“Things are not getting better. In fact, they are actually getting worse. From 1990 to 1999, global carbon dioxide emissions increased at a rate of 1.1% per year. Then everyone started talking about Kyoto, so we buckled up our belts, got serious, and we showed ’em what we could do: In the years 2000 to 2006, we TRIPLED the rate of global carbon dioxide emission increases, to an average increase of over 3 percent a year! That’ll show ’em we mean business! Hey, look what we can do when we’re serious–we can emit even more carbon faster.” (Nate Lewis, California Institute of Technology, quoted (page 214) in “Hot, Flat, and Crowded” by Thomas L. Friedman)
“Hot, Flat, and Crowded” is the book to read, if you want a deep look into everything that is driving the increase in global energy use and carbon emission. Not a pretty picture, and the choices involve–oh my God!–using less energy, not more. Mostly by being smarter in how we go about it.
Don’t expect your governments to be much help, as long as their decisions are driven by industry lobbyists instead of common sense. Let’s hope Copenhagen’s success doesn’t match Kyoto’s.
Green Building: Design Guidelines for a Changing World 
I always thought the process of photosynthesis converted carbon dioxide to oxygen? One other question, don’t we expel CO2 when we breath?
Thank for this information reference – I hope that we can wake up as a world to the need (for all of us) to change.
I understand that some countries (Australia or New Zealand?) have found ways to make change happen on the personal, daily level by declaring a “war” on energy reduction.
Alice