take action - we must hold governments to account, writes Liz Conor.

Whenever my 14-year-old asks me if she can get a 'stretch' earring, a piercing or a tattoo I tell her I am the guardian of her 40-year-old self who might not like living in the future with the permanent choices her 14-year-old self made.

From the moment I decided to carry my girls I have mitigated against every threat to their future. I steered clear of alcohol during the pregnancies, and drugs during their births. I slathered them in sun block and plonked hats on their curly-haired heads. I buckled their squirming bodies into every seat they were transported in, took their little hands across every street, rinsed the pesticides off their fruit, rubbed salt off their chips, and more recently chased off a risk-taking boyfriend and blockaded their screen time.

Like every other mummy I am focused on their futures, a place I never doubted they would thrive in. Since the first warnings by climate change scientists I have taken refuge in a business-as-usual bubble. I have surrounded myself with an Orwellian membrane of half-awareness and gone on rushing from pillar to post to provide a future that deep down I've known for years is in doubt. I have signed a hundred online petitions and hoped against hope that Obama would come through in his second term and force real and concerted action on climate change.

The fact is that he hasn't and won't. The US still hasn't ratified Kyoto. I took my 14-year-old aside a few weeks ago and apologised to her. 'What for?' she gruffed.

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4445102.html

Interestingly the name Connor is that of the mother who protects her child at all cost in "The Terminator"... Meanwhile the concept of flower people has long vanished from the present conscienceness — though a few of us still remember the time when human life was in step with natural vegies...

A Sydney magistrate has dismissed charges against a man whose goat was accused of damaging vegetation at Circular Quay last year.

The courtroom at times erupted into fits of giggles at today's hearing in the Downing Centre.

Police fined Jim Dezarnaulds $440 last August, saying he allowed his goat Gary to eat plants and flowers at the Museum of Contemporary Art.

He was charged with destroying vegetation without authority.

News of Gary the Goat's run-in with the law went viral after Mr Dezarnaulds posted the incident on Facebook, attracting more than 300,000 likes.

Before the case was heard, Mr Dezarnaulds - a performer who goes by the name of Jimbo - wrote to The Rocks police asking for the case to be dropped.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-01-23/comedian-claims-gruff-treatment-over-goat-fine/4480106?WT.svl=news4

Goats kill plants... many deserts have been aided by goats... Goats eat roots and all. But I don't think a comedian should be charged unless he did not pick up the poop after the goat, in a doggy bag... That would be an offence for littering.