There is, at least in my humble and possibly pessimistic opinion, very little to be excited about in this day and age when it comes to reversing global warming. Lakes are dying, ice sheets are melting, and a number of leaders in the developed world are like the kids seven steps behind the rest of their friends.

But then we get little nuggets of gold like this one, featuring the Ecuadorans who are now top on my list of "World’s Greatest People."

Ecuador has pledged not to extract or explore the nearly one billion barrels of oil hidden underneath its Yasuni National Park. Despite the fact that oil exports make up one third of the country’s budget, Ecuador will become the first country to deliberately leave oil reserves untouched.

However, Ecuador may not take quite the financial hit expected, because they could receive financial incentives in reward for this action. The fact that they are essentially removing the equivalent of 436 million tons of carbon dioxide from the planet is definitely worthy of such reward.

Yasuni is home to two indigenous tribes that live in voluntary isolation in what is described as one of the world’s most biodiverse locations on the planet.

The YasunÌ-ITT Initiative is only one part of a grander plan that the Ecuadoran government is working on. Its National Development Plan includes prioritizing the use of renewable energy sources, building efficient transport systems, promotion of eco-tourism and sustainable development for Ecuador’s Amazonian region.

Once again, compare all of this to the doings of the US, and you can see just how far behind we industrialized nations really are.

Organized by George Bush earlier this year at the G8 summit, his two-day meeting of the 17 biggest emitters of climate-warming gases only served to show how isolated Bush and his government really are.

Bush — who at least got credit for realizing the seriousness of what is happening — only managed to further his single minded resolve to do absolutely nothing, the resolve that saw him — along with my beloved John Howard — decline to sign the Kyoto Protocol in 2001.

He stressed a need to create new environmental technologies, and to implement voluntary measures to tackle global warming. But this last point has received much criticism, most notably from John Ashton, Britain’s climate envoy.

"It is striking that the administration at the moment in the international conversation seems to be pretty isolated," he said. "I think that the argument that we can do this through voluntary approaches is now pretty much discredited internationally."

It’s ironic that at the same time that we see George Bush and his United States all but standing still on a conveyor belt, we see a small country like Ecuador sacrificing a possible third of its annual budget to help not only themselves, but the rest of the world as well.

All I can say is this; ¡Buen Trabajo Sangriento Ecuador! (Bloody Good Job Ecuador!)

ENN - Gutsy Ecuador proposes to put a lid on oil.

ENN - Bush draws fire at climate talks

Photo courtesy ASU